D&AD had hosted their festival in the Truman brewery 25-27th of April in east London. 

As part of it they had a private view of the next photographer award. 21 young photographers each exhibiting between 4 and 6 images.

Nestled in the heart of the D&AD festival I am sure it is a great for anyone to make it onto the roster of photographers. Before going I thought it might be a lot of fashion or hard to reach photographic styles but in essence most of it were documentary photography.

Here are the images and the photographers that caught my eye.

Laetitia Vancon: At the end of the day

I really liked this image. What caught my eye was the fact that she was well dressed but everything around her seem to be falling apart, the house in not quite square, the grass is a bit dead, even her friends are not looking in the same direction as she is. Then I read her story and the image had even more meaning. 

This is the writeup. "Melanie MacDonald, 22 years old, just finished her study as Bsc Adult Nursing Degree in the Western Isles Hospital in Stornoway. Places are rare in the hospital, but she will not go, she will find something else to do until the opportunity to be recruited as a nurse becomes possible."

This image is one I have seen in person multiple times, two friends sitting and having a chat, I often look at situations like this making up back stories for each unknown person. But here it is spelled out for us. I liked the fact that they both look a little bit like the illustrations on the wall. 

This is the writeup. "Niall and Callum, 24 years old, are best friends. Niall works as a diver on a boat in charge of the maintenance of coastal facilities. Callum is at the reception of the unique sociocultural center of the Isle of Lewis, before landing there he tried a singing career in Glasgow but it did not work out, so he came back half-hearted."

Aleksey Kondratyev: Ice Fisher

I loved seeing these images, they just made me smile to start with and  the more I looked at the more I found, I remember listening to my Dad returning from Sweden in the 80s and telling us about ice fishing. Crazy people sitting in the middle of nowhere fishing through a small hole cut into the ice. 

Artur Golacki: Talking Trees

Elzbieta Kurowska: Light Forms

I loved the technical thinking that went into this type of photography. 

Johnny Miller : Unequal Scenes

Being South African too I spotted the informal housing (as its called by the government) for what they were before even reading the description. 

Reference:

https://www.dandad.org/en/d-ad-next-photographer-award - Accessed 25 April 20127