News items - ffoton

The common focus is the site of the Lady Windsor Colliery and its future. Each contributor brings their own expertise, including photography, industrial archaeology, social history, illustration & storytelling, fine art, ecology and surveying. The aim is to both inform and stimulate given the backdrop of the site’s industrial life between 1886 and 1988 and provoke fresh ideas in the context of today’s challenges; in particular, climate emergency.

Dr Steven Murray has been recording the Lady Windsor Colliery site for 14 years and finds a mosaic of biodiversity, an accidental haven for wildlife at a small scale. His macro photographic landscapes across this tapestry of habitats are displayed much enlarged, but the originals can still be spotted by the naked eye. Steven works as a Science Teacher in Beddau.

Listen to Steven discussing his work and images for this project below…

You can follow the Valley Ffocws collective and their progress on Twitter @valleyffocws2
Or contact Julie Cook at: [email protected]

Original Valley Ffocws piece shared here in Ffoton News on 12 March 2021

Click the image to download 2-page brief as PDF file

Ynysybwl is in many ways a typical valleys village with the Former Lady Windsor Colliery (closed 1988) at its core. The historical names of the fields also tell us that this site was also once a calf field and in the surrounding area there were apple fields, pasture, woods, a cottage garden and croft. However it is the recent past that dominates the heart of the community as its reason to be: people living, working and dying for the coal industry. Today there is little evidence of this history and the colliery site lies eerily vacant, whist finding a new use as a community facility; a site for leisure activities. It has also matured into a diverse landscape and a haven for wildlife. We support the notion that it could be ‘saved as nothing’; hence, biodiversity might flourish beyond human intervention.

The site is currently threatened by development by Persimmon Homes and proposals have been moving forward with very little consultation with the community.

THE PROJECT

To bring together photographers/artists/writers to make work on and around the former colliery site to include issues around history, geology, nature and community. The outcome could take a number of forms with activism and institutional change at its heart.

Julie Cook is leading the project and anyone interested can contact her via details provided in the document opposite.

@valleyffocws on Twitter

Facebook Group

Eyelevel Gallery’s first exhibition features work by photographer Philip Butler titled ‘Small Hours’.

Inspired by the 1977 John Martyn track of the same name - a brooding nocturnal soundscape recorded across a lake at 3 a.m. - Small Hours is a collection of photographs produced to document the peaceful cinematic atmosphere that isolated points of artificial light create after the sun has set. Captured in and around his small hometown of Malvern, Butler wandered the streets after dark searching for inspiration.

His photographs have been published in a number of different magazines and newspapers including C20 Magazine, RPS Journal, La Vangaurdia, Digital Camera, The Modernist and The Guardian.

Ffoton’s Brian Carroll spoke with Eyelevel Gallery curator Adrian about Small Hours, the inspiration to create the new website, its aims and submission guidelines for photographers interested in having work featured. Listen to their conversation in the audio below.

Philip Butler’s Small Hours photobook

Eyelevel Gallery opens its virtual doors to the public on Saturday 20 February 2021 at www.eyelevelgallery.co.uk

The Small Hours exhibition us free to view and runs 20 February - 1 May 2021. A selection of prints are also available for sale on the site.

You can view more of Philip Butler’s work on his website > www.philipbutlerphotography.com
The Small Hours photobook is available via the ADM Publishing online store > www.artdecomagpie.bigcartel.com

You can listen to John Martyn’s atmospheric Small Hours free on Spotify here >

Ffoton’s Emyr Young talks with DocCymru photographers Rhodri Jones, Kristina Banholzer, Roger Tiley and Glenn Edwards about their new documentary project in Wales and what it aims to achieve over the next three years.

Follow the photographers and development of the project on Twitter @DocCymru24

© 2021 Ffoton

l-r: photographer John Briggs, writer Peter Finch, and event Chair - novelist and literary critic Grahame Davies

The authors describing some of the more interesting walks around Cardiff. Image © Brian Carroll

The animated Peter Finch describing the ‘psychic centre’ of Cardiff with photographer John Briggs capturing the moment. Image © Brian Carroll

To mark the launch of the new book, Seren hosted a free event in Jurys Hotel in Cardiff bringing together author Peter Finch and photographer John Briggs in conversation with Grahame Davies.

