Interviews, Venison & Soap Vases

Lovely hipster view from the train...

As usual, the event I am writing about was a few weeks ago because I am slightly behind at the moment! Maybe it was even last week... I don't know, I've lost track of the concept of time!

Basically, Blane Chapman over at Chav in Skinny Jeans was conducting an interview with the crazily multi-talented Ollie Olanipekun, and I popped along for the day to photograph it and generally hang out/eat Mcdonalds/meet up with Georgie. 

I spotted a lovely t-shirt shop with the nerdiest photography t-shirts, might have to pop back and get one! Hasselblad please!

The interview took place at The Old Blue Last, and when I told my Dad about this on the phone, he was going on about how in the old days it was good and how his Girlfriend used to hang out there a lot. Apparently there was a guy who used to play piano there... so that's interesting... my only experience of it was extremely wasted, but I noticed how lovely it was in the daytime this time around! I took some photos of the surroundings:

Massive gap in the floor... standard!

During the actual interview bit, I was dotting around trying to get the best images possible with a 50mm fixed lens (feeling a bit like the worst paparazzo ever/an unrelenting stalker), totally got in some guys way and then he ended up moving to the other side of the pub... I think the images came out very well regardless! To hear/see the actual interview of Ollie's exploits of a very successful guy moving from Coventry to London, you're gonna have to wait until Blane decides to publish it!

My fave portrait!

We then met Georgie and took ourselves over to McDonalds like the classy people we are, then met my old friend Elliot at the gallery Haunch of Venison, where he is working.

Georgie excited to see art!

George and me

Blane pondering art and/or life

You will be SHOCKED when I tell you that all of those figures (aside from the painting obviously) were made of SOAP. I kid you not. The Korean artist Meekyoung Shin has recreated sculptures and classical Chinese porcelain. In soap. It's all about dislocation and translation, heightened by some vases being presented on the crates they are shipped over in, clearly marked "Korea". 

I will leave you on this massive photo-essay of a post with a lovely picture of some typical East London graffiti that made me smile.

Large Format & Flash Workshop

A few weeks ago we had a really interesting sign up workshop with our tutor Jonathan. We used Wista and Bronica to try and balance ambient light with fill in flash. It was a really cool experience, and we found out some of the places were Jonathan has worked, which was just crazy and made me panic ever so slightly. Think British Vogue, Paolo Roversi... gah!

I learnt a LOT about balancing light and changing apertures to accommodate for extra light. Taking 4 light-meter readings on a scene etc. All very handy! I'd like to start shooting on film more. For my upcoming project I am shooting interiors and portraits on large format (it's probably my favourite to shoot on... just a little long winded and expensive).

We had the workshop at Chatham dockside in this room:

That is the fight scene from the Sherlock Holmes movie, fact fans. Here are a few of Kevin's sketchbook pages of our notes, with yours truly on Fuji instant shot on a Polaroid back for Wista, easily one of the coolest things I've used so far. Plus some "hilarious" annotation from me...