by Tim Gander

From BTS to ECG, MRI to ICB – it’s all happening here!

First of all, apologies for the extended radio silence, I’ve been having an unusually busy time. There are reasons behind this which I will save for another time, another blog post.

Suffice to say, Google might have been disappointed by my lack of posting; my handful of loyal readers on the other hand might have enjoyed the quiet.

While much of my recent photography work hasn’t lent itself to sharing, there is one completed project worth a mention: a series of images taken around the local(ish) area of newly-installed Community Diagnostics Centres. This is work I’ve undertaken for NHS Bath and North East Somerset, Swindon and Wiltshire Integrated Care Board.

The brief was to visit the various hospitals and health centres in Bath, Salisbury and Swindon where new diagnostics facilities have been set up so patients don’t have to travel so far for MRI scans, respiratory tests, CT scans and the like. It’s a multimillion pound investment making testing facilities more accessible to a greater number of people.

What is always rather fun these days is when I’m asked if a few Behind The Scenes (BTS) photos are ok. This usually involves me being photographed while I’m setting up and taking pictures.

I’m fine with this as it helps the client with their social media, and most are happy to give me a mention too.

This set includes the BTS photo followed by the shot I was setting up, and a couple of further images taken during my visit to the rather swanky Sulis Hospital in Peasedown St John near Bath.

 

A medical nurse sits at a electrocardiogram (ECG) machine while a photographer adjusts the medical light behind her. The photographer's camera is on a tripod in the foreground.
I'm gracefully reaching across to adjust the light.
A clinical nurse sits at an electrocardiogram (ECG) machine, looking at the screen and operating the controls. There is an examination bed in the background.
One of the results of my set-up to photograph the ECG machine.
The Sulis Hospital Bath reception area with comfy seating, reception desk and hanging net curtains designed to bring light into the space. I blurred nurse is walking through the scene.
The reception area at Sulis, Bath.
A male patient is on the MRI bed wearing a hospital gown and the head scanner piece. A female nurse is standing the other side of the bed operating the controls.
To avoid my equipment damaging the MRI, I could only take this shot from the doorway.
Screengrab from the News page of the NHS BANES Swindon and Wiltshire ICB website showing the announcement of the multi-million-pound investment in new community diagnostics centres
The client was able to quickly update their news page with one of the images from the set.
in Case Studies / corporate communications / My News 0 comments
 by Tim Gander

Going for G-old

Have you been watching the Paris Olympics? Like most big events that I’d like to see (Wimbledon being the annual classic), I usually miss the whole shebang.

This year though, I’ve managed to carve out a little time to catch a bit of the cycling and swimming – the two areas of sport I’m most interested in.

In particular with the swimming, I’ve been trying to pick up some clues for improving my personal performance in the pool. Well, let’s say that’s a work in progress. Most of the athletes have a 40-year advantage on me. Plus they swim every day (for several hours) and spend hours in the gym when they’re not in the pool. I mean really, it’s cheating!

Of course their performances are also enhanced by things like, I dunno, raw talent. They’re coached in techniques to the nth degree, drilled until they want to cry and many have been swimming since early childhood.

Contrast this with my “swimming career”; I left school with only a basic breast stroke, and no real drive to improve even that. As for front crawl (for the Americans reading this, that’s freestyle), until a few months ago, I couldn’t even get off the side of the pool. I was, in short, a drowning windmill.

However since rediscovering the joy of swimming while on holiday last year, I’ve signed up to regular sessions at my local pool, where my breast stroke has blossomed, and I’ve taken lessons in front crawl. I can now just about manage 50m without feeling sick, which is a huge step up from where I was around three months ago.

So why am I wanging on about the Olympics and my swimming now? Well of course it’s so I can shamelessly showcase the fact that 16 years ago, I had the honour of photographing double gold medal swimmer Rebecca Adlington (Becky) when she came to the University of Bath in 2008 to help launch the Youth Olympics.

There is a little more to this tale (not much tho) than just wanting to share an archive photo.

