Weavers mill, Burnley.

               I had found out about Weavers mill, back in February. This was originally arranged by a Fine Art student Sophie Skellern. I remember thinking this would be an excellent venue to exhibit in. I initially sent an email to Sophie regarding exhibiting my work examples of the work I do and a link to flickr account. luckily, Sophie really loved my work and I was excepted in to the venue. Below is a copy of the email I wrote to Sophie, about exhibitng at the Mill.

Hi Sophie.


I have decide to respond to the email, regarding exhibiting work at Burnley. I feel the space is an amazing opportunity to exhibit several pieces of my own work.
My work mainly consists of Contemporary Landscape work, with a strong element of mood and atmosphere, drawing inspiration from Fay Godwin and contemporary women photographers, such as: Kate Mellor and Sally Waterman. I often capture my subject matter with my emotions and this I find, adds to a greater depth in my work. Being selected to exhibit in Cape Town South Africa, enabled me to explore my emotionally driven creativity further, leading me to produce work that was both  thought provoking and creative. This was some of the best work I have produced to date. 
I have many series of works that would be perfect for the location, both rural and urban.

I am hoping to exhibit some of my work from a recent trip to the Isle of Arran, below is a link to my flickr account and my website...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/emma_ruth_holt_photography/ 

www.emmaholtphotography.co.uk

Many Thanks

Emma Holt
BA (Hons) Photographic Media.

 Sophie, Carren,Gemma and I ,visited the location to decide on individual space we wanted, even though I still wanted to exhibit else where initially, I thought that I could use the venue as another location to display some different work.
              As my other venues didn't work out, I found myself having to use Weavers Mill for professional studies, however I thought the space was amazing and I could imagine how my work would look like. Looking back I feel the Weavers mill, really did my work justice, the texture on the crumbling wall behind added to the feel of my final set of images.

photograph taken by Carren Stockman.

              Below, are the images I used for my exhibition in Burnley and one of the main poems I used for inspiration. The following was on display at the Mill.

She is Gone
(Read out at the Queen Mother's Funeral)

You can shed tears that she is gone
or you can smile because she has lived.

You can close your eyes and pray that she'll come back
or you can open your eyes and see all she's left.

Your heart can be empty because you can't see her
or you can be full of the love you shared.

You can turn your back on tomorrow and live yesterday
or you can be happy for tomorrow because of yesterday.

You can remember her and only that she's gone
or you can cherish her memory and let it live on.

You can cry and close your mind, be empty and turn your back
or you can do what she'd want: smile, open your eyes, love and go on.

David Harkins 1981

For me the images really reflected a sense of loss and emptiness. I had positive comments by many people visiting the Mill and looking at my images. Many viewers explained how they felt a stillness in the images and it made them reflect on certain sad times in their life. This is what I wanted, I wanted there to be a weight, almost dragging down the images and a powerful link between the poem and the final images.

Below is the Artist Statement I had on display with my images:

Without you…

By Emma Holt.

BA (Hons) Photographic Media.

This series of work is based on a project designed to find a creative connection between images and text. I am often ruled by my emotions and how I feel when I photograph a subject matter, with this in mind I used the loss of my mother ,who died in 1990 to connect with my emotions, as I felt these strong and deep feelings would come across in my work.

The photographs were taken on a recent trip to the Isle of Arran, where the diverse and historic landscape helped to capture my feelings, creating images that were inspired by wonderful poetry and imaginative lyrics. The weather was often rather cold, wet and windy, for me this only added to the atmosphere I could capture and the connection I could make between the creative text and the final images.

Working with creative text has been a joy, to find beauty and inspiration in a sentence of words, a poem, a novel…

As a Landscape photographer I strive to bring a mood to an image, to bring a sense of depth to a chosen subject matter, often photographing portraiture with the same mantra, I aim to photograph with my emotions bringing extra depth to my finished work. In the future I hope to use creative text as inspiration in many more of my images.

Below is one of the selections of text, which inspired my finished images.

She is Gone
(Read out at the Queen Mother's Funeral)

You can shed tears that she is gone
or you can smile because she has lived.

You can close your eyes and pray that she'll come back
or you can open your eyes and see all she's left.

Your heart can be empty because you can't see her
or you can be full of the love you shared.

You can turn your back on tomorrow and live yesterday
or you can be happy for tomorrow because of yesterday.

You can remember her and only that she's gone
or you can cherish her memory and let it live on.

You can cry and close your mind, be empty and turn your back
or you can do what she'd want: smile, open your eyes, love and go on.

David Harkins 1981

Below is the Artist postcard I also had on display: