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See the Beatles’ First Tour Through Paul McCartney’s Lens
Sixty years after the Beatles appeared live on “Ed Sullivan,” McCartney reflects on his photos capturing those halcyon days. The Brooklyn Museum will exhibit them, and some will be for sale later.
They are now a collector’s trove — Paul McCartney’s own photos, shot 60 years ago, when the Beatles took Europe and America by storm: images of screaming fans (one carrying a live monkey); a girl in a yellow bikini; airport workers playing air guitar, and unguarded moments grabbed from trains, planes and automobiles.
McCartney, now 81, doesn’t like to sit still and reminisce about the past, so he chatted while driving home from his recording studio in Sussex, England. ‘‘My American friends call these small, one-way lanes ‘gun barrels,’ ’’ he said, warning his interviewer that at any moment the signal might die (it did). In the end, it took two days to complete a coherent conversation about the breakthrough period when the Beatles went viral, captured in the traveling exhibition ‘‘Paul McCartney Photographs 1963-1964: Eyes of the Storm,’’ which features 250 of his shots. Currently it’s at the Chrysler Museum of Art in Norfolk, Va., and comes to the Brooklyn Museum May 3-August 18. (Don’t be surprised if the artist shows up for the opening.)
It was McCartney’s archivist, Sarah Brown, who found 1,000 photographs the musician had taken over 12 weeks — from Dec. 7, 1963, to Feb. 21, 1964, — in the artist’s library.
“I thought the photos were lost,’’ he said. ‘‘In the ’60s it was pretty easy. Often doors were left open. We’d invite fans in.” Even the recording studio wasn’t a safe space. “I was taking my daughter Mary to the British Library to show her where to research for her exams, and in one display case I saw the lyric sheet for ‘Yesterday,’” he said. A sticky fingered biographer had swiped the original from their studio.
Rosie Broadley, a senior curator at the National Portrait Gallery in London, where the show was inaugurated, said, “His photographs show us what it was like to look through his eyes while the Beatles conquered the world.’’
McCartney won an art prize at school and practiced photography with his brother, Mike (who later became a professional photographer). He graduated to a 35 mm SLR Pentax camera when the Beatles hit it big.
César Manrique sculpture now protected during carnivals
Arrecife Ayuntamiento have announced the protection of the César Manrique sculpture during carnivals after the sculpture was covered in rubbish last weekend.
Massachusetts Valentine’s Day Celebrations: Sweet Festivals, Ice S…
Discover Massachusetts Valentine’s Day events, including the Salem’s So Sweet Festival, Amesbury’s Makers Market, and Wellesley’s Ice Sculpture Stroll.
Scotland Through A Lens: Sylvan Buckley, Dynamic Scotland Photography
From capturing the Milky Way on the Isle of Skye to sunrise at Ben A’an, Scotland’s dramatic landscapes provide the perfect inspiration for Sylvan Buckley.
I sort of fell into photography really, I’ve always enjoyed the outdoors and a little bit of hill walking in my spare time. I always liked to take some photos on my phone of anything interesting I saw. My wife has been disabled for a long time so can’t do hill walking or long hikes and this was my way of bringing a little bit of the Scottish scenery back with me to share with her. So for my 40th Birthday my wife bought me a DSLR camera and sent me on my way.
From there I started taking photos of everything and anything I saw to make the most of that gift. The few successful photos mixed in with the many, many unsuccessful photos I took pushed me to try and get better and learn more about photography. It inspired me to go to college in 2017 and learn the basics of photography, two years later I graduated college with Student of the Year for Art Media and Fashion 2019, as well as Overall Student of the Year 2019.
I hope to one day try and make a career out of photography, but for now it has been restricted to a hobby for me.
We live in such a beautiful country, the landscape is full of drama and atmosphere when the weather is just right.
Photography for me is a way to capture a special moment in time, so most of my inspiration comes from being out and seeing how a scene unfolds. I’ve always loved the peace and tranquillity of walking in the hills of Scotland, but getting into photography has opened my eyes to so much more, some things I may have previously taken for granted or just didn’t notice before. We really do live in such a beautiful country, the landscape is full of drama and atmosphere when the weather is just right. But you best be quick because those moments are fleeting, that’s why I love photographing these moments in Scotland, they’re small pieces of Scotland that I have captured and am able to share.
Hill walking though the Scottish Highlands is like a mental reset. You’re focused on the here and now, anything that has been bothering you gets pushed to the back of the mind focusing attention on your surroundings which gives you a chance to just breathe. Photography and hill walking have gone hand in hand for me. Hill walking gives me an excuse to get out and take photos, and photography has given me an excuse to get out and walk hills.
Travelling through Scotland is fantastic, the scenery can be so breathtaking at times.
I’ve been interested in the night sky since I was just a kid. I remember my granny and I would sit on the front doorstep on nice nights and she would point out all the stars. She would tell me the names of the stars and constellations. I suppose it has helped me when taking photographs of the night sky now when it comes to locating certain stars or constellations. But the technical aspect of astro-photography is a challenge that I just love. Figuring out what settings to use and calculations of shutter speeds and/or number of shots needed to capture a specific image has been one of the photography learning curves that I have really enjoyed working on.
One of the greatest things for me in sharing my photography is when someone sees the photo and it sparks a memory for them, or elicits a positive emotion for them. If I can create just one thing that can brighten someone’s day then that’s always worthwhile.
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To Do List: Valentine’s Day So Sweet Festival, Makers Market, Ice Sculpture Stroll
Valentine’s Day is right around the corner, so get ready to feel the love with your special someone at special events for the holiday around Massachusetts.
Inside the exhibition using poetry and photography to restore nature
We Feed The UK celebrates regenerative farming and sustainable food production across Britain, and will tour the UK until April 2025.
Lisa and Rocky, working at the allotments at Lauriston Farm, Edinburgh, (C) Street Level Photoworks
‘Farmers and food producers are crucial players in our fight to tackle the climate and biodiversity crises. Across the UK, regenerative farmers are galvanising communities to think differently about how we produce and consume our food.’
It doesn’t take long to see where Ally Nelson is coming from. As the lead on The Gaia Foundation’s major new project, We Feed The UK, she’s spent recent months working alongside some of the most progressive agricultural operations in Britain, with one clear goal. Bring these vital businesses together with talented photographers and spoken word artist who can creatively articulate and convey why these people, and their efforts, need to be celebrated and recognised by the general public.
Opening on Thursday 8th February at Liverpool’s Open Eye Gallery, the exhibition is a follow up to We Feed The World, which spotlit smallholders across the globe with a similar objective — bust open the myth that in order to provide enough food for everyone, society has to rely on industrial agriculture. But this time round the focal points are much closer to home, with organisations plucked from England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales.
‘We Feed The UYK will help the public cultivate a stronger connection to local food and influence other farer and food producers to transition towards regenerative practices,’ Nelson continues. ‘[It] celebrates their role as custodians of sea, soil and seed, through he powerful mediums of photography and spoken word… With exhibitions taking place across the UK in 2024-25.’
The range of projects included is dazzling and almost dizzying. In Wales, where 80% of the land is used for farming, The Penpont Project is a leading example of agroforestry leading to afforestation and eco-tourism with an educational element. Amazingly, this is led by a co-management council of including young people aged between 13 and 18 years old, alongside tenant farmers, the Action for Conservation charity and landowners. Ifor ap Glyn’s poetry and images by Andy Pilsbury help showcase this best-in-class endeavour.
Elsewhere, the Black Country’s No Diggity is nourishing soil devastated by the toxic legacy of the region’s industrial revolution, with six allotments running with a no-dig, organic, zero waste approach. Ayesha Jones’s stunning shots are complemented by the words of Polish emigre in Birmingham, Borden Piasecki.
In the capital, Go Grow With Love and Black Rootz are respectively teaching residents in Tottenham and Haringey agricultural skills — from nursery age kids to the adult community, and establishing the first multigenerational Black-led growing enterprise. Both are contributing to tackling the racial inequalities endemic in sustainability and climate industries and action, with just 6% of green charity staff identifying as a person of colour and minorities far more likely to have limited access to nature compared with white Britons.
Sustainable fishing with Sole of Discretion (C) Jon Tonks
Meanwhile, in Cumbria James Robinson’s 300-acre farm is using habitat restoration to help bring back pollinators which three-quarters of our food crops rely on but are rapidly disappearing from our the UK countryside. Efforts Johannes Pretorius has immortalised in photos and rapper, playwright and beatboxer Testament conveys with prose.
Elsewhere, incredible endeavours in Edinburgh (the 100-acre Lauriston Agroecology Farm urban growing plot), and Eastbourne (where Sole of Discretion has become the first ever fully traceable fishery in the country) are also included, with input from creatives such asJon Tonks, Street Level Photoworks and Lua Ribeira.
‘We Feed The UK is important in getting positive stories to the public – the current vilification of farmers needs to stop. There are small pockets of us trying to be better, which We Feed The UK can help the consumer see and understand, whilst also offering hope to farmers stuck in an imperfect system,’ says Stuart Johnson, Soil Farmer of the Year 2023, whose family farm in Northumberland benefits from home brewed compost, a chemical-free approach which is restoring vital nutrients to the ground.
‘This project proves that there are other ways to do it that can not only enhance biodiversity and battle climate change, but also bring people together and improve financial performance. Everyone wins and that story needs to be told,’ he continues.
While it’s easy to centre attention on The Gaia Foundation’s initiative as a purely celebratory process, the future benefits of this project should not be understated. Art and culture are one of the most effective ways of public message delivery, and over the past year we’ve seen evidence of this, from a research programme commissioning artist to produce ‘climate comics‘ to the launch of a new sustainability film competition in British schools.
With the need to start thinking much more carefully about what we eat, how much, and where that food comes from only growing in urgency, and agriculture currently accounting for 10% of Britain’s overall emissions, but 69% of total nitrous oxide and 48% of all methane emissions. Not to mention the devastating impact on biodiversity and habitat. With this in mind, projects like We Feed The UK are more than interesting ideas — they are vital engagement drivers, and supporting the is essential.
We Feed The UK will operate monthly residences with specific focal subjects over the next 14 months:
- February – Agri-culture: A Lineage of Hedgerow Ligging | Inspired by Strickley Farm, Cumbria | Poetry by Testament | Photography by Johannes Pretorius | Exhibited at Open Eye Gallery in Liverpool
- April – Cultivating Equality: Women Working with Land | Inspired by Grampian Graziers & Lauriston Agroecology Farm, Scotland | Poetry by Iona Lee | Photography by Sophie Gerrard | Exhibited at Street Level Photoworks in Glasgow
- May – No Diggity: Keeping Carbon Underground | Inspired by No Diggity Gardens, the Black Country | Poetry by Bohdan Piasecki | Photography by Ayesha Jones | Exhibited with Multistory at No Diggity Gardens in Walsall
- June – Custodians of the Land: Intergenerational Nature Restoration | Inspired by Penpont Estate, Wales | Poetry by Ifor Ap Glyn | Photography by Andy Pilsbury | Exhibited at Penpont Estate in Wales
- September – From Crisis to Kinship: Healing People and Place on England’s First Community-Owned Farm | Inspired by Fordhall Organic Farm, Shropshire | Poetry by Jasmine Gardosi | Photography by Aaron Schuman | Published with GRAIN Projects as an immersive book
- October – Food Justice: Served Fresh from Community Farms | Inspired by Go Grow With Love & Black Rootz, London | Poetry by Zena Edwards | Photography by Arpita Shah | Exhibited with Photo Fringe in London and at ONCA Gallery in Brighton
- November – Down to Earth: Restoring our Soils | Inspired by Wharmley Farm, Northumberland | Poetry by Kate Fox | Photography by Johannah Churchill | Exhibited with NEPN (North East Photography Network) at The Sill: National Landscape Discovery Centre in Northumberland
2025:
- January – Fibre: Nature-Friendly Flax Farming | Inspired by Mallon Farm, Northern Ireland | Poetry by Abby Oliveira | Photography by Yvette Monahan | Exhibited at Belfast Exposed in Northern Ireland
- April – In Deep Water: Sustainable Fishing | Inspired by fishers along the South coast | Poetry by Chris Redmond | Photography by Jon Tonks | Exhibited at Martin Parr Foundation in Bristol
- April – A Food Revolution Starts with Seed: Grain Rebels | Inspired by Gothelney Farm and Field Bakery, Somerset | Poetry by Dizraeli | Photography by Lúa Ribeira | Exhibited at The Royal Photographic Society in Bristol
Xposure 2024: UAE to host world’s largest celebration of photography, film and other mediums of visual arts
Sharjah: With more than 2,500 awe-inspiring and thought-provoking images from around the world, Sharjah’s Xposure International Photography Festival is gearing up to host its 8th and biggest edition, from February 28 – March 5 in Expo Centre Sharjah.
These images, and the stories behind it, will be showcased on a spectacular 32,888 sqm festival platform by more than 400 visual storytellers from over 50 nations through curated exhibitions, panel discussions, workshops and more, making Xposure 2024 the world’s largest celebration of photography, film and other mediums of visual arts.