Bearing in mind Becky had only just achieved this huge success in the Beijing Olympics that same year, the attention she received would have been a whole new experience and perhaps slightly disconcerting.

As we settled into one of the university’s lecture theatres for a press call, I was just checking my focus and exposure on Becky when she leaned in to the person sitting next to her and said, “I suppose I’ll have to get used to this,” meaning “being photographed”.

As she sat straight again, she looked directly down my camera lens, and I took the shot you see here.

Becky Adlington looks directly down the barrel of my lens.
Double gold-medal swimmer Rebecca Adlington holds her two gold medals while looking to camera.
Becky Adlington holds the two medals she won at the Beijing 2008 Olympics.

The comment didn’t strike me as anything more than a very matter-of-fact observation of how her life would change; there was nothing hostile in her tone, and she posed patiently and with good humour for more pictures after the sit-down press conference.

Becky’s career beyond the pool has flourished. Clearly, she got “used to this” a long while ago. I doubt she remembers that moment or her comment back in 2008, but for some reason it always stuck with me. Perhaps because I care how someone feels in front of my camera, even if I’m just doing my job.

On that day, we were both there to do a job. I’m still a photographer, Becky is still in the media spotlight and seeing her presenting from Paris 2024 alongside Clare Balding and Mark Foster reminded me of this one moment.

In the meantime, I’m going to continue with my own swimming career, though I’m not expecting to slip into professional swimming any time soon. That ship might have sailed unless there’s a VERY senior league out there?

 

in My News / Personal Opinion / photographer / press release photography 0 comments
 by Tim Gander

Case Study

When an old photo of my lighting kit popped up in my Facebook memories, the first thing I spotted was the bottle of wine. Of course it was. Not only did it remind me of the generosity of a particular client at the time, but it also sparked an idea to write an article about how kit has changed over time. So I took a photo of my kit today to compare and contrast.

Picture 1 was taken in 2015 and shows (apart from the wine) my portable studio flash lighting equipment of that era (in fact, this kit was already several years old by then).

Sadly the photo was already cropped square, so I can’t tell you what was in the rest of the bag; I’m guessing you’d see the second flash head, a spare battery and some other bits and pieces. I clearly took the photo for the purpose of showing off the bottle of wine I’d been given.

So, apart from the wine (shut up about the wine now, Tim), what else is different? Let’s go through some of the components in the bag, and then compare them with today’s kit in Picture 2. I’ve made these pictures BIG so you can see the labels.

Photo 1
View inside a camera case showing two Godox portable studio flash heads and associated accessories.
Photo 2

At the top-left in Picture 1, you’ll see a trigger and receiver. Nothing remarkable there, except today’s receivers are built into the flash heads themselves. This saves having to Velcro a trigger to the back of the head and rely on a cable to send the firing signal to the flash. It’s a little bit tidier now.

The other disadvantage of the old system was that you could only adjust the power of the flash head by walking up to the controller pack and turning a dial. Modern units can be controlled from the camera, which saves a lot of time and back-and-forth.

This old kit was pretty revolutionary in its day. It was the first properly powerful, affordable kit that ran off batteries. It could be used outdoors and the light could be adjusted through softboxes, umbrellas or any number of other modifiers to achieve a particular look.

But technology moves on, and its main disadvantages over my current kit are power and control. The kit in Picture 2 is at least 50% more powerful than the kit it replaced. This might not seem that much, but it makes a big difference in photographic terms. The more modern design also has the advantage that each flash head is independently controllable from the other, and the increments of control are far finer than with the old kit.

The other disadvantage of the older kit was the build quality. The manufacturer, Lumedyne, is US-based and their kit looks and feels as though it’s been built by keen mechanics in a shed. Sometimes not all that well either. I remember screws dropping out, a control knob falling off and on one occasion, a loud POP! and a puff of blue smoke as an internal component blew up.

I probably had that kit for a decade though, and while it was expensive at the time, it more than paid for itself.

