Mixed media artist Typoe Gran talks about creating sculptures to excite the imagination on Miami’s Underline.
A New Sculpture Garden in Miami Built to Withstand Heat and Floods
F5: Jiminie Ha’s Book Plans, the Furniture That Changed Her Life + More
Jiminie Ha, founder of the award-winning creative agency, With Projects, Inc. didn’t experience a direct trajectory career-wise, which is what makes her story all the more compelling. “Despite growing up in an environment like Paris, I think my mom’s Italian Vogues laying around the house made the biggest impression on me,” she said. “I grew up looking at these incredible images created by photographers like Irving Penn, Richard Avedon, and Helmut Newton, but then really got into Guy Bourdin, Wolfgang Tillmans, Juergen Teller…anything that would starkly contrast my immediate decorative surroundings.”
“Music was hugely influential on me as well,” she added. “I was playing piano and violin for decades at that point and yet… only listened to punk music – Fugazi was my soundtrack! My 200 page senior thesis in college was all on race and subcultures in the punk scene of the 70s!”
Launching in 2012, with a collective background in fine arts, curation, creative direction, design, publishing, and fashion, With Projects, Inc. has developed relationships with a dynamic range of clients and collaborators as a result of its multidisciplinary practice. Their client list includes everything from large global rebrands to developing new brand strategies and systems for up and coming brands in the arts, culture, beauty, lifestyle, and fashion sectors.
Jiminie is also currently the Senior Director of Graphic Design at Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, overseeing the global re-branding of the Guggenheim Constellation and its new location in Abu Dhabi, as well as co-founder of a new art space built by Philip Johnson in 1949, Wolfhouse, located in a historic Philip Johnson house in Newburgh, New York. She’s a design talent, and busily spreading her expertise far and wide – to say the least.
As if three positions weren’t enough, Jiminie is the publisher of a limited-edition arts book series, White Zinfandel, which the New York Times described as “imagine if Marcel Duchamps guest edited Bon Appetit.” The book series can be found in permanent collections throughout the country.
“My career trajectory wasn’t an obvious one. Growing up in France, my parents were constantly taking us to museums and art institutions whenever they had the chance. My mother studied fashion and art, and was deeply passionate about her own creativity, but as a first generation immigrant, of course, that wasn’t the recommended path for my brother and I (ironically my brother too, went into architecture,)” Ha shared. “I was on a pre-law trajectory, double majored in International Relations and Ethnic Studies. During some time off, I ended up taking photography courses back home in Paris, fell in love with the medium, and kept taking classes back in college while finishing my degree.”
“After a couple years working in publishing, odd freelance jobs, internships, I landed an internship at 2×4 to work under Susan Sellers’ mentorship – it was definitely luck at that point since I had no formal training in graphic design, and had mostly been self-taught over the years working in NYC,” Ha continued. “That internship turned into a full-time job, and led to study at Yale School of Art’s three year graphic design MFA program. I learned a tremendous amount at 2×4 in those formative years, and coupled with art school, I began to really thrive in a setting I had always wanted to explore since I was a kid… There was a moment that I tried to fit the mold, but Susan gave some sage advice not forget my past experiences, but rather integrate them into my process to enrich and personalize the work I was producing. It was a turning point for me in how I began to develop my own voice, and in turn, started to gain recognition for my body of work.”
Jiminie has come a long way in her career and shows no signs of slowing down. Today, we’re happy to have her join us for Friday Five!
Going Dark exhibition visual identity at Guggenheim Museum, curated by Ashley James. Neon Green artwork in background © Sandra Mujinga Spectral Keepers, 2020. Photo: Jiminie Ha
As Senior Director of Graphic Design, it feels like I’ve come full circle and am returning to my roots by combining my love for art and design as I oversee exhibition identities, advertising, and the rebranding of the global brand.
Photo: Jiminie Ha
2. Neko
“Neko” means cat in Japanese. I hope one day I can develop a children’s book series called “Neko the Dog Named Cat” and celebrate being different.