Our thanks to the authors and Seren Books for agreeing to record the event.

You can find out more about the book on Seren’s website - www.serenbooks.com

James was joined in conversation by writer and poet Damian Gorman, who also discussed his own work where he has tried to test if (and how) the written word, especially poetry, might have anything to offer at all in situations of real ongoing violence and civil unrest.

Photographer James Morris speaking in Machynlleth. Image © Brian Carroll

Writer & Poet Damian Gorman in conversation with James Morris. Image Copyright © Brian Carroll

Listen to the talk and audience Q&A below. Many thanks to James and Damian for allowing Ffoton to record their discussion.

James’ work was exhibited in Ffotogaleri y Gofeb as Time and Remains of Palestine - a selection of work conceived by the photographer during a period of time he spent in Israel and Palestine, and was open to the public (free) from 11 June until 5 October 2019.

You can find out more about the latest Ffotogaleri y Gofeb events and exhibitions via their website:
www.ffotogaleriygofeb.co.uk

If you didn’t have an invite, you’ll have missed the opening speeches by new Chair of their Board of Trustees Mathew Talfan and current Director David Drake. So we recorded it for posterity.

Congratulations to the Ffotogallery team on securing a home and new gallery space - and for the initial refurbishment efforts to create an immediately useable gallery and library space.

“The beginning of a new chapter…”

Ffoton believes it important that all photographers in Wales have a listen and keep track of actual delivery on the many aspirational goals mentioned in the recording since, in their own words…
“Ffotogallery is the national development agency for photography and lens-based media in Wales”.
This self-ascribed title attracts £199,472.00 of Welsh Government public funding via Arts Council Wales* - so it’s important that photographers across Wales share in the benefits of this funding annually.

Pay attention folks.

*source: latest Ffotogallery Accounts to 31 March 2018 on Charity Commission website (worth a read)

Photography talk at Ffotogaleri y Gofeb in Machynlleth 30 March 2019 by group exhibition photographers John Blakemore, Pete Davis, Marian Delyth, Peter Cattrell and Aled Rhys Hughes.

Jon Pountney (right) introduces the South Wales Project and fellow members Anna Jones and Siôn Marshall-Waters.

Anna Jones describing some of her work as family members look on.

Formed late 2018 by photographers Jon Pountney, Dan Wood, Rebecca Thomas, Anna Jones and Siôn Marshall-Waters - the South Wales Project announced they would hold a forum on Saturday 13 April 2019 in Ynyshir to explain more about their plans do document the South Wales Valleys and also provide information on how other photographers could contribute to the project.

The above recording was made on the day alongside a recording of Paul Cabuts CHAPEL talk in The Workers Gallery in Ynyshir. The South Wales Project also feature alongside six other photography Collectives in a six page article in Offline Journal Issue #2, published April 2019.

You can follow developments on The South Wales Project and their work via Instagram and Twitter

Photographer Paul Cabuts presenting his CHAPEL talk in The Workers Gallery, Ynyshir

Ffoton had the pleasure of being amongst a large and friendly audience to hear Paul Cabuts give a talk on his Chapel photography. The full text of Paul’s talk is available on his website here >
Thanks to Paul for allowing us to record the talk and present it here.

Paul Cabuts presenting his talk

Gayle Rogers from The Workers Gallery tells the audience of the work and facilities offered by the Gallery to the local community before introducing Paul.

CHAPEL documented in the South Wales valleys by photographer, educator and writer Paul Cabuts runs:
4 April - 18 May 2019. Free entry

WORKERS GALLERY
99 Ynyshir Road, Porth, Wales, CF39 0EN

Check the Workers Gallery website for location details and opening times: www.workersgallery.co.uk

Ffoton’s Brian Carroll spoke with Course Leader Peter Britton to find out more about the course and project.

Exhibition venue - Senedd, Cardiff Bay. Image © Brian Carroll

Peter Britton, Course Leader, Foundation Photography at Coleg Gwent. Image © Brian Carroll

Find out more about the Foundation course on Coleg Gwent’s website www.coleggwent.ac.uk

Valleys Legacy project Images © Coleg Gwent and respective students - used on Ffoton with permission.
Ffoton News images © Brian Carroll