Thankfully, I’ve had the newer kit (made by Godox) for almost as long already, and it’s not showing any signs of ageing. I’ve added an extra spare battery as one of the originals isn’t taking a charge as well as it used to, but that’s about it.

Apart from technological advances, the other reason I switched to Godox was because Lumedyne is no longer distributed in the UK, so replacing parts or expanding the kit would be difficult.

Possibly more impressive than any of the technical advances of the contents is the case itself. Both flash kits have been safely transported inside the same LowePro Pro Roller 2 case, which must now be circa 20 years old. About a year ago, I finally replaced the wheels but apart from that this case just keeps… rolling.

The wine, sadly, is a distant memory, but good quality wine is readily available in several outlets. So next time I work with you, have a peek inside my rolling camera case while my back is turned. If there’s a wine bottle-shaped space in there, feel free to pop something nice in, like a Tempranillo or a Malbec. Some technology never really needs updating, just replenishing.

 

in Case Studies / My News / photographer / photography 0 comments
 by Tim Gander

Who’s Afraid of False Reports?

What will you be doing this weekend? Don’t tell me, I don’t care because I’m going to be buried in Stephen Leslie’s book, just released, called Mostly False Reports.

If you don’t know Leslie’s work, I’m not talking about Virginia Woolf’s father (also a Stephen Leslie) who died, oh I dunno, quite a long time ago. No, this is London-based film director, screenwriter, and street photographer Stephen Leslie. He’s still very much alive.

I’m not a huge fan of street photography, so I’m very picky about who within that genre I follow or take note of. Leslie is one of them. Dougie Wallace and Matt Stuart also spring to mind (I realise there are no female photographers in there so if someone can point me their way I’d love to see that perspective too).

For the life of me, I can’t remember exactly how Leslie’s work showed up on my radar, probably through Instagram, but however it was, my interest in his work was cemented through his YouTube channel where he posts excellent if occasional videos focusing on photographic themes or specific photographers. His knowledge of photography, its practitioners, and history is impressive, but he rarely speaks of his own work.

Photo of Stephen Leslie's new book, Mostly False Reports.
Get copies of Mostly False Reports before it sells out...

What Leslie does with his images, exemplified in his latest book, is to compose made-up narratives around the photos he’s taken. The images already benefit from Leslie’s often witty, observational style, but the additional twist of his text, usually in the style of a very short story, delivers yet another layer. Not all the narratives are entirely false, so the reader is left to consider what is true and what is false.

Others will be better equipped to critique this book with more skill than I possess, but without wishing to appear arse-licky I think it’s brilliant. The photography is quirky and entertaining, even thought-provoking (as only the best street photography is). It has a high-quality feel, the design is simple and elegant and the effort and attention to detail are clear.

So you do your thing this weekend, I’m going to be curled up with this book until I’ve been through it cover-to-cover (and possibly back again).

If you’d like your own copy, you’ll have to hope it goes on general sale at some point because so far it’s only been available through the Kickstarter campaign which brought it to fruition. There’s no point asking to buy my copy, it’s not for sale! EDIT: Contact Stephen directly to order your copy. Scroll to the bottom of the page on this link for his contact form.

Have a great weekend

in Industry Comment / My News / Reviews 1 comments
 by Tim Gander

Carry On Lurking

Social media is a funny old place. I can post images to my Instagram account, Facebook, Threads, X… (to be honest, the list is starting to become overwhelming) and see very little activity. Likes elude me.

For the most part I ascribe this tumbleweed reaction to a couple of issues. Firstly, many people are a bit tired and bored of social media. It’s been around a while and the novelty has long worn off.

The next aspect I would describe as Like Fatigue. I’ve experienced Like Fatigue myself, and it’s when you scroll through a feed, see something you like, but don’t feel compelled to ‘Like’ it with a press of the thumbs-up, heart or whatever. It just seems like too much effort!

