Guernsey Photography Festival

1st-3rd June

We arrived on the island at mid day, got a taxi to the Pine Way B&B and dropped off our bags. The lovely lady at the Guesthouse organised us some bikes so mum and I cycled around the coast before heading to the main town where the festival was taking place.

We stopped for lunch at Crabby Jacks by the sea and then carried on, stopping whenever I saw another a beautiful land mark or a roadside sale box (cute little boxes in hedges, where the locals sold their home grown raspberries, flowers and vegetables. Click here to see some of them.)

We came to a great orange rock, which stood out in the distance and I loved the colour against the blue sky. I set up the camera and ran over to where mum was standing. 'Turn around and show of your nice yellow flower,' she said, before the photograph was taken. Mum had bought me the flower at Bristol Airport so I would stand out amongst the other photographers at the festival.

At the opening night in St Peters Port, I met Jocelyn Allen, the winner of this year Guernsey photography competition. She is the same age as me and is also doing a lot of self-portraits. I really like her work and it was great to meet another young artist doing well and enjoying what they do.

I was also captivated by the work of Nelli Palomäki, who shoots beautiful black and white portraits of children and adults who interest her. I really liked her artist statement. There was no bullshit, just the truth to how she creates her work and feels about photography today (you can read her statement on her website.)

I also had a photograph on show at the festival, in the Tim Andrews exhibition. Tim Andrews approached me last year, asking if I would take his portrait for a project he had been doing for a few years. I was photographer number 141 to take his picture. He has been diagnosed with Parkinson's and has been using the medium of photography to document and bring awareness to the disease. Here is the photograph that is being shown as part of the project. (you can see all the work at the Guernsey Photography Festival until the 30th June.) Also an there is an article on the Phaidon website.