Kate Tyler's Photobooth

The Tyler Hanbury Emporium Strikes Again

2012-02-26T13:52:00.003-08:00

These winter months may be holding me back from being outdoors with a camera, but they're certainly not holding me back from being indoors with some junk, and the end of January saw myself and Gini Hanbury uniting once more to create another series of installments for The Tyler Hanbury Emporium.

Armed with three fifties medicine cabinets, four dummy arms, a flamingo, some bad 80s vinyl and our usual games paraphernalia, we wanted to put together a submission for Bath's Annual Fringe Visual Arts Festival.

Our work aims to use as much ‘lost property’ as possible to capture and protect remnants of the past. To us, genuine treasure exists in those chucked-in-a-skip, found-in-a-loft, charity-shopped objects that are so often abandoned. The decision to revamp or move on from our fads and crazes is part of a global phenomenon; if someone else has thrown it away, there's a good chance we'll take it back. And that's what The Tyler Hanbury Emporium is all about ~ making us look again at the things we consume and the things we discard.

For Bath's Lost Properties exhibition, we wanted to submit three wooden boxes. Salvaged from an old chemist they originally contained eye-wash, and from the outside they still look innocuous. Once opened, however, they reveal a collection of found objects; all discarded, all once loved. Some seem to mock the notion of vintage, some evoke our own 80s’ childhoods, some just make us grimace or smile sentimentally. Ultimately, though, they all demand we take a second look at the fragile emporiums we build around us, every single day.

Our only sadness? That we couldn't use the dummy arms this time. But wait, dolly, and dummy arms and doll heads are coming. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon....

International Postcard Show 2012

2012-01-16T08:15:00.000-08:00

It's that time of year again ... new year resolutions are being squandered and postcards are being made as the Surface Gallery gets ready to host its annual International Postcard Show. I put in a very last minute entry in the form of three postcards. Still using some of the vintage games that form the basis of The Tyler Hanbury Emporium, I wanted to create a series of connected yet random statements:

The exhibition runs from Jan 25th to Feb 11th. See you there!

Sweden v Alphabets

2011-10-03T07:31:00.000-07:00

After months and months of trying - and failing - to find large 3D letters, and finally scraping together enough objects and assorted clutter to vaguely assemble an alphabet in the booth, I created my piece and then went away to Sweden. I was expecting many things: blonde beauties, fab architecture, great design, the occasional meatball. I was not expecting to find a country as in love with large scale lettering as I am. Trying to find massive letters in the UK is a mission and a half. Sweden gives them to you on a plate, with a choice of styles, colours and fonts thrown in for good measure. One more reason why Scandinavia rocks.

Alphabetak Strikes Again

2011-09-19T10:45:00.000-07:00

Another trip to London, another trip to the Photoautomat in Shoreditch, another set of Alphabetak compositions completed. I even had two helpful assistants! As always they feature the alphabet running A-F along the top row, then G-M, N-T, and finally U-Z along the bottom row. As always they're created entirely in the booth too...

A-Z

From a set of 1950s alphabet flash cards

Oh, Deco

2D hand cut out letters in an art deco font

Object D'Arte

assorted 3D letters & objects

The Font of Knowledge

2D hand cut out letters in a classic serif font

The Alphabetak Series continues...

2011-06-29T07:07:00.000-07:00

I am becoming slowly obsessed with all things type. No longer do I see the usual stream of streets and shops as I walk around Nottingham. Instead everything is made up of letters, big and small, bold and bland, booth-worthy and not. I've collected almost an alphabet's worth of 3D objects and letters to hold up inside the booth - no mean feat when you consider assembling twenty-six object d'arte. I've considered theft. My friends are bored of alphabet speak. I actually got excited about the fact that it was Caps Lock Day yesterday. And I'm still eluded by a decent F and a worthy Y.

Half an alphabet - of sorts

I have also been creating several other new alphabets to take to the photoautomat @ Cargo in the next month. Busy saving all my pound coins too! I'm hoping my next post here will actually be the alphabets themselves, although these things have a tendancy to go wrong somehow. My last visit to the booth yielded little. This time I'm armed.

Letter Jumble

The Tyler Hanbury Emporium

2011-02-28T12:13:00.000-08:00

Now, this is not a photobooth.

And it doesn't create photostrips.

But it was once a phonebooth.

