The dust has now settled on the Lifting the Curtain Exhibition and I thought it would be a good idea to record my reflections on the experience. In summary it was an exciting and very worthwhile experience. I had the opportunity to show my work in a lovely gallery that was also a place highly […]
November 5, 2015
I had the opportunity to present ‘Lifting the Curtain’ to a Study Group of OCA students on the final Saturday of the exhibition. Great experience. Here is group leader Rob’s report on WeareOCA: The East London Photography Festival, Photomonth is still going on. Lots more to see.
October 21, 2015
This post is really an aide-memoire so that I can recall what happened in terms of media coverage for Lifting the Curtain. The starting point of public presentation of my work was when some of the work was published in Hashtagphotography magazine issue 10: This was followed by the four image texts being shown at the […]
August 18, 2015
I am very pleased that the OCA is organising a Study Visit to Photomonth East London Photography Festival on 24th October. The visit will take in my exhibition and two others which form part of the festival. The provisional plan is to visit the following venues: Lifting the Curtain at Town House Spitalfields, see Lifting the Curtain […]
August 1, 2015
The photographs and texts for the Lifting the Curtain exhibition have now all been printed and framed and are ready to be shipped to Spitalfields for installation. 28 framed images/texts in total. I needed to get this done as from the third week of August I am away a lot on holiday… Each framed image […]
July 14, 2015
I have been turning my mind to the production of supporting materials for the exhibition. The catalogue production is going well. I reviewed a draft printed version yesterday and was very pleased with the quality of reproduction. I am on course to be able to produce 100 copies which will be a limited signed edition. […]
July 12, 2015
I have been developing an idea for new work which follows on from ‘Lifting the Curtain’. The project is code-named ‘Out of the Shadows’. The idea is to continue to explore how East London is changing through demographic shifts, its relationship with the rest of London and recent redevelopment (in term of both the physical infrastructure and its […]
July 3, 2015
Sales of the book for Lifting the Curtain have been going very well. I have sold 35 out of the limited edition of 40 signed copies. As a result I will only have a few copies for sale at the exhibition. In view of this I have decided to produce a relatively high quality catalogue for the […]
June 19, 2015
I have had a bit of a break from photography following submission of work for assessment but I am now busy planning for my exhibition in October. I have organised the printing and framing of the images/texts, drafted the form of an exhibition catalogue and have now established a ‘Lifting the Curtain’ website. The intention […]
May 15, 2015
The dust has settled and the assessment submission is now in Barnsley. I have plenty to do over the next few months in preparing for my exhibition. It promises to keep me busy! But I have been turning my mind to what I might do next and in particular what I might focus on if […]
May 4, 2015
John Umney, Penny Watson, myself and Artspace curator Tom Cox completed the installation of the Memory Exhibition at the Oxford Nuffield Orthopaedic Hospital on Saturday. The hospital is new and the gallery space is large and well set up with integrated hanging system….this made life a lot easier. John Umney took on the role of […]
May 1, 2015
30 out of the limited edition of 40 signed and numbered copies of my ‘Lifting the Curtain’ book are now sold. £25 with all the money going to East London charity Toynbee Hall. They are going fast so if you want a copy email me on keith.greenough@btinternet.com You can preview the book here https://photo-graph.org/umbra-summus/ The work […]
April 15, 2015
I had some really good news this week. Town House Gallery in Fournier Street, Spitalfields has agreed to stage an exhibition of my Lifting the Curtain work. The event will run from 15th-24th October and will be part of the 2015 East London International Photography Festival.The venue is fantastic. It is a standalone gallery space set in […]
March 23, 2015
With the Memories exhibition in Oxford fast approaching I thought I would re-post details of my work to be shown. Memories is a OCA level 3 student exhibition being curated by John Umney and Penny Watson. I am showing seven image/text panels from Lifting the Curtain along with an artist’s statement. The statement, which I have revised since my last post is as […]
February 20, 2015
This is the full text of my ‘Overview’ for Lifting the Curtain, which I plan to present in my Assessment Submission along with more detailed papers on the contextual framework and presentation strategy. OVERVIEW: MAJOR PROJECT LIFTING THE CURTAIN The idea for Lifting the Curtain grew out of my fascination with East London and how it […]
February 9, 2015
I heard from John Umney and Penny Watson that they have decided to include some work from Lifting the Curtain in their forthcoming exhibition to take place in Oxford in May/June of this year. This is great news and my thanks to them both for their generosity. As I am away a lot over the coming […]
February 8, 2015
