IB Studios Bournemouth

Life has been pretty busy with the academic year starting again and all that brings. Maja has 2 exhibitions before Christmas with everything to do for that and one of those is a joint exhibition with me so I'm pretty flat out as well.

With all this going on it's a wonder that there's any time to still be doing photo shoots, but none the less I've managed 2 different group shoots at the fabulous IB studios in Bournemouth. The first shoot was a group shoot through TFP Models a nice little resource for photographers, the second was an in-house shoot run by the studio. It's not the biggest studio or the best equipment wise, but they have a fantastic range of props and a very friendly and helpful owner. I would recommend them to anyone in the Bournemouth area who needs a studio for shooting.

I'll put the results up on http://www.flickr.com/photos/ben_hill/ as I get the chance.

Totton College

This year sees me teaching at Totton College (again) on the adult education side. I always love the people, I always hate the unsocial hours! This year it's on a Monday night, which is a bit of a pain as that then overlaps withthe Southampton Camera Club and this year I am only covering the AS level not the GCSE as well, which is a pity. Next year they get to have an exhibition in Hanger Farm again so I'm really looking forward to that, I wish them all luck.

Summer Group Exhibitions

I've had a busy summer in 2008, Maja has had a major solo exhibition in Skopje at the cities cultural centre, one of the biggest spaces in the city. It's quite scary to see pictures that elsewhere fill a whole wall disappear into that vast space. After that she just had endless interviews, TV, radio, magazines etc, all very exciting as it always is.

Then we were both off to an art residency, once again we were lucky enough to get a joint place while my mother-in-law 'volunteered' to baby sit for the 10 days.

10 days in sunny (very sunny) Ohrid at the Ramazzoti Art Colony, a truly breathtaking location next to a huge UNESCO protected lake surrounded by limestone mountains. Where of course I was desperately trying to avoid taking all the normal range of tourist shots and achieve something a little more original. Of course I did take lots of sunsets and views over the lake, but I like to think I found a little out of the ordinary stuff as well.

The whole trip ended up with a lot of good luck. We held the normal group exhibition to display the work we had done, but then found out that the very same Cultural Centre in Skopje had had a very last minute cancellation and would be prepared to hold a joint exhibition of the residencies work! So back there again for Maja (different paintings this time) and my first time exhibiting in that space!

Ivan gets his modelling dream break

I'm happy when it all comes together Ivan is a young model I met through one of my usual routes net-model and we did a series of location shoots for his portfolio. Now on the back of that he has landed a place with the top agency in his city!

Photography at Totton College

Well this year sees me teaching at http://www.totton.ac.uk/ as well as my usual shifts at Solent I'm looking forward to it as this will be covering a structured A level and GCSE photography course, not something I've delivered before.

Photographic Residency

This year saw both Maja and I going on an art residency up in the mountains for 2 weeks with a bunch of other artists including some very impressive wood carvers. I took far too many photos, now I just need to edit them all down and hopefully come up with something a bit more manageable for exhibition work. Apparently there were bears in the mountains, but I didn't find any :(

I'm just sad that the main exhibition of the combined works won't be held until after I'm long gone.

Introduction

I use this Blog to keep track of all my digital photography stuff. This isn't my only activity, I also have lecturing commitments as well as running a small media & web company with my wife Maja, who is better known for her oil painting and animation. This blog replaces a previous version that somehow seems to have disappeared, I'll try to fill in the old blanks as much as I can but no promises.