How We Are: Photographing Britain

Yes indeed. There's a wonderful picture from this exhibition in the current (May) issue of Black & White Photography (pp. 2-3). You can become part of the exhibit yourself by adding your own picture on the Tate web site! And the catalog is only £19.99!! I'll be getting that for sure...
 
Finally got to see it. The catalogue is worth having and is discounted if you buy it at the Tate. Lots of really interesting early work, including some 19th Century colour photography, some new (to me) documentary stuff from the 60s and 70s by various lesser-known photographers, many of them excellent, and a reasonable selection of less familiar work by well-known photographers. The big disappointment is the contemporary work, virtually all of which is colour, very big, derivative, and bit depressing, with a postmodern wannabe-Martin-Parr-ish cynicism which I didn't like at all (Martin Parr himself seems much more sympathetic to his subjects), and a basic lack of originality. I blame art schools 🙂

Ian
 
Cheers for the write-up Ian, I'll be heading down to see this soon.

I agree with your observation for contempary photos to be printed too big, I'm seeing the same thing with the end of year exhibitions at Uni. I really liked the "European" exhibition at the Tate before this one, (some of) the 6x6 contact prints, 5x7s &c. draw you in quietly while the big photos put you off with their lewdness.

And there is nothing as ugly as a digital photo printed badly at 60"x40" 🙂
 
Oddly enough, going big (and BIG) seems to make an ordinary photo into art (or Art) rather often these days.
 
It works sometimes, but it seems like a requirement nowadays for everyone to print as big as possible. It was very noticeable that the more crowded rooms were the earlier ones, people seemed to naturally gravitate towards the earlier work, most of which was far smaller, more intimate, and more classically documentary in style. I like to think it's because people fundamentally have good taste and know when they're looking at something of quality 🙂

But I wouldn't want to put anyone off seeing the exhibition, most of it's well worth the time.

Ian
 
Ian

Thanks for the HU. I saw the write up in AP a week or two ago. They seemed very excited and also made similar comments on the contemporary work, though one or two photos were to their liking.

I agree on the large photo issue - the Lartigue exhibition year or two ago had many beautiful small prints which were almost jewel like. I seem to recall also the HCB portraits exhibition a while back ago had nothing over 20x30, quite big, but the audience was still drawn in to pick up the details.
 
I want to get this catalog too. There was a priceless pic from the exhibit - coconut dancers in Bacup, Lancs - a couple of months ago. Catalog is inexpensive and I'm looking forward to getting it.
 
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