Images & Words in Digital Form: A Trip to London: 12th-14th November 2012

This was three days packed with exhibitions, plus a chance to put our own creativity into action in the country's capital. For this reason, I will use this blog post to put the two together, using it as a kind of photo-journal of the time spent there.

Soon after arriving, we visited the Barbican Centre for a look at their Everything Moving: Photography from 60s & 70s exhibition, which was a mixture of British, Indian, Chinese an other nation's photography from the period.

f11, 1/40th, ISO800, 18mm.

f11, 1/40th, ISO800, 18mm.
Sky (or what there was of it) completely blown, but nice picture of a complicated structure. Specifically like the high contrast look of wet concrete.

What I found most enjoyable about this exhibition were the portraits and scenes of Raghubir Singh. I like the way he shoots his subjects in wide open spaces, as if to affirm the space as equally as important as the person themselves. I am mostly to environmental portraits now, and these seemed to sum this up perfectly.

Pilgrim and Ambassador car, Kumbh Mela, Prayag, Uttar Pradesh, 1977.
There was a better one I had in mind as an example of this, but this is equally as good.

On the second day in London, we went to The Photographer's Gallery to see Tom Wood's Men & Woman series of portraits. I don't really go in for the whole sexual politics thing, but there were also some good family portraits (a theme continued by Thomas Struth in the National Gallery), and again environmental portraits that more than whetted my appetite in terms of the pictures I want to take (see: Exterior Location shoot).

This is spot-on the type of stuff I like: a man at work, in hi environment, and yet not actually doing anything but standing (not posing, but standing and looking) for the camera. And look at the way the overalls he wears is nearly exactly the same colour as the rust of the container behind him. Of course it was a conscious choice.

This is one of Woods' family portraits shot in Merseyside in the 80s. I really like it, but it is not the one I hoped to show. Unfortunately I cannot find this one.

After this we went to the National Gallery to view an exhibition called Seduced by Art: Photography Past & Present. On the way there I took the following picture.

Add caption

f5.6, 1/60, ISO200, 82mm.
I spotted these two fellas texting at the same time, which reminded me of the kind of work Matt Stuart produces. Unfortunately the one in the background finished his text before I could take the shot. D'Oh!

The exhibition was based around how historical painting has been influencing photographers since the medium's inception right through to the modern day. For instance, in the first gallery we were shown Eugeune Delacroix's The Death of Sardanapalus, and how photographers since then have interpreted this into their work, in terms of content, but more perhaps composition.

Eugeune Delacroix's The Death of Sardanapalus.

The Destoyed Room, 1978, by Jeff Wall.
You can see the similarity of the chaos of the composition here. This was one of two postcards I purchased from the exhibition.

In one of the other rooms, the focus seemed to be on Still Life (as the letraset point out, still the most common form of art). In one corner was a 3 minute video installation of Sam Taylor-Wood's, featuring the rotting of fruit. Obviously, this was her take on the kinds of fruit still lifes that have been around for centuries.

Ori Gersht, Blow-Up: Untitled 5, 2007.
Gersht played liquid nitrogen in and around the flowers, then exploded them. Very original. This was the other postcard I bought.

After leaving the National Gallery & National Portrait Gallery, we pretty much had the day to ourselves. This gave me ample time to really explore the delights London had to offer, but because I am largely into street and candid now, this is largely what I produced.