Southampton E Book Show 2013

Following on from my post a couple of weeks ago, I had the privilege of being invited to Southampton's 2013 Photography E Book Show at Southampton's Jon Hansard Gallery.  Prior to my visit to the show, I conducted some research I felt that it would be necessary to conduct some background research into what the Photography E Book show and any unique information surrounding the John Hansard Gallery in particular.  

What the annual Photobook show is, is an Brighton based arts organisation that was only set up two years ago in order to raise the profile of Photographers and artists who had produced their work via self published and hand crafted books and wished to donate them to galleries in order to get their names noticed. Kevin Beck (http://www.kevinbeckphotography.com) and William Sadowski (http://williamsadowski.co.uk) were the two men responsible for this set up. 

Exhibititions held by The Photobook show are held a number of times a year around the UK which also include a number or workshops and guest speakers, I employ you all to check these out! one of the workshops that I was unfortunate enough to miss was a book making workshop held one week after the grand opening of Southampton's E Book Show. Darn work commitments. 

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What made the holding of this special exhibition at Southampton's Jon Hansard Gallery special was purely down to how much dedication was placed into getting the exhibition to be held in Southampton. Over a 10 month period a very kind amount of funding from sponsors were aided towards setting up the exhibition. 

Inside the Photobook show: Photo credit goes to Tom Parker

What is interesting about exhibitions like this is how every detail of the inside of the exhibition have been carefully thought out and structured. All sorts of things from the structure of the lighting, down to how each of the display tables were laid out all throughout the exhibition rooms in great detail. It's this kind of thing that makes exhibitions that make the exhibitions aesthetic that more special. The highlight for me in the presentation was how the names of the artists whose work was being presented, were all credited upon the walls of the gallery. 

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References

http://photobookshow.co.uk/ 
http://www.hansardgallery.org.uk/
http://visualexplorationtomparker.blogspot.co.uk/

Logan Riehl - Portraits (John Hansard Gallery)

This past week I had the privilege of receiving an invite to the opening of the 2013 Photography E Book show that was being held for the first time ever at Southampton's John Hansard gallery. The base of the exhibition was to showcase a range of different range of handmade Photography project book's from Photographers and students alike from around the world that had been selected from a large selection of submitters.

One body of work that stood out to me in particular was a body of work entitled "Portraits" by a Canadian student Photographer named Logan Riehl. In this body of work Logan Riehl showcases a large range of produced portraits of famous actors and actresses in the private space of their west end dressing rooms whilst they're still in character.

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Notes: Mamiya C330 Medium format camera, 80mm lens, 3200 ISO black and white film.

http://loganriehl.com/gallery

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What attracted to me this body of work was everything from the Photographers use of composition and lighting to the idea of how he managed to get such amazing access to the actors and actresses private spaces. Something that I also find interesting is the subject of wether or not the actresses and actors being Photographed are still in character or not. What is Logan Riehl's relationship with the subject matter at hand? Something that makes me question this is from two of my selected images that were visible on show in Logan Riehl's book "Portraits". When you look at one portrait of the actress Julie Walters with a un satisfied emotion and compare it to a portrait of the actress Sheridan Smith, their is a contract between the depth of emotion that the subjects are giving to the camera. 

             
                          Fig One: Julie Walters In Last Of The Haussmans » October 12, 2012

                                 
                               

           Fig Two: Sheridan Smith as Elle Woods in "Legally Blonde" » September 24, 2010