Heading into the future by returning to the past.
It has certainly been a busy few months so grab a coffee, some biscuits and get comfy.
Are you ready? Right, let’s go….
Walker | Ratcliffe : ‘Sirens’
It was an absolute honour to be invited and debut my Walker | Ratcliffe ‘Sirens’ installation at the Leicester Documentary Media Centre’s 2025 ‘DocPhoto8’ collective. Working with Alec Aarons at the Fresh Aire photographic printers in Leeds (www.freshaire.co.uk), Sirens was printed on Japanese Awagami Kozo paper. Made from Mulberry bark, Kozo gives a beautiful soft yellow tone that complimented the nostalgic feel of the collection perfectly.
You can read more about Sirens in the gallery here: www.lswalker.co.uk/photography/sirens and I will talk about the Documentary Media Centre’s DocPhoto8 in greater depth a little further down the line. DocPhoto8 is such an important platform not only for photographers and visual artists in the Midlands but all over the country.
With 2025’s DocPhoto8 concluding I am hopeful that another public gallery in Leicester will be exhibiting Sirens soon.
Split
Times are quickly a’changing with the continued onslaught of wanton mass AI scraping across everything online and indeed algorithms deliberately preventing an account’s reach on social media. It’s a fool’s errand and I remain split, going as far to being reluctant with uploading a-grade work to my own website. This is not a good place to be. So in order for me to look to the future I have returned to my past and am preparing my first two hard-copy portfolios.
To explain in part and as an example; it is frustrating when after submitting photographic dummy books to publishers there are very few who have the common courtesy to respond. No longer are my 1990’s art college and university peers there for me to talk with, the tutors and the lecturers who offered sage advice of yore are gone. So I’m changing tack.
My first two portfolios have been printed and I’m currently collaborating with Martin at The Sheaf Bindery (www.sheafbindery.com) with two bespoke folio cases. Once complete I will be attending face-to-face portfolio reviews at places like The Photographer’s Gallery in London. This not only allows a two-way conversation and feedback over the work in hand, it also puts names to faces which is equally important.
Immersive installation update
Whilst that was going on all of my immersive installation’s 35mm photographs were taken and films home developed. And it was a lot, oh gosh, was it a lot, and I still have the medium format photographs to take, oh lawdy!
Having spoken to another Leicester based visual artist who works in a genre that’s being combined with my work (yes, I’m deliberately being vague here!) they are not only offering their advice and support but also invited me to join a Leicester visual arts collective, how exciting is that?! And no, I won’t be divulging names just yet as not to jinx things. This now leads to another funding application with the Arts Council England, hopefully third time lucky? Positive vibes please!
This time around there is a chance of an acquaintance whose bread and butter is ACE applications for arts based charities in Leicester coming on board and helping me with mine. Well I hope, I remain ever hopeful and keep my fingers crossed. In a nutshell my computer system is old, obsolete and no longer being updated, yay for late-stage capitalism eh! I need help with purchasing a new and more powerful system, this current one won’t handle video creation software. Trust me here, I’ve tried, it grinded to a halt and scared the bejeezus out of me. So, yeah, there’s that.
Arts Council funding application aside, if you would like to support my work via donation that would be greatly appreciated, it goes a very long way: www.paypal.me/thatdeafguy
The Future…
My website, www.lswalker.co.uk, is soon to be evolving with the help of two friends who jointly run Eastland Jones Creative: www.eastlandjones.com, on top of being lovely guys what they don’t know about website coding isn’t worth knowing. So yes, I’m darned well going to plug them!
Another Sheaf Bindery portfolio will be created for my ‘Sirens’ collection, this too will be used for face-to-face reviews. You can find The Sheaf Bindery’s website here: www.sheafbindery.com
Before the year is out I will be found in Leicester city centre creating public portraits. Sadly my portrait photography has been forlornly neglected for many years so I’m kicking myself up the bum and getting the big camera out there, if you see me say “Hi!”.
Moving on; preliminary research stages are afoot with possible exhibitions near my home area in the North-East of England and in Bradford, West Yorkshire, where I went to Art College.
And then where Sirens laid the foundation I will be working solidly on the inherited photographic legacy of my late in-laws. From this a larger exhibition of work will be created as part of the ongoing ‘Walker | Ratcliffe’ archive.
Oh yes, I am not posting much to my Instagram account, as per comment regarding social media above, however I am still using their ‘stories’ to post updates as they seem to gain greater reach. Alternatively, you can find me on the new Foto app (Profile: @thatdeafguysaperture). For those intrigued about Foto, they can be found here: www.fotoapp.co or via your mobile phone’s app store. It’s a shame that renown photographers, the photography book publishers and the galleries have not opened accounts there… yet, I’m watching you and waiting!
And that’s me done! Thank you for taking a little time out from your day to read my ramblings, I will sure be rambling here again soon.
All the best to every one of you out there,
Lee.