Friday Night Confessionals.....it's been a while...

Soooo, I did a thing,

Writing this from a hotel in Brighton, the night before a wedding I’m photographing, I’m on catch up and wanted to share the week, I’ve missed doing this and I hope it continues, fingers x’d!

So, the masters, it’s been going on for a while and aged me more than anything else I’ve ever done!

For the last 2 years I’ve been working on a MFA (Master of Fine Arts) in Photography, it’s a qualification I have wanted to work towards since I completed formal photography training on the certificate programme in America and as we came out of lockdowns in 2021 I became a little more serious about achieving it. Fast forward 2 years and here we are, my foiled certificate arrived this week and it became ‘real’.

Around a month before we finished I FINALLY felt I was drawing all my threads of research together and so the plan now, after the summer, is to dig in, continue the project and fine tune the prototypes and iterations I have started!!

Photograph certificate

Wednesday evening

Highgate Pergola - Emily & Stuart rocked their engagement pictures!!!

I’ve been missing my morning walks and Tuesday showered me with a gift of a walk - it was so joyful, out the door by 7am, 2 hours of bird song and fresh air was THE BEST start to the day!!

Here we are in Brighton, urban art everywhere + I’m snapping like crazy the ever changing landscape of the graphic art in the Lanes!!!

Friday Night Confessionals.....getting green fingers......

And selling posters of my peony love series 💕❤️💕

Amongst my many endeavours over here I am attempting to grow chillis, courgettes and tomatoes this year along with some squash I hope to plant shortly. In the non edible section of the garden things are starting to take shape, the peonies old and new are emerging and the many I planted last year are making progress (keeping fingers xd it continues even despite the current nightly frosts!)

My pansie display looks like an homage to the suffragette movement, all greens, whites and purples and I’m totally ok with that!!

It’s also been an exciting week as three posters went out the door to their new home in Whitstable!!

They are part of the ‘Peony Love’ series captured and created last year during lockdown and I’m beyond thrilled their new owner is in love and delighted with their arrival. These images shown above were full frame printed on 16x20 inch paper! So a big gorgeous luscious impact on a wall and this trio sit so well together I’m excited to see them in situ when they’re room redecoration is finished :-)

so happy weekend everyone! Have a great one and enjoy the sunshine xx

Friday night Confessionals….For the love of Peonies

Juicy Fridays….

Hi!! How is everyone doing?? February already and I’ve been armpit deep in training since the beginning of the year, which has been amazing and super intense, a part of me wondered why this was such a great idea during a pandemic lol but this quote from it has really resonated

‘Ironed out in the FIRE’

YES! So today, rain outside, a need within to be creative, so many ideas brewing and a pot of delicious gold paint calling….

Ahaaaaaa……Oh I’m super excited I had the chance to explore something that’s been tickling me for about a week but I hadn’t had the chance to act on it until, the tickle got too much today and I busted out my art box, brushes, paints, peony images, lay newspaper down and tapped my imagination.

Different brush sizes and textures later I started adding gold shimmer to a test image from my Peony portfolio : luscious fine art paper!! I’ve lots more exploration but I’m excited by this start :-)

Here’s to creative weekends ahead!! Have a great one!! x

Friday Night Confessionals….surprises all round!

This week!! WOWZERS

I had completely forgotten about this amazing interview!!! SO beyond thrilled to share this article on my lockdown project!!!

Represented by....

The BIGDAY Film Collective, NYC

A selection of my film work is represented by BIG DAY Film photographers for art buyers and collectors and can be viewed by clicking the link or image here

Friday Afternoon Confessionals.....

Two weeks ago I landed in Boston, One week ago I landed back in London, when things move rapidly, all we can do is hang on and try our best to navigate the ride!

This afternoon as I write this, looking out at the sunshine, blue sky and peacefulness, I am 100% sure everyone everywhere is still feeling the surreal-ness of the situations we are adjusting to - I’m not going to harness that, instead I’m sharing my trip back to Maine, the walks I took in nature + the portraits at a distance I created + a couple of shots from my phone of the amazing colours I’m seeing on my daily walks x

So Maine, my spiritual haven, hmmm perhaps better to say my photographic haven where the photo magic first happened. A workshop back at my old school with my fabulous professor learning carbon transfer printing.

All the info I had read ahead of class told me just how tricky it was - AND IT IS!! BUT it was also really wonderful to be connecting with the photographic process and craft back in the dark room after quite a long time away. I used one of my images of one of my brides + for a first attempt it has encouraged me to experiment further when the time is right and to take this process and see where it takes me…….

