The forecast was for snow last Saturday afternoon and I was anxious if my guest would be able to travel up from London to see us. The weather held off for us and a confirmation text to say he was on his way left me feeling very happy! So there I was meeting an artist that I admired, before me was a gentle, warm and lovely man, quite strange really we were both nervous for different reasons. There is so much to tell, but next month you can read more about meeting Phillip Butah, learn more about his art and a little insight into the interview we had with him at our studio. I felt incredibly nervous about photographing Phillip. As a photographer and he an artist, can photography measure up to true art? Is it of the same integrity? I still feel that ‘real organic’ art is superiour to photograhy, so trying to capture an intimate likeness of someone as talented as Phillip was quite scary. Since meeting Phillip he has helped liberate my thoughts a little and I have found myself experimenting more with close crops and colour tints of my images, it is exciting and I feel the urge to push myself a little further by using colour, grain and vignettes. Would love to hear some of your comments, as any of you that know me will be aware of my struggle with monochrome v colour, so here I am adding another question to the complex emotion of photography, these images are in character monochrome too but with an added essence of colour, tentatively I try to add more elements of drama into this image. Have I achieved what I set out to do? Yes of course I have, but finding the confidence to choose one of these images only is a significant step I have not yet been able to make. Be sure to look our for the complete interview written by our colleague Daniel Moody and the final chosen images of this fantastic artist – Phillip Butah http://phillipbutah.com
Thank you Brendan I love your thoughts on this, really given me something to think about, I think for me I am looking to create drama but keep integrity of the original image, I sometimes wonder am I a frustrated artist, not blessed with skills with pencil or brush, I feel my way through the artistic pathway with photography. Art is different to design, I like this, but where does photography fit into this….
Fantastic shots…. so clever having all the different colours.. Naturally you were assisted by the fact that he is rather handsome ! 
Thank’s Helen, Phillip is a lovely gentle man, yes handsome too! I always feel nervous when photographing artists, their skill with traditional art seems so much more legitimate! 
Oh you shouldn’t feel like that…art is art in whatever medium it is created.
Wychwood Festival 2013 - Eliza and the Bear
Wychwood Festival 2013 - Bill Bailey
Wychwood Festival 2013 - The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain
Brilliant work as always!
I have an ongoing debate with my daughter about the use of Black in art. My point being, that there IS no black in nature – just super, super dark tints of colour. She counters with examples of illustrations and graphics and stuff, but I volley back with the thought that Art is different to Design. Black is the absence of colour, but not the other way round.