International Garden Photographer of the Year - Competition 5 Winners

International Garden Photographer of the Year - Competition 5 Winners:

'via Blog this'

Visited the exhibition from Competition 5 which is at Rheged, just outside Penrith until 30 June, before moving off to Portugal and then returning to England in September time. Not sure if most of it was really garden photography - quite a lot of wildlife shots, still lifes, woodlands etc - so the title is a bit misleading.



The exhibition was nicely laid out, and there was plenty of space to stand and stare. They were still waiting for the catlogues when I visited , but the link to the website covers that angle.

Overall I thought the pictures were technically excellent - as you might expect - but were often quite sterile. Once you got past the 'Ooh! That's pretty/cute/funny' reaction there was nowhere else to go. A classic example was a grasshopper wiping dew from its forehead - it is undoubtedly a very well captured moment that required some quick reactions and had a real slapstick quality to it - but where does it go after that? By way of a contrast the overall winner, at least in my mind, raises all sorts of questions about the interrelationship of the various bits of the natural world and their fragility.

I'm only going to post one more link - my favourite shot of the exhibition - as it's worth either visiting the website or - if you're in the Lakes this spring - getting along to see it. The web image doesn't really do justice to my favourite - in the exhibition its a very large print and the sunlight on the small patch of toadstools simply glows. To me it speaks of rebirth and the circle of life and I stood in front of it just lost for quite a while. It shows the value of really understanding the area you are photographing in and probably falls under the category of 'the harder I work the luckier I get'.

A couple of oddities worth a  mention - a series of X-ray shots of seed heads featured in the prize winners, although I couldn't fathom why, and there was an eerie series of flowers/leaves slowly decaying in jars of water to produce fascinating and delicate semi-abstracts.

So my advice is - see it if you get a chance. If not, have a look on the website. As for me - I pondering an entry in the next competition.

Turner and his Contemporaries: The Hickman Bacon Watercolour Collection: Abbot Hall Art Gallery, Kendal

 

Current Exhibitions | Abbot Hall Art Gallery:

Popped along to see this exhibition yesterday, mainly out of curiosity – its not often that someone of Turner’s stature gets exhibited in Cumbria, so it would be foolish not to take the chance while I have it. There’s a Guardian review here for further info

The Hickman Bacon collection, at least the bits of it on show here, consist of a collection of watercolour sketches by Turner, and a number of larger works by some of his less famous contemporaries (none of whom were familiar to me). They are seldom shown so they have not faded , as I am led to believe is typical of watercolours. The interpretive notes made much of the ‘brilliance’ of the colours and the ‘virtuosity’ of Turner’s technique – but I would have to say they were not as bright as I expected (to much exposure to Kodachrome/Fujichrome perhaps). I am also in no position to judge the virtuosity of the technique – watercolour painting is a black art to me – so all I can do here is give a view personal observations.

• The first is that the Turner’s were much smaller than I expected. It became clear pretty quickly that this was a collection of watercolour sketches, and there was some suggestion in the notes that Turner used these as the basis for ‘exhibition’ artworks. Not being an artist this approach to how they work had never really occurred to me – but it is obvious that he would take himself down to the beach at Margate – or wherever – whip out a sketch pad and a small selection of paints and set to work- which seems to humanise a giant of art very nicely to me.
• There were lots of cloudscapes, seascapes and sunsets – Turner was obviously a collector of sky effects. To me this emphasises a key philosophical difference between painting and photography. Turner could collect skies and water effects and marshal them into a single painting – while Photoshop makes this possible for photographs it is generally less convincing.
• The sketches were surprisingly modern – which reflects my understanding of the history of art. In my mind the time span between Turner/Constable and the Impressionists was quite significant, when in reality it was very short. Turner is contemporaneous with pre-impressionists such as Corot, and on a couple of occasions I was struck by the similarities between a Turner sketch and Corot – although as far as I have been able to discover they never met each other. I was expecting a lot of fine detail, but what I got was sweeping brushwork, clever use of the brush to produce spray effects, layers of colour and so on – in other words a move away from realism to a more impressionistic approach.
• My final observation is about my fellow gallery visitors. There seems to be a view amongst them that the best way to see a painting which is 9-10 inches across is to stand with your nose 6 inches from the glass. Why is this? And why does anyone think it’s right to do this when I am stood 3-4 feet back and am obviously already looking at the same painting as they reach it. Aaaargh!!!