People are busier than ever. We all have lives to live, jobs to hold down and commitments beyond the digital sphere. Even if we have time for social media, it’s more limited than ever before. This not only follows on to my next point, but also circles back to what I alluded to in my opening line – there’s just too much choice!

Due to lack of time, not only can I not always hit every channel with every picture I take, but audiences drift between SM platforms and might not see what I’ve posted (boohoo me, I know).

Then there’s the dead hand of the algorithm. I’ve lost count of the people I’ve lost track of because the algorithm no longer serves up their posts in my feed. Sometimes I’ll suddenly remember someone whose work I used to like and I have to go and search them out to see if they’ve posted anything I’ve missed. I’m sure I have followers who’ve had a similar experience of losing track of me due to algorithm constipation.

But there is one group who have always existed; the Lurkers. Right from the very start of my Social Media dealings I’ve known there were people who saw my posts, enjoyed them, but never Liked or commented on them. I would be oblivious that they’d seen them at all. Then one day I’ll be on a corporate job, or shooting some PR event, and someone will come to me to tell me in person how much they enjoy my personal project work. Indeed I’ve even had bookings as a result of what someone has seen!

I also suspect some clients book me because my Social Media postings of my personal work have helped to keep me in their minds when it came to booking a photographer.

Bear in mind, the work I post on social media has little in common with my client work, but it clearly has the effect of engaging clients and reminding them that I exist. I’m also convinced it shows people a different side to my work, and they enjoy that.

A stack of round, plastic-wrapped hay bales sitting on scrub grass with sky above and the words Keep Off spray-painted on the a bale in the centre of the photo.
20th October 2023 - Hay bales near Tank Crossing C, Salisbury Plain, Wiltshire.
Foliage sprouts from a farm field post which bears a sign reading Sched 1. Clouds mimic the billowing shape of the foliage.
20th October 2023 - Sched 1 sign near Tank Crossing C, Salisbury Plain, Wiltshire.

This last point is a small, subtle, but significant one to me. Shooting personal work can often feel isolating and even pointless. It can also feel self-indulgent to go off and spend time on what might be called non-business work, but because it acts as a soft marketing tool, it’s a mistake to assume it has little value.

While it’s lovely to see a post get Likes and attention from followers, it’s too easy to dismiss my lurkers. So I want to thank them and let them know I appreciate them. I understand there may be many reasons they don’t tap the heart icon, or give my work the thumbs-up, but that’s ok.

My lurkers probably outnumber my active followers, but in my (non-scientific) reckoning they’re also more likely to be clients, or they’re more likely to recommend me to new clients. So I’m absolutely not going to complain about their apparent passivity.

Lurkers, I thank you and you are welcome to lurk all you like. I know you’re there and that’s all that really matters. So as Kenneth Williams never said, “Carry On Lurking!”

in Industry Comment / My News / Personal Opinion 0 comments
 by Tim Gander

Mind Your Language

It is often said photography is a language which communicates across multiple cultures. Well this is true, to a point, but like all languages it can also be misunderstood.

Like any language, photography can be used badly, in the wrong context or just carelessly. In fact one thing we were taught during news photography training (in my case, back in 1992!) was that context is incredibly important. A photo which is perfectly innocent in one context can be offensive, even libellous in another. It’s often down to the words accompanying a picture, but it could include the wider context too – what other pictures are placed alongside it, a headline or even the publication in which a picture appears.

But back to photography as a language…

This Summer I’ve been on a bit of a whistle-stop tour. I was in Co Durham to spend time with my brother and sister-in-law, then off to Austria to for a few days with my sister, and after a week back home I was off again, this time to Brittany for a ‘proper’ holiday with my wife.

In each case I took a film camera with me, and in each case I responded differently to my surroundings. With Brittany I took the decision to keep the photography much more casual, otherwise I would have had no real holiday at all. Ok, I did take a small film camera, but I haven’t processed the films yet and I was pretty pleased with some of the iPhone photos I shot there.

Actually, I also only had a small film camera with me in Austria too, but I put more effort into finding pictures which interested me beyond just the snap. For Co Durham I had a ‘proper’ camera; a Mamiya 6 medium format film camera.