Photo courtesy BBC
An incredible documentary by Adam Curtis that explores the hidden forces behind this era of sociopolitical chaos. I watch this once a year at this point to remind myself of how we got here.
Photo: Jiminie Ha
I am a water sign, and feel most at peace when I am nearby a body of water. It is where I can recharge. Recently, I went to this incredible boutique hotel with amazing sustainable architecture and food, and we made it just in time to whale watch.
Photo: Jiminie Ha
Best shelving system – changed my life for the better.
Work and Commentary by Jiminie Ha:
The Sterns are Listening by Jonathan Wells. Published by Ze Books, 2023. Designed in 2022. Working on a novel set in a time when CBGB’s was still around felt very close to my own passion for music and punk. I had interviewed Hilly Kristal, Ivan Julian/Voidoids, John Holmstrom/Punk Magazine in college for my thesis on race and subcultures in punk, so the manuscript inspired old punk flyers and collages. Collecting the ears of famous musicians for the cover art was a super fun process since the premise of the book revolves around a family saga and hearing loss.
Crozier 2018 Redesign and rebrand of Crozier, a global arts logistics company, recently acquired by Iron Mountain, one of the largest data storage companies in the US. The initial phase of the brand rollout of the entire rebrand covers Crozier’s overall identity, print collateral, wayfinding, digital, marketing, and strategy. The second brand rollout will strategize blockchain technology incorporation to the site and brand seamlessly.
Dazed Korea, 2017 Concept and art direction for Venus in Drapes, story shot by Catherine Servel. Due to South Korean censorship, nudity was not permitted in the publication. With Projects conceived of “censoring” the anatomy by sourcing public artworks that could cover the areas that were in question.
Harvard Design Magazine 2013-2021 Launched at the Venice Architecture Biennale 2014, with Jennifer Sigler at the helm as Editor-in-Chief and Leah Whitman-Salkin as Deputy Editor. The rebrand included HDM identity, digital presence, and on-going creative direction for 8 years.
Nonfiction 2018 Uncover Your Story We created a new beauty brand from scratch. In the sea of beauty products being launched everyday in South Korea, Nonfiction is one of the most recent success stories, reaching the pinnacle of KBeauty. The difference: A focus on the brand’s core narrative, developing a seamless connection between naming, brand strategy, product development, and creative execution.
Creative direction for Nonfiction, fall of 2019 in Seoul, South Korea With Projects, Inc. was appointed creative partner to develop the product line in its entirety, from concept to execution (naming, branding, creative direction, storytelling, packaging, and digital executions). With Projects, Inc. was integral in every aspect of the brand’s creation, production, and launch.
Barton show features mixed media sculpture
Mixed media sculpture by Alexandra Morrissette will be featured at Barton Art Galleries starting Monday. Contributed photo The beginning of a new year brings with it a new exhibition at the Barton Art Galleries. “Wanting | Wailing,” featuring sculpture by artist Alexandra Morrissette, will be on display Monday, Jan. 22, and run through Thursday, Feb.
10 pro photo tips for amazing cityscapes with Canon EOS cameras
Cities are filled with fantastic photographic opportunities, whether that’s focusing on the interesting characters going about their lives, or catching the brilliant details of architecture in buildings and skyscrapers.
The good news is that you can treat city scenes similar to landscapes, and the equipment needed is very similar. You can get great results with a DSLR or mirrorless camera with a kit lens, sturdy tripod, and a few filters. Cities have their own unique character, so wherever you are in the world you’ll be able to head into town to catch some top urban scenes and get creative with your Canon EOS.
• To shoot stunning cityscapes of your own, check out the best cameras for street photography
Reader of PhotoPlus: The Canon Magazine, Kevin Moulds, is based in Glasgow and works in insurance. He’s an accomplished wedding photographer, comfortable shooting big crowds and in high-pressure situations, but would love to learn more about how to take better street shots. He turns to street photography to unwind and gets out and about with his camera to take urban shots after work and on his lunch breaks.
