photomablog

Thames Town II. 12"x12" Giclee Print. ©Dave Wyatt 2008

2008 Graduate Dave Wyatt is this week featured on the newly formed ShutterSpark website.  Shutterspark was, “created to showcase the work of budding photographers to both the public and potential employers alike, shutterspark blog gives photography BA and MA graduates the best opportunity to promote their work.”

Please visit ShutterSpark now and have a look, there is some awesome work being displayed at the moment and it is well worth submitting work of your own whilst the site is growing in popularity.

© Graeme Nicol

“As you know, I’ve been in China for some time now, in fact longer than I’ve been photographing. It’s both where I got the urge to start, and where I honed the craft. I’ve thus collected a fairly large amount of random street photos, and continued doing so in 2009, especially energised following my ankle break, as well as the several visa runs such as to the likes of Macau, not to mention buying cool cameras such as the Horizon 202, and finally moving to a new city, Shanghai.

Motivation was always going to come to an end sometime though, and with my five-year anniversiary in China coming up this summer, and several “proper” projects beginning to bubble in my mind, I figure it’s time to wind-up the random snapping and round this era off with a big thick 300-page documentary-photobook-retrospective-diary thing. I’ve got it down to a shortlist of 350 shots or so, and I’m going to start editing it down further shortly, but for now, for those of you who missed them on Flickr/Facebook, a run-down of potential new contributions from 2009 so far.”

Sinosuperhighway: 2009 contibutions

Graeme Nicol

www.graemenicol.com

© Dave Wyatt

Congrats to Dave Wyatt, an 08 graduate of the PhotoMA course, he is part of this years Fresh Face and Wild Eyed Exhibition at the National Photographer’s Gallery. Some of us met up and went to the opening (thanks Dave for the invite) It’s an excellent  exhibition, really quite varied and there is a little something for everyone. Dave follows on from Boris who was part of last years exhibition with his Solidified Memories Project set in the old town of Dalian.

© Peter Carney

Im sure most of you have probably seen this but just in case you haven’t. I started Project 29 as a way of trying to get myself back into the habit of taking photographs back in the UK and also because I’ve started so many photo a day blogs but never managed to finish them. This being my final year of my twenties and a pretty important time of my life I thought it might be an idea to document it. So far so good although it can get quite tough to come up with interesting images everyday. Its not a terribly original idea, a 365 project, but I think it will be something to look back on in a number of years and enjoy and or cringe.

www.thelastyearofmytwenties.com

Peter Carney

www.petercarney.net

© Nick Kozak

Ok, here’s my first attempt at getting some comments about a project that I’ve started to pursue about the Tamil community in Toronto. This is all still quite vague but that’s the beauty of it, it can go any way and I think it’s got potential. So, I’m sure a lot of other major cities in the West have experienced protests/demonstrations by Tamil expatriates against what they call Genocide against their people on the island of Sri Lanka. Our super diverse city of Toronto reportedly has 200 000 Tamil residents!

Anyhow, since January I’ve photographed, on average every few weeks at Tamil protests in the city. The most significant one being the blockade of a major highway in the downtown core, the Gardiner Expressway. That was fun! I’ve been photographing and photographing, getting new and better angles everytime…maybe? How much protesting can one photograph? When does it get very repetitive? Very quickly.

So, after speaking a bit with former MA student Graeme Nicol, I decided that I would have to pursue a project about the Tamils in a very different way and photograph outside of the protests to show what our 200 000 residents are like, what stories they have, their culture, their homes, their business, their hopes and dreams.

I’ve started my research and touching base with some Tamils, although I have really only begun (started by travelling 30 kms across the city to an area I never ever go to where a lot of Tamils live).

What I really hope to get help with is the medium of choice. I’ve pretty much set my mind on photographing in Medium Format for this project. Something I have no experience with. I don’t even know what camera to use. Suggestions on a low-cost, very low-cost one that should be reliable?

© Nick Kozak

Nick Kozak

www.nickkozak.com

© Nick Kozak

So, not sure how we’re going to run this blog exactly but it’ll probably just be a free for all to some extent. We’re all inundated with online stuff all of the time, I know and everyone has their favourite blogs or sites that they visit regularily. There’s a particular one that a few of us like..ffffllliii…

Anyhow, if this site can regularily be visited by a lot of us then I think it could be very useful for the average MA current/former student wanting to share his or her work and receive feedback. A kind of forum of free for all but related to our work.Lets try and make it work. What are people working on right now??

Why the picture you might ask? I guess I like it and represents what a lot of us might be needing to do more of…not carry chairs, no.

Nick Kozak

www.nickkozak.com

Hi this blog was born out of the want to share ideas and to keep up to date with previous and current students. So feel free to share ideas  post work, projects, photographers, news or pretty much whatever floats your boat photography wise.