That’s it really. The exhibition was quite an eye-opener for me. I had always assumed Turner to be a bit of a fussy landscape painter – which just shows how wrong you can be.

Turner Prize and Side Gallery

Last weekend I joined some colleagues from the OCA in Gateshead/Newcastle for a visit to the Turner prize exhibit at the Baltic.  Jim Lloyd, who organised the visit has done a write up here Jim's OCA Drawing 1 Blog: Turner Prize so I shall try not to duplicate too much of what he has said.

The opportunity to mix with a small number of people from other disciplines was one I’m glad I didn’t miss – there was plenty to talk about all day (I know – shutting me up is the trick – sorry guys) and even then I think I only really scratched the surface of the opportunities an enhanced understanding other media might bring to my practise.

As Jim noted the early start was definitely a good idea because even though we had a decent chat over coffee as we all arrived we still managed to miss the queue and the crowds.

Turner prize exhibits
Martin Boyce – not sure what to make of this. The litter bin and wind blown ‘leaves’ was an interesting execution but I wasn’t quite sure of it’s purpose or message, similarly the ‘table’ which reminded me of an old school desk with its oddly angular graffiti. The display was brought to life for me by a small child , who looking at a similar bunch of angular letters stuck to a board on the wall said: ‘Mummy, those letters look so sad’. And they did. Perhaps sometimes we need to set aside the intellectual baggage we bring to these events and just let our emotion do the work. Whoever she was – I’m grateful to her.

Hilary Lloyd – I thought this exhibit was very cold, consisting as it did of projector boxes and TV screens in a brightly lit white room. We were assured by the attendant that the almost obsessive attention to neatness in the cabling was an integral part of the work which led me to the thought that the message was easily subverted by simply walking behind the TV screens and viewing them from the wrong side, or using the projector beams to cast shadow puppets (one I tried, one I didn’t) We did observe that the adults were strangely reluctant to break the beams – very few crossed the imaginary line which linked the projectors. Obviously the same was not true of the kids – which leads me to wonder if the aim was not to get us to question our relationship with art. In some ways I wish I’d made the rabbit shadow with my fingers – she might even have approved if we’re to believe this bit of blurb: “Foregrounding the apparatus of viewing and choreographing our physical relationship with the work, she proposes a rethinking of the ways in which we engage with the moving image”

Karla Black – this was the standout exhibit for me. The main work looked like the results of a primary school craft session after the kids had left but before the teachers had cleared up only 100 times larger. At the far end of the room was a huge mound of paper (you could walk under it – it was not solid) which flowed down like left-over papier mache to an area full of paint powder, paint bombs , small coloured blocks, cellophane etc. At the risk of a rather trivial comparison, in Ratatouille they win over the cynical old restaurant critic by serving him a simple ratatouille that takes him back to his days as a child – and this had a similar effect on me. I didn’t want to stand and look at it, I wanted to be in there turning it into a papier mache dinosaur or something. From Jim’s notes I’m perhaps glad that I didn’t go to her talk – this hit me at the emotional level and it would have been a shame to spoil it.

George Shaw – perhaps the most disappointing exhibit for me. Not George’s fault I hasten to add – I saw ‘The Sly and Unseen Day’ back in February and was mightily impressed so I brought rather high expectations with me – perhaps too high. The much smaller number of paintings and wider spacing reduced their impact, and the content was not something I found particularly easy to identify with.

Overall my money would go on Karla Black – so that’s presumably ruined her chances :0)

Side Gallery

Three of us – myself, Michael and Sarah – didn’t attend the artists talk, preferring instead to make the short walk to the Side Gallery across the river which was showing two exhibitions, one of John Heartfield posters/artwork and one of August Sander photos.

The gallery itself is quite small and intimate almost to the point that it feels like viewing the images at home. Heartfield was downstairs. I was not previously familiar with his very striking work which uses elements of photomontage and design to put across fairly blunt political messages. Given the anti-Nazi tone of much of the material on display it is no surprise that he was banned for a considerable period in Germany before and during WWII. Technically I think much of the work must have been cutting edge, and is still worth looking at today – even if it would now be easier to achieve.Some of the anti-war and anti-racist rhetoric had a surprisingly modern feel but some of the messages were simply too unsubtle – I suspect that is my modern sensibility kicking in.

