Exhibition is up!

This afternoon I (with a l'il help from my friends) set up Give and Let Live at Putney Library, in South West London. I have exhibited 17 photos there and they are available to view from today till 14th February.

Address: Putney Library, 5/7 Disraeli Road London. Postcode, SW15 2DR.

Nearest tube: East Putney (5 minute walk from library)

Nearest train station: Putney (1 minute walk library)

I'm thrilled with how it looks - the whole set works really well. Do come down and have a look! I'll post some photos up at some point. The exhibition is different from the photos I have posted up on my website.

Breathe Easy Jess

I woke up to hear the very sad news that Jessica Wales who I photographed here and here sadly passed away last night.

A complete fighter from start to finish Jess was on the transplant list for 4 years waiting for a call to give her a double lung transplant. She was given two years to live when she first went on the list but shocked doctors by outliving their exceptations by two years.

During those four years Jess endured nine false alarms for transplant. For those of you who are reading this and aren't in the 'transplant world' this is when a donor pair of lungs is found for you, you receive a phone call that tells you to get down to the hospital straight away and prepare for transplant, your heart races, your spirits life - this could be the day your life is saved - you go through numerous tests at the hospital, sitting around for hours hardly daring to move through nervous excitment and then suddenly a Doctor takes you in to a little room and tells you that the donor organ are too damaged/you are too ill for transplant or another reason that sends you crashing down once again into dispair. This happened to Jess NINE times. How she got through this I will never know.

A couple of days after Christmas Jess received her tenth call - and this time the transplant went ahead. Her friends and family were overjoyed - what a Christmas present! Sadly the call didn't come in time for Jess, her body was too weak to withstand such huge surgery and she passed away peacefully surrounded by her family last night.

She was one in a million - a complete super star. I feel honoured to have met her and photographed her. We should all feel inspired by Jess as her sheer strength and determination was incredible.

Please sign the organ donor register to stop this happening again and again. Today three other people will have died from lack of a transplant. This has to stop. We have to do something about this.

Please take two minutes out of your day and sign up to the UK transplant donor list in honour of Jess.

Breathe easy Jess. You'll be missed. XXX

Finding Sol

An award winning short film that I produced last year. Directed by Stella Scott.

Finding Sol from Stella Scott on Vimeo.

Snow Day.

J in the snow.

More Innocent Veg Art

On the packaging of an innocent veg pot near you! A creative collaboration with Dan Usiskin.

Claycross Lunch Club, Derbyshire

Every week for the past 25 years a large group of elderly people have gathered together cooking lunch, playing bingo, drawing a raffle and gossiping and chatting together.

I spent a morning there meeting the very lovely people who are members of the club documenting their goings on. Many of the old people there see the Claycross Lunch Club as their highlight of the week - for some, it's the only time they leave the house all week. There was an incredibly warm and close atmosphere and I was made to feel very welcome.

Many of the members had been coming for the whole 25 years that the club had been open. I witnessed a 'new girl' (a 68 year old who had recently moved to the area to be closer to her daughter) being paired up with an 'old girl' and being introduced to people and shown round the hall. The confidence of the 'old girl' and nervous excitement and shy questioning of the 'new girl' mirrored the behaviour of the 'new kid at school' relationship between two children.

The whole set of photos can be viewed here.

Chesterfield Ballet School

And a little scout for good measure...

Chesterfield

Having a long overdue catch up...lots of photography has gone on in the past few months, here's just some of it!

In late October I headed oop north to Chesterfield for a commission. The photos are to be put up in Chesterfield hospital which has recently celebrated its 25th anniversary of being open. I was asked to take photos of the people, businesses and landmarks in Chesterfield who were celebrating some sort of 25th anniversary in 2009. Along with a lovely researcher I visited and photographed so many fab people in the town...click on the photo to find out more info about who is in the picture.