And it's still a lot of fun:

It's also just one part of The Tyler Hanbury Emporium - currently on show in Norwich as part of the Shop Art! project in the city centre.

Myself and good friend, Gini Hanbury, love junk. The thrown-in-a-skip, found-in-a-loft, charity-shop-tat kinda junk. If someone else has thrown it away, there's a good chance we'll take it back. And that's what The Tyler Hanbury Emporium is all about ~ a celebration of all things junky-tat, of recycling, of retro games and vintage wares.

Sometimes, even the old and the discarded looks fresh once again. Or atleast midly amusing for a while....

Gini and I regularly collect, collaborate and create together, inspired by the idea of emporiums of old, the lottery of life and whatever random objects we've actually found. Gini lives in Norwich. I live in Nottingham. The Tyler Hanbury Emporium exists somewhere in between.

A 'we are not worthy' nod of credit here must go to Anthony Burrill, whose 'Work Hard & Be Nice To People' poster sneaked into this piece. My favourite life-motto on a postcard!

These pieces and others are currently on show in a window in Westlegate, Norwich, as part of the Shop Art! project. Norwich Arts Centre have organised various otherwise unused shop windows in the centre of the city to be used as exhibition space for a range of artists. Mine & Gini's collaborative work is on display until atleast mid-April.

Photobooth ~ The Art of the Automatic Portrait

2011-02-21T16:50:00.000-08:00

There's a whole world of photobooth artists out there - and we're all in here: Raynal Pellicer's latest book Photobooth ~ The Art of the Automatic Portrait.

OPEM Private View

2011-02-21T16:25:00.000-08:00

Felt quite excited to see the OPEM exhibition when it opened earlier this month. The gallery space was well used, the private view itself was really well attended and the bar was exceptionally well stocked. All boxes ticked.

Overheard one woman talking about the flow and metamorphosis of language in my Alphabetak pieces. Suddenly felt like an imposter as, really, I just like alphabets. Alot.

International Postcard Show 2011

2011-01-16T08:01:00.000-08:00

The Surface Gallery in Notts hold their annual postcard show every year in January. I wanted to create a collage piece that combined my photobooth work with the vintage games that form the basis of The Tyler Hanbury Emporium. This is what I made:

This humble card was featured in both the Left Lion's article and the BBC coverage of the show. Chuffed.

OPEM @ The Collection, Lincoln

2010-12-13T15:01:00.000-08:00

Morse Makes Me Hoarse and Signs of Life - both from The Alphabetak Series - have been selected to show at OPEM, the new open exhibition for artists working in the East Midlands & Humberside at The Collection, Lincoln from 5th February - 3rd May 2011. Woop Woop!

The Collection is located in the Cultural Quarter of Lincoln and consists of a great free-to-enter museum and the region’s premier art gallery, The Usher.

The Alphabetak Series

2010-10-31T12:36:00.000-07:00

Capital!

2D hand cut out letters

Arabic

2D hand cut out Arabic letters

Capital!

2D hand cut out giant letters

Morse Makes Me Hoarse

2D Morse code dots and dashes

Signs of Life

Sign language alphabet

The Alphabetak Series is a collection of alphabets created directly in the booth. As with all my photobooth art, nothing is altered afterwards. Pure booth action baby! Each one presents a different version of the alphabet, from Arabic to sign language and Morse code. They all follow the same horizontal structure, running from A-F along the top row, then G-M, N-T and finally U-Z along the bottom. Signs of Life, the sign language alphabet, is one of the images chosen by Raynal Pellicer for his upcoming book Photobooth - The Art of the Automatic Portrait, due to be published in January 2010

Travelling Through the Booth

2010-10-30T17:30:00.000-07:00

Mix & Match

2010-10-30T14:40:00.001-07:00

This Mix & Match set is one of the images chosen by Raynal Pellicer for his upcoming book Photobooth - The Art of the Automatic Portrait, due to be published in January 2010

The Art of Waiting

2010-09-28T15:50:00.000-07:00

www.theartofwaiting.com is such an interesting project. More than just photography, it is an exploration of the concept of waiting. As well as blogs in various forms that document this wait, they also run seasonal contests of a photographic nature. This summer, they teamed up with photobooth.net and ran an international photobooth contest that focused on the three minutes everyone has to wait for their strip of pictures. My kind of competition!

