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Framed and unframed prints as well as two different 2011 photography wall calendars will be on sale at the gallery.

About the photographer and the exhibition

Wolf Kettler photographs people. He creates bespoke portraiture for private, business and editorial clients.

Wolf’s work has been published and exhibited internationally. He has been interviewed, among others, by BBC Radio and the British Journal of Photography. Wolf was a panellist on “The Story of Eros”. His client list includes patrons from three continents.

Wolf Kettler is proud to use PermaJet fine photographic papers

In his photographs of people, Wolf wants to deconstruct glamour and artificiality by exposing the natural beauty that comes from within. He rejects the type of photography, which relies on stale setups and cheesy poses and which creates glamorised faces retouched beyond recognition.

Wolf applies the same principles to his personal and commissioned work, thus blurring the borders between art and commerce and merging his activities into one “gesamt”-performance.

The exhibition at the Sashay Gallery at The Healthy Life Company features photographs from the cycle “Look, Touch” and recent personal and commissioned work by Wolf Kettler.

“Look, Touch” confronts the human body with natural or human-made surfaces and investigates (gender) stereotypes, such as “female = round = soft”, etc.

Recent work includes landscape and nature photographs along with three images from the “Big Skies” series and examples of recent commissioned portraiture work.

The Healthy Life Company in the historic centre of Devizes is the town’s premier health food shop. The Sashay Gallery was opened in May 2010.

Sashay Gallery at The Healthy Life Company
4 Little Brittox, Devizes SN10 1AR – Admission free
3rd September – 24th September 2010

See also: Photography exhibitions and publications

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]]> http://www.wolfkettler.co.uk/blog/photography-exhibition/feed/ 0 http://www.wolfkettler.co.uk/blog/the-cat-wave/ http://www.wolfkettler.co.uk/blog/the-cat-wave/#comments Thu, 29 Jul 2010 07:04:47 +0000 Wolf http://www.wolfkettler.co.uk/blog/?p=3126 Last month I wrote about a cat that I had met, who gave me a friendly wave. At the danger of this blog turning into a cat publication, here is someone else I met, who gave me a cat wave.

He was enjoying the sun in the garden of an inn halfway up a mountain in Austria, where I was three weeks ago. When I say halfway up a mountain, what I mean is nearly all the way up but it was a prominent hill rather than a proper mountain.

Have I discovered something? Is the cat wave a new trend in feline circles?

Two days later, Kaspar had scratched his hair and a patch of skin around his cut off. Initially – and after two trips to the vet – the wound seemed to heal well. “If it itches it is a sign that it is getting better”, parents tell their children.

With cats, if it itches, the treatment is a good scratch, which re-opened the wound. Kaspar is wearing a collar now, after a third visit to the vet’s.

I was surprised how willing he was to give it a try and how easily he adapted to performing his chores with a funnel-shaped piece of plastic around his neck. He has even been in one of his “high spots”, on top of the kitchen cupboards.

Before we first put the collar on, I sat down with him and explained. When I uttered the usual “it will make it better” and “only good for you”, I could hear my parents using the same, lame phrases when I was a child and I remembered not believing them.

Kaspar just sat there, did not try to move away and did not struggle. Can it be that he understood and that he appreciated my choice of semi-transparent material over the pink alternative?

His siblings, Camillo and Domino, are behaving admirably. They are very supportive and sweet with him. Kaspar seems a little subdued and depressed because he is somewhat disabled.

The only strange thing is that I caught him getting his Christmas card list out and crossing the vet’s name out. If you are reading this, Kate, I am sure it is nothing personal. I will talk to him about it.

Kaspar cannot wait to get the collar off. Neither can I.

After a minor cut on his head, Kaspar has to wear a collar.

Interlude or Seelenbaumeln

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This individual gave me a friendly wave and posed for the camera but pointed out that, regretfully, he was unable to get up because too much movement would disturb the flow of energy in his sunny spot.

Somehow I suspect that he had slipped the word regretfully into the sentence purely for my benefit. I am quite satisfied that there was no real regret but it proves that cats are polite.

“You”, that is of course incompetent humans (I, for instance) and “xyz” is being behind a camera, setting up for a shoot, working on the computer, cooking, taking a shower or any other suspicious activity. Only sitting still falls in the trusted activities category but not always.

The cats have different responsibilities, which coincide with their current obsessions. Today it was Camillo’s turn to be duty cat in the studio, supervising a photo session with my makeup artist (and model) Georgi.

