Created in Birmingham

This fresh faced quarterly magazine has been put together by a small team who have created, produced and printed LABB magazine in Birmingham.

Aiming to harvest and showcase emerging talent in art, fashion and photography, LABB allows readers to explore something new as oppose to the same churned out work seen in fellow coffee table mags.

Fashion, it’s like a science, you always want to push the limits, find something new, but its always based on the existing. Not everyone who works in a lab wears a white jacket… WELCOME TO OUR LABB!

Issue 1, Volume 2 is currently available, with Volume 3 on the way for September. In the meantime they’ve also got a blog, LABB Loves, which is great if, like me, you like flicking through dozens of highly stylised fashion photography.

Rhubarb Rhubarb are having a busy time of it at the moment with one exhibition closing and another soon to open, a seminar and an International Review.

The seminar, Photography Still Moving, is on today down in that London and will look at multimedia storytelling.

The International Review, titled Collision: Where Image Worlds Meet, is on from 30 July to 1 August at Aston Business School. Tickets are still available, as is the chance to have your portfolio picked over by experts:

This year the intention is to see where documentary and commercial practices cross over into the world of fine art, giving participants the opportunity to show their work to specialists from different sectors and reviewers the chance to look at folios that may not usually come their way

Thematically tied to the International Review is the upcoming exhibition for their Hungry Bursary 2010 award winners. That’s at Rhubarb East from 22 June to 21 August.

Meanwhile, their exhibition at the new Rhubarb East Gallery on Heath Mill Lane, The Uses of Enchantment featuring Vee Speers and The Jackson Twins, ended last week but seemed to go well – there’s a round-up of that here.

I’m a photographer, not a terrorist! is a project by Birmingham Metropolitan College’s Diploma of Professional Photo Imaging students.

Their end of year show will be for one night at Masonic Buildings on Severn Street, Birmingham on 25th June from 6.30pm till 9.00pm and the after show party will be at the same venue from 9.00pm till late, by invitation only.

Here’s some background to the project:

The students, this year, have chosen to voice their displeasure and resentment at the draconian and ill-conceived Section 44 of the Terrorism Act. Many of the students have been accosted and questioned by the police and security guards whilst in the act of taking photographs for assignments in the course. Also, many of the public have confronted the students during their photographic activities accusing them of potential child offences even though they were clearly photographing a tree or derelict buildings etc.

There’s more on their website here.

I Am Camera is an exhibition featuring 25 photographers displaying work at Boxxed on Floodgate Street in Digbeth between 10th and 19th of June. 

Here’s some more words about it:

I Am Camera is a collective showcase of work put together by a group of emerging and established artists who are currently rooted within Birmingham.

The exhibition will showcase the work of these artists who all come from a wide range of visual media professions including Fine Art, Documentary, Landscape, Fashion and Commercial roles.

I Am Camera is happy to be bringing this event to the heart of Birmingham between the 10th & 19th of June. There will most certainly be something for everyone to feast their eyes upon so why not pop by say hello and enjoy the work on show?

There’s also a handy list of all the artists on show on the I Am Camera website here.

There’s not much info floating around about Emerging apart from a couple of flyers, but it looks mighty interesting all the same. It’s a photography exhibition  featuring Niall Patterson, Paul Watt, and Hannah-Beth Todd amongst others, and you can see it at the Custard Factory between 1-8 June, 10am-7pm.

Meanwhile, in related news, Custard Factory have a shiny new website here, and Zellig, the brand new development at Devonshire House, also has a new website here.

A simple idea, nicely done by Karen Strunks who’s managed to turn a personal photography project into something a little further-reaching. This’ll be the third outing for the 4am Project.

The aim of the 4amproject is to gather a collection of photos from around the world at the magical time of 4am. Everyone can take part and join in! All you need is a camera. We want to see what you see at that moment in time on that one day. What’s your view at 4am?

Here’s what to do if you want to get involved. There’ll be a photowalk somewhere around Birmingham at 4am on 4 April too – details about that TBC.