Upstairs was an exhibit of August Sander prints – which is what the two photographers amongst us had come to see. I was surprised how small they were, but as Michael observed they were probably contact prints from a 4x5 plate or similar. Much of the writing about Sander talks about his attempts at objectivity and categorising, but I saw photos that had a genuine sympathy for their subject. Yes, they were formally posed – particularly the shot of the artisan and peasant classes – but I sensed a genuine love of people coming from the shots. It would be possible to read quite a lot into the poses and dress – the bohemians in the shots tended to prefer angled poses in relaxed clothing and appeared unconcerned by the camera. The poorer people on the other hand, had clearly gone to some trouble to find their Sunday best and very often looked straight into the camera – which must have been a weird and wonderful piece of kit for some of them.

Our visit was over all too quickly – and I wont get a second chance to go and see the Sanders – which is a shame – so I’m glad I took this opportunity.

The Side has recently had much of its funding withdrawn. On the basis of the evidence I saw it is worth supporting, so my plea would be – get yourself along there and make sure you put something in the donation box.

Family of Man

A few weeks back I found a catalogue from the Family of Man exhibition in a local second hand bookshop. Plenty of background to the exhibition here in Wikipedia and here at the MoMA website.

The basic premise of the exhibition was to demonstrate the commonalities that humanity shares and should be seen in the context of the end of World War II only a decade earlier, the recently ended Korean War and the ongoing Cold War.

The catalog contains some wonderful photography – and is neatly arranged by human themes such as religion, childbirth and work. Sometimes this works, as in the spread of people dancing, sometimes it seems to me to highlight difference rather than commonality – for example the father&son pictures while aiming to show the similarity seem to me highlight the differences between, for example, the hunting Bushmen and the suited middle class American on a couch with his son.

My favourite photo overall is probably the Hunting photo referenced above, although it is run close second by a rather emotional shot from Richard Avedon which seems rather at odds with the stuff for which he is usually recognised. My favourite spread is the double page of people dancing in circles, which seems to me to capture the commonality of the human experience better than anything else in the catalogue.

Other impressions – well, war is rather under-represented. I suspect that the timing meant that dwelling on images of war was probably never going to be popular but, given that it is not until the generation after the exhibition that war stops being a shared experience for most of humanity, it seems a bit of an oversight.

The other lasting impression is the over-representation of American photographers – who exactly is Homer Page? I’m going to have to look him up, because I don’t recall seeing him referenced anywhere before this exhibition – yet Arbus and Sanders get but a single shot each unless I’ve missed one – and why Lewis Carroll but not Muybridge, JM Cameron or Atget. And I can’t help feeling that the Ansel Adams shot is included simply as a nod to his popularity since the included shot has, at best, a tenuous connection to the stated theme.

For all this it is a truly fascinating collection – the photos can make you smile, make you reflect and sometimes just make you shake your head in despair. If you get a chance to by the catalogue – do it – for the photography, and for what it says about people.

Steve McCurry: A Retrospective on Vimeo

Leading on from my previous post this would seem to confirm that documentary photography is the natural home for 'People and Place'. This selection contains some stunning portraits as well.

Steve McCurry: A Retrospective from leica camera on Vimeo.

Batiment des Arts Contemporain, Geneva

Been in Switzerland on holiday for two weeks. While in Geneva I took the chance to visit the Centre d’Art Contemporain, the Musée d’Art Moderne et Contemporain and the adjacent Centre de la Photographie , which between them had a couple of photo exhibitions as well as a couple of shows by other artists and a punk and minimalism exhibition from their archives.

The Idea of Africa (re-invented)

The Centre de la Photographie was hosting a curated exhibition featuring photography from Nigerian photographer J.D. ‘Okhai Ojeikere and the artistic collective ‘Invisible Borders’ who appear to be a mixed group of photogs and film-makers.

J.D. ‘Okhai Ojeikere  has some international renown for his fashion photography, in particular his interest in hairstyles, but these works were drawn from his private photography taken over the last 60 years documenting modern Lagos. The ‘Invisible Borders’ contribution was captured on a road trip from Lagos to Dakar and focussed on the ‘humiliations, bureaucracy, corruption and crime’ experienced when crossing Africa by land.

