Sheridan Flynn Photographer

A three in one image

admin — Sun, 15 Aug 2010 18:09:28 +0000

Over the past few months I’ve been loosely working on a couple of projects. Uniformity in urban style, the workings of the Colombia Road flower market, and street life in East London. Strangely these three themes crossed over in this one image.

I’m not too sure how these projects will end up. Or what format they’ll be presented in. So far I’ve been casually building them as the mood takes me. I might start to focus more on the specifics as opposed to my current scatter gun approach.

Strolling through Colombia Road, up to Brick Lane, and around by Spitalfields Market this morning certainly gave me a lot to think about. Such a vibrant part of London. So full of possibilities, so many contradictions, and every inch of pavement brimming with energy.

Hmm… Where to start?

Sheridan Flynn – Aug 10

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Dave, the cabinet maker

admin — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 22:39:05 +0000

This is a photo of my very good mate Dave Boswell. He is the self proclaimed last cabinet maker of Shoreditch. I spent the afternoon with him in his fascinating workshop drinking tea, chatting about the timber, and discussing the ills of East London’s youth. We both agreed that most problems can be solved by giving people something meaningful and interesting to do. Like welding, carpentry, painting, or creating something of purpose.

Dave is a man full of ancient tales. Every tool and piece of wood hanging from his wall has a string of stories attached to it. He’s making me a table. I must get the history behind the wood he’s using.

Sheridan Flynn.

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Photography on the iPad

admin — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 22:50:46 +0000

Just got my hands on an iPad. The moment I held it in my hand it really felt like something very special. After 30 years of home computers a device has finally arrived that makes it a pleasure to read text and view images on. To the naysayers, yes it’s an over sized iPhone locked down by Apple’s walled garden of censorship. But the iPad is a truly compelling tool that will hopefully spark the imaginations of hardware manufactures and software developers to drive inovation into exciting unchartered territories. As for photographers, artists writers, and journalists I really hope we grasp this shift in media and make something as interesting as the device itself.

The images displayed are from the free Guardian Eyewitness app.

1. © Paolo Pellegrin
2. © Emanuel Dunand/AFP/Getty Images
3. © Getty Images
4. © Aly Song/Reuters

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Me, text and images.

admin — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 00:01:51 +0000

I was born into a strong literary household. Books stacked on shelves, piled on side tables, and casually strewn about occupied every room of the home. The printed word, a form of DNA is coded into the fabric of my ancestry. A linage of journalists going back three generations stand behind me. In spite of this I struggle with text. I find reading anything longer than a 500 word article a challenge. And putting pen to paper is a very rare occurrence. I don’t dislike written words. I just find it hard to stick with them. Being a child born of the Nintendo, VHS, and satellite TV generation I have from an early age experienced much of the world visually. Words are something that appear on screen between a mass of intense moving images. In primary school I was force fed a curriculum of numbers and text dressed up in a questionable narrative which I often found to be a meaningless chore to wade through. I never enjoyed reading in the same way I enjoyed playing Pac Man or watching a Stanley Kubrik film. And I spent far more time doing the latter. Yet despite my D in Leaving Cert English my teachers always said I wrote well. A painfully frustrating contradiction that baffled me for years.

Throughout those years I started more blogs than I care to remember. Half thought out, badly written they hang stillborn in cyberspace with long forgotten passwords. Their presence revealed by the odd Google search scraping at my conscience each time they appear before me. I think what compeled me to write them was in part a unreconciled guilt aimed at myself for failing to follow my forefather’s footsteps and an utter failing at a subject the experts said I was supposed to be good at. Somewhere I was trying to become the writer I thought I should have been and what I thought the world wanted of me. Brute force. I’m a peg forcing myself into an ill fitting hole. Exhausted after repeatedly doing the same thing and expecting a different result I finally surrendered. I work better with images than I do with text. Once I accepted that simple fact about myself things began to change. I’ve come to know that in many ways I’m the same as my journalistic forefathers. We read stories. We tell stories. They use paper and ink. I use a camera and a computer screen.

Sheridan Flynn June 2010

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Getting to know the flower people.

admin — Sun, 30 May 2010 23:09:48 +0000

The Colombia Road Flower Market is where East Londoners come to on a lazy Sunday to add a bit of colour to their day. I arrived here at 10am thinking I was way too early. As it turned out I was greeted by swarms of shoppers knee deep in flowers. People were flocking around flower stalls like rabid honey bees. I grabbed my bulky DSLR but quickly found it’s size to be a hinderance. I switched to a smaller Canon G10 which worked well given the cramped conditions. I weaved my way in and out of the crowds, snapping shoppers who were snapping up bargains by sellers who were snapping up their cash. Time flew and by late morning I had some interesting shots. Approaching the sellers for some casual banter was near impossible. No time for friendly chit chat here it’s all about trading. I stayed all afternoon. Right up until the council men filled their rubbish trucks with the remnants of the day’s trading.

Looking back over the images I don’t think there’s enough key shots to build a strong narrative. So over the coming weeks I’ll keep returning and and try to build some relationships with the sellers. With a bit of luck I should have an interesting story to tell.

