Disparate Integrations is the third exhibition in the Photogenus series by the Darlington Photo-secessionist Group. Three photographers from the Group, Geoff Dodds, Jim Lycett and Ian Martin have brought together recent work to form a collective body that spans several genre, techniques and processes; the in-escapable theme is one of Pictorialism.

Flying in the face of convention, Disparate Integrations considers images as ‘unequal’ and ‘incapable of comparison’, but brought together as component parts to form a new body of work, allowing the viewer freedom to generate and form a personal opinion.

The ultimate aim of the exhibition is to challenge the individual interpretation of the images and hence visual satisfaction.

The Decisive Moment Gallery will hold Disparate Integrations from the 20th August to the 15th October. Entry is free.

Dave Thomas named this collection “alternative” because he feels that his images don’t conform to the classic notion of what landscape photography should be.

His approach is not accidental. He likes to produce abstract shapes and forms within the viewfinder. As a result all the photos have kept their original form and have not been cropped. This collection ranges from urban/industrial scenarios to country/seaside scenes. All of which represent the way in which we relate to the world around us.

Dave never formally studied photography but instead draws upon his knowledge of what is now known as “fine art” but then was simply known as drawing and painting.

Dave puts his keen powers of observation to work in all his work and likes to stray from photo-realism with a more impressionistic approach.

Dave feels that our memories are made up of fragments of time, not absolute reality. That each of us document the world around us and that this exhibition shows his unique point of view.

A fresh look at landscape photography spanning over 40 years inspired by a love of painting, movies and music.

ALTRENATIVE LANDSCAPE runs from 18th June to 13th August at the Decisive Moment Gallery. Entry is Free. For more information contact us on 01325 488139 or mediaworkshop@me.com

United by a Love of Photography

From a retired university lecturer to the proverbial Aussie IT guy, all twenty-five members of the Darlington Media Group with images in this yearʼs Annual Memberʼs Exhibition are united by one thing – a love of photography.

As usual the exhibition reflects a full range of subjects and styles in both colour and monochrome. From pinhole to digital and everything in between, the photographs on show for the next six weeks at their own Decisive Moment Gallery in the Blanche PeaseAnnex of Darlington Artsʻ Centre demonstrate what can be achieved by ordinary photographers using equipment that is accessible to the ʻman in the streetʼ.

Running from the 16th April to 11th June the Decisive Moment Gallery will be hosting the Darlington Media Group’s Members Exhibition. Entry is free.

The foot-and-mouth outbreak that swept the UK at the beginning of 2001 changed the face of agriculture in Britain, bringing to an end places and events in the farming calendar that had lasted for centuries.

Masham Cattle Auction Mart was one such victim of the drastically changed commercial realities that followed on from the cattle culling epidemic.

In this monochrome photo-essay North Yorkshire photographer Henry Brown documents the last days of this former fixture on the regional farming scene.  His images captured the end of a much-loved and important institution as its 90 years of service to the local farming community came to a close.

This exhibition, in the Decisive Moment Gallery, Blanche Pease Annex, Darlington Arts Centre runs from February 26th to 9th April and is open on Tues, Thurs, Fri from 12 – 7 and Saturday 10 – 4.

On Saturday 15th January at 2pm the Fresh Perspectives exhibition will officially open.

The artists themselves will be there to answer any questions you may have on the photos.

Entry is free and nibbles will be provided

For more information on the exhibition click here

Contributors to the exhibition, with their individual styles, have explored many aspects of pinhole photography and have produced iconic images mainly from around the Darlington area.

The exhibition runs from September 26th-November 28th 2009, and is open from 12-7pm on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays, and 10am-4pm on Saturdays.

DMG is hosting an exhibition by East Berlin photographer Georg Krause, who will be attending the event, whilst the event ends with the screening of a unique film made in 1987 in the GDR by Newcastle’s Amber Films.

Richard Grassick who was there when it was made, will be at the event to present the film.

In between, we are screening the DVD of the 2008 Darlington International Day event, and in anticipation of the following week, a short DVD about our Community Carnival.
Start Time: 14:00
Date: 2009-06-20
End Time: 17:00

Opening Decisive Moment Gallery. June 20th at 2pm

Decisive Moment Gallery. June 20th to September 19th 2009

'Lost World' by Georg Krause

The first UK showing of the work of Berlin photographer Georg Krause opens at Darlington Media Group’s Decisive Moment Gallery on Saturday 20th June. Lost World was produced during the final years of the communist German Democratic Republic.

Since the eighties, when he was still a student of photography, Georg Krause has made work the theme of his photography. He grew up in the German Democratic Republic fatherless, and started his own working life in the opencast mines of Hagenwerda near Görlitz.

What impressed him then were the men with huge machines who performed this heavy work on a daily basis. They called each other “mates” and wished each other luck at the beginning and end of the day with the miners’ traditional greeting: “Glück auf!”

Around 1985 he produced “The Working World of the Smelters” and “The Copper Foundry“, followed in 1987 by ‘The Working World of the Department Store“, and in 1988/89 “The Women Who Feed Building Workers“.

Initially he used the working environment as a source for images of people. Over time the world of work became his theme, and people provided the material, becoming a factor in his broader exploration of “People – Work – Life“. The eternal philosophy of living to work and working to live, and the conditions in which life actually unfolds here and today, are his principal themes – not the world of the rich and the beautiful. His “Working Worlds” are serial formats devoted to specific subsets of the working environment, although each work in the series must also speak for itself.

Twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, and the subsequent collapse of the Soviet Union-led experiment in a totalitarian form of state control, East Germans look back on this Lost World with a mixture of relief and regret. Relief that the days of shortages and grey uniformity are past. But regret for the way in which the west ruthlessly demolished many important social pillars of life. Work, guaranteed under the GDR regime, is one such pillar that is gone. Unemployment in Germany’s eastern states stood at 13% in 2008, compared with 6.4% in the west. Georg Krause’s Working Worlds are truly lost.

Location: Decisive Moment Gallery

Description: Georg Krause’s exhibition ‘Lost World: The Factory Floor of the German Democratic Republic’ opens at 2pm – also two DMG video productions will get their premier today; International Day 2008, and Community Carnival 2008

Start Time: 14:00

Date: 2009-06-20

Ramshackles by David Thomas

The first major exhibition was at Impressions Gallery in York, which had pioneered the concept of photo galleries, and was called ‘The Work of The Weavers’, an exploration of the West Yorkshire woollen industry. Several other long-term projects were also started during this time including ‘Ramshackles’ (a celebration of alternative architecture) in 1975, Appleby Horse Fair. In 1973 he quit teaching and returned to freelance photography based in Leeds. Clients included the Halifax, BBC Television, and many regional and national advertising agencies. He also continued to produce personal work, being a founder member of ‘Northlight’, a co-operative based in Leeds, and in particular the long-term project of ‘Ramshackles’, before returning to teaching in 1984, moving to the north east and teaching at Cleveland College of Art & Design.

His first major regional exhibition was at Darlington Arts Centre, ‘Ramshackles’, 1986/87, which has since toured many venues in the UK, including Side Gallery. He has continued to work around the themes of people and landscape, some in liaison with Amber Side, including a 1992 project on the Blue Circle cement works.