Secrets of an art studio – Photography | London, Hampstead

Secrets of an art studio – Photography | London, Hampstead.

 

The Affordable Art Fair ‘news’ about the Drugstore Gallery and the Hampstead AAF  13-16 June 2013

 

Secrets of an art studio – Photography

May 31, 2013

We are all familiar with the concept of a photograph, they capture moments in time. For the more technically minded of you though, photography is the art, science and practice of creating durable images.

With so many different ways to produce a photograph, the technique used very much depends on the effect the photographer wishes to achieve. Practitioners of the art, photographic duo Barry Cawston and Soraya Schofield, are the founders of The Drugstore Gallery in Somerset. Here they have kindly shared a few of their trade secrets and provided a very beautiful glimpse into how they produce their work by way of, well, a few photographs:

1. Firstly they select their tools, from a 5/4 Wista Field Camera, Rolleiflex, 120 Roll Film, or Nikon D3S.

2. Then it’s off to shoot on location and take some amazing shots.

3. Once the perfect image has been captured, Barry and Soraya work on the composition and appearance of their images. Calibrated machines are used to ensure accuracy of colour for on-screen editing, and retouching takes place at Printspace in East London. For some images, etching and transfer are used to create the desired effect.

4. Or, it’s into the darkroom where they use an enlarger, in this case a De Vere 504, for colour printing and B&W’s. Using an enlarger means they can print images that are of different sizes to the negative. To help with the darkroom process, Barry and Soraya advocate wine and vinyl as good sources of inspiration!

5. The negative is put in a carrier on a light box to check it is clean, before being focused on the easel. The print is then put into a colour machine to produce a colour print, or placed in a developing tray to create a B&W print, which is then washed and dried.

6. Once the composition has been perfected, the images are printed in limited editions, some as archival C-types, others as Giclee prints.

7. The prints are signed, before being prepared for mounting and framing.

8. Lastly, they are hung in pride of place in the homes of their new owners!

Magnum and the Dying Art of Darkroom Printing

Magnum and the Dying Art of Darkroom Printing.

News article in the Independent

 

The beautiful and condemned: Barry Cawston’s images of abandoned buildings capture an eerie allure

By Alice-Azania Jarvis

Suggested Topics

• Cuba
• Painting
• Photography
• Havana
• Peter Blake

There’s something very American about Barry Cawston’s photographs. It’s odd, really, since none were taken in the US; instead they feature scenes from Italy, Cuba, Mexico, Brazil – even Bristol. Yet, be it in the contrasting colours of a Havana pool, the perfect clapboards of an Avonmouth cottage, or the crooked hat of a Tibetan cowboy, Crawston’s images recall both the New World melancholy of Edward Hopper and the dazzling modernity of David Hockney’s Berkeley days.

Cawston began his career in the early 1990s. With a degree in sociology and a diploma in photography, he freelanced while nurturing his interest in fine art. Winner of the Exeter Contemporary Open and the Chairman’s Choice Award at the RWA Photographic Open, he joined with a friend Al Deane under the collective pseudonym Boris Baggs to photograph a series of English Heritage buildings. Since then, he has opened the Drugstore Gallery in Abridge, North Somerset and exhibited around the world. Frequently, he says, admirers note the ghosts of American painters past in his subjects: “It all began with the photo of the pool. I just stumbled across it after waking up one morning and thought: that is a photographic version of a Hockney painting. Had I been an hour later, or an hour earlier, it would have been totally different. That is how photographs happen.”

Though occasionally dabbling in digital photography, most of his work is done using a Wista Field camera, complete with hood, wooden tripod and bellows. “To an extent what I do is social documentation,” he says.

“Though there was something in that Minor White which I really like: ‘No matter how slow the film, Spirit always stands still long enough for the photograph It has chosen.’ It’s the picture that is in control, really, not the photographer. I’ve experienced that many times.”

Axbridge Pageant

The Axbridge Pageant is an extraordinary event staged every ten years in which the local inhabitants re-enact the history of the town. Photographing the event was a revealing experience, as the amateur ‘actors’ became like ghostly echoes of their fore-bears. The photograph of the young soldier could have been a portrait of his great grandfather heading off to war. It was as though the whole thing existed ‘out of time’.