Beyond all this blah blah about film cameras vs iPhones, what’s interesting is how each location had a different effect.

For Co Durham I’d made the decision I was going to visit a couple of areas which were documented by Mark Power in his excellent book The Shipping Forecast (buy it if you have any interest in what photography CAN be). So I spent a very wet day visiting Seaham, Easington Colliery and (in addition to Mark’s locations for sea area Tyne), Peterlee.

I came away with pictures which say something about those areas – I’m always more interested in making photos which describe how a place feels rather than just how it looks.

The ‘problem’ with taking pictures in places like Innsbruck, Austria, or around Côte Sauvage, Brittany, is they’re just very beautiful places. You really have to work (and walk) to get to where the shine is not so shiny. For Brittany this just wasn’t going to happen anyway, but I still see a reaction to my surroundings in the photos I took. There was still some kind of essence of Brittany in my shots, but you can see that as my travels progressed from Co Durham to Austria to Brittany, my approach changed. Frankly, in Austria I failed to get anything other than fairly typical tourist shots, but I did try!

I’m just going to share a handful of images with you, and perhaps you’ll see better what I mean about the different reactions to each location. After all, if photography is a language, it’s probably best if I let it speak for itself.

Sea glass collector, Seaham, Co Durham - August 2023
Peterlee housing estate, Co Durham - August 2023
Gasthaus Goldenes Dachl, Innsbruck, Austria - August 2023
From the top of Nordkette, Innsbruck, Austria - August 2023
Café Des Sports, Le Croisic, Brittany, France - September 2023
Lifeguard station on the Brittany coast - September 2023

 

in My News / Personal Work 2 comments
 by Tim Gander

I’m Still Alive!

Gosh, I have been a bit slack – I haven’t posted here since King Charles III came to the throne! Well sometimes life just runs away from you, then you get out of the habit. Before you know it, well here we are…

What started this un-planned hiatus was a thing called Photo|Frome (see photofrome.org if you haven’t heard of it). Being in charge of outdoor exhibitions meant I had no time in the run-up to the launch on June 24th to write anything anywhere.

To be fair, the result of all the hard work stunned even cynical ol’ me. Here’s a bit of a tale about it all.

Working closely with Italian photographic collective T House (Hugo Weber, Alex Zoboli and Angelo Leonardo), we achieved a first for Frome. We took over an entire outside wall of Frome Library and covered it in vinyl prints from our various projects (one project from each of us). The photos below barely do it justice, but you get a better idea of what I’m talking about.

High view looking down on the vinyl prints laid out on the ground.
The vinyl prints laid out on the ground as we planned how to get them up.
L-R: Alex Zoboli, Angelo Leonardo and Hugo Weber wearing high-vis vests and discussing how to install the prints. Hugo is carrying a large wooden cross which was part of our installation method.
L-R: Alex Zoboli, Angelo Leonardo and Hugo Weber discuss how we're going to get the 6 metre wide vinyls up. The 'crucifix' was Hugo's brilliant solution.
Wide view of the Frome Library showing some of the vinyl prints already installed and Alex with Alex and me working on the scissor lift.
The library installation happening with myself and Alex working using the scissor lift.
The finished library installation.
The finished installation.
Selfie of me on the left and my son Joe taken on the scissor lift at full height as we work to uninstall the vinyl prints. Joe is doffing the peak of his hard hat and holding a cardboard tube we used to roll up the banner images.
Me and Joe at the top of the scissor lift on the day of the take-down.
Exterior view of Frome Library after the images have been removed again.
Back to blank. The library is restored to its former blandness.

While T House specialise in outdoor exhibitions of photographic works, they tend to work using large paper-based posters applied directly to walls. In the case of Frome Library we had to work differently due to the uneven surface we were dealing with. We needed to use vinyl prints mounted on timber frames screwed to the building wall. This was not going to be easypeasy!