A few days ago I submitted my final assignment, #Five, to my tutor. This was a momentous event. My last assignment on my photography degree course with the OCA. The main thrust of this assignment was to set out my plans for presentation of Lifting the Curtain. I defined the scope of this work in a paper I […]
February 6, 2015
I have been looking forward to this exhibition for some time. The concept of the exhibition has quite an overlap with my own work in East London. My own work does not deal with conflict, but does pose questions about what a photograph of a present day place can say, if anything, about what happened […]
January 27, 2015
Somewhat belatedly I am posting the feedback from my tutor for assignment four. Sharon’s comments were largely positive and I got the sense that she felt I was on track and that ‘Lifting the Curtain’ is now working well. With regards to the book her key comment was that it would be stronger if I […]
January 19, 2015
As I stated in my previous post my plan is to use ‘Lifting the Curtain’ to raise funds for the East London charity Toynbee Hall through sales of prints and copies of my book. I will pay for the printing, framing and book production and any proceeds from sales will go to the charity. This post deals with […]
January 18, 2015
In my previous post on presentation strategy I indicated that a book and exhibition to be the most appropriate and effective means of presenting my work. This approach echoes that of Charles Booth when publishing his work and can be used to create a form of presentation that encourages the viewer/reader to engage in a dialogue with […]
January 6, 2015
I had a chance to make a brief visit to the Sugimoto ‘Still Life’ exhibition at the Pace Gallery in London today. It was most impressive. I have seen three Sugimoto exhibitions now—his landscapes/seascapes in Arles last year, his Architecture photographs at the recent ‘Constructing Worlds’ exhibition at the Barbican and now his Dioramas at […]
November 18, 2014
In my previous post here I indicated that the principle forms of presentation that I will use are a book and an exhibition of prints. This post discusses questions about the nature of prints I would use in an exhibition. It is concerned with the sizing of prints and the spatial organisation of the image and […]
November 7, 2014
The latest version of a possible book format for ‘Lifting the Curtain’ is attached to this post. Just click on the cover image or underlined below to see the book in pdf format. It is best viewed in Preview (Mac) two pages at a time. The images should be on the left hand page and […]
November 5, 2014
I attended an OCA Study Visit to the Brighton Biennial Festival recently. Other priorities meant that I could only attend for one day, but it was a full and excellent day. It is difficult with events such as this festival to get one’s mind around the sheer volume of work on show. I have therefore been […]
October 31, 2014
As a first step towards designing the form or forms of presentation I plan to use for Lifting the Curtain I have made a preliminary assessment of the options available to me (or rather those that I am aware of at the moment).I defined the scope of possibilities for presentation (see here) I indicated that This […]
October 28, 2014
Four of my image/text panels have been selected for the print show at the PHOTOMONTH EAST LONDON International Photography Festival 2014. Here’s the announcement of the event: These are the four images: The organisers are handling the printing….a bit nervous about that as not sure how the prints will turn out. I am expecting relatively […]
October 24, 2014
Today I have submitted my fourth assignment to my tutor….only one more to go now! I submitted the latest form of the image/text pairings for Lifting the Curtain in the form of a book. This may not be the final form but was a convenient way of showing the work at this stage. Click on the […]
October 23, 2014
I agreed with Sharon my tutor that I would prepare a scope of work for my final YOP assignment which will be about presentation of my work, Lifting the Curtain. On the subject of presentation, I was very taken by this observation by Angela Kelly in her essay Book, Exhibition, Lecture, Website – Revisiting Catharsis: Images of Post-Conflict […]
October 22, 2014
As a photographic work, ‘Lifting the Curtain’ is multilayered. At its heart it is essentially documentary. The photographs record the urban landscape of East London as it is today but also evoke as sense of the past, revealing remnants of older phases of urban development mixed in with present day architecture, signage and ‘street furniture’. It is also a […]
October 20, 2014
I have been much influenced in my thinking about ‘Lifting the Curtain’ by Umberto Eco’s ideas of ‘openness’ in works of art as set out in his seminal work Opera Aperta (The Open Work). Eco’s work was first published in 1962. My analysis is based on a 1989 English translation published by Harvard University Press (1) […]
October 2, 2014
I am getting close to the end of shooting for the East London Project. Whilst I fully expect to keep making images right up until the end, from now on this will be directed at trying to improve existing images, rather than exploring completely new sites. Last night I visited what might prove to be my […]
September 29, 2014
Following the feedback for Assignment three (see my previous post here), I decided to take stock of where I had reached with my East End work. I had two questions to consider: Would the project work better by simply using the images without text? Sharon suggested that I look at the images themselves to see what they […]