According to the press release which accompanied the exhibition ‘The Idea of Africa’ is a book by Congolese philosopher (V.Y. Mudimbe) which shows how the way we conceive Africa can be traced to Western colonial ideology. The (revisited) references the exhibitions attempt to to trace another history – one not framed on Western assumptions.

I’m afraid I struggled. With this introduction I was expecting something that would make me look again, perhaps even re-evaluate my perception of Africa.

Unfortunately, what I think I got was a selection of black and white photos from the urban documentary school. The press release talks of beauty – I saw concrete flyovers and brutalist office blocks mixed with urban poverty. I felt you could have achieved the same in some poorer areas of major British cities – so I’m not sure where the re-invention fits in. If anything it reinforced my - presumably Western colonialist – views of the consequences of the overlap of western commercialism and poverty.

This is not to say that taken on their own face value the photos were anything other than interesting and they were certainly beautifully printed. I’m just not convinced they were ever intended for the purpose that the curator has put them to.

Contraband – Taryn Simon

This exhibition – in the Centre  d’Art Contemporain – was the first solo exhibition by Taryn Simon in Switzerland. It featured 546 photos from a set of 1,075 photos of items detained or seized from passengers and overseas mail over a 5-day period at JFK Airport Terminal 4. All the items were classified as prohibited, undeclared, etc.

The press release makes an issue of Simon’s scientific methodology – which falls under the category of ‘trying too hard’, as far as I’m concerned. Each photo was captured, we are told, using ‘a labour-intensive forensic photographic procedure - large format camera and the same neutral backdrop for all items.’ This is ‘reinforced’ by presenting the series alphabetically from ‘alcohol’ to ‘wood carvings’.

As it happens they were hung in batches which could be viewed in several different orders and they were reproduced at about A5 so the point of all this escapes me. They certainly benefitted from being grouped under headings though, because many of the items were not easily identifiable.

Irrespective of my issues with the ‘science’, they were a fascinating set of images. I doubt a much smaller group would have had the same impact, but the sheer number and variety of items was memorable in itself. There are some samples on Taryn Simon’s website. People smuggle or carry odd things. In between the obvious – viagra, heroin, gold-dust, counterfeit handbags etc – there was dried deer penis, dried guinea pigs, cow dung toothpaste and horsemeat sausages. It was difficult to decide whether to be appalled or amused.

The work itself fits with some of Simon’s previous work which seeks to document unknown parts of daily life in America. Should you ever wonder what customs officials are handling every day this exhibition would be a good place to start.

In the press release Simon is quoted as saying that she was interested not just in the cataloguing, but also the ability of the photos to transcend boundaries –the goods were denied entry but have made it across the border as images. An interesting idea – especially as they have now been re-exported to Switzerland! I can see her point though – without the photos the objects would float in international limbo until they were destroyed and most of us would be none the wiser.

Taryn Simon currently has an exhibition at the Tate Modern in London. A rail trip is tempting.

Tate Modern| Future Exhibitions | William Klein/Daido Moriyama

Bookmarking this – it’s a long way off and hopefully I’ll have completed this course well before then – but still worth a visit.
Tate Modern| Future Exhibitions | William Klein/Daido Moriyama

Free Range Art & Design Show | Old Truman Brewery | London

A selection of photography degree portfolios to investigate

Free Range Art & Design Show | Old Truman Brewery | London

The Baltic Gateshead – Dan Holdsworth, George Shaw and Jesper Just

Went to the Baltic today to see Dan Holdsworth’s  ‘Blackout’ (last opportunity before it closes). The exhibition feature seven very large (probably 8ftx6ft) prints of a mountainous area of Iceland. Holdsworth’s technique appears to be to print negatives of his pictures so the sky is jet black. In some cases this works really well -  in others things come about a bit wishy-washy.  Some seem almost like a computer generated image through the glaciers – others, for me at least miss the mark. I’ve been to Iceland – and I understand what he was talking about in the guide in terms of the timelessness of the landscape - this is not how I’d choose to capture it, but we’re not the same. I’m certainly glad I made the effort to see them. reproduced at the size they are they are almost monumental – so hat’s off to the guy.

