Suburban Trees Again - and a major milestone!

Hey folks. Been a while since I posted last. The taper is still going, I've just tapered down to 1/3 of what I started on. As expected, it's getting rather harder and involves a good deal more pain at this stage than it did at the start. So much so that I had to pause progress until yesterday.

This was for good reason though. Those of you who've got to know me in my fleeting existence on blip will remember my obsession with the Forth Bridges over the years. This led eventually to an exhibition that attracted some funding from Creative Scotland. Then, I got ill, the cure was almost worse than the disease, and this is why I'm now tapering off the meds that caused me to halt my life, and my critical practice for over two years. 

Anyway, as seems to be the way with me, once I taper down to a lower dose, while I get more pain, more deep blues, the massive upside is that I seem to get more drive, more impatience and I tend to take more action.

This time, that action has led to this image from my Bridges series being selected to exhibit at the Shutterhub Open, ( look, there's my name!) which is part of Edinburgh's Retina Festival. Retina itself is a sizable international photofestival. A festival I've wanted to be a part of for a while. I'm massively excited, although I've had some issues getting the thing framed and delivered to the gallery space. That's all sorted now though and, fingers crossed, it all kicks off with the private view on the 1st of July. I may have some invites for some local regular blipmates too. :)

It's definitely a boost at a time when I really needed it. Proof that getting that med out of my system is the right decision, pain or no pain. Apparently there were several hundred submissions, so getting through is massive. 

It's also made me consider seriously doing a part-time MA in Photography. I really need something to help me further my critical practice. I've finally come to the conclusion ( that everyone else around me knew before I did) that working in the fine art photography space is what I really want to do, more than the portraiture; hell there's nothing stopping it involving portraiture anyway.

I want to make more work and have more exhibitions. Build that artists CV. I need help navigating this space though. It's very vague and foggy and quite intimidating. I suspect an MA may be exactly the answer to that problem. Maybe it's time to break on through to the other side.