The results of the AOP Photographers Awards 2010 have been announced, and I am very pleased to let you know that the "Wish Series" has been selected for this year book and exhibition, following the success of last year "Vertigo Series". The Wish series was created during the winter 2010 in Brighton, when the UK went through its most severe winter in the last 30 years. In short, the images were inspired by the fantasy of a group of 10 year old kids who were doing group wishes at a specific appointed time (from their respective bedroom windows) hoping for more snow in therefore further school holidays. The three images were selected for the "Non-Commissioned Environment Series". The official book launch, exhibition and private view dates will be announced in the next week or so. Below is one of the three images selected.

Good news from my personal archive! Gatwick Airport is displaying one of my images (Pier & Seagulls) from 2005 in the Airport, so if you happen to be traveling to/from Gatwick in 2010, keep an eye for it - (see image below). Also the Condé Nast group (New York) is using another image of mine from that same year. A large urban crowd seen from above, as an editorial, in one of their publications. 

I have just uploaded a new series of images in the portfolio, called "Edge". In fact the name of the series is "Living at the Edge", but that was too long for my website lay-out. They are a visual night study of suburban neighborhoods situated in between towns and on top of the White Cliffs in Southern England. The images were created with very long exposures late at night. The result is an eerie and atmospheric set of images, where real homes look like miniatures houses or small toys in deserted streets. The combination of the diffuse moonlighting combined with the homes ambient lights & the hardly existing street illumination help to create a surreal palette of colors with a incredibly strong cinematographic feel... as if, each image depicts a scene from an imaginary suspense movie. To view it, just follow the link: http://www.photoandre.com/portfolio/  or click in the portfolio section. I hope you get excited as much as I do.

Spent a couple of nights wandering the South Coast of UK with another artist (Gavin Peacock) looking for interesting lighting, locations, backgrounds & playing with ideas. The below images were created in a deserted foot path that connects the motor-way to the sea, crossing a train line & passing through some old ruins. The night was very bright (Full Moon) and I decided to create a series of images by experiment with some slow traveling light with some ridiculously long exposures (up to 9min). It was a kind of therapeutic process, a test for patience and almost mathematical in some ways. In the end, the small details captured by the long exposures combined with the quality of the diffuse reflected moon-lighting was just amazing... I can't wait to make some really large prints...  More images coming soon!

Good news! I have been invited to be the artist of the week in the "Brighton Arts Fair" and "Made UK" website. To read the interview and see images please follow the link:  http://madeuk.blogspot.com/2010/06/artist-of-week-andre-lichtenberg.html   Brighton Arts Fair 2010 will be held at the Corn Exchange building, in Brighton. From the 16th to the 19th Sep. Please pop in and see me at stand no 64.
 

Apologies for the lack of communication lately... but last month (May) has been ubber busy in the HQ. A new series was selected to the final stages of judging of the prestigious AOP Awards London, the final judging will take place shortly in July. The Vertigo series was curated for the HOUSE Open exhibition in the glorious Brunswick Town House... (the images on show were then shortlisted for the Visiting Brighton Awards (voted by the visitors) & the Spectrum Awards - unfortunately didn't win neither but hey...). Apart from that I was commissioned to shoot some new landscapes (full moon images) in Southern Ireland and to produce and photograph an advertising campaign for Gillete in Scandinavia, shooting either in Finland in Norway. Now I am back home in lovely Hove and hungry to create more personal fine art work. (Below an image from Helsinki with its stunning architecture)

Last week was the private view of the HOUSE Open Exhibition at the gorgeous Regency Town House, 13, Brunswick Square - Brighton. The show beautifully curated by Nicola Colbey, Simon Martin & Woodrow Kernohan will also hold a special Award evening (Tue - 18th of May), were several prizes will be awarded: "The Brighton Festival Prize", the "Spectrum Photographic Prize" and "The Visit Brighton Award". Two images from the Vertigo Series have been selected and part of the show. Below is an image from the private view.

Saturday 8th of May, 3rd day in Helsinki and not shooting today... also NOT rainning!!  So, great opportunity to explore the city and visit some galleries. There are some amazing shows in town: Susanna Majuri is showing her beautiful large scale, colorful water based fantasies (my own words) and we just found out that today is the private view of the new show of Anni Leppala at the Ama Gallery, which is conveniently very near our hotel. Yesterday had a long day shooting a very interesting commissioned project which I am not allowed to reveal yet. We are traveling to Oslo Norway tomorrow (then going North to Lillehammer) for another shooting day on the same project.

Just back from Southern Ireland. I had an amazing time with my art director friend Abbey Cummings creating new images around and about Fenit. We worked a lot at nights around the full moon, in fact the weather during the day was quite bad. This week I am very busy again... brilliant!! In one hour I'm off to Scandinavia to shoot two projects, one in Finland and another in Norway. New images will be here soon...

Interesting month for usage-rights (image representation) around the World (hmmm... maybe the economy is actually recovering?) MTV New York is using a portrait of my friend Evandro Cela that I took a few years ago in Brighton, OGILVYONE Worldwide (France) is using an image created in a swimming pool in Brazil and TBWA (Paris) is using a picture from a production in the South Downs in UK. Below is one of the images from Evandro's shoot.

I am delighted to let you know that my work has been selected to the prestigious HOUSE Open Exhibition in the stunning Regency Town House in Brunswick Square - Brighton/Hove. Just a visit to the building is already worthy the trip.  The curators chose two pieces from the Vertigo Series to be part of this year show, which theme was "Regeneration". This year the Show will offer three prizes for winning artists:  The Spectrum Photographic, VisitBrighton and the £600 Festival Prize, whose winning artist will be selected by Festival Director Andrew Comben and Brian Eno (This year's Festival Guest Artistic Director).

