On Friday 24th Jan 2020, the meeting of Bangor & North Down Camera Club hosted guest speaker Chris Barr. Chris who lives locally in Ballyholme, is a photographer who works producing still images for the TV and film industry, and he is also a fine art documentary photographer whose work has been published and exhibited around the world. Chris talk covered all aspects of his work, he started by talking through some of his personal fine art projects, and later in the evening showed us some of the images he has taken working for the film industry.
The first part of Chris talk covered a series of images which Chris took off his father while he was dying from cancer. These images whilst obviously very personal in nature, have also received international recognition both on Instagram and have been featured in many prestigious magazines including American Suburb X, Wired and Elle. Chris talked us through some of the images and explained that they had helped bring him closer to his father during his final few months, they also allowed other members of the family and friends to be closer to this final journey by connecting with the images on Instagram. The title of Chris’s talk for this evening summed up this poignant series of images, the title was ‘I used to think that I could never lose anyone if I photographed them enough. In fact, my pictures show me how much I’ve lost”.
Chris also showed us examples of images from some of his other projects. One project was a series of documentary images taken off Traveller people in Southern Ireland. Chris has been photographing these Traveller families for almost two decades and has formed a close relationship with many members of this community. Chris images do not just document the traveller community, but he feels that they help to highlight the difficulties, including discrimination, which they face in maintaining their traditional way of life.
Finally, Chris showed us images taken in his ‘day job’ producing on location still images for the Film and TV industries. These images were beautifully taken portraits, usually made on location during filming. They featured images of many famous personalities including Jamie Dornan, Matthew Rhys, Iain Glen from Game of Thrones and Ruth Wilson to name a few. Chris gave us an interesting insight into his methods, and the challenges of his work in producing these photographs.
Our thanks to Chris for a very interesting and thought-provoking evening. His professional images of famous people, and his very personal fine art documentary projects were both fascinating to see. If you would like to view Chris images you can visit his web site at http://www.christopherbarrphotography.com/
Next week we have a talk by the acclaimed English Landscape Photographer Joe Cornish. Joe is a very well-known photographer, whose landscape clients include The National Trust, he has produced many books on landscape photography, and has been published and exhibited around the world. To see examples of Joe’s work you can visit his website at http://www.joecornishphotographer.com/
This event has been opened up to other Camera Clubs, and to the public, and will be held at the SPACE Theatre at SERC in Bangor. There are still a few tickets