The 2010 event was staged over three days and each performance was applauded by the audience with a standing ovation. The Axbridge Pageant organisers and participants produced an event which touched the hearts of the community and those lucky enough to get tickets. By creating an historical play with an engaging tenderness and empathy in an age of special effects and the spectacular, one was left with a feeling that something magical had been witnessed.

Below are a few of the historical figures who wandered through the town including Harry Mottram (the last image) who helped write the play….

Show Me The Monet

The Tibetan Cowboy

The Hanging Committee

It was very early on a Sunday morning that,

though I hadn’t flown, I arrived a bit jet lagged at the Judges day for the BBC2 TV production ‘Show Me The Monet’ .

I was one of four entrants that morning and though I think I looked fairly relaxed, there were butterflies in my stomach.  ‘Just keep cool I kept telling myself… Breathe.’

The other three entrants went first and I was left in a room on my own, when in came the next four artists (all of whom seemed very nervous and a little frenetic.) It was a strange experience all round. They presumed I was part of the production team and one of them started to try to undo a ratchet tie on her five foot painting which, with every pull got tighter and tighter…

I told her there was no need to rush as I was one of the artists and had not even been seen yet, but she insisted on pulling at the tie which was clearly going to break her painting.

I watched a bit aghast, not really wanting to intervene as I was just about to be called through…. but with the piece buckling I realised I had to. As I offered to help the full drama of the situation struck me that I would have to crank the tie at least one more time and that this could break it. In my imagination this was going to push her over the limit, she would scream at me and say that I had broken her painting on purpose!!! The butterflies had turned to a knot

Fortunately in the event, though the piece bent precariously the strap did loosen….

I mopped my brow, breathed a sigh of relief but was then immediately ushered into the dragons den to meet the judges.. my best laid plans to keep cool had gone out the window.

 ‘Show Me The Monet’

Glastonbury

The Art of Glastonbury Today

By Gabriella White ⋅ June 18, 2011

As Glastonbury 2011 celebrates 41 years of good times, great bands, and ticket sell-outs, it is difficult to imagine that all those years ago the then-one-day event only cost £1, which got you some free milk from the farm to watch the few key acts that were Marc Bolan, Al Stewart and Quintessence.

The very first Glastonbury Festival of 1970 was in fact held on the day after Jimi Hendrix died. Run by the Eavis family, in particular dairy farmer Michael Eavis and his daughter, Emily, the fate of the festival’s venue followed Michael Eavis’ father’s death in 1958 when Michael returned to the Glastonbury site to inherit the family farm totalling an area of 150 acres that grazed 60 cows. Inspired by Led Zeppelin’s performance at 1969’s Bath Festival of Blues, Michael Eavis decided to host a festival of his own the following year. And the rest, as they say, is history. Set upon these acres and acres of England’s pleasant pastures, (no cross-reference to Hubert Parry’s Jerusalem hymn intended; ok, well, maybe a little), the festival’s West country venue is admittedly idyllic for the heavenly bliss that so many music fans experience here, year upon year. Not to mention, Glastonbury Abbey. Many a sunrise has been enjoyed by fans camping out on England’s mountains green (yes, I did it again), light streaming in to hung-over eyes from behind  the majestic silhouette of the ruins of Glastonbury Abbey, one of Britain’s most important archaeological sites. Its Christian history stretches back 2000 years and it is the legendary burial place of King Arthur….

Today, Glastonbury is arguably the world’s biggest music festival of its kind. Last year saw over 40,000 attend the event whilst this year’s ticket prices are over £185 for three days of acts in their abundances with an overload of choice and Earth-moving vibes, the amps of which must surely rock the planet to its core and jolt it off its axis at the best of times. As every attendee is sure to admit, Glastonbury is actually not a bad health-incentive, considering the amount of running involved from one field to the next, in a mission-impossible attempt to cram the hundreds of acts in to those precious 72 hours. Omnipresence is sadly not possible in this life and so I will summarise it mildly on behalf of everyone by saying that it is a challenge…..

