12th March 2025
© Ian Macdonald
THIS WEEK ON A SMALL VOICE PODCAST...
Acclaimed British photographer Ian Macdonald on how his love of drawing took him to art college, discovering photography, growing up and working in the industrial North East, his year as artist in residence at Eton College and his recent exhibition Fixing Time.
Full bio and show notes for the episode here.
“When I first went to Greatham Creek, there was no history anywhere about it. I couldn’t find anything written down. So I wrote a lot down. I talked to people. I went into pretty deep research into archives in the local library and stuff like that. And I guess this was part of the drive for [photographing] both the shipyard and the furnace. Because maybe I did have an inkling, because there was nothing about the creek, where’s the stuff about the furnace?… about the men who worked there, like my dad and granddad? Where is their history? And I wanted to celebrate theirhistory. I wanted to celebrate what they were. I wanted a record, a document, a memory of them. And that’s what drove me to do it.” – Ian Macdonald
ALSO...
Just got back from a gloriously warm and sunny weekend in Milan where I was attending the 9th edition of the Photo Vogue festival, for which the title was The Tree of Life: A Love Letter to Nature. The intention being to celebrate "the interconnectedness and beauty of the natural world while addressing pressing global challenges."
It was free to attend both the exhibition and the various panels and presentations, the full list of which can be found here, for those of you who are curious about what you missed out on or are considering going along next year.
One of several panel discussions that took place over the weekend.
NEW DOCUMENTARY FILM...
Ernest Cole: Lost And Found, directed by Raoul Peck, follows Ernest Cole's journey as the first Black freelance photographer in apartheid South Africa. Looks like it could be a fascinating watch.
"Turning his lens and focusing on the horrors of apartheid, photojournalist Ernest Cole was one of the first to expose the extent of racial injustice in South Africa to a global audience. The trailblazing activism of his photography led him to exile in the USA and Europe, where it became apparent to him the reach of Western complicity...
Drawing on Cole's own words, narrated by LaKeith Stanfield, award-winning filmmaker Raoul Peck (I Am Not Your Negro) delivers a stunningly powerful film on one of the essential photographers of the 20th century: at once a devastatingly revealing document of the times, a curious mystery on the discovery of Cole's lost works, and an intimate portrait of the man at its heart."
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