Having a word with… Blazej Marczak

Blazej Marczak is a Polish photographer living in Aberdeen who specialises in portrait and documentary photography. Since 2012 he has been working on a long-term project entitled Neighbours in which he interacts with the locality around him and creates beautiful portraits of individuals and families in their own homes. He began his project in Edinburgh and has continued in Aberdeen since moving there. The series reflects contemporary life in Scotland and a multicultural society that has been in place for generations. He also continues to document Aberdeen and its people in his most recent project, The Grey City. Marczak’s photographs reflect his acute awareness of his surroundings and document contemporary life and landscapes at a pivotal time in Scotland’s history.

Where did you study photography?

I studied at Stevenson College, Edinburgh and received my BA from the University of Abertay, Dundee.

What format do you like to shoot in and why?

I use full frame digital as this is a format that I can afford at the moment. I also love digital for its accessibility, and the low cost of use after the initial investment in a camera. I think all formats are good; it all depends on what you want to use them for. I would love to move to large format in the future as I like the rigour, the flow of working with the format and the possibility to print large without losing quality. I am using a D800 at the moment as this camera is the best body available to me for large prints from digital files.

What inspires you to take your photos?

It could be anything from a book, a chat with someone I know or someone who I just met on the street. It could be a word in a dictionary, a link to an article which I discovered in Google by coincidence. A turning to a street that I wasn’t on before. A statistical data sheet, or a painting.

How do you feel about the photography scene in Scotland today?

I know many photographers that are making excellent work and are in love with the medium. Of course, I don’t know about all of them as I am just at the beginning of my career. We have some amazing exhibitions in Scotland from time to time for sure, but I think photography as an art form is unrepresented. This is a general trend, not only in Scotland.
Unfortunately the majority of photographers have to be careful and watch the terms & conditions all the time with their pictures, as many galleries, organisations and publications are constantly trying to take advantage of their love and dedication to the medium.
Unfortunately this comes from both lesser and more established organisations. Many of them are shouting about being dedicated to photography and to being supportive for photographers, but at the same time they are relying on unpaid internships, which are mostly targeting recent graduates who can’t afford to work for free.
We can only influence the photography scene by doing the things we love and by taking a part in the activities we believe in.
By refusing to undertake unpaid jobs – falsely described as “opportunities” – and pointing out our reasons so that we can help ourselves and others in the creative industries.

My favourite place to enjoy photography is the National Portrait Gallery in Edinburgh which is really getting better and better, but I think we need more independent places. They seem to pop up from time to time and are offering great shows but unfortunately some of them don’t stay around for long. I used to love The Institute in Edinburgh but it is gone now.
Street Level Photoworks in Glasgow is great and Peacock Art Centre in Aberdeen is also featuring some good photographic shows time to time.

I am often getting the impression that photography as an art form is still undervalued, especially by private galleries and it is not treated as an independent art form.

It is also hard to convince the owners to show photographic prints to their audience and make them buy them.
The possibility of unlimited photographic reproduction could be behind their decisions but we have to remember that even art work in bronze, prints etc. were possible to be reproduced in many quantities over centuries. On the other hand, I am very happy to see that the independent book scene is flourishing. I think that, despite all of the challenges, we are fortunate to live in a golden age of photography. Rapid change in technology has made a huge influence on how photography is published and distributed, but we – the young photographers – have to find our own place in this constantly changing photography environment.

bmarczak.com

Ones to watch: Yasmin Soliman

This is the first post in a regular feature looking at young and undergraduate photographers in Scotland and the North of England. I hope that the series will offer a glimpse of photography that is to come, while at the same time giving young photographers the exposure they deserve.

Glasgow-based Yasmin Soliman is currently studying a BA Hons in Photography at the University of West Scotland. Yasmin specialises in fashion, documentary and portraiture photography; her work has been featured in numerous international magazines including Vogue Italia and iMute Magazine. Over the years she has developed a vast skill-set along with a strong network of Glasgow’s most talented creatives whom she has had the pleasure of working with.

ysphotography.co.uk

Having a word with… Café Royal Books & Craig Atkinson

Craig Atkinson is an artist and lecturer at UCLan in Preston. He has become increasingly well known in photography circles for his series of photo books, published under Café Royal Books; they have recently featured photographers such as Hugh Hood, Jim Mortram and Phil Maxwell.

