The growing lists
During lockdown I found myself curating lists on Instagram and Twitter under the heading, Interesting Photography. It was my attempt to break free of the algorithms that were just showing me more of the same photography day after day.
Instagram in particular rewards photographers who share blockbuster images; textbook composition, immediate impact, hinting at a backstory of wanderlust and adventure. People who share quieter images that need a bit of time to find a way in to are quickly relegated to the bottom of the algorithmic barrel. I didn’t want to lose touch with these people who I had stumbled on through a chance encounter on a hashtag or a share in someone else’s stories.
My category of Interesting Photography soon became too general. I added sub-categories as needed and now have an eclectic mix of lists including Borders, Banal, Photo Books, Japan, Trains, Thoughtful Travellers and, crucially, Possible Exhibitors.
I realised that I wanted to share the work of the people I was following. If I enjoyed it, someone else would. It is frustrating to see a fabulous photographer with a small following getting a tiny amount of engagement compared to a mediocre photographer making predictable but popular images. I know; Instagram isn’t the right platform for for organic growth if you are making anything other than mainstream images. But it’s the only one we’ve got at the moment.
The gallery idea
Once I had named my list Possible Exhibitors then the idea of actually creating a gallery became real. I had been mulling over the idea of starting a podcast to showcase other photographers but I really wanted to do something visual not audible.
I toyed with the idea of having in-person pop-up exhibitions. Notwithstanding the whole lockdown thing, there is always a way to make things work. Cold War Steve, for example, does fabulous community-generated in-real-life exhibitions. But the time and the cost put me off. I have no training in curation, no contacts in the gallery world and no experience at all of running an exhibition; it could have been a very expensive fail.
If the lockdowns gave us nothing else they gave us better online communities. It is now very easy to host a virtual exhibition and this was how The Edge Online Gallery was born.
Why “The Edge”?
Because the overheads are so low I can afford to try things that a mainstream gallery might find too risky. I don’t need to sell the photos I exhibit (and indeed I don’t get involved in sales at all) and I don’t need to charge visitors. (What’s the catch? There really isn’t one. I genuinely just want to share my platform and promote interesting photography.) I can walk closer to the edge than if I had an in-real-life gallery.
I’m also hoping exhibiting photographers might choose to share work that is at the edge of their practice; things they are trying out, images that a mainstream gallery wouldn’t take a risk on, portfolios that have lurked on their websites at the bottom of their lists.
My own current photography project Standing at the Edge of England is always in the back of my mind right now and I’m sure the idea of this particular edge has crept into this new gallery project.
BECOMING A GATEKEEPER
The photographs will always come first. But instead of whining about how gatekeepers in photoland default to the easy, popular, already well-represented photographers (yes, I have whined about it here) I needed to step up and do something about it. At least one of my exhibitors in each exhibition will be a student or from a historically underrepresented demographic.
What’s next?
The first exhibition, From The Sea, launches on Monday 4 October. It features Margaret Soraya, Allison Davis, Anna Laura Festa and me. Visit TheEdgeOnlinGallery.com and enjoy our photos. (If it says website pending domain ownership then the internet is still doing its thing in the background; it will only take a day or so to appear.)
Coming next: The Black and White Edition in January 2022.
Coming in 2022: open calls for submissions, a new exhibition every three months and plenty of in-depth interviews with all our exhibitors which will appear on the Edge Online blog. Sign up here to my once-a-month email newsletter to be first to hear about all these things:
