Or… Where did it all go right?
Here we are in the balmy heat and humidity of midsummer England … and for the first time since the summer of 2006 the yellow blinding thingy shines hotly for more than the occasional morning or otherwise seasonally confused October afternoon. I’ve even released my biggest fan from its shackles inside the dusty box shoved to the back of the wardrobe! [I should probably clarify: that’s not a significant fan of my photography who came to visit me and inadvertently ended up being shoved inside a cardboard box and hidden in my wardrobe for 7 years, it’s the big blowy, air movement kind. Clearly I wouldn’t keep people in the back of my wardrobe. Not after last time, anyway.]
Well, as you can see the heat is affecting my mind quite badly, but on the plus side my first solo exhibition at Rubicon was so well received, it’s run was extended for two weeks and has now been moved to Rubicon Too for a further month.
Rubicon Too is the latest tastiest eatery to be opened by Umut [my biggest fan – uh, not that one!] and I was delighted to move my work there just over a week ago. The layout is a little different, so the show doesn’t hang together quite as well as it did at Rubicon. And four of the images are consigned to the basement on the way to the toilet… uh, but it’s a nice toilet. Either way, the contrast from having an image in Tate Modern and Tate Britain in the balmy [less] summer of 2008 is a shift of prestige not entirely lost on me: from Tate Britain to a toilet in Clifton in five short years. Where did it all go right, indeed? Ha!
The Wildlife Cameraman Cometh
And finally, for this overdue blog update, here’s a smile-inducing slice of summer from my own back garden filmed this very morning. Maybe there’s a future for me as a wildlife cameraman, yet? [Oh, and don’t worry, although of questionable quality it’s very short – mainly thanks to my deeply inadequate equipment. Uh, please stop making your own jokes at the back!]
Consumed by summer heat, deep in the ivy something stirs…
Note: I’m available for voice-over work for Farmers’ Weekly and other West Country agricultural language bias; walk on parts with minimal lines [due to poor memory retention] will be strongly considered for all major television or film dramas requiring a yokel; and, with Rubicon Too being just a stone’s throw from the world renowned BBC Natural History Unit, quite possibly a shoe-in as the replacement for David Attenborough.
Nige' Ollis 