This trip also enabled me to get back in to deep nature and embrace the sea air and sunsets!!! The light has always been magical in Maine and now home on my evening walks I am also seeing slithers of it here too :-)

I also had EVERY INTENTION of continuing my International Women’s Day project photographing friends and I people I knew with the theme ‘friendship’ . With lock down swift in America I respectfully kept my distance from the two ladies I had the opportunity to photograph and above is ‘Pam’ my airbnb host. When I return I’ll photograph the others I didn’t catch on this trip :-) but it was great to even capture these!!

And so to home. Just on my iphone but maybe I’m being more vigilant, a bit more aware of my surroundings but I am loving the colours that are appearing in the evenings, soft tones and hues, pastels and patches of light highlighting the landscape that would in the past not necessarily caught my attention…..maybe I brought a bit of the magic back with me…stay safe + healthy everyone!! xx

Dora Maar @TATEModern

Sunday afternoon I headed down to TATE Modern to check out the recently opened ‘Dora Maar’ exhibition.

If you love old skool photography and miss the skill and delight of darkroom photography then this will get the brain firing + nostrils wishing for that chemical hit that only a darkroom can provide.

If you love a bit of ‘Surrealism’

noun

1. a 20th-century avant-garde movement in art and literature which sought to release the creative potential of the unconscious mind, for example by the irrational juxtaposition of images.

then this is also for you! Original Photographs in all sizes from passport to A4 are displayed together enabling the viewer that intimate experience that only super tiny images can provide and ensuring you stay transfixed upon it, roving each small corner for all the details. Magazine layouts showing the final printed versions and the images on display are intriguing and fun to get close up to + figure out what was going on during their creation and perhaps how each part was layered over, printed, scratched.

There are 9 rooms in total and I literally squealed with delight in the first two rooms! Looking curiously at each image, inspired by their form and tone and technique. A few fireworks went off inside me as I referenced a personal project I’m currently working on - this was such a joy to behold.

The hesitation in writing steps in now because I left rather flattened. Here’s why - I LOVED the first rooms, I loved seeing hand crafted, considered pieces of photography and reading about Dora Maars life was fascinating yet I stalled at room 6 + 7 - I’m not sure if that’s the curators intention.

In these rooms the exhibitions and my attention turned to Picasso.

Because of this interjection I’m afraid my concentration on the beautiful work I’d seen in rooms 1 through 5 slithered away + became diluted. MY NOTE TO TATE Modern - Picasso was obviously an important part of Dora’s life BUT it seems a little unjust to dedicate some of the rooms to his work and her inspiration on him - as if a house hold name would ‘pad things out’ when that was the last thing that was needed. **The exhibition up until this point had been full and robust, inspiring in its freshness and the inclusion of the solarised image which inspired ManRay was sublime.

As a female photographer myself I applaud the ever growing inclusion of female photographers being displayed now because I remember a time in the not too distant past, when my photography history programme wouldn’t include even 1. + yes I realise that in fact makes me sound ancient - I’m not!!! However, I felt the reference to their relationship : single/complicated/married wasn’t needed, it didn’t add to the validity of her work and his work then overshadowed hers because it felt so off piste + random to have two rooms dedicated to it..

If you absolutely needed to, just perhaps one image representative of his painting of Dora during their time together would have sufficed, remove the fact she was having an affair with him and the huge image depicting the painting of both of the women in his life and we would have a gorgeous collection of images, inspiring the viewer to learn more about Surrealism/Photography/Dora.

I felt confused as to what you felt these rooms brought to the viewing experience aside from confusion and a peppering of annoyance?

The following 2 rooms of her return to painting was both textural and fluid although in part also looked like she was thoroughly pissed off their relationship had ended + in all honesty was how I felt that so much of his work had been included. I didn’t go to see Picasso, I went to see a little known female photographer and artist in a celebration of her contribution to the Surrealist movement. Step it up TATE, the work speaks for itself.

**Perhaps the exhibition’s natural ending was in room 5 with a last room (6) full of her sojourns in to painting, her development + experimentation in to this area along with her return to the darkroom + lifting Picasso from his bereft dessert because the exhibition up until this point had been full and robust, inspiring in its freshness and the inclusion of the solarised image which inspired ManRay was sublime.

Sunday Morning confessionals......Venice Biennale......

There’s some magic in Venice..

I haven’t visited since 1998 when I was living in Milan and caught the train over for the ‘Carnivale’ in deepest darkest February with my fellow room mates + stayed up ALL night because as students we had no money + just thought we’d wing it. It was epic + even sheltering in a ‘Banco-mart’ adds to the memories and stories along with finally finding a cafe open at 5am and being told the photographers were in St.Marks square taking postcard pictures - as we zipped out the door and around the corner, mist rising off the lagoon, there sure enough were photographers eagerly capturing the ‘official’ postcards images of those costumed in their most elaborate finery.