He’d like to know how to take better city photos so we’ve paired him up with city slicker Adam Bulley. Here’s some of the top tips Adam taught Kevin on their workshop together around Glasgow in Scotland.
Adam is a professional landscape and street photographer based in Edinburgh, Scotland where he runs photography tours. He’s always wanted to photograph more of Glasgow so he leapt at the idea, and in the run-up to our shoot, he went on multiple recces to Glasgow. We met up with him and Kevin to learn to shoot the city in the beautiful golden hour at sunset and watch the city transform from day to night in the magical blue hour.
1. Use Av mode
Kevin is a wedding photographer with plenty of experience shooting in Manual mode. To begin with Adam suggested he shoot in Aperture priority (Av) mode in the daytime and move into Manual later when the light levels drop. Adam also suggested Kevin should shoot with a middle aperture, around f/8 on his 24-70mm lens so that more of the street scene would be in sharp focus. Though he told Kevin not to be afraid to open the aperture all the way if he wanted to bring attention to a certain focal point.
2. Use the histogram
Adam showed Kevin why he always checks the histogram after any important shot. It displays all of your exposure information from the deepest blacks on the left of the graph to pure white on the right and all of the mid-tones in-between. Switch on the histogram to appear over your image when shooting in Live View, or you can press the Info button in playback mode to see it. It’s worth checking to make sure the tones are evenly spread and not all bunched up on the left or right sides as this means your picture is over or underexposed and you will have lost some detail in the highlights or the shadows.
3. Professional tripod
A tripod is essential for taking sharp shots at night and even in the day for long exposures. Adam has a Gitzo GT3532LS Series 3 carbon fibre model. He’s paired it with an Arca-Swiss D4 Quickset Classic geared head for maximum precision. Kevin uses an entry-level tripod that needed the centre column to be raised. This is the wobbliest part of any tripod, so Adam enabled his 10-sec self-timer to mitigate camera shake.
4. Telephoto zoom lens
Adam prefers to use telephoto lenses over wide-angles as they compress the perspective, so your focal point doesn’t become lost like it would in a composition that was too wide. He uses the Canon EF 70-200mm f/4L IS II USM with his EOS DSLRs, although he also has a Canon RF 800mm F11 IS STM that he uses on his mirrorless EOS R5 when he needs the super-long telephoto reach.
5. Rule of thirds
Adam uses the rule-of-thirds grid overlay available on many Canon EOS cameras in the main menu by changing the Grid Display option. The 3×3 grid is overlaid on your scene when shooting in Live View and you can use it to place important points of interest and focal points or horizon on the grid lines, or two intersecting lines to give your images even more compositional clout.
6. Clear the streets
Some of the best places to take pictures in cities get heavy footfall and it can be hard to take a clean shot free from crowds. To make your tourists vanish you can set up on a tripod and either take several shots over a period of time and hope that the people move enough so that you can piece them together in Photoshop to create a totally clean scene. Another option is to attach a neutral density filter and extend the shutter speed to 30 secs, or even several minutes long. A long exposure will hopefully give you enough time to turn any moving people into invisible blurs!
7. Wide-angle zoom
Adam uses a wide-angle focal length on his Canon EOS 5DS R with his Canon EF 16-35mm f/4L IS USM and Sigma 14mm f/1.4 DG HSM Art lenses. Anything wider than 50mm on a full-frame is considered wide angle, and focal lengths such as 14mm or 16mm are considered super wide-angle, enabling you to squeeze even more of the scene into your composition, although they can suffer from barrel distortion and make straight lines in buildings look curved.
8. Custom white balance
If the colours in your city images aren’t quite right, one thing you can do is set a custom white balance. Make sure you’re shooting in the RAW file format so you capture all of the white balance information, this way you can change it back at your computer if needed. To get the colours as accurate as possible in-camera go into the White Balance setting on your Canon’s Quick Menu and choose from one of the presets, such as Cloudy, or set a custom value until your scene looks right.