As well as publishing and promoting other photographers in this beautifully presented series, Atkinson takes pictures himself. A continuing subject for him is Preston Bus Station, which is also the subject of his most recent publication, Preston Bus Station Exit Town Centre.

Craig was kind enough to answer a few questions for BITE:

Where did you study?

I studied Fine Art to Masters level. I kind of found myself on that path and stuck to it. I don’t regret it, I think there is a lot of room within ‘fine art’ to manoeuvre and explore. My work has changed a lot since graduating. I did my degree at Leeds Met and my Masters at UCLan in Preston, which is where I’m now a lecturer.

What format do you like to shoot in and why?

I like taking pictures, and I like editing. So really anything is good. On the other hand I’m into tech and gadgets and testing things. At present it’s all digital. I like the freedom digital allows – purists will hate me! I like to shoot and edit and then sleep on things for a while before doing any more. I love film like I love printmaking but the processes are too slow for me. The way I do use film is my ‘Someone Else’s’ series, where I use film that’s left undeveloped in 35mm cameras.

What inspires you to create your photographs?

I like recording. I like control. I like the fact you can press a button and keep what you see. It becomes more important, perhaps, when the thing you can see no longer exists, so the photograph becomes an historical record. So I collect, hoard, record, document – whatever you might call it. I am a collector naturally I think, but I have a very hard edged minimalist side too which really battles with the collector. Digital images are great to collect, they take no room!

What inspires you to create photobooks?

Initially I wanted a way of exhibiting work quickly, that was easy to disseminate, affordable to make and buy, collectable and very well produced, leaving the production, in general, to someone else.

I used to paint big heavy abstracts, so it’s all a kind of response and opposite to that process.

I like to publish books that are a little like old National Trust type leaflets. Kind of informative precious little things. They started as zines but I don’t really see them as zines any more. I’m not sure why, perhaps they are less DIY. I see them as small books.

How do you feel about the photography scene in the North today?

I don’t really know. It’s strange really, I’m not into scenes. I like to make the work I want to make; if it falls into a scene, style, place etc it’s accidental. I work with photographers from all over the world so I’m not much good with specific local knowledge! UK photography seems to be very London centric, as does UK creativity. It shouldn’t be, it’s just a hangover from earlier last century I guess with the big art schools. I like living and working in the North though, it gives me more room and London is only a train ride away. Scenes though, I don’t know, I’m sure there must be lots happening somewhere. Liverpool have some good shows, Bluecoat, Open Eye…’Soft Estate’ at Bluecoat is excellent.

www.caferoyalbooks.com

www.craigatkinson.co.uk

Alvin Baltrop and Gordon Matta-Clark: The Piers From Here

If you were as lucky as I was while I was visiting home in the North-West over Christmas, you wouldn’t have been able to visit any of the local photo galleries such as Open Eye in Liverpool and Impressions in Bradford, due to them being closed for the holidays.

After taking forty winks for a week or so however, Open Eye Gallery will reopen on the 2nd January. Exhibiting there until the 9th February is the photography of Alvin Baltrop and Gordon Matta-Clark.

The exhibition focuses on the area of the piers in New York City during the mid 1970s, and speaks of the state of abandonment and dilapidation these underwent as a consequence of the oil crisis that reconfigured the geography of the city as well as the international market and trading system.

The New York piers act as a mirror or counterpart of Liverpool’s docklands. Historically linked via the transatlantic route that since Colonial times, connected Europe to the Americas, the piers in New York and the docks in Liverpool experienced a similar process of transformation. Unproductive and deserted, New York’s waterfront was gradually reclaimed by an invisible population who used it for a variety of activities, spanning gay cruising, drug-dealing and smuggling to prostitution, but also bringing together an underground community of visual artists, musicians, film-makers, performers and photographers, from the likes of Vito Acconci and Dan Graham, to Joan Jonas and David Wojnarowicz.

