Orla O’Byrne, 11th of April 2023, 2023, silver gelatin print on Hahnemühle rag 308gsm, 30cm x 20cm

On the 11th of April, our ferry from Roscoff back to Cork was cancelled due to extremely high winds. A cancellation such as this is not unusual, and yet we received the news of this interruption to our plans with astonishment and disbelief.

 We stayed the night in Saint-Pol-de-Léon.

 The next day was searingly bright and windy. We had to wait all day for word about our sailing and so we played to waste time. We climbed all over a rocky outcrop, squinting into the sun. We mucked about in a playground which was within sight of our sorry ferry.

 I had a disposable camera with me and I clicked it deliberately into the very bright sunlight. I know the camera’s limitations, but I was enjoying the recklessness. I wanted to see the light bend, to let reality intrude upon this quiet scene. I welcomed the disruption.

These photographs were shown as part of the f Project 2023 exhibition in Chapel Hill School of Art, Macroom, Co. Cork.


About f Project 2023:

f.Project is a group of artists whose practices include analogue photography. We originally came together through a series of meetings in 2017 - initially at Crawford College of Art & Design and later at Cork Film Centre.

We embrace all analogue photographic processes and find the medium asserting itself in our work through ways of seeing and thinking as much as through materials and method. We often expand into other forms of art production such as video, performance, drawing and embroidery, as our interests dictate. Whatever form it takes, our work is typically contemplative and deeply observational: characteristics associated with shooting film and darkroom processes.

We are eternally grateful for the long-term loan of vintage camera equipment from the Hermann Marbe collection, courtesy of Jessica Carson, which was instrumental in our foundation.

The f.Project members are: Éanna Heavey, Chris Hurley, Orla O'Byrne, Dori O’Connell, Bríanna Ní Léannacháin, Sophia Santabarbara, Artem Trofimenko and Evgeniya Martirosyan The Cork Film Centre darkroom facilities are based in Sample Studios, Churchfield, Cork.

Of Light, our 2023 exhibition in Chapel Hill, Macroom

Occurring in high summer when natural light was at its most abundant, this, the third f.Project exhibition, emphasised the various ways in which we, as artists and photographers, work with light.

Sometimes light itself is the material, being an actual component of the analogue photograph. At other times it appears within an image or a work of art, speaking a language of its own, describing something we would struggle to name. It is almost too huge and too ‘everywhere’ to pinpoint.

Why do our hearts cave in slightly at the sight of a perfect sunset? Why are we often overcome by an unshakeable distrust of shady corners and ominous shadows? Of Light invited the audience to contemplate their perception of light and its role not only in art and photography but in their own everyday lives.

Through photography, film and performance f.Project brought the exhibition, Of Light to Chapel Hill School of Art from Friday the 30th of June 2023.