I have fond memories but it had been a long time and now this week I was returning for an entirely different reason and with accommodation booked lol no sleeping in a ‘banco-mart’ for me!

My friends and fellow photographer ‘Jackie Neale’ is exhibiting at the Biennale and I went over to support her and well have a couple days of art immersion and hopefully some sunshine. This trip blew my mind. Great art, super food, amazing meetings of minds AND catching up with friends I hadn’t seen in FAR TOO LONG.

Jackie’s opening was Thursday + Friday evening at the European Cultural Centre and her work is based on Immigration. She has created beautiful, etherial LARGE cyanotypes which measure 5 feet x 7 feet and for their size hold a delicate beauty.

As I looked out of the window next to her work, the courtyard was full of people as was the two terraces , the air was full of an electric, excited but very cool energy - I was in Italy after all and they sure know how to do an opening!

Friday afternoon I met Jackie to listen to her artist talk and discussion on her work (+ take a selfie) + also re-look at some of the artworks which had been near impossible to get close to the night before. One of my absolute favourites was by an artist called ‘Maxim Wakultcshik ‘who created two portraits from coloured tooth picks!!!!!!!!!!! There are not enough exclamation marks to get across just how sublime and entrancing this was so I have included pictures below :-)

Friday night I met fellow photographer Marta Buso who lives in Venice and post art opening, took me for a delicious beer at a pretty secluded spot off the Grand Canal with fun view of the Rialto Bridge….my phone camera doesn’t do it justice but the light was pretty special!

OH + the chance to have my picture taken against the most beautiful textured wall…turns out I just laugh when a camera is pointed in my direction lol there is no hope! LOL

AND THEN SATURDAY! MAMA MIA!

21 years ago I met these two amazing, kind, lovely ladies when we studied at NABA in Milan, it’s been 15 years since I have seen Harriet (right) + 12 years since seeing Irene (left picture). OH MY GOODNESS, SO SO SO GREAT to see them, they both travelled from Bologna + Milan to Venice on Saturday for our little reunion and well, it was as if no time had passed and we spent the whole day chatting + laughing + remembering all the funnies, it was so special to see them both again!! (we even checked out St, Marks Square for good measure too)

It’s been the most inspiring, heart filling few days + I’m off to get a new phone that can take a half decent, ok fully decent picture when I don’t have my camera with me lol + just let the glow of Venice remain with me for as long as possible :-)
Have an amazing week everyone xx

Sunday Sass

Just for this week, Friday night confessional moved to Sunday Sass!

Whoooo-eeeee I’m sitting here, Sunday night, Mothers Day, full of delight at having spent a fun, laughter filled day with my parents. Sunday roast, a little trip out around the countryside and a nap when I got home lol well, I did do a ‘Blaze’ class this morning before all this exuberance and I am feeling it tonight :-)

This past week has been full of family photo sessions mostly in London and with gorgeous families with teenagers (as opposed to teeny people) + the energy of London mixed in with young adults really sets you up to have perky, energised interactions and days - up in a super fun way!

On Friday after a session near London Bridge I caught the overland down to Croydon to say Good Luck to Jack at Lives Not Knives. He has been such an amazing influence within the charity with all his work on the schools roadshows and mentoring young people + is leaving to pursue other interests which I just know he’ll be amazing at!!

Whilst in Croydon AND with it being sunny I took advantage of the visit to swing past Katharine Street and check out the Ladies First exhibition opposite the Library. It looks fabulous! and I made a little video for instagram which I’ve shared above :-)

Happy Sunday everyone, Happy Mothers Day + have an amazing week ahead!!

Friday night confessional....Croydon.....

WOWZERS!!!

Last night saw the official launch of our ‘Ladies First’ Photography project and I am so proud it’s up!
I'd love to say I breezed up to Croydon to check out the exhibition, elated and full of delight but truth be told - I was elated and full of delight with my stomach in my mouth as I approached lol - I hadn't seen the prints before they went up so I had no idea what they looked like. I mean obviously I’d worked on them and knew how they looked but just not in print! and there is always that second mental check list “wondering if the highlights were in check, the blacks weren't blocked up” and generally the printing was fabulous.

I was delighted!!!  The prints look epic! Printed on a stunning Matt paper finish, the detail was sublime!

On show until May please pop along and take a look and share a photo or two, I’d love to hear your thoughts! Enjoy xx

International Women's Day gets closer!!!

Ladies First Exhibition 2019

Soooo more posting, I promised :-) 

I've been working on a project for International Women's Day which goes live officially tomorrow but which has just gone up today in preparation!!

Ladies First Exhibition 2019

is a fresh opportunity to women all together + celebrate the wonderful variety women who live and work in Croydon.