I wanted to put together an entry that went back to the heart of why most people in the UK use photobooths - to get a passport. The newspapers in the summer were full of headlines about new British passports being issued every three minutes - three really is a magic number it seems. Below is the poster, the text from the poster and the final photo strips that formed my main entry. I also submitted Signs of Life and ended up winning two of the three categories. Super, super chuffed!

Here's the poster I made to accompany my strips (with the text from it below):

I am fortunate enough to already have a British passport. It guarantees me stress-free travel and a great quality of life: clean water, decent wages, free health care, social security, no civil wars, no persecution and, alas, very little good weather. No wonder so many other people want one of these British Passports too.

With a new UK passport granted every three minutes, that’s 175,200 more passports each year. Given that 80% of people still use a photobooth to create their passport photo, that’s a staggering 140,000 photobooth visits just for official purposes! In the three minutes it takes for those photos to develop, another passport is granted. Altogether, a hell of a lot of people, passports and three minute photobooth waits!

Three minutes of internet research reveals that you can buy a British passport – if you’re willing to part with a lot of money. I wanted to see if I could make an equally dodgy new passport in the three minutes it takes for my photobooth pictures to develop.

But is it really that easy to become British?

Armed with an array of hats, a Union Jack, various outfits, a giant passport photo of myself looking as British as British can be and a stack of pound coins to feed the booth, I decided to become British inside a photobooth!

Never mind that I already am British.

Never mind that I’m stereotyping other nationalities.

Never mind that I can’t physically get changed from one costume to another in time and have to use a giant cut out of myself.

Never mind!

Three minutes later…

I really enjoyed my three minutes of waiting, with its frantic cutting out, sticking, drawing and assembling of my rudimentary passport. I ended up waiting around that booth most of the afternoon as I tried to get each subsequent strip just right. I went through five nationalities and a lot of pound coins and I still wasn’t totally happy with the result!

Yet so many people wait much longer for a result that could radically change their lives forever. For every person immigration say yes to, a further five are rejected – their wait was in vain. Three minutes: A strip of identification photographs. Three minutes: A brand new passport. Three minutes: A totally different future.

More booth antics...

2010-09-25T16:07:00.000-07:00

World's Largest Photobooth @ Nottingham Contemporary

2010-08-30T17:02:00.000-07:00

Goggles

2010-08-10T17:18:00.000-07:00

Granny & Grandad

2010-07-20T14:23:00.000-07:00

My Granny & Grandad ....various family members have contributed photobooth images over the years, but these two of my Dad's parents are definitely in the favourite category

One camera just isn't enough....

2010-06-30T17:10:00.000-07:00

Of course analogue is best, but when you live somewhere with only one dip and dunk booth left in the whole country then you have to embrace digital too. I'm not fussy. A booth is a booth is a booth.

I Love You / I Hate You

2010-06-10T16:56:00.000-07:00

Lifelong Obsession...

2010-05-20T14:14:00.000-07:00

I am a photographer and photobooth fanatic based in Nottingham. I have collected passport photos since 1991 and now have over a thousand different images. I also create my own work using the photobooth medium. My art work celebrates the limited space of the booth and I especially enjoy utilising the restrictions that a strip of four standard-format images poses.

Growing up in a small village in Lincolnshire meant that there was often very little to do except gaze at the wide, open landscapes. A trip to the city of Lincoln therefore always seemed exciting, with its glorious cathedral, oh-so-steep hill, multiple shops and outdoor photobooths - it didn’t matter what time of day or night it was, I could always sneak into the tiny space, draw the curtain, forget about the expanse of space outside and create something utterly unique. My fascination with photobooths was born!

I am very interested in the way that individuals interact with the camera once inside a photobooth. The lack of negative and photographer makes it truly special, offering an unrivalled private freedom. This directness tends to influence my other portrait work.

Old Favourites

2010-05-01T16:30:00.000-07:00

Top left is my friend Ken; never one to shy away from a photobooth project, especially if it involves a giraffe mask. Top right is a girl, Vika, who I've now lost touch with. We met through a school exchange program - I stayed with her in St. Petersburg and she stayed with me in Lincolnshire. Think I got the better deal on that one! This strip was taken while we were together in Russia. Bottom left is my Auntie Sue as a young girl. I love these photos! And bottom right is my friend Louise, looking slightly bored by the glorious orange curtains of old...