The three world odyssey - America

Last week I went to see Cristopher Nolan's masterpiece The Odyssey.

 This week I went on one of my own, to try and visit two photographic galleries and also to get some camera time myself.

Will I succeed, or will I be distracted by Sirens, turned into a porcine or get waylaid by water nymphs carrying sweet nector?

Read on to find out

1. America
2. Japan
3. London

The American Adventure

Crossing the River

My love of going to  photography exhibitions has been well documented on this blog. Unfortunately, so has my recent frustrations in my ability to actuall attend any in the last few months. 

For example, the Lee Miller exhibition at the Tate had to missed due to work commitments (and my inability to plan ahead). The London Original Print Fair coincided with a holiday. Even a photography festival in my  hometown had to be missed because my wife decided we should go to the Wirral instead. All in all, it has been a frustrating year.

So, when I saw that there would be an exhibition of American photography called "Portrait of a City: A Century of American Photography", I took my chance, booked a day off and headed towards London.

So, on a steaming hot summers day (Note to any historians out there. The summer of 2026 has been one of the hottest on record, including a a record drought) I boarded a train into central London. It goes without saying that I took my camera with me as well.

The exhibition was at the Dulwich Picture Gallery. A quick look on Google maps showed it to be in uncharted territory being <please now adopt a  Cockney Accent> S'th of the river. This meant it would require crossing that historical barrier, the river Thames. As a consequence, the London Teleportation System (as I call the London underground) would not be a great help. The route from central London would therefore take almost as much time as it would take me to get to London in the 1st place. 

Dulwich picture gallery in all its glory

As you cross from North to South London, the city changes character. Gone are the steel and glass financial fortresses and historic buildings. Instead suburbia grows and you end of looking in the gardens of endless terraces and balconies of flats. Thats not to say this is a pooer area. A 1 bedroom flats here go for the same price of our 4 bedroomed house. Gone of the days where anyone, without the bank of Mum and Dad or a major lottery win could contemplate getting on even the 1st rung of the housing ladder. 

Dulwich itself is one of those areas that although consumed by London, still has a unique identity. It is a pleasant upper middle class surburban area where houses are interspersed with parkland, private schools and tennis clubs.

Dulwich picture gallery  is a bit of a non-descript brick building, looking like the cross between a school outbuilding and a rejected Adams family film set. It is alsos not very big. I picked up its history (strangely) in the mens urinals. In 1800's it was gifted to the nation after the king of Poland got deposed and therefore could not pick up his expensively ciurated art collection.

Polands loss was South Londons fgain and inside was a small art gallery showing mainly 15th to 18th century art works. It was showed the embarrassment of riches that London has. That a non-descript building hidden in Southern London boasts at least two Rembrandts and a Canaletto, along with numerous other famous painters work.is like having a A-lister actor living next to you. These are the kind of riches a Northern gallery would pull its eye teeth out for

Start 'em young

Mother and child

After I perused the paintings for a while I went for the main event.

La La La America

The exhibtion was set out in a corridor running the length of the gallery. Altough I was on a timed ticket and I had arrived 1 hour early, no on seemed to be too bothered, and I just wandered in. 

The exhibition covered the golden (silver halide surely - Ed) age of American street photography from the early 1920's to the 1970's. Many of the images were easily recognisable such as Dorotea Lange's Migrant Mother, however many I was not aware off. As well as providing a chance to see the images at first hand, the most important aspect was putting the images in a historical context and order, together with the social history it was recording ,so you could see the progression through the decades both in technique, but also how the subject matter was handled and approached.

A number of things stood  out. Firstly how much US photography owed to immigrant photographers, often refugees from Nazi persecution. Secondly I was surprised how abstract some of the images actually were, even those almost 100 years old. For example the photographer often made bold use of shadow to express their subjects, something modern photographers with increased dynamic range are loathed to do.  

It was also interesting to read that the Photo League, a group set up to experiment in photography, was heavily persecuted by the McCarthy communists witch hunt and black listed. With the present state of the US, and the right wing attempts to control the media and therefore expression, it feels a good time to remind ourselves that these things have a circular nature.

