Photography and Art

I have never had any doubt that Photography is an art form.  It can also be a means of communication (eg news events) and a means of recording (architecture, jewellery, family events, etc), but careful treatment of these subjects can produce "artistic" results.  Examples of photography are now seen in so many art galleries.

Currently, the Sony World Photography Awards Exhibition is on at Somerset House in London.   This is a major annual competition and exhibition which celebrates the art of photography in its many forms. It is a large exhibition with images in various categories, displayed in the spacious and airy rooms of the East and West wings.  (Today it was also not too crowded, making viewing the exhibition a real pleasure.)

I thought this was a much better exhibition than for at least the last couple of years.  Whereas previously I have found the "Professional" section a little underwhelming, this year I really enjoyed some outstanding images in all the sections. I felt the layout was better, and there were far fewer typos and errors in the picture captions. As always, to do the exhibition justice, I was there for several hours.

Most of the images were displayed as prints. You can see a couple of small prints in my blip, but most of the prints were rather larger - and some were huge, large enough to fill a wall in my living room.  As the event is sponsored by Sony, it is no surprise to see that some images were also displayed on Sony screens, including the huge screen shown in this picture.  I'm not sure what size it was, but that would also fill my living room!

I find some art difficult to comprehend, but this year I found most of the images perfectly digestible, with sensible and comprehensible captions explaining the meaning or background to the pictures.  It was only the "conceptual" section which left me unimpressed.  In general, the captions avoided flowery language and avoided trying to intellectualise the event, but there was one caption where the photographer (I assume they were responsible for the text) had ostentatiously used language and vocabulary to describe the images which conveyed no meaning to my scientifically trained brain.  To me it was just stupidly pretentious.  See what you think (in the extra - particularly the second paragraph).