Taken from the poster (PDF) found on Rhubarb Rhubarb‘s noticeboard:

Where?

Birmingham Central Library, Conference Room 4, floor 4

What?

A meeting to gauge interest in a new photography collective. Aimed at people who are post college, with some experience of exhibiting who want to discuss work, creating exhibitions and inviting guest speakers etc

Who?

johallington@googlemail.com

This from Rhubarb Rhubarb:

We are delighted to announce that finally, after 17 years of supporting photographic artists, both in the West Midlands, London, UK and in the USA, Europe and Asia, we are opening our own gallery. The space is dedicated to showcasing the successes of our year round programme of mentoring and support for artists at all stages of their development, and the international names who attend the annual portfolio review in Birmingham

Appropriately enough it’ll be in the Rhubarb building on Heath Mill Lane. The launch is at the end of next week.

For the past month or so I’ve been following the pics put up on this here Internet by m.t. sullivan. I think I linked to his site a little while back.

I didn’t investigate back then, but it turns out that m.t. was on a 10 day visit from Madison, Wisconsin back in January. He’s just recently posted this about the trip:

I’ve been back in from Brum for nearly two months now. Here are the final pictures from the trip. I have also placed them on a google map, showing where the pics were taken. While I’ve transitioned just fine—I was only gone 10 days—the trip and experience are still very much present in my mind on a daily basis.

You can flick back through his pics on his blog and in this Flickr set. As a nice touch he’s gone and put all the photos on a Google map too.

The book of the exhibition, put together by Damian Brown:

96 pages of images and text documenting the artists featured in the Strong Brum project that was commissioned by Birmingham City Council and exhibited between September and December 2009 at The Drum, thanks to Mukhtar Dar.

The book itself is bookstore-quality with a hardcover, professionally printed and featuring a durable matte finish and library binding.

Available online at : blurb.com/bookstore/detail/1139729

Photographer Jak Flash is embarking on a project to re-illustrate the 22 Major Arcana tarot cards as photographic images for exhibition. Jak explains a little more on his website:

My next project, based around the imagery of the 22 major Arcana Tarot cards, is funded by Birmingham City Council and supported by Birmingham City University Students’ Union. I’m going be creating 22 images for EXHIBITION in Birmingham. The aim is to create a collaborative experience where people interested in being involved with art in Birmingham can come together.

Jak’s looking for models of all shapes and sizes, make-up artists, stylists and costume designers to help with the project too, so if you’re interested in getting involved, drop him a line on info@flashyourjak.com. The shoots are going to be taking place from the end of January till the end of February.

Here’s one of the tarot cards that is set to be turned into a photograph:

For  more information on Jak Flash and the project visit his website here, or join the Major Arcana project Facebook group here.

Lucy Pryor is the snapper behind Angelfire Photography. In her own words:

Over the years she has photographed countless bands, gigs, events, concerts, portraits, and has branched out into wedding photography over the last two years. She is an avid contributor to many websites including BrumLive.com and PushToFire.com, and offical photographer to up-and-coming stars of 2009 – Rebel City Radio.

You can see more of Lucy’s shots on her Flickr account.

Helen Flanagan is a photography student. Her ‘About Page’ says this:

Helen Flanagan is currently studying for a BA hons in photography at Falmouth College University.

Interested by the human psyche, obscurity and those tender, glorified moments of absence.

Jade Sukiya is a photographer with an eye for a striking image or two. Here’s her intro:

I was born in the mid-eighties to two admirably creative people. Years later that inevitable reality struck as having both my brother and I forced them to get ‘real’ jobs and lead a fairly restricted existence. My story begins at this point, although I can’t recall a thing up until the age of about four and even that’s a little hazy, sometimes I think I made my memories up…

More of Jade’s images like the one below, and many other completely different ones, can be found on her Myspace page and her Flickr account. She’s also got a tumblr with bits and pieces of her favourite stuff in it to check out too.