Dean Leivers

I’m back! I’ve been away for a while, not fancy holidays or anything like that just a lot of photography/videography commissions that have kept me busy which is not a bad place to be in at all. So I’ve had a few weeks of articles/ posts to look back on and I’ve included here what I considered to be the most interesting.

Firstly an article from the British Journal of Photography’s website which discusses considerations when looking for gallery representation. My landscape project taken in Scotland over the last two years has been my main point of focus over the last few months. I’ve been editing the work and creating book layouts, looking at sequencing and thinking about the ways in which I’d like the work to be seen. An exhibition is my desired output with large scale prints and an accompanying book, that would be my ideal. 

A couple of weeks ago I thought about adding more to the project. There is a lack of people in the images, and I thought about returning one last time to photograph the inhabitants of the peninsula but I think that would be applying my new project ideas to a series that is finished, I have to let the work go now. I’ve considered approaching galleries to get the work exhibited but I’ve saved some money and decided that I’m going to seek out an empty retail unit and rent it for a few weeks and create a pop up gallery, staff it myself and invite people to come and visit.

Speaking of new project ideas, I’m still finding a lot of inspiration in the work of other photographers. I like to look at the way they are structuring their images and series, and see how I could apply those approaches to my own work. Two articles caught my eye on the Guardian website recently. One featured the work of James Bugg who’s work has recently won the Moran Contemporary Photographic Prize.

The other features winners of the Lens Culture Portrait Awards. Both articles contain striking images which are worth your time. The most interesting take away for me when looking and reading the articles was that I should make more time to enter my own work in competitions, exhibition open calls etc. This should be my aim alongside the creation of the current/new project work and I really should make more of an effort to put my work in front of people.

Viewing photographers work, specifically portfolio reviews, was touched on in a new Podcast by Grant Scott founder of United Nations of Photography.

Grant touches on lots of topics and raises interesting discussion points for photographers to consider. The most pleasing aspect of the Podcast though is that it’s not just another photography Podcast that focusses on tech/equipment reviews, techniques, how to use your DSLR etc. Whilst those types of show are undoubtably helpful to a lot of people and rightfully have a place I’ve craved a photography podcast that looks to create a discourse around photographic practice that is intelligent and thought provoking, I really recommend subscribing.

Podcast aside, an article on the United Nations of Photography caught my eye which looks at considerations practicing photographers face when archiving their work in a digital age. As an owner of an increasing collection of external hard drives this definitely gave me some food for thought. Maybe I should devote a bit of energy to looking at ways I can properly safeguard my digital (and analogue) work?…

Thank you for reading, and if you think that others may be interested in the articles that I’ve pointed to in this or past editions feel free to share the archive link with them tinyletter.com/deanleivers

Be well,

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