Famous artists have minions install their work for them; in our case this was definitely a DIY affair.

T House organised the artwork and printing of the vinyls, while from my end I organised liaison with the library manager, measuring the building, ordering the timber, fixings, scissor lift and general logistics (none of which I’d ever done before, so somewhat daunting). To be fair, T House had the tougher job in curating the work and dealing with me and my constant doubts about what we could/couldn’t do.

Installation took two of the hottest days of the year to complete, but the effect was powerful. I was worried locals and visitors wouldn’t ‘get it’ or like it, or have any reaction at all, but there was a full spectrum of reactions – none of which involved just ignoring the work, so that was a major achievement. The giant portrait of Monika was a particularly popular selfie spot.

As if that wasn’t enough, I also commandeered some 60 metres of perimeter hoardings at Saxonvale in Frome. This is a place many of you will know that I documented between 2017 and 2019 (which became the book What Happened Here). It was the perfect place to show our combined projects, continuations of the images we installed at the library.

The only slight concern was that this part of our exhibition was being undertaken without permission of the landowner, Somerset Council. However I calculated that it would take longer than the three week run of the festival for anyone to raise a complaint and anything to come from that. I was correct, and in fact nobody complained. We even gave Somerset Council a name-check on the information panel, so it looked official (sneaky!)

T House set about curating the images for this second mammoth installation. This time working with 2 metre by 1.4 metre poster paper sheets, they stapled images from each of our projects as far along the hoardings as we could go before running out of posters.

It took another two, hot days to get this work up, but removal commenced a bit sooner than we’d anticipated as our installation antagonised some of the local graffiti artists by covering their art. Less than 12 hours after the posters went up, they were sprayed, tagged and torn. But that was ok, it meant the work got far more exposure than we could have hoped for, and the ‘intervention’ became part of the narrative of the installation. None of this was planned, but it was all good. Some visitors were even taking fragments of poster away with them as keepsakes!

Alex, Hugo and Angelo hold a poster in place and staple it to the wooden hoardings.
Alex, Hugo and Angelo get busy with the stapler.
A female visitor looks at one section of the Saxonvale installation.
Within moments of finishing the installation and we have our first "gallery" visitor.
Photographer Tim Gander sits on the pavement in front of his print which is stapled to the hoardings. The photo behind him depicts the flames and smoke of a burning caravan.
I was so proud to see my work here. Alby's caravan on fire from What Happened Here.
A section of the poster installation showing the graffiti the day after we finished.
The day after installation, the posters are sprayed and torn, but it worked well with the theme.

 

Three weeks after all this effort, and it was time to un-install everything. To be fair, the graffiti artists and the weather did most of the work for us at Saxonvale, but the library show needed to come down in a more controlled manner.

This time I didn’t have a team of three highly-caffeinated Italians, but my son Joe stepped in and we got the lot down safely in one long (sometimes excessively wet) day.

It would be easy to question the value of all this effort, but I know that what we did had a huge impact locally. It was also a big hit with the many thousands of national and international visitors to the Photo|Frome festival. On a personal level I now have three very special Italian friends whose enthusiasm, professionalism and the sheer exchange of ideas has helped me enormously. I’m very much looking forward to working with T House again.

So having not posted for a few weeks, this one has turned into something of a marathon essay. I haven’t even touched on the wider Photo|Frome festival (which really was a very special thing), or my involvement in the various aspects of it. Nor have I mentioned any of the client work which of course carried on over that period.

To say I was a little burned out after all that would be an understatement, but I’m now looking forward to a period of breaks and holiday time in the coming weeks. That will mean another interruption to my blogging, but I’m hoping to get more regular again in September.

For now, have yourself a splendid Summer and I’ll see you again soon!

in My News / Personal Work 1 comments
 by Tim Gander

Bye Bye 2022

What. A. Year!

It’s fair to say 2022 has been a bastard. I don’t even want to list the reasons here because it’s too depressing, we all know what I mean.