These photos depict + honour extraordinary women in all their glory.

Undercroydon created this project with an aim to alter perceptions of women; bringing positive change to women from all backgrounds, sexuality + cultures.

Ladies First 2019, will be exhibited on Katharine Street, opposite Croydon Library, in the Fairfield Ward.

Credit : Supported and funded by Croydon Council

space is provided by the generosity of R & F Properties and John F Hunt.

Photography: Jackie King

Undercrodyon project: Susan Beresford & Jeanne-Marie Eayrs

This photo is presenting a variety of amazing women I had the absolute pleasure to photograph in Croydon (+ is being displayed outdoors opposite the Library) as a community project to inspire young women + each portrait is A1 size 🙃

If you get the opportunity do pop along, I'll be there hanging out tomorrow afternoon and then heading to the LNK charity event around 5pm if anyone fancies a catch up!! 

Naomi is due THIS week :-)

I am beyond delighted to share a snippet from last weeks maternity session in the gorgeous Hampshire countryside with Naomi.

Naomi is due this week and we had so much fun prepping our session and including a TUTU!! I know right!! OMG As a Ballerina and dancer, Naomi is so elegant and poised and we had a gorgeous white washed wall as a backdrop to create our magic :-) more to follow soon xx

and in other news......

Thrilled to share this.....

As part of the #LoveinLondon photography competition I was asked to answer 10 questions....here's what I had to say.....

PhotoVoice

©JackieKing2018

REAL FILM :-)

I'm just so excited!! I took two rolls of film into 'West End Cameras' on Tottenham Court road last weekend and I just got the scanned images back (I'm going in to collect the actual film next week) and it felt like waiting for xmas as a kid as i had NO idea what was on one of the rolls of  film and to my surprise along came Brighton - which I haven't been to in ages!!! I cannot even remember taking my holga with me so this is super fun!! 

Brighton Sea front

Have a great weekend everyone and revel in the magic xx

Friday Night Photo Opening!!

I'm so excited to share pictures from Friday night's exhibition opening in Brixton!

A selection of my Fine Art imagery is on display until June 4th and we had such a great turn out for the opening and it was brilliant to chat with so many wonderful photography lovers :-) 

Studio 73 is at Brixton Village, Coldharbour Ln, Brixton SW9 8PS

Daphne Travels

New Zealand

Daphne on display in the window

Crazy Lady 'Penelope' is also being displayed - Here 'Crazy Sunbathes' 

THIS is happening!

I'm thrilled and delighted to share the poster for a photography exhibition I am part of at Studio 73 in Brixton. Opening next week and running for 3 weeks. Ben is exhibiting a collection of images from '80's New York (one of my favourite cities) and portraits include Any Warhol and Goldie and I am showing my crazy colourful work.

The Gallery says.......

POP FLASH Collectable photographs by
BEN BUCHANAN AND JACKIE KING

New York in the 1980s was the last exciting decade in NY. For three brief but memorable years the worlds of art and fashion, music and film, collided four times a week at the downtown Manhattan nightclub Area. English / USA photographer Ben Bunchanan was there every night to record what went on at the club, famed for its elaborate and extravagant ever-changing themes such as Suburbia, Sex and Sci-Fi. "They would shut down on a Sunday night and reopen four days and $50,000 later with a whole new look," There are icons of New York nightlife like Andy Warhol and David Hockney along side young protégés like Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat, who made their names working on Area's regular refits. By 1987 Area had gone, and the bohemian neighborhood where Ben had shot so many local artists and musicians would soon be gentrified and rebranded as TriBeCa. But the spirit of the age lives on in the photos of the people who put Downtown on the map. 

Jackie is an English professional photographer, speaker, mentor and workshop host. Her career has taken her to Italy, Ireland and the USA and covered many fields of creativity before returning to the UK and within one year of setting out as a freelance photographer, won the top honours at the 2005 professional awards as 'Photographer of the Year'. In 2006 Jackie gained a scholarship from QEST to study for an MA in Fashion Photography at the London College of Fashion.Jackie rose through the ranks of the BIPP (British Institute of Professional Photography) and ended up sitting on the Board of Directors whilst studying for her MA, the first female and youngest photographer to hold this position whilst also running her own photography business. Her work has been exhibited in an array of international locations from New York to London to Sydney and her portraits and lifestyle work printed + featured in a myriad of media outlets, including The British Journal of Photography, Digital Photo Pro magazine, The Sunday Times magazine.

Fascinated by pop Art of 80's and celebrity culture Jackie has an intuitive approach to colour and vernacular in her image making. She creates a performative series of coloured photographs depicting herself in mesmerizing landscapes and transformed her portraits into a celebrity persona ......echoing the 80's celebrity culture.

Crazy Sunbathes