Our first show. Absolute madness.

Exhibiting photographs has been something I’ve wanted to do for the longest time but it’s always felt very very far off in terms of being achievable at the current stage of my journey in photography.

With the start of the year often being pretty quiet work-wise, Dominic Simmons and I decided to explore this shared, far flung idea of hosting our first show. After a thorough search we found our perfect venue, costed out a rough expense list and realised this could actually happen at not too big a loss. And so we set to it.

The gallery space we’d landed upon was central, stripped back and most importantly available. The caveat being that it required visitors to navigate through a clothes shop before entering. A small hurdle, however along with the fact that we’re both relatively unknown local photographers we knew we’d have to put the work into creating a proper identity and doing a bit of a marketing push to get the word out.

Although many were pitched, Contour was the name we opted for with this giving scope for landscape, travel and portrait work. We invited two of our friends, Robert Birtles and Kirsty Mclachlan, to be part of the show - both whom we felt complimented the work we had chosen to exhibit. Robert’s work is heavily influenced by the Scottish Highlands, aiming to examine the relationship between people and the natural world. His current body of work explores the themes of community and culture within his hometown and the neighbouring surroundings and how this is shaped by the landscape and local tradition. Kirsty’s work on the other hand has taken her far from home and introduced her to people with incredible stories. The photographs on show were taken while she was travelling in India, particularly Varanasi and Bangalore, having completed a commission in the same locations.

Due to the space chosen not being an official gallery, it was essential that we took measurements of all of the walls ourselves in order to plan layouts accurately. These were then loaded into a scaled InDesign project where we were able to try out different image placements and arrangements, seeing how they would appear next to each other and in proportion to the space. This preparation proved invaluable when it came to hanging which although lengthy, meant we had a clear idea of what had to be done in our set up days.

When it came to printing we opted for a local printer in A+M Imaging. Based in Leith, this meant we were able to meet in person to go over different paper types and ask any relevant questions that we had. It was also important for us to support local business where we could, something which extended to getting vinyls cut for artist bios and the show introduction, both expertly done by Black Box.

To advertise we put a few posters up in local businesses however relied almost entirely on social media to get the word out. Lots of build up and behind the scenes on IG, Facebook and even a few bits on Linkedin to reach all of those young professionals out there. Dom designed some private invites for our opening night on the Thursday, offering the chance for friends and family to celebrate with us before opening to the general public for the remainder of the weekend. These were sent out via direct message for those online and via text for those that weren’t.

The opening was a great success, with a great showing from those invited. We had a carefully curated playlist to bring the vibe which you can find here (you’re welcome). It was an amazing and rather surreal moment to share with family and friends. For most of us this was our first show, and the reality of that I don’t think had quite kicked in. Two full days of setup and many months of planning had brought us to this moment. And what a moment it was.

I want to thank everyone who was involved in putting this mad idea together, everyone who came to the opening and dropped by over the weekend, those who offered encouragement and said nice things about the work and those who bought prints. We’re forever grateful for your support.

A special mention to Jonathan Simmons for helping us with setup, everyone at WhiteStuff Edinburgh for their effort and accommodation and Obadiah Coffee for keeping everyone going with some amazing batch brew over the weekend.

Until next time.

MO