Gallery Triptych

Went to an evening event at the NPG tonight - Face to Face: The Portrait in Photography Today. Perhaps the organisation could have been a little better - you had tickets to show on the way in but the gallery staff seemed unsure where we should go, or at least the person that spoke to me only vaguely pointed me in the direction of the entrance hall. And there was no formal announcement that the evening was about to start, I just noticed the general drift out of the space from those who were presumably in the know. Presumably that is the space they always use for such events, but if you've never been before you don't know that. And the seats were hardly comfortable. And the person hosting and some of the speakers didn't always use the microphone so it was hard to hear at the back sometimes. Which all sounds a little fussy, but it did diminish from the evening that turned out to be more presentation of the work of eight photographers - four from Document Scotland and four others - that was all portraiture based, rather than a more analytical discussion of the topic that I had hoped for. Some interesting stuff, although rather like the Taylor Wessing exhibition a lot of it left me a little underwhelmed. Probably because of the weaknesses of the format, looking at projections of the images at the far end of the room, rather than seeing them printed and framed up close. These are all successful photographic artists - people with themes for their work, that gives them the artistic credibility that I lack. I think my favourite images were those taken of teenagers in northern Scotland by Ben Roberts. Still, it was an interesting evening and glad they put it on, and I would go to another similar thing in the future. Despite my little gripes.
The two other images are from the upper gallery above the entrance hall, with a detail from the Bannockburn mural and a more general view.