9. L-bracket for EOS bodies
Adam has attached Three Legged Thing L-brackets to both of his Canon EOS cameras. These screw into the tripod attachment mount and have metal Arca-Swiss mount on the base and side of the bracket. When used with a tripod head that can accept an Arca-Swiss quick release plate it means the camera can be switched from landscape to portrait orientation in rapid time so you don’t miss the moment, all while keeping the weight over the centre of the tripod to keep it balanced.
10. Shooting a panorama
Even with a super wide-angle lens you may struggle to fit everything inside of your composition, plus a wide-angle lens can also cause problems with distortion. The solution could be to shoot a panorama. These shots work best with a standard/short telephoto focal length of around 50-200mm and this helps keep buildings looking straight. You’ll want to focus on your main building and switch to MF to keep it fixed, then in Manual mode, lock the exposure in so it doesn’t change between frames. Start on the left-most side of your panorama and take a series of shots moving towards your right-most point, try to ensure each image overlaps by about 30% to make it easier for software to stitch the images together. You can also get a panoramic look shooting with a wide-angle lens and a 16:9 aspect ratio too.
If you’re really into city photography, you’ll want to check out the best street lenses. Adam uses a Canon EOS R5. To see his stunning portfolio check out his Instagram, or to book a workshop visit his website.
Luis Moreno, Photographer, Athlete, and Father, Passes Away Following Cancer Battle
U.S. Rocker Photo Editor Gave Us More than Magnificent Images
By DONNA BALANCIA
Luis Moreno, photo editor and music reviewer for US Rocker, passed away after an 18-month battle with pancreatic cancer. Friends, family and acquaintances drew inspiration from his remarkable bravery and strength during the last year and a half.
During the last months, Luis bravely continued to enjoy his passions: Water polo, swimming, being with his family, and photographing and reviewing musical acts across Los Angeles and beyond. He did not complain, but instead focused on what he needed to do to make the lives of others more complete.
Luis was a gifted photographer and creative soul who enjoyed collaboration with an ever-cheerful disposition and respect for everyone, particularly those in the most need. He lived life with a robust enthusiasm that did not abate though he was fighting for his life against one of the deadliest cancers.
Luis was liked by everyone who came in contact with him, from the kids he coached in water polo in the South Bay and their parents, to the wildest of rock stars he photographed. He had a love of all kinds of music, from rock to jazz and the blues, to the most avant-garde and indie. If the music moved him he loved it and through his reviews and word of mouth he would let people know who to listen to.
Luis has won his share of accolades in sports, modeling and photography. He was comfortable in almost any situation, whether it be a party at Van Halen’s in Pasadena when he was a kid, or in Europe where he capitalized on his sports abilities and his modeling pursuits.
For US Rocker and its previous incarnation, California Rocker, Luis was dedicated on every assignment. He captured the essence of the event he attended. He had a way with the rockers and rebels as well as regular people in the crowd who often would be surprised to find themselves beautifully portrayed in his photos. Fellow photographers enjoyed sharing time and a laugh or two with him in the pit at concerts and festivals.
Luis was proud of his daughter Celina, and his wife Joan, both of whom he often spoke of adoringly and who he would bring along on assignment when he was able. He drew strength from the love of his family and set an example for younger as well as older people along his path on this Earth.
The staff at US Rocker today and forever celebrates the life and work of Luis Moreno, our colleague and friend.
Check out the great work of Luis Moreno below and here
A ‘Vinterview’ – The Vindys Give Luis Moreno of U.S. Rocker The Scoop
Review + Photos: Sparks and They Might Be Giants Light it Up at The Hollywood Bowl
Billy Idol and Gang of Four Rock the Crowds at Cruel World (Day One)
Photos: Moby Performs a Night of Covers for Charity at Ford Theatres Saturday Night
40 Enchanting Animal Photographs By Christine Ward
Meet Christine Ward, a talented artist based in Brisbane, Australia. With roots in the tattoo industry since 2011, Ward’s creative journey took a turn in 2019 when she decided to explore her role as a photographer. Specializing in bird and nature photography, Ward’s work reflects her deep connection with the great outdoors.
