Transmitting photographic energy of colour and love: Hannah Starkey’s Northern Ireland peace women by Allan LEONARD 4 June 2023 As part of the Belfast Photo Festival and in partnership with the Ulster Museum, artist Hannah Starkey gave a talk about her previous work and current exhibition on display, Principled and Revolutionary: Northern Ireland’s Peace Women. … Continue reading Transmitting photographic energy of colour and love: Hannah Starkey’s Northern Ireland peace women
Below is a selection of my images that appear in the book, What Northern Ireland Means to Me, published by Shared Future News.
"Attempts to reclaim resilience in order to imagine and build better futures should not be trivialized or dismissed, not least because urban resilience (and resilience thinking more broadly) has been (and continues to be) embraced by progressive institutions, community organizations, grassroots struggles, and oppositional campaigns. Given material hardships, it is not difficult to see why … Continue reading Portfolio — Shaking Up the City (Tom Slater)
Book review — World Press Photo 2021 by Allan LEONARD 26 June 2021 World Press Photo 2021 is a book compilation of finalists of its annual competition. Entries are submitted by professional visual journalists. There were nine juries across the photo and digital storytelling contests. For the 2021 contest, general jury chair, Nayantara Gurury Kakshapati, … Continue reading Book review — World Press Photo 2021
Book review: Irish Summers (Harry GRUYAERT) by Allan LEONARD 21 March 2021 Harry Gruyaert’s work is recognisable by its saturated colours of thoughtfully chosen hues. The interplay with light is also crucial. There are images in Irish Summers that exemplify such decisive moments, when colour and light come together to satisfy Gruyaert’s quest for sensual … Continue reading Book review — Irish Summers (Harry Gruyaert)
Book review — Old Ireland in Colour (John Breslin & Sarah-Anne Buckley) by Allan LEONARD 14 March 2021 Old Ireland in Colour is an ongoing project of colourising black and white images by photographers in Ireland in the late 19th to early 20th century. The catalyst was John Breslin working on colourising some photos of … Continue reading Book review — Old Ireland in Colour (John Breslin & Sarah-Anne Buckley)
Book review — New Ways of Seeing (Grant Scott) by Allan LEONARD 21 February 2021 We read books of fiction and non-fiction, and may acquire a respect for how difficult it is to create such works ourselves. We are taught how to read the written word, and by practising reading, tend to appreciate its transformative … Continue reading Book review — New Ways of Seeing (Grant Scott)
Book review: A Pocket History of Northern Ireland (Richard Killeen) by Allan LEONARD 29 December 2020 Occasionally I am approached for an image to be used in a book publication. Recently, this was for one that I made of a mural celebrating the television series, Derry Girls. Disclosure: I granted permission, with payment, for the … Continue reading Book review — A Pocket History of Northern Ireland (Richard Killeen)
Book review — How I Make Photographs ( Joel Meyerowitz) by Allan LEONARD 18 October 2020 Joel Meyerowitz is a renowned street photographer, long before the term became a familiar recognised genre (or subgenre of documentary photography). Once working as an art director, after an encounter with photographer Robert Frank, he quit his job and … Continue reading Book review — How I Make Photographs (Joel Meyerowitz)
Altered Context: A New Parameters project by Allan LEONARD 20 July 2020 New Parameters was an online engagement project, with participants creating images of their responses to the arrival and presence of the COVID-19 pandemic in Northern Ireland. The Nerve Centre hosted collaboration, through video calls and the online platform, Slack. The following is my … Continue reading Altered Context: A New Parameters project
"And then there is the phenomenon known as Derry Girls. A television comedy written by Lisa McGee and set in Northern Ireland in the 1990s, it has been a runaway success both with the public and the critics. The show won the IFTA Gala TV Award for best comedy in 2018; McGee won the best … Continue reading Portfolio — A Pocket History of Northern Ireland
The 1998 Belfast/Good Friday Agreement gives legal recognition to the coexisting and overlapping national citizenships in Northern Ireland, entitling those born in the jurisdiction to be British, Irish, or both. The devolved administration codifies the traditional political identities of “Unionist” and “Nationalist”, as well as an opportunity for “Others”. The accord has also pledged greater … Continue reading Post-Agreement identity narratives: A photographic essay
