My second exhibition at Civic Hall Stanley has now come to an end, and if you didn’t manage to pop in I’ve added a selection of the photos to my facebook page so you can check them out.
I chose the title ‘Born as Ghosts’ from a song by Rage Against the Machine, as it summed up the feeling of the exhibition. The photos that I chose to display were a mixture of both colour and black and white, but unlike my first analogue exhibition, I went completely digital this time.
The theme of the exhibition was a bit looser and harder to pin down than ‘Stanley²’, which focused on mirroring and double exposures. ‘Born as Ghosts’ was dedicated to the unwanted, the abandoned, the obsolete, the uncelebrated things that are in the background of our lives. I wanted to bring out the beauty and nobility that remains in such subjects. This extended from things like derelict shops, to unused coal bunkers, and dying plants.
The image chosen to represent the exhibition on the poster shows some horse hair tangled in barbed wire. I found it quite melancholy and somehow poetic, and it brought to mind a lyric from the song; “Where home is a wasteland, taste the razor wire.”
One interesting thing I discovered when assembling the exhibition at the venue was how putting certain combinations of photos together gave them a different feel and impact. It’s something I’ll definitely bear in mind when planning future exhibitions.
For some reason I have a thing for photographing weeds, especially decaying ones. Their colours and textures can be just as beautiful as flowers. I love the delicacy of this picture in particular, with a shallow depth of field giving an eerie feel and the stalk in the foreground resembling a grasping skeletal hand.
All of the photos were taken in Stanley, on walks and around my allotment. One of my favourite subjects is this creepy looking building I found in a horse’s field on one of my walks, it was approaching dusk when I took the photo and the lighting was perfect to make the building look even more menacing. This shed also featured in Stanley², but looked very different!
The ‘Born as Ghosts’ exhibition was well received by both the visitors and the venue, and I’ve been asked if I would like to hold a third exhibition in 2016. I’m planning to turn the first two exhibitions into Photobooks and these will be available for sale, as well as individual prints – please contact me for more details if you’re interested.
More details of my photography can be found on my website http://www.helentaylorphotos.com
helentaylorphotos.com 
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