Fox Talbot: Dawn of the Photograph at the London Science Museum’s Media Space

Posted on 15th Apr 2016 by lomokev

The show is a perfect marriage between science and photography. Fox Tolbot was a scientist, photographer and entrepreneur who invented the photographic negative in 1835 which was a huge leap forward in photographic technology. The negative meant that unlimited photos could easily be produced from one negative. Before Talbot’s negative the first commercially available photographic process, the daguerreotype, produced one-off images on silver plated copper. Talbot’s invention brought photography closer to what we think of it today, a medium where duplication is embedded into its core.

Nelsons column under construction by William Henry Fox Talbot - 1843

Nelsons column under construction by William Henry Fox Talbot – 1843

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Tap Takeover Beer festival beer mat photography exhibition

Posted on 8th Apr 2016 by lomokev

One of my images of Dave Sawyers has been printed on a beer mat along with 9 other photographers work for the Brighton Tap Takeover beer festival. The 10 different beer matts will be on the tables of 10 Brighton pubs over the weekend (9th-10th April), if you visit all the pubs you can collect a full set (maybe stick to half pints, drink responsibly and all that). The beer mats were curated by The Photocopy club and MiniClick talks.

kevin meredith beer mat tap takeover

My beer mats are on the tables of the Hope and Ruin

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Lomo LC-A 120 medium format camera hands on review

Posted on 24th Mar 2016 by lomokev

When Lomography released the Lomo LC-A 120 last year I got really excited. It’s a compact medium format camera with a modified glass lomo LC-A lens with automatic exposure which is a huge step up from the light leaky plastic Holgas and Dianas I’d previously used. I’ve never really been a fan of plastic 120 roll film cameras as I’ve never seen the point of shooting expensive film on a camera with no light meter, a plastic lens, and something that you only use on a sunny day.

Shot Lomo LC-A 120 and Lomography 800asa colour film

Dave and his fish eyes. Shot Lomo LC-A 120 and Lomography 800 asa colour film

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Martin Parr: Unseen City exhibition at the Guildhall Art Gallery

Posted on 20th Mar 2016 by lomokev

Unseen City is a new body of work from documentary photographer Martin Parr which depicts the strange world of the City of London. For two years Parr was given unprecedented access to the City’s institutions and guilds. I must point out that when I refer to the City of London I am not talking about the City of 8 million people but the square mile which contains the financial district. The City of London has its own Lord Mayor of London which is not to be confused with Boris Johnson the Mayor of London.

Martin Parr Unseen City

Definitely lots of pomp and ceremony at Unseen City

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Martin Parr: Strange and Familiar at the Barbican London

Posted on 19th Mar 2016 by lomokev

Strange and Familiar: Britain as Revealed by International Photographers explorers how Britain is seen by the lenses of foreign photographers. The show has been curated by Martin Parr one of the world’s most prolific documentary photographers and president of the Magnum Photo agency.

Jim Dow prints at Strange and Familiar at the Barbican

Jim Dow‘s images of shops from the 1980s – 1990s

The work on show spans almost a century with images from: Henri Cartier-Bresson from the 1930s to Bruce Gilden’s floor to ceiling portraits shot in the last few years. The show is huge using both floors of the Barbican Gallery and includes the work of 23 photographers, so it’s a really diverse. Continue reading →

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Lee Miller: A Woman’s War at the Imperial War Museum London

Posted on 18th Mar 2016 by lomokev

A Woman’s War tells the story of photographer Lee Miller’s time during the Second World War. The exhibition takes a journey though her war years and then tells the sad tale of her post war struggles with alcohol and post traumatic stress disorder. The images focus on women’s roll in the war, instead of male solders you presented with the world of female volunteer firefighters and female members of the French resistance.

Lee Miller London Bomb Damage 1940

Model shot with the backdrop of bomb damage in London 1940.

During the war Lee Miller shot for Vogue. As a woman in the 40s, she was not afforded the same opportunities as her male counterparts. To get to continental Europe she had to stow away on a hospital ship heading to Normandy. The exhibition tells her incredible story though her photos of a bombed out London, the battlefields of Europe, the end of the war and the horrors of the Dachau concentration camp. Continue reading →

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Brighton Starling Murmurations

Posted on 4th Feb 2016 by lomokev

Every year between between the end of October and the start of March tens of thousands of starlings can be seen flocking around Brighton Pier. I am lucky in that my office is only a 3 minute walk from the pier, so if the weather is good I will often wander down to the pier 20 minutes before sunset to watch and shoot one of nature’s wonders. That said they flock no matter what the weather and it’s amazing to watch them move in unison even in very strong winds. Below are some video and photos of Brighton’s starlings that I have shot over the years.

Update March 2017: I’ve now made added a section to portfolio of starling murmuration pictures.

Brighton Starling Murmuration January 2016

Shot in January 2016 on a Samsung NX1.

What makes Brighton Pier such a good spot to watch the starlings is that swoop below you so can look down on the Flock. Once the sun goes down they start moving closer and closer to the pier to the point where you hear the air rushing round their little wings and you can almost reach out and touch them. If you’re near Brighton Nov – March it’s definitely worth making time to see Brighton’s starlings.

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Photo Library / Lightroom Library Backup Guide

Posted on 31st Dec 2015 by lomokev

Hopefully I’m preaching to the converted when it comes to having a good backup strategy for your photo archive. Lately I’ve been hearing a lot of digital horror stories including one about a wedding photographer that lost a weddings worth of photos and subsequently had to refund what I assume to be a very unhappy couple. To me this is insane, if your digital data has commercial value why would you not own a £100 backup drive?

Backing up a photo library

Entrusting your precious photo library with Family memories and commercial work to one fragile hard drive is insanity, better to hedge your bets a bit with multiple backups.

Backup is like insurance for the most part you don’t need it but when you do you’ll be thankful. There’s only been one occasion that I’ve had to rely on a backup, 5 years ago I upgraded my storage and with in 2 months one of my new drives died. It is not uncommon for new drives to fail, Google research shows that hard drives will either fail when they are very new as they were defective from the beginning or they will go on for years. Just because a drive is new does not mean you can slack off backing it up. If I had not backed up this little hard drive failure would still be a disaster story I would be telling now, fortunately it was just a mild inconvenience.

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