Whilst Gordon Matta-Clark was pursuing the idea that art could act as a catalyst for urban regeneration and land re-appropriation, Alvin Baltrop investigated life at the margins, mapping hedonistic displays of flesh, occasional sexual intercourse, corpses that could be mistaken for sleeping squatters (and vice versa) and other traces of humanity hidden amongst the interstices of society, notwithstanding the sense of freedom and liberation originating in the sexual revolution.

In 1975 Gordon Matta-Clark illegally entered and took over Pier 52, a huge corrugated iron structure, almost classic in its majesty and, to put it in Gordon’s words, “completely overrun by the gays”. There he created one of his famous ‘cuts’ entitled Day’s End, a spectacular anti-monumental intervention brought to life by the rotation of the sun, which entered the building, thus reflecting in the water of the Hudson River. As Matta-Clark was creating this architectural installation made of light, shadows and water, Alvin Baltrop kept documenting the activity of the other occupants of the Piers. The encounter resulting from their different approaches is documented in this exhibition, that represents an occasion to look back at those years, reflecting on gentrification and regeneration across the ocean and at the simultaneous disappearance of the underground (sub)culture.

This exhibition is in collaboration with The Alvin Baltrop Trust and Third Streaming, New York and the Estate of Gordon Matta-Clark and David Zwirner, New York/London.

Open Eye Gallery

Having a word with… Paul Kenny

Over the years Paul Kenny has photographed and paid close attention to details in the landscape around him. His approach has fundamentally been a photographic process; however, his artistic nature has led him to explore and evolve his techniques over time, much like his own creations. Like a barnacle attached to its own ecosystem, he has returned again and again to the North-East coastal regions of England, the Scottish Highlands, and more recently to Ireland, to explore and unearth the “awe-inspiring in that which is easily passed by”. Developing his own technique by dripping small amounts of sea-water onto plates and letting them dry over a period of days, he has constructed a series of stunning tidal and celestial images, using flotsam and other natural elements he has found in his environment. The camera has become less important for Paul Kenny, yet his work is as clear and beautiful as his vision.

Born and educated in Salford, in the Northwest of England, Paul Kenny completed his Fine Art Degree at Newcastle upon Tyne in 1975.
In 2004 he returned to North Northumberland where he now lives and works not far from Holy Island with his wife Margaret.

Paul Kenny was kind enough to answer a few questions for BITE:

Where did you study photography?

I did a degree in a Fine Art in Newcastle. There was a photography room with equipment, the Ilford Manual of Photography and a monthly subscription to some great magazines.

I’m pretty much self taught.

What format do you like to shoot in and why?

The Epson V700 is the image capture device of choice right now, because it makes the images I want to.

What inspires you to create your photographs?

The urge to communicate not only what I see in the world, but also what I think.

How do you feel about the photography scene in the North today?

I’m not sure where you mean by north. There seems to be a lot of interesting people collected around the North East… but in general there is an overwhelming amount of photography around.

Grayson Perry in his Reith lectures said something to the effect that “we are drowning in a sea of photography” and I sympathise with that view. This image taken at the unveiling of Pope Francis speaks volumes and is scary in its own way.

A lot of photographers need to remember, it’s only a medium like oil, paint or charcoal, it’s limited; it’s only as good as the mind of the person manipulating and using that medium.

paul-kenny.co.uk

Paul Kenny is represented by Beetles + Huxley Gallery, London.

Solas Magazine Launch

Tonight has been an important and eventful night for new photography in Scotland, with the launch of Solas, a magazine of contemporary photography in Scotland.

Street Level Photoworks in Glasgow hosted the launch, which featured talks from Alex Boyd, editor of Solas, as well as from photographers Niall McDiarmid, Paul Kenny and Simon Crofts who are featured in the first issue.

Find out more about this exciting new magazine and the people involved at:

scottishphotography.org