Nature is Ward’s muse, and you can often find her wandering in forests, drawing inspiration from the colors, shapes, and textures around her. Her photographs aren’t just pictures; they’re a way to share the incredible feelings nature brings.
Explore Ward’s pictures below to see the magic of nature that keeps us hooked!
More info: Instagram | christinewardart.com | Etsy
Longtime New Orleans photographer Burt Steel dies at 70
Burt Steel, a New Orleans-based photographer who was noted for his talent, his versatility and his ability to put his subjects at ease, died Jan. 12 in Naples, Florida. He was 70.
Steel, who had retired to Naples, died of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, said Danaë Columbus, a close friend.
A Times-Picayune photographer from 1976 until the early 1980s, “he was always visually stimulated,” Columbus said. “He saw things in a different light. He had a unique vision and perspective on things, and he’d want to capture it. He could walk down the street and see a good picture that you and I would pass by.”
One of Steel’s colleagues and friends was Bill Haber, a photographer for The States-Item and, later, The Associated Press.
“One of Burt’s really good qualities… was his ability to relate to people on all levels,” Haber said. “He could take his subjects and put them at ease and really connect with them one-on-one and connect his photographs to them.”
That ability paid off when Steel and Millie Ball, a Times-Picayune reporter, spent a year following Vickie Lacombe, a child who died of leukemia in 1980.
The Times-Picayune staff writer Millie Ball, left, and staff photographer Burt Steel pose outside the Odyssey House, 1125 N. Tonti St., after being awarded the Odyssey Institute’s 1980 national first place award in print journalisn. They won the prize for a special section, “Vickie and Carol” which appeared in the Sunday Sept. 21, 1980 of The Times-Picayune. The prize is awarded for outstanding journalistic effort about the problems of children.
“He was very kind,” said Carol Stromeyer, Vickie’s mother. “I felt like he was our support person. He became that to us, and I think we became that to him. He had a bond with my whole family. He was a quiet man, but he had a brain that was working all the time.”
“We both became totally obsessed with it,” Ball said of that assignment. “He got very emotional over the whole thing. We felt like they were family.”
During that period, “He took one day off, and that was the day the child died,” said Eliot Kamenitz, a former Times-Picayune photographer. “He felt he should have been there.”
Steel was a pallbearer at Vickie’s funeral.
Born Burton Steel in Mobile, Alabama, he attended the University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg but did not graduate.
When Steel joined the newspaper, Haber said, “we were working with people who had been at the paper longer than we had been alive. Burt was able to see the value of their experience and what they had to offer.”
Among the subjects of his photographs were Carol Channing, Mother Teresa, Muhammad Ali, zydeco artist Boozoo Chavis and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band.
John Belushi signs autographs at Lake Forest Plaza February 17, 1977, before the ‘Live from New Orleans… It’s the ‘Saturday Night Live’ Mardi Gras episode.
After he left the newspaper, Steel did freelance work for an array of publications, including The Associated Press, United Press International and The New York Times.
During the 1984 World’s Fair in New Orleans, he had a contract with Liggett & Myers to photograph artists, such as Linda Ronstadt and Willie Nelson, who performed in the riverfront amphitheater that the company sponsored.
For about 10 years, he operated Shooting Star, a gallery of photography in the Central Business District.
In a post on Steel’s Facebook page after his death, photographer Donn Young wrote, “I learned the essence of New Orleans news photography by just watching and working with Burt. His work is a tribute to documenting our generation.”
Survivors include a former wife, Joanna Broussard of Chicago; a daughter, Alexandra d’Eca of Toronto; a brother, Talbot Steel of Naples; and a sister, Meredith Steel Chastain of Dauphin Island, Alabama.
