Happy New Year

Despite the economic downturn and general 2009 grumpiness, I had a great year...

Many thanks to all of you who have supported me and my artwork - have a great evening's celebrations and best wishes for 2010!

Im off to Kernow to see the new year in - back with more projects in early Jan.

RIP Bear - the Street Poet

I just heard the sad news that Alan, AKA Bear the street poet, has passed away. As a ever present face on Stokes Croft, Bear was a truly charming character as anyone who bothered to gave him a few moments will testify.

I took this photo in early 2008, a short time after i painted the piece on Target Electronics in the background. Whilst i was painting it, Bear joined me and told me tales of his past - his lost family, past career, and his hopes and dreams for the future. I was stunned by his knowledge and enthusiasm for art and photography and his own ideas of painting blacked out rooms with photo-sensitive emulsion and then flashing lights around whilst people strike poses in front of the walls... I thought that was a pretty wild idea.

So to a man who so often looked grumpy, worse for wear and down and out, and no doubt had a right to be; but who also had a heart of gold and a creative mind, with tales to tell that would reduce you to tears.

Rest In Peace my man, thanks for the time you took to talk to me...

Shortly after i met Bear i spotted him one morning in from of the painting i had done and he was studying it and taking it in. I walked up to him and had a short chat, asked to take his photo which is the one you see above. I later used this photo to make a painting of Bear and later gave him a copy of the image. He was touched and thanked me for my kindness...

A week or so later i saw him again and asked if he still had the picture i gave him. Unfortunately, he didnt have a clue what i was on about... Bless ya Bear, Goodnight.

Acrylic paint, photocopies, photographs, pva, emusion, poska pens, tester pots, and a used PG tips tea bag on hardboard.

Issues...

A while back i spotted that a band i liked were playing the Bristol Bierkeller (not my usual hangout, bet hey...) and noticed that on their website they were requesting photographs from people who had been to earlier gigs . Knowing that Mrs Acer wouldn't be too keen on going i thought i'ld try and get a pass to take photos - sent an email with a few photo examples - and got the blag :-)So last night i headed out with all the kit; 10-20mm canon superwide, a borrowed 17-40L (cheers Lee!), and the trusty kit 55-250mm IS canon. EX430ii flash along with transmitter, defusers and a few other cheeky flash related gadgets i wanted to try out. But on arriving and getting my pass i was told that it was the bands request that i only take photos for the first 3 songs and with no flash whatsoever. Groan...

So without my trusty flash i was left to work out what to do with 3 lenses that aren't particularly quick (f3.5-4, f4, and f4-5.6 respectively). My camera only goes up to iso1600 so although quick, not as quick as newer models and was no doubt going to give noisy images. It was pretty dark in there too so the only way i could get a workable shutterspeed was to push the exposure compensation to 2 stops under the meter reading.

So by doing everything i could to get my shutter-speed as quick as possible i experimented by taking a series of photos of the support band.

The above image i managed to grab by supporting the camera against the safety barrier in front of the stage which allowed me to get away with a fairly slow 1/40 shutter speed with the 17-40L. It wasn't fast enough for my liking so i decided to switch to the 55-250 which has Canon's image stabilisation system integrated within it...

This seemed to work much better, although IS can compensate for a bit of camera shake, it cant compensate for the subject you are shooting moving, ended up taking lots of frames and hoping for the best...

The main act came on and were great. Very energetic, great musicians, crowd very boisterous! Good fun. I managed to fire of around 150 shots during my allotment of the first 3 songs before being ushered out of the pit by a gnarley security dude who just couldn't wait to enforce his authority. Luckily for him, there were plenty of rowdy lads in there for him to get to work on later on in the evening. And out of the 150 shots i got about 4 decent ones...

In Progress

Painting in progress next to Jody painting photo realistic rudolph the red nosed raindeer...

WoC Group Show

Malakai - Portrait of Gee 2009

by Acerone

Emulsion, acrylic, belton, montana, hycote and sabatoz on canvas

90cm x 150cm

On display in the Weapon of Choice gallery, St. Michaels Hill, Bristol.

Opening evening tomorrow night from 6pm

Weapon of Choice Magazine

The WoC magazine issue 2 is out now which includes a lil interview with myself - catch a copy out and about in Bristol now or online here...

Life

So i have just finished watching Life on BBC HD and this week it was all about plants. Perhaps not the most spectacular footage of the series but this was without a doubt the craziest project i have ever known anyone to undertake. Every time i watch Life, or anything Attenborough for that matter, i am blown away. This is what TV is for and this is why a pay Mr Murdoch £7 a month extra for high definition viewing...

Anyway.

If you missed it, you must visit the BBC Life website here and watch the last 10 minutes from 47:50 onwards. The scale of this project in simply unbelievable and took tens of people 2 years to make less than 60 seconds of footage. When i saw the footage at the beginning of the program i scratched my head for ages over how on earth they shot it - and at the end they gave me the answer.

Epic!

Doodle