September 27, 2011

Ghost Story

I’m not sure if anyone was paying attention, I know I wasn’t, when I posted the news about my Ghostcards exhibition at Walter Henry’s in Bideford.
Last night I eagerly showed an old friend my new work saved to my phone; enlarging the image above I realised the ghost had disappeared. I had the wrong picture on my phone? or did ghosts really disappear? I put it down to me adding the wrong file to the slideshow, but then today, looking through the pdf download which accompanies the show I had the same ghostless image! Now, to date, there have been 103 people looking online or downloading this pdf, did anyone notice? I’m sure you’re all too kind! So I had a look at my blog; the first picture – it was also ghostless here…And on the homepage of my greengallery website. Am I worrying too much?
Anyway, to make amends, here’s ‘the Rose of Torridge’ with the ghost of Rose Saltern herself in the doorway, feeding the seagulls. It’s a little bigger than the ghostless one so you’ll now be able to see her (un)clearly.
As a footnote I should say that Ghostcards will remain at Walter Henry’s until the end of October but has been relocated to the front window and the wall opposite the sales desk.

September 21, 2011

Workshop in Bude

I spent today doing a workshop with some lovely students at Budehaven School in Cornwall. Just thought I should share their enthusiasm for photography in this post. After an hour and a half talking about mainly my work in caves on the North Devon coast and relating it to Ansel Adams who they’d been studying we took a walk down to the beach via the canal. Almost immediately they were on the floor, up trees, lying on their backs, finding weird and wonderful camera angles and really seeing their surroundings in a new light. These are a few examples of how they were working.

September 1, 2011

Ghostcards ….. and new workshop details

Ghostcards is at Walter Henry’s Bookshop in Bideford, Devon, part of Bideford Bay Creatives ‘Culture Show’, throughout September and October 2011.

Throughout Dave Green?s art practice, presentation has been very important. Mounting has always been clean off-white, museum grade, archival, double thick board cut with a neat 45 degree aperture. Frames which used to be hand made, out of high quality hardwood, are now generally shop bought but made of solid oak. There?s an old adage that if you use the right materials to present your work they complement and do not distract from the image. This new body of work however is a big departure from the norm.

The ?Ghostcards?, a label coined by Mercer University professor of history Dr Erik Klingelhofer on seeing this work, are multi-layered artworks where not only the image but the frame and mounting reflect a fluid state of both past and present. This work is no longer a two dimensional picture which can be reproduced at infinitum, it has three dimensions when we include the often, oak Victorian frame with guilt inset, and one could argue that they have a fourth dimension as a sense of physically looking back through time is also evident in all of the work.

This work originated two years ago through a commission from Beaford Arts to make a new piece of work from an image in the Beaford Old Archive. This piece was ?Still on the Beach, Appledore?. A month later another image was added ?Greenwarren House?, this time made as part of a photographic residential at Beaford Arts which is based in Greenwarren House. These two images already show elements common through Dave?s other work, stitching photographic frames together to produce a combination print, time exposure, painting with light and added a new one, the work of another photographer responsible for the inspiration for the new image and for the original ?ghost? image held within it.

June 2011 saw more images realised as part of the Bideford/Manteo Postcard Exchange shown at the Burton Art Gallery. Beaford Arts again generously helped with the free use of some of their Old Archive images. The current show is the first to use the antique frames Dave has been collecting over the past year. Ilfracombe Harbour epitomises the use of the Victorian frame as this particular frame held the original black and white image which inspired this piece.

Free pdf download to accompany Ghostcards: www.davegreenphoto.co.uk/ghostcards.pdf

For larger images go to: www.bbcdevon.org It may take a while to load!

Photographic Workshops in Devon, Autumn 2011

Introduction to digital photography 10am – 5pm – ?50

A practical days workshop learning to gain control over your camera, shutter speeds, aperture, ISO, flash etc, setting it up for optimum quality under any given lighting, and making better pictures through composition.

Tuesday 27th September in Bideford

Saturday 1st October in Barnstaple

Thursday 6th October in Exeter

Tuesday 11th October in Torrington

Saturday 15th October in Tavistock

Tuesday 25th October in Bideford

Friday 28th October in Exeter

Thursday 17th November in South Molton

Saturday 19th November in Bideford

Photographing your own Artwork ? 10am ? 5pm – ?50

There has been a lot of demand for this workshop on ?Photographing your artwork’ over the summer. I have a wealth of knowledge and experience of photographing 2D artwork, jewellery and ceramics and I?m willing to pass this on to artists eager to improve their own image making camera skills. Although this workshop is for a small group (max 5) I also offer it on a 1:1 basis for ? a day for the same price.