Funeral arrangements are incomplete.
You don’t get much in life for free so take advantage of this ON1 Effects limited offer
Harness the power of ON1 Effects for free if you download it before January 31, 2024. The versatile editing tool gives users the freedom to explore a range of one-click presets, filters, backgrounds and, textures plus it includes intuitive AI tools such as Super select AI and Mask AI.
Sitting comfortably among the best photo editing software, ON1 Photo RAW offers powerful photo editing tools at a very affordable price. With non-destructive editing, support for layers and a great range of effects, you can transform your photos in just a few clicks. ON1 Effects is a plugin renowned for simplifying the photo editing process even more so by offering an extensive range of one-click presets, filters, LUTs and textures as well as several powerful AI tools.
Compatible with both Mac and Windows, the software can be used as a standalone application or seamlessly integrated as a plugin for popular photography applications like Adobe Lightroom Classic, Photoshop, Capture One, Affinity Photo, and Corel Paint Shop Pro. Users can select from presets such as Sun Glow, Golden Autumn or Vivid Landscape and multiple effects can be stacked or applied to specific areas of an image giving users complete creative control.
One of the standout features of ON1 Effects is the intuitive Super Select AI tool which gives users the ability to select specific regions with a single click making it easier to make blue backgrounds, change something’s hue, or lighten an area. Users can also say goodbye to time-consuming brush selection thanks to Mask AI which uses advanced machine learning to create precise masks so users can quickly select objects, people or regions to edit.
Dan Harlacher, the Vice President of Product at ON1 said, “We are excited to offer ON1 Effects for free until January 31st, allowing new photographers to explore its powerful features and have a lot of fun styling their photos. Whether you’re a seasoned professional or a passionate photography enthusiast, this limited-time offer provides a unique opportunity to enhance your creative process at a tremendous value.”
To take advantage of this offer, head to the ON1 website here you can download ON1 Effects for free. After January 31, ON1 Effects will be available to buy at the regular price of $69.99/£68.52 so don’t miss out on your chance to explore everything ON1 Effects has to offer.
Finding Inspiration as a Landscape Photographer
Rediscovering inspiration and creativity is a journey every photographer must undertake at some point. This fantastic video highlights why reigniting passion in photography is not just vital for personal growth but also for maintaining a fresh perspective in one’s work.
Coming to you from Jason Friend Photography, this candid video captures the essence of a photographer’s struggle to find inspiration after a hiatus. Friend, facing challenges like illness, family emergencies, and the general chaos of life, shares his journey back to photography after a brief break. This narrative strikes a chord with many photographers who have faced similar ruts, making the video not just relatable but also a source of motivation. The honesty in discussing the mental blocks and the effort to overcome them underlines the importance of persistence and resilience in the creative process.
The video takes viewers on a literal and metaphorical journey to the beaches of South Northumberland. Here, Friend not only scouts for his first photograph of the year but also talks through his creative process, including composition techniques like the rule of odds and decisions on cropping and monochrome conversion. This detailed walk-through provides valuable insights into the artistic choices and technical considerations that go into creating a compelling image. It’s more than just a tutorial; it’s an intimate glimpse into the mind of a photographer rediscovering what makes him tick. Check out the video above for the full rundown from Friend.
Photography and the Miners’ Strike
THIS exhibition displays photographs made during the Miners’ strike and looks at how they were used and disseminated through the visual media of the time.
One side used images to illustrate chaos on picket lines being sprung by a so-called “enemy within,” while those in support of the strike attempted to debase such media bias, by showing the violence acted out by the state in police brutality, as well as the cruelty of the economic destitution endured.
Photojournalists John Harris and John Sturrock showed the day-to-day activities such as union meetings, winter picket lines, and coal riddling. Both photographers’ images were used by left-wing and union press, as they made careful decisions around who to licence to, knowing well the fractious mediatic landscape and its potential pitfalls.
