Wanted: Inspiration

Since leaving Swansea and returning to Torbay i seem to have lost my inspiration and desire to be creating new ideas and performances. I have concluded that this is down to not being surrounded with like-minded people, and perhaps becoming too comfortable in not 'needing' to take photographs, as at the moment i have no specific audience to show them to. Nevertheless the constant thought of being unproductive has actually spurred me on to be slightly more productive, however, i have only got so far as to be looking for locations in which to create work as a basis for creativity.

Everyday i walk my dogs through Battery Gardens, down to Fishcombe and/or Churston cove and back up again, and it has only been in the last few days that i have started to open my eyes to the scenery surrounding me, and yesterday i took some images of these places on my mobile phone:

To me these are interesting places in which to perform, as of yet the performances have not been manifested into solid ideas, therefore any suggestions on events that i could create/re-create would be kindly appreciated.

London Exhibition

I have just come back from London where i have been exhibiting at the Truman Brewery on Brick Lane. The exhibition was for our degree show, and opened on Thursday night. The opening night was really good, amazing turnout, and plenty of wine and beer to go around. In addition to the two strips of images that i showed in Swansea for the degree show i had a slideshow of 21 images, showing a selection of all the shoots that had been taken of this performance. The exhibition stays open until tomorrow night, then i shall be returning to London on Tues to collect my work, and see the 'exposed' exhibition at Tate Modern!

Today me and Ami embarked on another photo shoot. We drove out to Llansamlet train station and set the camera up on the platform. The idea this time was to perform an act to demonstrate the notion of us going our separate ways shortly (I am moving back to Devon and Ami is staying in Swansea.) The camera was set on a 10 second timer, so we started at opposite ends and ran past each other as fast as we could until the shutter released.

Again on timer, we started at this centre point, crawled along the railing, then at a certain point we jumped over into the bushes.

After jumping over the railings, we climbed our way through the foliage in separate directions.

Here we tried to hide ourselves in the hill, separated by mounds of mud and long grass.

We climbed the tree in different directions for as far as we could until the shutter went off and stopped us.

The earliest memories that we talked about seemed to often be things we were scared of. My biggest fear as a child was of the dark.

This image is the result of a collaboration with Ami Barnes. Recently i have wanted to collaborate with another photographer, and last night was the first test run. I wanted to base the performances on re-staging an event for the camera, or re-enactments. We talked about our earliest memories to begin with, and this was one of Ami's, being scared as a child and hiding under a chair.

The opening night of the Mission Photography Open 2010 was on Friday, there was a good turn out and some interesting pieces of work. 2nd place was Gemma Copp with an interesting performative piece, and 1st place went to Tina Carr and Annemarie Schone. Highlight of the evening had to be Ami's camera making innapropriate rewinding noises during the guest speech, and watching her trying to hide this noise between her thighs.

Well done to all of us anyway for being chosen, especially Ami, Charlotte, Stewart, Veronica, Emma, and Tom. Next stop: London!

Photo: Mikko Takkunen

I have been selected as one of the 19 artists to be exhibiting in this years Mission Photography Open, which opens on Friday night. I have three images from my 'Absent' series being displayed, it should be a good event!