Saturday 29th October in Bideford

Tuesday 22nd November in Bideford … more dates to follow!

Painting with Light – An evening workshop celebrating the dark nights of the Winter. You’ll learn how to make ‘long exposure’ photographs using coloured lights, flames, sparklers and hand-held flash.

Thursday November 10th Northam Burrows 6pm-9.30pm – ?25 ? more to follow!

Special: Intro to Digital/Painting with Light – An afternoon into evening workshop celebrating the dark nights of the Winter. A practical workshop learning to gain control over your camera, shutter speeds, aperture, ISO, flash etc, setting it up for optimum quality under any given lighting, and making better pictures through composition. This is combined with photographing under low light where you’ll learn how to make ‘long exposure’ photographs using coloured lights, flames, sparklers and hand-held flash.

Saturday December 10th at Westward Ho! 2pm-9pm – ?50

Introduction to Photoshop – Participants will need to be computer literate i.e. use a computer on regular basis and understand the basic controls. Small group (max 4).

Thursday 3rd November, 10am ? 5pm – ?50

Workshop gift vouchers are always available for that special present and with this in mind I’ll be offering some workshops after Christmas for those people with new cameras so that they’ll get to know them better!

More workshops will be added later, please let me know by email if there?s a photographic workshop you would like that I don?t offer at the moment and if there?s a location that I don?t offer.

August 16, 2011

Detritus

I?m sometimes blinded into thinking that our beaches are relatively clean. The places I go are exposed to such a punishing surf that little detritus is left. Sometimes there?s a fishing float, tyre or rusting side of a ship lodged permanently into the back wall of a cave but the rocky shoreline can appear scoured clean with every tide. Westward Ho!, my local sandy beach also fools you into thinking that litter is a thing of the past. That is until you see it at the end of a summers day after the holidaymakers have gone. On-shore-drift makes a fine job of moving the crisp packets, beer cans, and discarded beach toys down to Saunton Sands and the fortnightly spring high tide makes a good job of finding the neatly hidden plastic bags and polystyrene cups pushed into holes on the pebble ridge or held under a stone. We?ve learnt to recycle so well now that we even crush up the water containers so they take up less space. I?ve even heard visitors ask why there are no bins on the beach having no comprehension that at high tide there is no beach; but this doesn?t stop piles of rubbish being neatly stacked together as if to say ?We believe this would make a good place for a bin!?

How difficult is it “take your rubbish home with you”? Another question would be “Is anyone ever prosecuted for dropping litter?? I?m sure we could find a few cases but how about ?Has anyone ever been prosecuted for letting a helium balloon fly off, or a lantern for that matter?? I will end up on a beach eventually.

At least this cream bottle served a purpose as a useful floating home. I threw it back into the sea so hopefully these goose barnacles survived!

August 3, 2011
2

Song of the Surf

I went home to visit my parents recently and I was reminded of an image that has been with my since as far back as I can remember. It?s a print of a painting called ?Song of the Surf? by Ed Mandon. I expect it was a popular print in its day, that being the early 1960?s. I remember often looking into this picture of the sea. Not the pretty turquoise blue of Cornwall or Greece, or the palm tree lined sun bleached cove, the peaceful relaxing sunset or the family snapshot of children paddling in the shallows; no this was Mandon?s deep green sea, wild and free, the waves endlessly crashing in my mind, a vast living breathing entity. The sky, a cold yellow with the threat of rain. It?s a picture that has influenced my subconsciously for a long time. I remember once on Marconi Beach, Cape Cod, I ran down the beach towards the sea and the waves as the holidaymakers ran in the opposite direction, fleeing (as if for their lives) as huge thunderclouds gathered over the ocean.

I?m a lot closer to that deep green wild enticing sea now living in North Devon. And getting closer to it in my own work. ?Song of the Sea?, it certainly calls you; maybe that?s the point, maybe it?s song and call is at its loudest when the sea is in its foulest mood and perhaps that is why the coast here is the ?Graveyard of the Atlantic?.