Meanwhile the other two, Kaspar and Domino, were checking Georgi’s bags for prohibited items under section C4T of the Naïve Visitors Act.

]]> http://www.wolfkettler.co.uk/blog/cat-on-duty/feed/ 0 http://www.wolfkettler.co.uk/blog/kaspars-cosy-spots/ http://www.wolfkettler.co.uk/blog/kaspars-cosy-spots/#comments Mon, 14 Jun 2010 06:52:29 +0000 Wolf http://www.wolfkettler.co.uk/blog/?p=2804 What better way to begin the week than by showing you a photograph of a cosy cat. Makes you wish it was Sunday morning.

Kaspar, one of my trio of feline companions, in his latest favourite spot.

For all photo sessions, for which I receive a firm booking by Monday, 14 June 2010, 13:00 (that’s 1 p.m.), I am offering an extra free print on exhibition quality paper in A3 size, worth £48. This is the time by which I need to receive your booking. Photo sessions can be taken later. You must be a ripe 35 years or older to qualify.

> Check out what I do

> See examples of my work

> See what I offer

> Book your photo session now

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Newton told the interviewer that he had once approached Buckingham Palace because he wanted to photograph Prince Charles’ Camilla nude. Asked by the interviewer what happened, Newton smiled and said “I never got a reply”.

The investigative journalist and broadcaster Tim Samuels photographed in 2005

All photographers have a favourite subject that they cannot find out how to contact let alone convince to sit for them. I have a whole list. Even the two most famous people I can lay claim to having photographed are not everybody’s idea of fame: The classical singer Thomas Hampson and the investigative journalist and broadcaster Tim Samuels.

I am using the term “famous people” deliberately because “celebrities” creates an instant and violent impression of cheapness in my mind.

This February, in the run-up to the elections in Britain, I became interested in then prime minister Gordon Brown. I could not understand why every photograph of him that appeared in the media was created so extremely unsympathetically.

Gordon Brown must have been one of the most photographed people on the planet and many of the press photographers out there are excellent at what they do. Is it really conceivable that there was not one photograph that did not fail to portray his values and passion?

I wrote to Gordon Brown in February of this year, when he still had an official, easily accessible address. I was luckier than Helmut Newton in getting a reply from Gordon Brown’s private office but equally unsuccessful at getting to photograph him. The letter thanked me for my “generous offer and kind words” but stated “regrettably, the Prime Minister will not be able to be photographed at the moment as he has a very busy diary”. It was a very kind and gentle letdown that made me want to photograph him even more although I suspect that he probably hates cameras aimed at him.

I love this photograph of Thomas Hampson. It reflects on the idea that all artists have self-doubts about their work. I do not think that Mr. Hampson liked it. He is the exception to the rule.

The remark that he had a very busy diary was interesting. It was stating the obvious in a way that you explain something equally obvious to a little child in a kind and not at all offensive way.

I am good at getting this kind of reply. Some time ago, I contacted the agent of Jean Alexander, the actress who plays the part of “Auntie” in Last Of The Summer Wine. I like Auntie Wainwright’s business instincts of “not letting a customer slip away”. I am not that brutal with my clients and have always felt that I should learn from her.

I did not seriously expect a reply but after a couple of months I held a hand-written letter from Jean Alexander in my hands, apologising for the delay in replying, of course declining in the nicest possible way and pointing out that she was only “dressed and wigged like this when filming”, stating the obvious to a naïve little child. I would have loved to photograph her as Auntie or as Jean.

The least they could have offered, I suppose, was a cameo role in Summer Wine. I could have been the photographer coming to photograph her for a local paper, ending up not getting the shot and leaving her shop with a collection of ancient cameras bought on an impulse. Auntie’s impulse.

After the elections and his subsequent resignation, Gordon Brown announced that he wanted to devote himself to charity work rather than taking the lucrative but far less worthy route of lectures and consultancy. At least I think he did. This announcement endeared him to me because it seemed to prove what I had suspected and wanted to capture: The intelligent, passionate man with strong moral values.

Today, I saw a piece on some website about the last letters Gordon Brown wrote as Prime Minister and I felt moved, something that does not happen often. (I cannot post a link because I have lost the page.)

If Gordon Brown’s charity work goes ahead, I expect that he will thrive in the relative obscurity of a man, who can finally dedicate himself to his passion and his values.

If you are reading this, Gordon Brown, I still want to photograph you.

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