Photo Saturday (I mean Valentines Day)

It was Valentines Day, so we went to London for the day. Up early, we arrived at the station only to find there were no trains running. Anyway, a quick dash to East Croydon and a short hop on the train had us in Soho by 9am. Breakfast in Le Pain Quotidien in Great Marlborough Street followed by a quick detour to Liberty of London. Before we were distracted by the shopping expedition we were on-route to The Photographers Gallery in Ramillies St. Luckily enough the top floor of Liberty is being used as an off-site exhibition space for a feature on landscape photography.

There's a collection of images on show here, many like the one in the link abover are not quite my taste, but others like the collection of bluebells in woodlands are stunning in their scale and colour. Moving on from Liberty, we ended up at the Photographers Gallery

I have to say that due to it's easy proximity from Gordon's Wine Bar, that this should be a must visit on our photo evenings. For several reasons. The first is obviously the photographs, there were a few highlights for me in the current exhibits:

1. Michal Chelbin, wonderfully rich and stark images of a series of portraits of circus performers in Israel, Italy, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. I found them creepy and desolate, yet totally absorbing.





















2. Next was Emma Critchley and Sophie Lewis, now this would represent a safety hazard and is probably something that me (being so accident prone) should probably stay well clear of. A couple of extrememly impressive life-size portraits exhibited, both taken underwater. Not only physically very difficult, these must have been a nightmare to produce technically.




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3. I saved my personal favourites until last. Simon Roberts had a few images on display from a project called Motherland. I particurlarly loved this image which was an abandoned warship in Murmansk. It may not seem very impressive from this small image but in the large format displayed in the gallery it is truly stunning. It made us feel so cold that nothing but a beaker of port was going to warm us again.





















More images can be found at MotherlandBook I thoroughly recommend having a look and flicking through some of his images.

Aside from the Pictures, There's a great cafe and brilliant photographic bookshop, best of all it is free. You can also become a member which entitles you to attendance at previews and seminar ect.

Simone fancied reading the Saturday's so I left her in a soho MegaBucks while I made a quick detour to Jacobs. I invested in some new inkjet media by Hahnemuehle which I'd read about in last months B&W Phototographer Magazine. If you have an interest in printing here's a great tip for trying out their range. The sell a sample pack, of 14 A4 papers which covers the complete fine art range from regular pearl and gloss right up to heavy duty canvas. Jacobs are selling it for £5 a pack, a bargain considering a full pack of 20 sheets is around £1 per sheet. To add to that, I got two tins of 50 sheets of photo cards, in matt and high gloss.

My favourite so far is Fine Art Baryta which is a high gloss bright white paper which is 325 gsm. Their website has all the necessary ICC profiles for all the main printer and paper combination's which makes using the papers so easy. The results are stunning, photo like, high gloss with incredible colour range and tone. I am very very happy with the results and will never use Canon or Epson papers again.















Back from Jacob's, I meet up with Simone in the photography section of Foyles for a quick browse. Leaving Foyles, we head down the Charing Cross road for the National Portrait Gallery to see the Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize exhibition.

Among the wonderful pictures exhibited, my favourite, Bag by Hendrik Kerstens. This picture has been featured in a lot presss recently. It's reminiscent of paintings of the 15th and 16th century of the Dutch Masters. The bag is a play on the type of head pieces worn by women in that era. The lighting reminds me of the style of Vermeer. The image is stunning, the detail and lighting is perfect, but for me, what is so perfect, is that he captured the stillness normally found in painted portraits in the stare of the model and the catch lights in her eyes. Seeing this image from a distance, you could be easily fooled into thinking it is indeed a painting and that the bag is really some intricate lace adornment. I love it...

Hmm, Gordons is just around the corner, perfect time for a beaker of Port.

All in all a truly inspirational day, that apart from the beaker of Port and the ink jet paper cost us nothing.

Hey, where is everyone?