Photographers Gallery

  

The Photographers Gallery is a Gallery dedicated to photography it is situated in Central London not too far from Oxford Street.At the time i went there there was two exhibitions showing one of which was the Claire Ahos-Studio works and the other which was the Deutsche Borse Photography Prize 2013.

The Deutsche Borse Photography Prize 2013 exhibition featured the work of four photographers which were Chris Killip,Mishka Henner,Broomberg and chanarin and Christina de Middel. The Deutsche Börse Photography Prize 2013 rewards a living photographer, of any nationality, for a specific body of work in an exhibition which has  contributed to photography in Europe between 1 October 2011 and 30 September 2012. The prize is £30,000. Each Photographer is nominated for something different for example.

Mishka Henner is nominated for hes project 'No mans Land' which represents isolated women occupying the margins of southern European environments captured with Google Street View.

Chris Killip is nominated for hes project 'What happened-Great Britain 1970-1990' which comprises of  black and white images of working people in the north of England, taken by Killip in the 1970s and 1980s.

Broomberg and Chanarin were nominated for their project 'War Primer 2' which is a limited edition book that consists of pages of Bertold Brecht’s  1955 publication War Primer. Brecht’s photo-essay consists of 85 images, photographic fragments or collected newspaper clippings. 

And Christina De Middel was nominated for her project 'The Afronauts'  which is a play on 1964, after Zambia after gaining independence started a space programme in order to send the first African astronaut to the moon.

Personally for me I feel Christina De Middel should win the Prize because although the other artists showed great skill and creativity Christina's subject matter relates to a historical event which is well thought out and clever.Her models convey a great amount of emotion which links to the emotions the Zambian Astronauts could have felt and her choice of background locations bring a urban look to the piece which makes it that much more real.

CLAIRE AHO: STUDIO WORKS

The second Exhibition was about the Artist Claire Aho showing her  photographs, spanning her career from 1950 to 1970. Claire Aho began her career in the early 1950s as a news camera operator in a documentary film making company owned by her father and uncle, Aho & Soldan. She was the only female cinematographer in the field, she also filmed the 1952 Olympics, and was later hired by Warner Pathé News. She maintained a successful commercial studio between 1950 and 1970, working for  lifestyle and fashion magazines, as well as directly with manufacturers and designers.Her studio is important as it is the founding part for her photography where her photo shoots and lighting and costume set ups were introduced.

In the exhibition were a lot of interesting images but this one below stood out most for me because it reminded me of the work of Jan Von Holleben the way in which he uses child models and props to stylise a scene.I particularly like the baby pure colours used in this scene and the emptiness of it as if this were a real child's party things would be chaotic and wild but in this picture the children are sitting around the table nicely smiling almost like adults.Overall i found the trip to the gallery was a inspirational and productive one.