So perhaps it’s unsurprising if I feel a little guilty that I’m sitting here in a (relatively) warm home, with food in the cupboards while I look back on what has been an unexpectedly successful year for me. But feeling guilty isn’t constructive, so I need to do more in 2023 to give and give back where it can help others. I did some of this in 2022 and hope to do more 2023.

2022’s Achievements (and disappointments)

Before writing this, I checked what goals I’d set for 2022 to see if I’d achieved any of them. It turns out, I didn’t set much in the way of targets, but there was a vague hint in that post about something big.

That ‘something big’ was getting my book What Happened Here designed and launched in time for Photo|Frome in June, which I just about managed. Sadly, for the official launch I caught covid and had to bail out, which didn’t help initial sales of the book. However, it’s been going steadily ever since and even my local bookshop were keen to stock it! So now people can buy online from me, or walk into Winstone’s Hunting Raven in Frome and purchase a softcover copy in-person.

Photo|Frome 2023

Photo|Frome 2022 was a huge success, and while I did what I could to help with setting up, not long after launch I was under quarantine so missed most of the festival. We’re already working hard to make Photo|Frome 2023 happen, but finding cash for an event in the teeth of a recession will be no small task. If you’re able to help, do drop me a line!

What Else in 2023

My hope is that having diversified into video during lockdown, this recession might not hit me as hard as previous ones have. Businesses actively wanting to ride out the storm will need a combination of stills and video for their marketing. Being able to offer both is a huge advantage. Of course I can’t predict how much it’ll help, but I’m glad I have the additional skill now.

And Finally…

I’m going to leave you with a smattering of 2022 images, all from personal projects and trips made this year. They illustrate my key photographic interests when not on commission.

It just remains for me to wish you all a super Christmas and all the very best for the coming year. Let’s hope that in 2023 Putin is deposed, the Iranian government is replaced by people who understand civility and China stops acting like a petulant toddler.

Oh and thank you, in what ever way you’ve supported me over the past 12 months. It doesn’t go unnoticed!

Black and white portrait of musician Ralph Stelzenmüller looking to camera with organ pipes in the background.
February - A short break to see friends in Switzerland, including the highly talented musician Ralph Stelzenmüller
Installation of screens bolted together and facing a gallery wall reflecting back the different colours within each unit.
August - A trip to Compton Verney in Warwickshire to see work by David Batchelor
Outdoor photographer self portrait of Tim Gander holding his book What Happened Here
September - I put myself in front of the camera to promote my book
Square black and white minimalist landscape photograph taken near Chitterne, Wiltshire, with dark clouds above an undulating grass landscape
November - I manage a rare trip to Salisbury Plain to create a new landscape image
in My News / Personal Opinion / Personal Work 0 comments
 by Tim Gander

We’re Not “Post-Covid” yet

Looking at when I last posted here, it seems I’ve let things slip a bit. I hope you’ve missed me.

My excuse is I’ve been busy with work, a book, a photo festival and covid finally got me. Then I got over covid, and work came back with a vengeance.

Ok, a bit more detail to explain all this.

Since December 2021 I’ve been working on my first photo book, What Happened Here (the book of the Saxonvale project I shot between 2017 and 2019). I started work on the book when I agreed to be part of Photo|Frome. I was invited to be part of an exhibition and to present a talk on What Happened Here, which meant I really needed to have the book in place for the festival.

Putting a book together isn’t easy if you want it to be the best it can be, and never having done a book before made this an even more challenging kind of challenge. However, I worked with designer Victoria Yates for the book layout and colours, and graphic designer Nik Jones who produced a map to help tell the story.

Then as Photo|Frome approached I got involved with planning my talk as well as another event I was to be involved with, a conversation with documentary and portrait photographer John Angerson. All this while work continued to roll in.