Sturrock’s coverage of the strike begins on the first picket line at Cortonwood Colliery in early March 1984 and continues until the return to work marches a whole year later, covering picket lines from Bilston Glen in Scotland all the way down to Didcot in south-east England.
Also displayed in the exhibition are numerous iterations of John Harris’s iconic image from Orgreave, depicting a police officer swinging his truncheon at Lesley Boulton, an activist from Women Against Pit Closures. The photograph epitomised the violence applied by the state through policing and, when emblazoned on badges, posters, and T-shirts, became a ubiquitous image of the oppressed versus oppressor.
An intimate view of the other side of the dispute is illustrated by the photo albums compiled by Philip Winnard, made while on strike from Houghton Main Colliery.
Winnard began a rigorous documentation of his experience picketing, chronologically spanning the entire year of the strike. Day-to-day activities such as handing out newsletters, attending marches and waiting on picket-lines show a genuine camaraderie between the miners and Winnard’s camera, at what was a tense time for photographers due to the skewed media coverage.
His images of strike-breakers have a profound tension, in particular the long shots of workers loading coal — each isolated by the camera, surveillance-style. Visually they hold a heavy ambiguity, yet act as powerful records for the conflicted positions that the strike put individuals in.
Altogether the album pages have a sequential quality throughout, where multiple images of an event accumulate, in a sense mapping the territories in which the dispute took place.
The geography of the strike was broad and in the exhibition are photographs from Scotland to South Wales as well as key mining areas in England, from County Durham to Yorkshire. Coal fields were often based quite far from metropolitan areas, and in the majority of such cases were the main employer of a region. Chris Killip’s seminal book In Flagrante charted this changing landscape in north-east England from 1973 to 1985, observing the affect that these changes had on the surrounding communities.
Within the areas documented the coal industry symbolised tradition, history and heritage, with the communities inextricably connected to it. Photographers Roger Tiley and Howard Sooley, both grew up in areas affected by the strike, Tiley in the Gwent valleys and Sooley in Doncaster. Each took to photography as a line of work, deviating away from what was expected of them as members of coal mining communities. Both were to capture the events of the 1984-85 strike, in some of their earliest published photographs.
Many of the works show the solidarity between communities out on strike and document the wide-ranging support for the miners from people across vast geographies and demographics.
Brenda Prince’s depictions of women in Nottinghamshire, picketing and travelling to fundraise while also organising food packages, counteract the stereotypical portrayals of women at the time.
Images covering the essential participation in the strike by groups such as Women Against Pit Closures, and Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners (LGSM) helped to forge new representations of people often marginalised or objectified by visual media. An example of the catharsis and blurring of social barriers during the strike is profoundly felt in Imogen Young’s photograph showing the joyful dancing by members of LGSM with the members of Neath Coelbren miners club on St. David’s Day in 1985.
These affirming scenes of humanity captured the imaginations of journalists, activists and photographers, many of whom used their positions to champion the miners’ cause.
The working classes in Britain, so often ignored, overlooked and patronised now took centre stage; the visibility of numbers in support forming an archive of resistance that is now etched into the country’s history.
Those born after the period will gain a vivid understanding of Britain in the 1980s through the images, footage, art and music that was produced during this anxious and divided time. The legacy of the State’s actions are also profoundly felt in the now, manifesting in a lack of organised labour, tribalised politics, a weaponised media, and a level of privatisation unimaginable 40 years ago.
It is hard to gauge the impact that photographs contribute to actual change in society, but they do clearly divert, express and galvanise support and momentum during social movements. They also form a powerful record, and 40 years on, the miners’ strike presented here through the photographs and ephemera collectively bring it all alive again.
Regardless of the strike’s outcome, these photographs survive to remind us of the imagination, unity and hope of those who came together in defence of their communities and the basic right to work and to survive.
Runs until March 31 at Martin Parr Foundation, 316 Paintworks, Bristol. Admission free.
