Look11 Website Launched

 

At last, after two-and-a-half years of thinking, dreaming, organising and unstinting effort, Look11, Liverpool's first international photography festival is born. On the web at least.

The launch of the festival's superb new interactive website took place last night at a packed 3345, one of the city's coolest bars. The website will be the platform and forum in the lead up to the festival's opening on 12th May next year. Look11 will feature exhibitions, workshops, mass-participation events, community engagement projects and much, much more. It will also play host to the third National Photography Symposium, run by Redeye, the photography network in the North West of England.

The programme for the festival is being finalised by the staff, led by Artistic Director Stephen Snoddy, supported by Festival Manager Daniel Cutmore and a host of volunteers and interested people. We have been engaged with key partners for over two years to get to the point where all the major city institutions are behind the festival and will contribute to what will - hopefully - be a successful first festival.

If you are wondering why I am standing in the middle of the photograph grinning, it's not because I have just won first prize in the raffle, but as Chair of the Board of Directors of Look11 I was obliged to say a few words. Thankfully for the assembled crowd (which numbered over 100) I kept it brief. Just time to say a big thank you to everyone involved in the festival, including Loaf Creative who developed the branding and website, Stephen, Daniel and the team at Look11 and my fellow Board members whose unstinting hard work, support and belief in the project has carried us forward to this point. And to thank the major funders who have allowed us the opportunity to take the project on.

Our hope and aspiration is that the photographic community of the Liverpool city region and beyond will embrace the festival and its theme: asking whether photography is a call to action and engage in a debate around themes of social justice and whether photography can and should make a difference in changing our world for the better.

Whatever your relationship to photography the festival would love to hear from you. It's your festival, not ours and as I said last night: Liverpool used to do three things really well: photography, festivals and football. At least we still do two things well. Shame about the football!

See you all in May!

www.look2011.co.uk

Death of a Friend

It is with great sadness that I heard this morning of the death of Walter Davidson, salmon net fisherman from the south-west of Scotland and chairman of the Salmon Net Fishing Association of Scotland which represents the small band of men who still fish for salmon using traditional methods in the rivers and estuaries around the country.

I first encountered Walter in 2003 when I spent time with him at his fishing station at Creetown on the Solway Firth. He was warm and open and generous with his time. I made a series of images of Walter which were subsequently published in the first edition of Coast magazine. Walter would liken my visit to one he received from the legendary photographer Werner Kissling, who had encountered Walter in the early 1960s when travelling around Scotland gathering material for the School of Scottish Studies.

Walter was steeped in the history of salmon netting: his great-grandfather had introduced the practice of using stake nets on the Solway when he relocated from Montrose in the mid-19th century.

I last saw Walter only a month ago in Portsoy at the Association's annual gathering (see previous post). He was full of the gentle, understated humour which was his trademark. In his distinctive Galloway accent he gently chided me about the inclusion on the Association's new website of a photograph I took of the interior of his bothy, where he lived during the week in the fishing season and which showed his washing strung up to dry. I think his slight embarrassment at the scene was tinged with a pride that his life was being documented by someone with an interest in salmon fishing.

Walter's untimely death will leave a void in his family, his local community around Dalbeattie and will be a blow to the Association. My thoughts are with them all.

To see more images from Walter Davidson's fishery, please visit http://colinmcpherson.photoshelter.com/gallery/Scotlands-Salmon-Netsmen-mono/G0000IFcgnV925os/P0000QI4jtfd31nE

Buy this for Christmas!

Never mind Shane MacGowan and three Irish priests. Never mind dreary re-runs of previous Christmas number ones. Who wants more Merry-bloody-Christmas Everybody screaming at you when we can have... 'Silent Night" by Caroline England and Marcus Alman?

Buy it for yourself, buy it for a relative, buy it for a friend and enjoy a soft and sympathetic rendition of a timeless classic that will truly put you in the Yuletide spirit.

Available from all good downloads sites, especially iTunes.

http://itunes.apple.com/gb/album/silent-night-single/id409044660