Hi ,

Welcome to April's (apologies for it coming out on 1st May!) edition of my Friends' Catchup, and a big hello to those of you who've recently joined up 👋

In this month's newsletter:

• Updates: Tiny Egypt update; it's nearly Photography Month; new project with the Garstang Museum; a couple of photos from my #NotEgyptology day out
• Photo of the month: New photo from Tiny Egypt of an amethyst scarab
• A dose of inspiration: To Have and To Heal video collection
• Wise words: from abstract photographer Aaron Siskind

Updates

Tiny Egypt

A screenshot of the members'-area dashboard currently in development

You know those times when you have something quick, simple and straightforward to do, but then you lose yourself down a mental rabbit-hole of 'what if ...', and 'perhaps I could ...', and it turns into a major project?

Well, that's what's happened to me over the last month.

I started working on adding a couple of pages to Tetisheri for members of the Tiny Egypt Society, but have ended up building a whole new website.

I felt like Tetisheri was going to become bloated and convoluted, with too much going on. Tiny Egypt is such an important project for me, so I decided to give it its own dedicated space.

So, things have taken a little longer than I'd originally anticipated.

But, I'm so excited about it. The new project site will have public and members-only image galleries and articles, its own newsfeed, and - in the coming months - a searchable database of objects I've photographed, member profile pages and a mobile phone app.

My final job is to migrate current members over, which I'll be doing in the next few days. So, once that sorted, I'll launch the website, and I'll send you an special email so you can come have a look.

If you'd like to be one of those project patrons who see my new photos before anyone else does, get behind-the-scenes news, member-only content, and help shape the project, you can do so by joining the Society from only £1.00 per month (first month half price). You can find out more on the Tiny Egypt project page:

Visit the Tiny Egypt project page

It's nearly Photography Month

The month of May is Photography Month, and I like to do something special if I can. So, this year, I've decided to do '31 Days of To Have and To Heal', by sharing a photo from the project on social media every day of May. So please do keep a look out for them. And if you choose to do a bit of extra photography over May and you share them online, please do tag me or let me know. I love to see other people's photography too!

If you're not on social media, but would like to see the photos, I've uploaded them to a Flickr album, which you can look at even if you don't have a Flickr account.

See the photos on Flickr

New project with the Garstang Museum

I'm excited to be embarking on a new project with the Garstang Museum. They haven't made an official annoucement yet, so I won't say much, but suffice to say I'll be photographing artefacts from their collection for the project, which runs until the end of July.

The project is taking half my working hours each week, so I'll have to trim back my own things a little until I've finished. But don't worry, Tiny Egypt will be continuing, just at a slightly slower pace.

A day out with the Lifeboat Station Project

Last month, I told you I was off to Hoylake on the Wirral to see Jack Lowe at work on his Lifeboat Station Project. The project is Jack's quest to photograph every RNLI station in the UK using wet collodion photography, for which he uses glass plates in an old-style camera with bellows, using a decomissioned ambulance called Neena as his mobile darkroom.

It was a fascinating day out; I've never been to an RNLI station before. And watching Jack work - his passion, his skill and his dedication - was truly inspiring.

Putting Jack in front of a lifeboat is like putting me in front of a storeroom of Egyptian artefacts

The RNLI volunteers are incredibly brave, putting their lives at risk to rescue those in trouble at sea. So it's wonderful to see them being recognised and honoured in this way.

Photographing two generations of coxswains

And, because Jack develops the glass plates in Neena straight away, the volunteers get to see them within minutes. You get this magical moment - which everyone there loved - when Jack pours the final bottle of fluid on the plate, and the image appears before your eyes, like a sped-up Polaroid photo springing to life.

The glass plates are much larger than I'd realised

Jack's tour of the coastline of northwest England and Wales even got its own slot that evening on the BBC local news, Northwest Tonight.

BBC Northwest interviewing Jack

I really enjoyed my day out, and it was lovely to finally be able to meet Jack in person. If you haven't yet had a look, check out Jack's website to see more of his work:

The Lifeboat Station Project website

Photo of the month

This month's photo of the month is one from To Have and To Heal.

It's the head from a granite statue of the lioness-headed deity Sekhmet, found at Tell Basta, and dates to the 18th Dynasty.

She was an interesting one to photograph. She had to be moved into the storeroom for me to photograph, and because she's solid granite, it took three of the museum's skilled technicians to move her safely.

Aside from the fact that she's lost her entire body, she's also sustained damage and is missing significant parts of her sundisk headdress.

So, I decided to approach the photography in a way that would minimise the damage and highlight her beauty. I used a single light, set off centre and in a way that highlighted the carved lines and textures, and threw the rest into shadow.

I finished off with the necessary work in Photoshop, removing the storeroom from around her and accentuating the shadows and lines. My aim was to give her an air of ethereal mystery and beauty, and I hope you'll agree I've achieved it.

A dose of inspiration

This month's dose of inspiration is more from Manchester Museum's To Have and To Heal.

To Have and To Heal is

"a unique new arts and wellbeing programme, supporting Covid recovery and resilience, which explores Manchester Museum’s World Class Egyptology collection and popular fascination with ancient Egypt."

The museum has used the project to connect with local care homes, third-sector organisations and schools, and has created a series of short (c. 10 minutes) videos featuring Dr Campbell Price talking about objects in the Egyptian collection pertaining to the broad topics within the project:

• Magical healing
• Multiculturalism
• Materials
• Colonialism
• Touch
• Bereavement
• The meaning of art
• Contemplating eternity

The videos are a must-watch for anyone interested in Egyptology.

Watch the videos

Wise words

This month's wise words come from photographer Aaron Siskind:

Photography is a way of feeling, of touching, of loving.

Much of Aaron's worked involved creating abstract images by getting up close to surfaces to study textures and patterns, ranging from magma from a volcano through to the Arch of Constantine in Rome. I think this is why this quote connects with me so much. When I photograph objects, I cast off the usual standards of even, neutral lighting in favour of using low, raking light to bring out textures and details in the surface. It brings so much more life to the object; you can almost feel the texture in the wood, the stone or the ceramic by just looking at it.

And I think it also connects with the the loss of human contact and touch explored in To Have and To Heal.

Well, that's it for another month. Feel free to hit reply and let me know what you've been up to, or if you have any recommendations for the Dose of Inspiration and Wise Words section of the newsletter. Or share your Egyptology and heritage photos with me. I'd love to hear from you!

Until next month,

Julia