@ Sheridan Flynn 2010

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Photographing the Tailors Gallery

admin — Sat, 29 May 2010 00:09:49 +0000

Here’s a photo I snapped of tailor and designer Patrick Walsh earlier this morning as we went to pick up some materials from his local supplier. I’m currently working with Patrick by documenting the practice of his company The Tailors Gallery London. I have to say… I’m very excited to be photographing such an interesting subject. Not only does Patrick source his materials locally. But he also hand makes his garments and sells them locally too. On top of that he’s designing one off high fashion garments using material from old tents, worn combats, and butcher’s aprons. Watch this space for more info over the coming weeks.

Sheridan Flynn.

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London by iPhone

admin — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 23:07:57 +0000

For this assignment John said something alongs the lines of… “Take time to experiment. Do something fun, simple and lighthearted.” With that in mind I ditched my DSLR and compact cameras and shot everything on my iPhone. In fact I edited the images and recorded the audio on my iPhone as well. In comparison with most modern phones the iPhone’s camera is actually pretty dire. It’s slow, the colours tend to wash out, and it’s very clumsy to use on the fly. Having said that if you take the time to work around it’s quirks I think you can get some interesting results.

I photographed with the iPhone for a week. I walk a lot around London and I focused on things that I would normally pass by without taking much notice of. Capturing interesting snippets of my journeys around the city.

*Not including humans my next best friend is my iPhone.

[[Show as slideshow]]

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Past, future, present.

admin — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 00:56:00 +0000

Leafing through my past and contemplating the different decisions I have made in my life which has led me to be in this exact place and time, I was struck by many small ironies that with the benefit of hindsight tend become very clear. I’m writing this as I’m leaving one home and returning to another. I call London home simply because it feels like one. But coming from an Irish republican background I never thought I’d settle so comfortably in the heart of the commonwealth.

I grew up in a very bohemian household. I was often surrounded my actors, writers, poets, geniuses, lunatics and chancers. My first job was when I was 10 years old. I got a part in a Brian Friel play directed by Frank McGuinness in the Peacock theatre. It was the same building my grandmother acted in in the 1950′s and my father in the 70′s. My second job was working as a stage hand at a U2 concert. I remember it was the Z00 TV tour and I lied about my age. I told the promoter I was 16 when in-fact I was only 14. I disliked school and worked as much as I could on weekends and evenings. I guess I saw all the major acts, though usually from a distance of about 200 metres and from behind a scaffolding tower.

At the dawn of the millennium I to travelled to Sydney on a one year working holiday visa. One year quickly turned into five. Five years of working nights, lock-ins, eating junk, handing out drinks, drinking drinks, counting cash, stressing, rushing, and generally acting the eejit finally took it’s toll. I hung up my apron and began to work in IT for a payment solutions company.

I’m quite a creative person and when my day job really began to remind me of school I knew I was in trouble. I had bought the house in the burbs, was spending 3 hours a day [mostly in traffic] getting in and out of work and felt it was impossible for me to move into doing something I truly enjoyed. One day while sitting on a motorway I heard about a bus tour travelling from Galway to Sydney. I cracked. I quit my job, sold my car, rented out my house, and hit the road.

To cut a very long journey / story short I took a camera with me on the trip. It was the first time I used a DSLR. I had actually planned to take more video footage but was struck by the power of the still image. I returned to Ireland and despite the economic obstacles which stood before me I was determined to forge a career in something which fulfilled me. In 2008 I moved to London working for next to nothing in an east end gallery. In my spare time I worked on my portfolio and learned as much as I could about photography taking six short part-time courses at LCC.

Today I feel like I’m entering photography at a very strange time in it’s history. Never before have so many photographers been out of work. Never before has photography been so popular and accessible. A photographer once a welcome novelty on a London street can now be seen as a security threat or an unwanted pest. In cities we have a conflicting relationships with images. CCTV used to protect us can equally be used to incriminate us. We know an image can be a convincing liar or a messenger of truth. We’re constantly bombarded with moving images and sound. Yet through all of this we still can’t take our eye’s off a compelling photograph.

Photojournalism isn’t dying, it’s simply changing. Changing so fast that nobody really know what it’s going to look like in 2 years time. Think Napster X 10. With the death of an old way of life comes the birth of a new one. And with technology on the side of photography I think it’s never been a more interesting time to be a photographer.

Documentary fascinates me. In any media form. Whether it be film, radio, or TV. Also the merging of of documentary and drama such as Nick Broomfield’s Ghosts or Ken Loach’s Raining Stones really interests me. In my day job as a web developer I’m constantly trying to pair different technologies together to make something work. PHP, Java, Flash, and HTML. I’d like to do something similar with photography and to communicate a story to new audiences. Hi def video, stills, Flash navigation, audio, iPhones, and projection are all very interesting tools to play with that yet have to be fully exploited.

I’ve heard you can plan anything you like. Just don’t plan the outcome. Having said that my plan over the next two years is to develop my skills as a photographer / journalist / storyteller. I’m a firm believer in a group being more powerful than the sum of it’s parts. And despite my single-mindedness I hope to engage with those around me in a rich meaningful way. Virtually or otherwise.

Here’s some resources which have greatly influenced me in recent years.

Music and Life – Alan Watts.

Bruce Gilden

Future Shock by Alvlin Toffler

Ken Robinson – Are Schools Killing Creativity?

Jon Naar – Birth of Graffiti

Koyaanisqatsi

Bill Hicks on Drugs

So to all my MAPJD classmates and tutors… I really look forward to working and getting to know all over the next couple of months.

Thanks for reading,

Sheridan.

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