In short, Glastonbury Festival is often described as a “small village” and community in itself, consisting not just of music, but also performing arts, children’s activities and the popular ‘healing fields’……

And now, art is coming to Glastonbury and it’s bigger than ever before.  Internationally-renowned fine art photographer Barry Cawston from Axbridge in Somerset who spring boarded his growing success even further on BBC 2’s Show Me The Monet show recently called me: “I’ve got the caravan packed up: are you going, Gabriella?” I regret to inform him that I shan’t be there as I have a date with some strawberries and cream at Wimbledon. Barry exclaims “This is our fourth one. Soraya [Barry’s partner and fellow artist] and our daughter, Lyla love it!” Lyla is 5 and it is her third time to Glastonbury. Asking Lyla how she would describe the Festival in three words, she replies “Fun, fun, fun. Oh and magic!” “It’s a great family time for us” Barry explains. “And my art is all packed and ready to go with us.” Barry is in fact showcasing two of his pieces at this year’s Festival for all to see. He says these pieces are the most “difficult pictures ever taken” in his entire photographic career. But it’s paid off and their quality is stunning. “Muse and the Moon” was shot on a large format camera and is a compilation of seven 5/4 megabytes to produce a gigabyte file. It has been printed on five panels, by Latent Light who are sponsoring the exhibition, on five 4ft x 3ft panels in the Dance area. Barry took this glowing shot at last year’s 40th anniversary Glastonbury Festival on the Saturday night during Muse’s first song of their gig on the Pyramid stage.

Barry laughs and admits “I was literally hanging onto the tripod and the fence below Michael Eavis’s farm. I had to reset the camera each time, focus and move it around to take the panoramic. It was technically one of the most difficult pictures I have ever taken and I had of course slept only periodically since I arrived on the Wednesday. But Muse sounded amazing and the view was of a city of gold. As a finished piece I just love the detail and the chaotic nature of the tents complete with a just-married sign and because each exposure was over 20 seconds long, the movement of the lanterns and the crowds when viewed at 20×3 ft adds a surreal quality.”

“Sundown in the Park” is another panoramic, light, bright and hopeful in spirit. Barry tells me: “This one was taken at around nine o’clock on the Friday night at the top of Emily Eavis’s Park area as the sun was setting. Everyone was chilling before the big night ahead. It just shows how vast the whole event and experience is.”

He continues “Malcolm Haynes, who runs the Dance Field, said to me last year, “Right Barry: you are a photographer. How many pictures did you take of Glastonbury last year?” He assumed I had taken thousands in this digital age, but I had in fact only taken two. And he has very kindly let me exhibit them. I hope people come down to see them. The aim of them is also to help people work out where they actually were last year!”

What is quite apparent and equally addictive about both panoramic shots is their phenomenal detail, causing one to go back to them again and again and discover more each time: a lot of hard work and meticulous compositional thought has evidently gone into these fine art photographs and I am confident that the crowd are going to love them.

As I wish Barry and his family a great time at this year’s ‘Glasto’, he reflects and concludes: “It’s like being at sea. I’m not sure why: perhaps because it changes when the heavens open.”

Muse & the Moon, the large version of which will be on display in the Dance area at next week’s Glastonbury Festival June 22nd, 23rd and 24th 2011

Sundown in the Park. The full version in full detail will also be available in the Dance area of this year’s Glastonbury Festival June 22nd, 23rd and 24th 2011

Barry Cawston in his studio, Axbridge. Somerset, UK

Also available in this weekend’s West Country Life, Western Daily Press, UK

© Gabriella White Multilingual Books 2011

Coat, Napoli

February 3, 2012

Coat Napoli was taken during a week spent photographing an old Palazza in Fisciano near Napoli.

The family of coat makers had moved to Napoli forty years before and left the house empty. They gave me consent to photograph it before it was converted into an art centre if I took a picture of one of their coats. The coat was made from the finest leather I have ever felt and looked beautiful but not wanting to use a model I walked every room in the house unsure of how to get a photograph of it. One of the rooms however had an old chandelier chain which I hung the coat on but it looked waited and a bit bleak so, as I was using a bellows plate camera I swiveled the focal plains and with a change of focus the coat seemed to magically float in the room. It was as though the coat was lifted from the floor which added a surreal quality.

The family asked me to do a 5ft 4ft print and much to my pleasure they hung it in their shop window in Napoli..

.