HOUSE Open Exhibition - The Regency Town House - Brunswick Sq - Hove - BN3 1EH
Private View date - TBC    Exhibition open - first four weekends of May - 11am to 5pm

Brighton Festival 2010 is approaching very quickly... and I still have sooo much to do!  And apart from several other deadlines I am also off to Southern Ireland the week before the Festival starts to shoot some new Full Moon images. So, before I forget... here are the list of shows and private views where you can see my work:

After the amazing success in New York , London, San Francisco, L.A. etc... The pop up concept finally comes to British Riviera. "Residence" will be the first Pop Up Restaurant in Brighton and will exist between the 1st and the 23rd of May (during the Brighton Festival 2010).  The organizers selected and invited several artists to collaborate with the project. Each artist will be been given a small gallery space to exhibit and create work during the festival. I'll be showing my work Friday 14 May (6pm to 10pm).  So, if you around sunny Brighton during that weekend, do pop in to see the work.

Residence Pop Up Restaurant.  Whitecross St - Brighton - BN1 4FA - (1st to 23rd of May)
For more info visit: www.residencepop-up.com

February 2010 was another fantastic month to add new images for my ongoing Full Moon project. The atmospheric conditions were almost as perfect as January (and almost as cold as... ). So I went in another adventure on the South Coast of England exploring the soft, mysterious and unusual light bounced by the Moon. For more images please visit the "latest portfolio" added recently to the site.

Last week I spent a day in East London with one Art Director from Shelter creating a new series of images for their publicity.  Our subject was youth... we worked with (employed for the day) a group of students from London East Education Youth Services (which run structured courses to help school drop out kids to get back into education, employment and housing). The plan was to capture the youngsters being just themselves (as natural as possible) and we used the surrounding streets as our backdrop. Everyone got really involved suggesting locations, situations, ideas, etc... It was a freezing cold day but everyone was excited and buzzing with energy towards the end.

Thursday 11th of March was the private view of "New Collectives" at the AOP Gallery in Old Street - London. "Two red buses" from the Vertigo series has been curated for the show which is launching a permanent photographic print collection by the AOP Gallery. It was a great night where I had the chance to catch up and have a few drinks with lots of old friends from the photographic world.

Image magazine (issue 406) is running an editorial (The White Stuff) in the recent snow falls. I am really happy to announce that they not only chose one of my images from the "Wish series" shot in Brighton, to illustrate the piece but also decided to run the story behind to open the magazine, in the humorous editorial note written by Helena Rhodes (the editor). This is the introduction of it: "It's rumoured that the BBC is putting its weather forecasting contract to tender. They should sign up Poppy Lichtenberg immediately.Poppy is the daughter of André Lichtenberg who tells us of the part she played in the recent snowfalls..."
 

Last Saturday night,  28/01/2001 I went out with artist Gavin Peacock:   www.themanfromicon.com  - to photograph and film the brightest full Moon of 2010. The Moon was at its closest perigee. In other words, the nearest it gets to Earth (app.356,593 kilometers) during its elliptical shaped orbit. Gavin and I were both working on separate projects, but it was great to have company while working for several hours at night in deserted locations. For our luck it turned out to be totally clear night and the conditions were just perfect. I have created a whole new series of images and a time lapse movie (using very long exposures) which will be in the site soon...  meanwhile you can see one image (attached below) created in the south coast of Sussex.

I have just been invited (and donated one limited edition print from the vertigo series) to the ForgetMeNot art auction. The project aims to give fans of art and collectors the opportunity to snap up some fantastic pieces by international contemporary artists while helping a good cause; "all profits from the sales will be donated to Age Concern charity in UK". The Live Auction will be conducted by auctioneer Edward Rising and advanced bids will be administered by a FMN representative. For more info, to see the other artists and the artworks donated so far, please visit: www.forgetmenot2010.org

I was invited to run a one day photography lecture/workshop at the WAES London, to a class of (very talented) mature students who will be graduating in the next few months. I decided to explore the theme: "Seeing the Invisible". Or, in other words: recording the ordinary with an extra ordinary awareness. The day was divided in two parts: in the morning I showed them several examples of photographic work (my own and other artists) and we discussed theory, philosophy, style, techniques... In the afternoon the students were challenged to produce a small body of work (to photograph, edit and retouch...)  which was finally concluded by a group discussion. The day was fun, fast, informative and hands on...  A few hours later I received a lovely email from one of the students. read below:

"Dear Andre,

We were so fortunate to have you today at WAES university. 
I have shown your pictures to my partner and they are fantastic. I really like your style.
Thank you for coming today, a great opportunity for all of us. 
As I said to you, I can assist you for shoot I will be honoured.
Thanx a lot and hopefully see you soon, 

Phil"

One evening a few weeks ago, just before bed time, my daughter (who was standing for a while by her bedroom window) told me she had just made a "proper" wish for it to snow... and a lot! That was very unusual... her expression was serious and she really meant it. The reason was: if it really did, there would be no school the next day. Well, half hour later... while she was already a sleep, a very strong snow storm started. I got the equipment out and started working, I shot an experimental time lapse clip (which will be in my site soon) and a few stills. The image below is the view from her window where the wish was made. The following morning (obviously) there was no school, and since then we have spent a lot of evenings by this window chatting and looking at the white street below. The temperature is so low at moment that the street is still white (well... now is ice). And we are in Brighton, one of the warmest part of UK where it rarely snows.