2014

Its almost too cliché to bear to say that I am always re-learning my relationship to photography. But it's true. A year is enough time for the ground to shift significantly for me, but also for the medium. This blog is a good example. In the world of broadcasting images, even a well tended and lovingly updated online diary struggles for traction next to the manifold digital highway. The internet isn't a slow place anymore. And its permeation day to day makes our lives feel the same, distracted to the point of distraction. And so this place lies dormant, unable to match the speed my mind and my work move at.

But a year has passed nonetheless. So this post is no attempt to explain away the decline of the blog, nor is it a typical review of a year complete with boastful proclamations and grand ambitions. After all, it is about the only time of year we are allowed to think slowly about the past and the future, as we transition into a new year. It remains as ever, just another thankful nod to the camera. The constant change that my eye is always noting. Fastening down faint irregularities and profound expressions beyond the point of memory. As I think about all the activity ahead, there is a deep gratitude for all the little things I see and the stories I begin to tell, the non-moments that stop me. Frames of someone else's world that build up the small picture, of what it is to be living in 2015.

100 Years of Norman McLaren

A Historic Scotland heritage plaque commemorating Norman McLaren is unveiled at his early home on Albert Road in Stirling.  

With the starter pistols cocked, and the games just about to begin it is easy to direct all attention to the sports arenas of the next two weeks. Apart form all the work that has gone into the game's preparation, there has been a voluminous programme of cultural events that have paved the excitement over the last 6 months until now. One of which is a series of events celebrating the life and career of Norman McLaren.

I have been involved with this programme of events since the start of the year and it is unbelievable and humbling to see just how big the scale of celebration has been. To celebrate Scotland's most championed animator there has been more than just retrospectives and the dusting off of old reels. I have had the pleasure of attending and learning from specialist panels, world premiers, other animators work, workshops on traditional and contemporary animation methods, live orchestration over screenings, theatrical performances, exhibitions, unveilings and just old fashioned raising a glass. It is a marathon programme that has been a long time in its curation and it has all the hallmarks of commitment and passion that I am glad to have been able to lend my lens to.

An exhibition dedicated to McLaren's work at Stirling's Macrobert centre 

McLaren programme director, Iain Gardner,  at a retrospective of McLaren's animation at Filmhouse, Edinburgh

An exhibition of McLaren's work is curated at the Talbot Rice Gallery.

Luigi Allemano hosts a workshop in sound on celluloid at Tolbooth Stirling

Comapny Nathelie Cornille perform A Chairy Tale to open the festival at Macrobert, Stirling

A selection of McLaren's animation is projected onto the 400 year old wall of Stirling Castle's Chapel Royal

The Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra perform alongside McLaren's animation at the GSA

Screen Bandita lead a workshop on hand painted animation for young people using celluloid leader at Stills

Guests at the official reception at Stirling Castle

Don McWilliams toasts the life and work of McLaren

Festival masterminds Sabrina and Iain overlooking McLaren's original home from the roof of the Tolbooth, Stirling