Passion in the Public Square

Happy Easter Everyone! 

Hope you've had a great, chocolate-filled day. I, unfortunately, didn't have that much chocolate in the end (my waistline doesn't mind so much), but instead filled my day with church and family. It's been so nice to remember and rejoice in why we celebrate Easter, and on Friday, me and my Dad (as well as thousands of other people) travelled to the capital to watch a wonderful performance of the Passion Play. 

This is the fourth year that The Wintershall Players have performed in Trafalgar Square to an international audience. Those from the Arctic would've felt right at home in the freeeezing temperatures, but despite the weather, the play was a moving, emotional and great success. Here is a small selection of some of the images I took whilst watching from the front row...

Great news! You can watch the live recording of the show here

Image of the Week (and a bit of a chat)

A bit of a different kind of picture from me this week. This is one of the images from a fashion shoot featured in Vogue Australia's April 2013 issue, photographed by Will Davidson.

Some of you may be surprised I've picked an image in this style of fashion photography, as apposed to the documentary approach I usually write about. At the moment, I am on Easter holidays and enjoying a well-earned break from the buzz of University. I am very lucky to have a lot of friends at home who also are studying in media subjects, but whilst catching up with them, I've noticed one topic of conversation we all seem to have in common.

That is the rivalry, or weird heirachy, that can form, whether it's between similar subjects, years or even between the members on the same course. It seems everyone wants to be better than this person, or that person or on the more 'respected course', so they can they can look down upon someone else. I know in my University, there are 3 courses very similar to one another, and all, at one point or another, have been the butt of a joke, seen as the 'least important medium' or the 'easy' course (which, I can tell you, is entirely false. I'm lucky to live with 3 hard-working photographers, who are all on a different photography course to me, and I respect and admire all that they do.).

Why can't we see there is an important purpose for all types of art and media? What do we gain from  degrading or mocking the work of others? Why don't we take the amazing opportunity to encourage one another? This picture above is only one of many photographs, not from my chosen genre, that I'm inspired by. The bravery of it all, the mix between the model's beauty and the Average Joe, the movement. It teaches me something that I can later apply to my own work. We need to remove pride and jealousy from the equation, and replace those feelings with supportiveness for our fellow photographers. We are all in this industry together after all.

Image of the Week

This week's image comes from Simon Roberts, as part of his 'We, English' Project. 

“Simon Roberts travelled throughout England in a motorhome between 2007 and 2008, for this portfolio of large-format tableaux photographs of the English at leisure. Photographing ordinary people engaged in a variety of pastimes, Roberts finds beauty in the mundane; the result is an elegiac exploration of identity, attachment to home and land, and the relationship between people and place. This is the most significant contribution to the photography of England in recent years.” 
Chris Boot, October 2009

Simon's work is featured as part of the Landmarks: The Fields of Photography Exhibition at Somerset House, London which is open to the public (for free may I add!) until the 28th April. I went for a little look around today, and I can tell you it is well worth a visit. The exhibition features work from 81 photographers all around the diverse subject of the landscape photograph. 

Curator, William A. Ewing writes "Photographers have been at work imaging the earth's surface ever since photography was invented; as a genre, 'landscape' has remained of foremost interest, rivalling portraiture as the most heavily practiced of photography's domains." As you walk through the many different rooms (all themed around a different view, or 'signpost', of the landscape, including 'scar' and 'witness'), you see how varied the response from the photographer can be towards his enviroment. This exhibition really is a celebration of our world, with all it's shining points as well as all it's flaws, and the people who capture it in photography. 

This post would be absurdly long if I mentioned every amazing photograph in the exhibition, but I can tell you a few I particularly liked. Simon Robert's pieces remind you how to find beauty in the mundane and the spectacular, showing images from both his 'We, English' and 'XXX Olympiad'. Mark Klett & Bryon Wolfe's panoramic view of the Grand Canyon is gorgeous, taken over 2 days, the changes in the light make you see the over photographed landscape in a new way. Pieter Hugo's image from his project 'Permanent Error' is impacting in its honesty, showing how poverty can affect the landscape, and their inhabitants. Look out for these images if you go (and I hope that you do!), I can't recommend it highly enough. The Courtauld Gallery Cafe do a lush slice of cake too for afters!