Burlesque on the Guardian online!

I have a few images on the Guardian online from the Burlesque Festival. Take a look:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/gallery/2010/apr/29/london-burlesque-week

Six nights of burlesque and several early mornings later......

It's my third year documenting the London Burlesque Week which is held in various venues throughout London. It's been a crazy week of dashing around, huge amounts of glitter, tired eyes and lots of fun.

There were some amazing performances and last night I met the famous Catherine D'Lish - I feel slightly star struck. Here are few images from a very speedy edit. More to follow when I've had some sleep.

life.still exhibition and slideshow night

The exhibition I am helping to organise are calling for photographers to enter slideshows for the opening night. Check out life.still website for submission guidelines and inspiration.

All the photographers who are exhibiting will be introduced on the site, starting with John Angerson. I first saw John's work 'English Journey' at Photo Forum in London.

If you've never been to Photo Forum it's well worth going. Each month there is a presentation by several photographers, often showing unseen work. It's a great place to meet some of London's finest photographers and to have a pint afterwards.

In the meantime I've been covering London Burlesque Week. I've been documenting the festival for the last three years so it's really nice to see lots of old faces and shoot some new images. I'll be posting some images here soon.

life.still

Last summer I did a small project in Bristol which I will be exhibiting as part of Bristol Festival of Photography running from 21st May – 30th May 2010. Here are a couple of the images I will be showing from the series When I close my eyes. It is a group show including Tamany Baker, John Angerson, Michael Lusmore and Gina Lundy. There will also be an open slideshow event at the private view and it’s going to be a fantastic opportunity to meet some documentary photographers outside of London. I will post more details soon.

For Julianna

Yesterday my friend Julianna left for New York, off to happier times and places I hope. When we were all feeling a little sad and trying to move on from last year I started to redecorate my house. The walls were covered with chip board and it gave us a sense of purpose to rip it all off to see what was behind. Julianna stripped all the walls in my front room and slowly discovered this writing beneath it. Each person who had lived in this house and taken the wallpaper off had written the date and a note, sometimes including a football score from an important match. Julianna had ununcovered little traces of history.

So long MA.....

This thing called blogging is harder than you think. In the last few months of my MA it was impossible to find the time and energy to keep it up. My favourite place to come alive at the beginning of the day was Monmouth Coffee in Borough Market and at the end of the day at the Thai Bar in the E&C, where each and every detail or our projects was discussed over and over again. How should our work be presented? Book or no book, big prints v’s small prints, font's, caption, Indesign issues, Ikea trips - it was a crazy old time…

In the summer I worked frantically on my final project on the subject of homelessness in the US. I met many amazing and warm people who live in a tented community called Pinellas Hope in Florida. After a couple of months shooting and then editing, I finally handed all my work in for assessment. This was quickly followed by an exhibition at the LCC in Elephant and Castle - www.28stories.co.uk. Here are few images from the portraits I took.

I shop

It's been a very long time since I wrote anything on my blog. The Elephant and Castle project seems a very long time ago (June!) now but I feel it is important to put it on here.

I was looking at food and economy within the Elephant and Castle area I South London. I was very interested in the products people buy and the link between the items we choose from the shops and our personal identities. These goods and can give clues to our habits, routines and how and where we spend our money so I decided to ask people on the street to hold up an item of their shopping and have a photograph taken with it.

I really enjoyed having a conversation with strangers I met on the street and I hope I built up a small picture of the people who shop in the Elephant and Castle, their diverse stories, different nationalities and the products they were buying.

It was a simple but really fun project, I loved meeting all the characters, who thought I was a little crazy....I loved working with my donated Bronica, a truly lovely medium format if a little clunky, made a nice change though.

The only thing about publishing on the blog is the pictures really need the text, I'm going to work out how to sort out a slideshow and get it working soon...