While providing a great review of a critical time in American photography, and probably the 1st time in which the US led a cultural art form, there were some gaps.For example I would of included some of the lessor known social work of Ansel Adams. Also it was surprising Vivian Maier was not represented. It would also be nice to bring it up to the modern day with such photographers as Joel Meyerowitz, but I guess there is only so much room and photographers 

Here we go again....!

The Melbourne art festival theme this year was "out of the woods"

This is the first year where I have gone through a full circle of a photographic season consisting of a full  photography club  program followed by a pause over the summer months.

This is the standard calendar for the club, but before I had gone through it, I had not understood the reasoning behind it. I now see that it is to allow the organization of trips to be be undertaken while the days are long.

Unfortunately due to my work, it is rare that I can take advantage of these opportunities. Therefore during these months there is a tendency to lose touch with the majority of the club membership.

The month of September is where it all kicks off again, starting with an exhibition of members work as part of the Melbourne arts festival. This is also a great opportunity to compare and contrast your work over the summer with some of the other members.

The Club presentation. None of my photos are in this picture(they are just too good!!)

As always, I arrive with high hopes, but this lasts up to my first viewing of other work.  There are some great photos this year with more to come. I therefore get a sinking feeling when I do a comparison between my efforts and the others.

However I thought the same last last year and was proved to be wrong (some of the time anyway), so it is probably just natural pessimism. However time will tell, whether it also includes any semblence of realism.

I learned from last year was to never 2nd guess photographic judges. All you can do is your best and hope on the day of competition  that your vision matches a particular judges mindset.

Exhibitions

One thing I am always in a quandary about, is whether I should show my competition photos in these sort of shows or whether I should I keep my powder dry, so to speak.

In reality, I probably think too much about these sort of things, but part of me feels I should not forewarn the competition (as I like to call my fellow members). Part of me also feels that I should give myself a good slapping and just get on with it. Unfortunately these sort of ideas often struggle up from my primeval sub-conscience, where in reality they should be well and truly sat on.

In the end, I did not present what I considered my best photos and this back fired. For the 1st time, the club decided to have a public vote on the print images in the exhibition. This was a last minute decision, but I think that if I had known before hand I would of chosen and presented different images. In the end karma gave me a good kicking.

The Public Vote

Watching what the public like can be very instructive.

I have noticed in the past that the photos that non-photographers like, are not necessarily what do well in competitions and vice versa.

Generally the public like photographs with bright colour's, while black and white photos are considered more kindly by judges. Also the subject can be as important as the photo technique. Wildlife is always a winner and it is was of no surprise that two pictures of Puffins (by Simon Pearce and John Wesson) were doing well.

Another photo that was doing well on the day was a picture of a train. This had fared badly ( harshly in my opinion) during competition, so it just goes to show the contrast between public and judges opinions (and maybe judges don't it always get it right).

One of the things I noticed about my work when reviewing this summers photos was that I had taken an lot of black and white photos this year( partly due to my experimentation with infra read). I was tempted for a while to present all black and white photos in the exhibition, but I chickened out. In the end it was however the right decision, but for the wrong reasons.

Another thing I noticed was that club members tend to show larger prints in these occasions than the competition rules allow. This again means the photos have more impact in these sort of public exhibitions.

Due to its success I am sure that the public vote will become a integral part of exhibitions from now on, so next time I will take this into account.

Round the festival

Because the exhibition was part of a larger arts festival, it also gave me a chance to look at some other 'professional' photographers. While there were some great work out there, there were also some which I could not understand at any level.

One in particular was photos of textures such as brick walls and other such things. I like to think I have a broad view of photography, but I struggle to see such things attractions or why anyone would buy them.

Obviously they make money from such images, so it must be me. Again however it shows that photography as with any art, quality comes down as much to personal opinion as any other metric

The organizers also asked if the club would take photos of the festival (This is a bit like asking a crack addict, if they would mind getting free cocaine). I duly took the opportunity to try my hand at event photography, yet again. My initial review of results were disappointing, but now I processed them, I am happy with some of them.

I have said before that it is not an area of photography I ever feel comfortable doing, but maybe it is an area I should do more often. However it will be interesting to see what other members get.

We're forever blowing bubbles!