I am freshly returned from my first visit to the Bristol Photo Festival. Also my first visit to a crowded room full of people with no ventilation since the before times but in spite of the south-west being a Covid hot spot right now my vaccinations and masks seem to have worked and a week later I am Covid-free.
I had forgotten how great it is to listen to people talk in person. Zoom has been a blessing during lockdown but it was a real treat to be able to sit still and listen undistracted by other screens for an entire day.
Listening to Martin Parr interview Nick Hedges
Go to get out of your bubble
My photography influences had become a bubble of ever-reducing size over the last couple of years. Reliant on Instagram algorithms and friends’ recommendations it was easier to consume the photographs and opinions I knew I would like rather than work a bit harder to get to know new photographers.
Go to a photography festival and the curators will present you with a wide variety of styles, politics, subjects and opinions. If you follow one white, American landscape photographer in his 30s Instagram assumes you want to meet more of the same. Not so a festival curator; they will go out of their way to make sure they bring a diverse group of photographers to the table.
Sarah Waiswa is a new-to-me photography based in Nairobi. In her own words; “The archival images show the power imbalance that existed between the colonialists and the natives. In the archival images, the photographers had the power to define the narrative. They presented the people in the way they saw them, and not necessarily as who they were. The Kenyans pictured are seen but not really seen.” By silhouetting archival images Waiswa challenges the viewer’s gaze and shifts the power balance between subject and photographer.
Go to speak to people
Having face-to-face conversations used to be normal but I think I made an effort to strike up more conversations than I would have done in the before times and I got a lot more out of the event as a result. The speakers are happy to chat between sessions and the person you sit next to in the auditorium is usually keen to exchange ideas.
Go to look at actual photographs
There is nothing like standing in front of a printed photograph and absorbing it for as long as you want to. The image will be the size the photographer intended. Care will have been taken with the venue and the lighting. You can choose to read every sentence of explanatory notes or meander through the exhibition being drawn by curiosity alone.
Get your fill of old-favourites like this Don McCullin Early Morning, West Hartlepool, 1963
Find new-to-you exhibitions tucked away in odd cafes and backstreets. Robert Darch The Island made in response to Brexit
Some images just must be seen in person. Stephen Gill’s Hackney Flowers are created by rephotographing found foliage and the reproductions don’t do justice to the slightly unnerving effect produced.
Worldwide photo festivals
There will be a festival near you in the next year. Get online and search for your nearest big town and the words “photo festival” and see what pops up.
European favourites listed by next date
Paris Photo: runs annually, next 11-14 November 2021
Photo London: an annual festival next running 12-15 May 2022
Les Rencontre d’Arles: for over 50 years this festival has run between July and September every year.
Berlin Photoweek: an annual festival expected to run in the last week of August 2022
Unseen Amsterdam: an annual festival next running 16-18 September 2022
Bristol Photo Festival: a biennial festival currently running 18 May 2021 - 3 Jan 2022 and this year including the annual photobook festival Books on Photography
Diffusion Festival: a biennial festival next on in October 2023 in Cardiff, Newport and locations in south Wales
America
B&H Photo has a great list of not-to-be-missed festivals in the USA.
Worldwide
Fotoroom have a comprehensive list of festivals organised by date order.
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