The festival organiser, Sharjah Government Media Bureau (SGMB), successfully attracted over 20,000 visitors to the 7th edition of Xposure last year and is preparing to welcome an even larger audience this year.
The event promises an exciting showcase of global talent with more than 200 activities led by over 150 world-renowned photographers.
Solo, group exhibitions
The programme includes over 90 solo and group exhibitions, more than 45 inspiring talks and discussions, over 25 film screenings, and upwards of 65 expert-led workshops.
Additionally, there will be over 50 professional portfolio reviews, along with several guided tours, book signings, and a trade exhibition featuring 20 international brands, all spanning the 7-day event.
Alya Al Suwaidi, Director, SGMB: Xposure 2024 Unites the World’s Visual Storytellers at Sharjah’s Largest Photography Festival Yet
Commenting on the upcoming festival, Her Excellency Alya Al Suwaidi, Director of Sharjah Government Media Bureau (SGMB), stressed: “Xposure has ascended to global prominence throughout its previous editions, emerging as a premier artistic hub where visionaries in photography and visual arts converge.
“In Sharjah, they unveil a treasure of years spent in exploration, travel, and documenting every detail of life and the world.
The festival serves as a gateway, through which photographers transport us to diverse realms and nations with their exhibitions and images, showcasing a spectrum of humanitarian, developmental, aesthetic, civilizational, cultural, and social themes. It’s an invitation to engage with and support critical and noble causes.”
Expansion
The SGMB Director added: “This year, the festival expands further to affirm its response to the volume of participation it annually receives from all around the world, continuing to gather the experiences of hundreds of leading photographers and transforming them into an opportunity for knowledge, learning, and understanding of successful experiences that reflect the beauty of the image and the strength of its impact.”
Empowering workshops and inspiring conversations
Those attending Xposure 2024 can secure their exclusive space to participate in a diverse array of empowering workshops led by leading industry experts from around the world.
With over 65 workshops and masterclasses, these hands-on sessions cater to photographers of all skill levels, providing practical guidance and education.
The festival will also host over 45 inspirational talks and sessions from elite names in photography and film, offering unique insights and experiences. This focus on education reflects Xposure’s and SGMB’s commitment to nurturing growth and skill development in the photography community.
Focus groups and portfolio reviews
Xposure 2024 will feature more 15 upskilling focus groups where attendees can expand their horizons through specific genres and techniques.
More than 50 professional portfolio reviews, led by experienced photographers, will provide emerging talents with personalised feedback and guidance.
These sessions further enhance the educational aspect of the festival, offering invaluable opportunities for skill enhancement and career development.
Trade show extravaganza
Professionals and enthusiasts will be excited for the return of the festival’s must-attend trade show, renowned for featuring the latest in technology, and exclusive deals from 20 leading manufacturers and retailers.
Through the years, this space has served as a networking hub for professionals seeking new equipment, directors of photography, gearhouse specialists, and retailers looking to expand their offerings, and Xposure promises an even bigger extravaganza for 2024.
A call to all art collectors
For this year’s edition, Xposure once again extends a special invitation to art collectors, urging them to not only celebrate art but to “own the celebration.”
Art collectors have the chance to acquire rare and iconic photography directly from the artists themselves, increasing the potential of signed prints and ultimately the value of the pieces.
This unique opportunity adds a distinctive layer to the festival, emphasising the connection between collectors and the celebrated works on display, inviting people in the art world to own a piece of photographic history.
Growth, expansion
Xposure 2024 marks another chapter in the festival’s consistent growth. From its inception in 2016, the festival has expanded year after year, solidifying its status as a global platform for photography and film professionals, enthusiasts, and all those with a love for visual art.
The 2024 edition promises to be the biggest launch yet, emphasising Xposure’s commitment to providing a diverse and ever-evolving space for the global photography community. For more information and keep up to date with news and announcements visit https://xposure.net/.
A scene from the previous edition of Xposure International Photography Festival.
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Paws On The Wharf: Free Guide Dogs Sculpture Trail Coming To London
Bow wow your way over to Canary Wharf.
The week in wildlife – in pictures: a crafty hippo, golf course monkeys and a sunbathing manatee
These two Kodiak bears were found wandering along a road in Florida. They had been brought south from Alaska by a man the sheriff’s office called a ‘self-proclaimed bear trainer’, and they escaped the cage he built for them when he failed to close the gate properly. The man was arrested and is facing about a dozen charges relating to animal welfare; the bears, meanwhile, have been taken to a local zoo for safekeeping.
Photograph: Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office/Reuters