By way of fascinating (and unexpected) contrast on the floor above was an exhibition by George Shaw - The Sly and Unseen Day . This, more than anything I have read, has convinced me that for my first Level 2/5 course I shall try Landscape. It doesn’t have to be long exposure shots of water. In the exhibition Shaw revisits the social housing estates of his youth and paints them with Humbrol enamel paints – the kind you use for model kits. They are, quite simply, delightful. Our second house, while not ‘social housing’ was in a near identical estate, and I suspect the collection of terraces, semis, back alleys and neglected community centres and shops that Shaw presents will be familiar to a significant proportion of people in Britain today.

The icing on the cake (almost literally as it was the top floor) was a series of three videos by Jesper Just – Sirens in Chrome, A Vicious Undertow and Bliss and Heaven. The three videos – about 10 minutes each – adopt Hollywood/music video production values – but leave you with a whole range of questions. it’s a shame that Sirens in Chrome is not available online, as for me it was probably the most intriguing, although Undertow was almost equally engaging as in asks questions about the relationship between an older and younger woman (mother and daughter perhaps) and a young man who appears to have the younger woman’s affections.

Sadly it’s too late if you want to see Holdsworth (at the Baltic anyhow) but Just and Shaw are there until mid-May, and in my view worth the visit.

Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize

Had seen some pictures from this year’s Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize in the BJP. I had been particularly struck by the first prize – David Chancellor’s ‘Huntress with Buck’ and several other shots that I found online – including ‘Tic-Tac and Tootsie’ (Jeffrey Stockbridge) and ‘Wafa’ so I jumped at the chance to see the exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery while I was in London at the weekend.
I found the choice of ‘Wafa’ (Felix Carpio)as the eye-catcher for the exhibition somewhat odd. For me it is undoubtedly one of the stand-out shots of the show. Yet, it is rather at odds with most of the material on display, being a conventional, if very beautiful, portrait where many of its companions had a more contemporary feel. Perhaps that it why it was used – the cynic in me feels that some of the other shots would be unlikely to attract visitors in the way that this particular image probably can.
I was surprised by how little space was given over to the exhibition, which made for a somewhat cramped viewing experience – if you stood back from an image to see it at a reasonable viewing distance, often as not some helpful soul would assume you were making space for them and stand in front of you. Set against that – where else could you see a collection of this quality for just £2 – which was effectively refunded if you bought the catalogue (by way of a price reduction).
‘Huntress with Buck’ looked as good on the wall as I had hoped, but ‘My British Wife’ – second (Panayiotis Lamprou)– looked like its inclusion was intended to shock but failed.
The catalogue talks of the confrontational pose of the two sisters in ‘Tic-tac and Tootsie’, but all I could see was resignation and defeat.
I don’t intend to comment on all the shots, particularly as I can’t link to them individually– and to be honest some left me wondering why they were included, but other shots of note included ‘Yasna’ (Hadas Mualem) – a picture which seemed to capture isolation and loneliness –and by way of contrast the utterly charming ‘Tagar, 30, with his three daughters: Asa, Diti, Prya.’ by Kurt Hoerbst.
In the catalogue ‘Wafa’ is paired with a similarly conventional portrait of a young girl ‘Allegra’ by Russ McClintock. If ever there was a case of ‘the eyes have it’ it must be this pairing.
Steve Bloom’s study of Parkinson’s Disease – ‘Tim Andrew’s in his Bedroom’ was particularly moving - with the movement blur of the shot (I assume a slow exposure) a speaking clearly to some of the symptoms of the disease.
One final recommendation and then I’ll stop. For originality, Unsafe Journey (Amy Johansson) – a shot looking down on a woman riding on the link between two rail carriages – is hard to beat.
I wont go on. If you can’t get to the exhibition the catalogue is worth the £15 in my opinion – it even has a thought provoking introduction - ‘What Makes a Good Portrait?’ – which contains a quote which has gone straight in to my top ten favourites: “If a picture has for everybody exactly the same meaning, it is a platitude and it is meaningless as a work of art.” (Philippe Halsman).
The exhibition finishes in London on 20 February but the shots will be on display again at The Sunderland Museum and Winter Gardens from 16 April until 26 June 2011.