September 1, 2014
Three of my image/text pairings from ‘Lifting the Curtain’ have just been published in Hashtag Photography Magazine – an online photographic magazine. I found the publication when I noticed that RobTM a fellow OCA student had some photographs from his ‘A Forest’ series published in the last edition of the magazine. Rob was a fellow […]
August 26, 2014
In her feedback on Assignment Three, my tutor Sharon gave me a number of very useful pointers for putting together the image/text pairings which I summarised in a previous post as follows: Clarify exactly how I want the viewer/reader to engage with the work and how his or her participation is needed to complete it. It would […]
August 7, 2014
Whilst I have been deliberating on how I am going to proceed with the East London Project, I have been continuing to make images. To some extent the images will inform my decision on how to go forward. I also had an encouraging meeting with Toynbee Hall. How I might show the work is also […]
July 31, 2014
First it is important to say that I remain committed to working with image and text for my East End work. And that as my source of text I am keen to retain the link with Charles Booth’s work. This commitment is based on my wish to pursue a more innovative form for the work […]
July 28, 2014
A little while ago I submitted my material for Assignment Three to Sharon my tutor. I have now had feedback from her and this posts documents both my submission and the feedback. The submission comprised of four elements. Two projects which are a prescribed part of the coursework for YOP. I decided to carry out both of […]
July 20, 2014
I have continued to work on my East London project now called ‘Lifting the Curtain’. I am pretty well advanced and have reached a stage where I have decided to open a dialogue with Toynbee Hall in East London about the possibility of staging an exhibition in conjunction with them (preferably on their premises). The […]
July 4, 2014
It is time for me to start working on documenting the critical context for my East London work. The influences on my work fall into two categories: photographers whose works have inspired me (aesthetically and conceptually) and critical writing which has informed my conceptualisation. I plan to present reviews of these influences on this blog. […]
July 4, 2014
It has been a while since I have posted to the blog. I have not stopped working on my OCA YOP course but have certainly slowed down whilst I have been on my travels and have been preparing for the upcoming exhibition in Sheffield, which is now going to run until the end of July… […]
May 15, 2014
Below is a map of the current state of play in terms of the geographic locations of the urban landscapes I am looking to make for my East London project. The red dots are locations where I have a text and have made a photograph which I am happy with (at least for now). The […]
May 15, 2014
I have now received feedback from Sharon on my last assignment. We followed up her written report with a telephone conversation in which I updated her on my change of direction with the East London work. I am pleased to say that she was happy with how I now plan to take the work forward. Sharon’s […]
May 13, 2014
Thought it would be worthwhile documenting my working practice for prospecting for images in East London. The first step is desk research. My aim now is to try to get a broad spread of references from Booth’s survey. I would like to include the various industries he reviewed, get a broad geographic spread and coverage of the […]
May 13, 2014
I had some time to kill yesterday on my way to the Photographers Gallery so I popped into Foyles Bookshop on Charing Cross Road. It has a great selection of photographic books, including some very small run publications. I came across a number of books by a publishing house called the velvet cell. I bought a couple […]
May 8, 2014
Yesterday I attended an OCA Study Group in the OCA Farnham, where Anna Fox gave a presentation about her photography. Prior to the event, we had been advised to review Anna’s website here and a recent interview she gave published on American Suburb X here. These also serve as a reference point for my thoughts on […]
May 4, 2014
As I indicated in the last post I have been having some serious reservations about the originality of my approach to my East End project. I outlined two alternative directions in which I could take the work. The second of these was to base my series on Charles Booth’s 1889 survey of East London. The […]
May 2, 2014
I have had a good hard look at my East End work to date and I have to say that I am beginning to have some significant reservations. First the good news: I am very happy with the aesthetic approach of shooting in low light creating high contrast, mostly dark images. The effect is quite […]
April 24, 2014
Out again this morning shooting early. It is quite tricky to get the shots I am looking for. I was up at 3.45 am and in the car headed for London just after 4 am. An hour later I was parked up and on my way to my location for the morning – The Highway. […]
April 14, 2014
I have added two more image/text combinations to my select pool. Both images have some minor defects but not sure if I can overcome these if I were to reshoot the images. The first photograph is of the bottom end of Brick Lane close to where a a nail bomb exploded in 1999 (the bomb […]
November 22, 2015
8