THE IMAGE ROOM

Images. Residues of light and time along the Silver Coast. The ideas that hung around long enough to take form.

8 stories

Latest Stories

VALDA BAILEY

A Recalcitrant .jpg

When is a photograph not a photograph? I suppose conventional wisdom might say it's no longer a photograph when it no longer presents a single, stable instant as evidence. Which pretty much describes everything I’ve ever taken since 2008. Apart from the current sunset obsession, obviously. Is it even a question worth contemplating? I am not really that invested in names and labels. Useful from the perspective of being able to identify the ‘how’. Doesn’t really tell the viewer much about the ‘wh

VALDA BAILEY

On the road again

Olá. Bom dia. Several people have asked in recent weeks whether we’re planning tours here in Portugal. We are, and they’re nearly ready (and when I say 'we', I do, of course, mean Terry Gibbins, who many of you know, and me, under the Bailey Chinnery banner). With Doug and Elaine doing all the unsung admin and organisation in the background. The route to getting settled hasn’t been entirely straightforward, as many of you know. It looks as if the rebuilding of our house after Storm Kristin wil

VALDA BAILEY

Watercress

I have a bunch of it in the fridge. It's the size of a small Labrador. That seems to be the way they sell it here. The old woman at the Sunday market had twinkly eyes and an apron like my grandma used to wear, so I didn't like to tell her it was too much. Consequently, I've spent an hour and a half cataloguing ideas for how it might be deployed. This isn't about watercress, though. Or twinkly-eyed Portuguese farmers. It's about displacement activities. I talk about my favourite all the time – s

VALDA BAILEY

Flying White

Chinese calligraphy has a delightful name for the happy accident. When the brush moves fast, the ink breaks and white paper flashes through the stroke. Calligraphers call it feibai, flying white, and they have prized it for two thousand years.

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The Art of Failing to Copy

Say the word copying to a room full of photographers and watch everyone suddenly become very interested in their shoes. On the deliberate kind of copying, the kind that takes time.

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The Silence Before the Song

What to do with loss? On moving to Portugal, the allure of fado and the line between drawing on a culture and decorating with it.

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50 Shades

Fifty grey fragments lifted from the Silver Coast – sea, sand, cloud, foam, the occasional sulky bit of almost-blue

VALDA BAILEY

Estrago

A treehouse that kept its roof, a house that didn't, and a box of spoiled paper that is evolving daily. Estrago, at Studio Atlantic.