Summer Fête in Somerset, 1991

Posted on January 10, 2020January 10, 2020 by carlotta

Summer Fête in Somerset, 1991

My Christmas present to myself was a negative scanner that enables me to edit on my computer hundreds of negatives from the past 25-30 years that I never had a chance to print in a darkroom. The scanning is a time-consuming process but hugely exciting – and of course not nearly as laborious as darkroom work.

So far I have found 30-odd new photos of the Whitechapel Bell Foundry, and photographs of a summer fête in Somerset in 1991, taken within my first six months of living in the UK.

Looking at these photographs of a rural village celebration in the West Country made me remember how new and uncertain it all felt at the time, life in my adopted country, and how I was seeing (and photographing) it through a foreigner’s eyes. Nearly 30 years on, these types of scenes are now wonderfully familiar to me and I view them with huge affection. It would be interesting to head back to Exmoor to photograph the event again and see what has changed, both over the time period and my perception of it. I’ll keep you posted on that. You can find more photos of the village fête here.

In celebration of the winter solstice

Posted on December 19, 2019December 20, 2019 by carlotta

In celebration of the winter solstice

Tomorrow is the turning point when the days finally start to lengthen and the night-times begin to get shorter. In our part of the world, on the south coast of England, the winter solstice has just shy of 8 hours between sunrise and sunset. When it is grey and wet, which it currently seems to be much of the time, this can feel even shorter.

At this pivotal time, when the northern hemisphere starts to head towards spring, I give you a beach at sunset, covered with a dusting of snow. I took this last week when my 36 hours on Cape Cod coincided with a most beautiful snow fall.

Towards the end of the day, the clouds cleared as the sun set into the bay, turning the snow pink. As we headed home from our walk, an enormous full moon rose up over the white hills in front of us. I felt so lucky to be a witness to the transition of this beautiful day turning into night. You can find more of my landscape photographs here.

Wishing you all a bright and positive Solstice, a Christmas spent with loved ones and healthy, happy and fulfilling New Year.

Please get in touch if you have a workplace, an event, a celebration, a portrait or a building project you would like to have photographed.

28-year-old photos come into their own

Posted on December 5, 2019December 5, 2019 by carlotta

28-year-old photos come into their own

Photographs that I took almost 30 years ago of the Whitechapel Bell Foundry have been published recently in several articles about the proposed future of this historic site.

A battle has been raging about planning permission for the building that housed this famous foundry from 1738 until 2017. This is Britain’s oldest manufacturing company, around since the 1570s, and has cast some of the most famous bells in the world, including the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia and London’s Big Ben. A planning application was approved last month to turn the building into a bell-themed boutique hotel, despite a strong campaign against it.

Yesterday an unexpected temporary intervention came through from the Secretary of State, so there is a chance the building will be saved.

The foundry was an incredible place to photograph. I remember wandering wherever I liked and photographing whatever I liked. No one seemed to mind, or even pay me much attention. The place felt full of history – even the casting methods were ancient and included sand, dung, hair and bone. You can find more of the photos here.

Please get in touch if you have a workplace, an event, a celebration, a portrait or a building project you would like to have photographed.

Wishing you all a very happy Thanksgiving!

Posted on November 28, 2019 by carlotta

Wishing you all a very happy Thanksgiving!

It is a day to celebrate sharing a meal with those you love, plain and simple. The one key element of the dinner is, of course, the humble cranberry. Native to New England, they are still found growing wild in the Cape Cod landscape, in bogs that turn a vibrant red in the autumn. Here are some I picked earlier.

You can find more of my landscape photographs here, of both my past home in New England, and my current one in Sussex.

Please get in touch if you have an event, a celebration or a portrait you would like to have photographed or a building project documented.

The littlest bonfire boy

Posted on November 15, 2019 by carlotta

The littlest bonfire boy

Every year I head out to photograph the Lewes Bonfire celebrations, trying to capture a sense of the joy and anarchy of the night. It is one of the most challenging subjects to capture, but also one of the most fun for me.

Because there is no time to practice how I will deal with the extremes of the situation (pitch black to flares of light in split seconds), all I can do is hit the ground running, tweaking my technique as I go along.

This year new equipment made a huge difference to how I approached the evening. A newly acquired very fast lens meant that I could photograph the event without needing a flash. So much of the drama of the evening is the light cast by all those flaming torches, so being able to catch this without the glare of a flash was a game changer.

Now to this little chap. There is something about this photo that I find mesmerising – the flaming torch looking more like a giant matchstick almost too heavy to hold, that little round face in the wooly hat, the fact that he is so much smaller than the circle of people around him but a mini version of them… As I was saying in my blog two weeks ago, Lewes Bonfire night is very much about families celebrating and marching together. You can find many more of my Bonfire photos here.

On a completely different note, I had the good fortune to be mentioned in two blog posts in one day! The first was on the Brighton Dome website about my project documenting the refurbishment of the Corn Exchange. The second was in the newsletter of Simon Scott Landscaping, an excellent local landscaping firm, about a series of portraits I took over the summer, including a photo of one of their partners.

Perfect light at the Brighton Dome Corn Exchange

Posted on November 7, 2019November 8, 2019 by carlotta

Perfect light at the Brighton Dome Corn Exchange

And it’s back to the beautiful Brighton Dome Corn Exchange for me, where I have been documenting the refurbishment of this historic landmark. I had not been since the summer so it was great to be inside this fascinating building once again. You can find a blog about my photographs on the Brighton Dome website here.

These are the south-facing windows of the Studio Theatre, a small, intimate venue that sits adjacent to the enormous Corn Exchange. When I first started photographing the site, these windows were high up and inaccessible to me and my camera.

A balcony has now been built that wraps around the central space, putting these beautiful circular glass panes right at eye (and lens) level. I am sure I have said it before here, but photography really is all about light and the light was just right for me on this visit. The angle of the sun cast perfect circular shadows through the textured glass onto newly painted window frames. You can find more photographs of the Corn Exchange here.

Please get in touch if you have an event, a celebration or a portrait you would like to have photographed or a building project documented.

Category: photo of the week