Format Derby 2011

Yesterday I attended an OCA organised visit to The Format Photographic Festival in Derby. The event was well attended with 15 students and four OCA staff/tutors. It was a great opportunity to talk to others about their work and to gain valuable insights from the tutors Jose Navarro and Clive White.

The theme of the Festival was 'Right Here, Right Now' Exposures from the public realm - essentially it was dedicated to street photography. As some of my favourite photographers were exhibiting - Alex Webb, Constantine Manos, Joel Meyerowitz - I had a great day. 

To begin with we visited the Quad Gallery where a great variety of street photographers were on display from all parts of the globe - UK, China, USA, Eastern Europe and the Middle East. 

My eye was immediately caught by the Joel Meyerowitz photographs by the entrance. What was particularly interesting for me was to see how his work had moved on from black and white street work, to colour on the street and then to the use of Large Format for his more recent portrait studies - a photographer must keep moving seems to be the message!

I spent quite a lot of time at the exhibition and had the opportunity to reflect on what drew me to particular photographers. Strong colour and constrast are certainly aesthetic factors, but it I was most taken by those photographers who had drawn their work together under a distinct theme which had some substance to it. My particular favourites on the day were:

- Frederic Lezmi's travelog of a journey from Austria to Beirut. I thought the way the photographs had been arranged as a continuous film-like display worked really well. These two photographs taken through windows both have a sense of mystery about them but both also portray their central characters so well - the strong mature business woman and the beautiful young maid.

- George Georgiou's exploration of Turkey's modernisation and national identity also held my attention. I felt drawn back to the images to look deeper into them.

- Dougie Wallace's reflections on life which showed a series of faces of people on trams about to depart - most are lost in thought leaving one to wonder what this person is about. The images are from all over the globe.

- Zhiang Xiao whose image depict the Chinese coastline - one can see the increasing development and westernisation but the spirit of the people appears to remain intact.  Often the images which contain much information have curious and amusing details within them - the man with the spotted sunburned back, the lady swimming in her dress and such like. The matrix arrangement of the photographs also intrigued - one was tempted to connect the images but left wondering about how to do this.

Jose had also asked us to look at the work by British photographer Peter Dench who has been documenting British society in the 21st century. He describes his work as  'explore[ing] all four corners documenting ethnic diversity, the miserable weather and the many characters [he] met along the way'. to be honest I did not like his work. I felt it was unbalanced, focusing on the worst elements within society often exploiting his subjects at times when they were under stress or at times of weakness, e.g. people living on the streets, people injured in car accidents drunken people etc. His work is similar in some ways to that of Martin Parr but lacks Parr's wit and satirical power in my view. Here is an example of his photography.

We moved from the Quad Gallery to the 'Take to the Streets' exhibition of leading Magnum photographers which is an outdoor exhibit in the square in front of the Quad. As I mentioned at the start of this post, some of my favourite photographers were on show. This exhibition only served to reinforce my opinion of their work. Two stood out for me:

- Alex Webb  has  a very personalised style based on the strong use of colour and contrast. Many of his images are complex compositionally and often he will break up the frame into components using doors, windows, archways shadows etc. Each element then seems to develop a life of its own leading to a multilayered reading of the images. His work is visually attractive and intriguing.

- Constantine Manos's work American Colour is brilliantly conceived in my view. His subjects are people in the streets, but in reality the actual subject is the colour itself. This he finds in abundance in Florida where most of the images are taken. What is also interesting is that one rarely sees the faces of the people in the photographs. They could be wearing sunglasses, be in shade, be turned away, be cropped out etc. This mitigates any sense of exploitation in his photographs and emphasises that the real subject is the colour itself.

From the Magnum show we went on to the Derby Museum and Art Gallery. The main exhibits that grabbed my attention was the Bruce Gilden work and the In-Publik movie.

- Bruce Gilden has a very distinctive and intrusive style of street photography. He gets up close and personal with his subjects and to cap it off uses a flash to capture them like rabbits in headlights! I watched the movie of him working and it was clear that some of his subjects were less than happy about his approach and felt singled out and victimised. This reinforced my view that my own style should be based on a sympathetic approach to my subjects not a confrontational one. Whilst I feel that many of his images have a strong powerful impact I was slightly disturbed by his approach and do not count myself as a fan of Gilden's work. 

- The In-Publik movie gave a great insight into the thinking of many well regarded street photographers. I took away a numerous thoughts about what they try to achieve with their work....

...humourous juxtaposition - Nick Turpin

...moments of magic - David Gibson

...drama in everyday life - David Solomons

...the world is a beautiful place - Richard Bram

...find structure in situations that are out of control - Gus Powell

Essentially though they are all looking for those 'moments of magic' in everyday life...this seems a great credo for street photography

Our final port of call was MOB Format HQ. Here was the headquarters of the Festival and also the exhibition of work submitted by members of the public. The organisers have set out six themes under which photographs should be submitted:

Street Surreal  

Shoot from the hip  

Decisive moment  

In the crowd

Street noir  

When worlds collide 

These are an excellent structure for thinking about developing a style in street photography and is one which I plan to think about in terms of my own style.

So I had a great day but what did I learn. The key points for me to reflect on are:

·      I have strong preference for colour and contrast - I will probably base my own work around this approach

·      I do not like exploitative street photography - my aim is not to poke fun at people but to find those 'moments of magic'

·      I prefer work where there is an evident linking them....almost a photo essay approach. This theme need not be about the people in the scene it could be something else like Manos's work with colour

·      I need to avoid forcing myself down the track of other photographers. I need to keep shooting and to allow my style to come through naturally

·      I need to take all opportunities to mix with other photographers!!

·      I need to keep learning and keep an open mind!!