Jade Birchnall talk

http://jadebirchnallphotography.tumblr.com/#about


We had a talk by Jade Birchnall who used to study photography at Burton College and is now studying photography at Manchester Met university. She prefers to use medium format film cameras so the majority of her work is taken on film. She said she 'found herself' whilst being at uni, her favourite camera, style of photography etc. She is in her last year and is getting prepared for her final show presenting all of her work. 

She is currently doing a series of portrait images of nuns and is attending their nunnery a few times a week to get to know the ladies better and gain a comfortable relationship with them. These are two images i have managed to get off her tumblr website of the series. 

Sister Catherine 

Sister Catherine used to be an professional speed skater! 

• She has also done a series about her Grandmother who is sadly suffering with dementia. She showed us a short video that she had put together with some of the images of her grandmother,brother and things relating to dementia. She went to do a photo shoot of her grandma and secretly recorded the conversation (telling her grandma it was a light reader)and she had selected parts of this playing in the background of the video. 

This is one image from the series showing some notes of what her grandma did in the day so she can be reminded of her week. As Jade was talking about her work it was nice to hear her laughing and having a bit of a joke about how her grandma forgets everything, she knows it's a series condition but there's nothing that can be done about it therefor it was great to see her coping with it in the best way she could. 

• Another set of work that Jade is working on is of elderly people in an old peoples home. She has had many visits to the old peoples home allowing herself and the residents to get comfortable with each other to make the photo shoots a lot easier and relaxed. She was explaining to us how a lot of the residents have dementia like her grandma so they may forget who she is when they first meet her again. She did a set of portraits of a selected few old ladies and gentlemen in a chair in the corner of a room as she was advised to select and area to do the photos so it wouldn't disturb, get in the way or confuse the residents. She realised after these photos were taken all of them looked very unhappy, bored and sad. So she went round again 'capturing the moment' of happy smiling faces so they could put the photos up in the home as a gift from her to say thank you. 

 

Lucia- a brief paragraph about how Jade describes the visit.  

Jade described uni as a great place to be to broaden your experiences, experimenting with different cameras, materials, techniques and finding a style that suits you. She was saying how she is now finding a place to do the end of year final show and it's entirely up to them where this is shown. This is something i'm really looking forward to doing and i can't wait to experiment with different cameras and types of photography.