But just as the festival got underway, John caught covid and had to pull out of his talk. Then I got covid and had to cancel mine. It was all a bit of a mess really, and deeply disappointing.

screenshot of photofrome website homepage
Screenshot of the Photo|Frome website

 

What I haven’t been disappointed by is the success of photo|frome. Although I wasn’t one of the main organisers, I did jump in to help and support as much as I could (cut short only by my testing positive for Covid for 10 days). The festival was testament to the need for high-quality talks and exhibitions around photography, and there’s little outside London that caters to such a broad range of people as Frome’s festival did. The plan is to make it even bigger next year and they’ve already got national and international photographers lined up.

Equally encouraging has been the reception my book has received. I had people reserving copies before it was even printed. I expected to sell the majority of the books at my talk, but sales have been steady even without that. And because the book is very limited edition (just 50 hardback copies and 100 softcover versions), there’s a risk that by the time I come to reschedule the talk, the books might already be sold out.

So there you have it. I think it’s fair to say I’ve been a bit preoccupied lately and that’s not going to change drastically in the next few weeks at least.

I have my talk to reschedule, client work to handle and I’m also painfully aware just how neglected my current personal project on Salisbury Plain has been. I need to get back to that before it keels over completely.

In the meantime, if you’d like to support my personal work, and be the proud owner of a very limited edition photo book, head over here to purchase your copy of What Happened Here. Every copy I sell justifies all the stress and hard work just that little bit more.

Thank you,

Tim

in My News / Personal Work 0 comments
 by Tim Gander

Hacked Off

Ukrainian flag
are hackers Putin's virtual invaders?

Is Putin’s War the Cause?

It’s possible I’m turning into a conspiracy theorist, but having had my website hacked twice in two weeks, each time within hours of tweeting something derogatory about Putin and his invasion of Ukraine, I have had to wonder if there wasn’t a connection.

Even if it’s un-related, it’s been a complete pain in the !@*^# to sort out. It has disrupted my schedule and soaked up my time; I’ve had to postpone blogging for two weeks, I’ve postponed much-needed updates to my website, I’ve been trying to compose the text for my book What Happened Here as well as handle client enquiries and prepare for up-coming work. All this has been disrupted while I tackled the situation.

All that might sound trivial, and of course compared with the horrors being inflicted on Ukrainians by Putin’s invasion, it is indeed piffling. But if these hacks do have tentacles reaching back to The Kremlin, that would make them part of Putin’s war effort. Ok, perhaps that’s going too far. If it’s a theory with any legs at all, it could simply be part of a mass, un-targeted attack on any IT vulnerabilities the hackers can find, regardless of their importance.

Impact on the Sole Trader

The impact of these hacks is also greatest on those of us who operate as sole traders and freelancers because we don’t have large resources to fight back. Even with outside help, we’re having to be there liaising and dealing with the situation. We can’t just hand the problem off and go and do other tasks. If you’re a sole trader handling sensitive customer information through your website, it could be crippling.

Thankfully I did manage to get some help from my wonderful web design colleague Ben who finally got everything back to normal. I have now beefed up the security to a level which should keep the hackers out. Only time will tell.

And Just… WHY?!

Dismissing my earlier, possibly paranoid theories, it still begs the question of why my site. I haven’t the foggiest idea what the hackers wanted to achieve. There were malicious files found (now deleted), but there is no client database to compromise, no e-commerce aspect to the site. Presumably it was “just because we can” hackers.

Hacking is big now. It affects everyone. From personal Facebook accounts to huge corporate databases, everyone now has to spend more time battling hackers. We could be approaching a time when we’re spending more time using technology to sort out problems caused by technology (or more accurately, the misuse of technology) than we are using technology to assist our lives and livelihoods. Technology could be on the way to becoming a zero sum game.

Chain Reaction

Now I know this next conspiracy theory is straying into tin foil hat territory, but last weekend I was on a bike ride with my best friend. He commented that his blue and yellow bike was in the colours of Ukraine. Twenty minutes later, his rear gear mechanism packed up and his pedals would only free-spin. He couldn’t pedal anywhere and had to call his wife to come and pick him up. Coincidence? Or conspiracy? You decide!

in Industry Comment / My News 0 comments