I had a morning off work and decided to go and visit the Photographers gallery just off Oxford Circus.
There were two very different exhititions on.
On the first floor: Made you look: Dandyism and black masculinity
A selection of both street and studio portraiture, brings together a group of geographically diverse photographers who all explores black masculinity as performance, and personal politics.
Curated by Ekow Eshun the exhibition brings photographers like. Liz Johnson Artur, Larry Dunstan, Samuel Fosso, Hassan Hajjaj, Colin Jones, Isaac Julien, Kristin-Lee Moolman, Jeffery Henson Scales and Malick Sidbé together.
An interview with Ekow Eshun explaining the images behind the exhibit.
Overall it is a very bright and extroverted exhibition. Walking around the gallery it was interesting to see so many photographers taking images of something so similar. Ranging from a the past to modern day.
On floor 4&5 was
Terence Donovan: Speed of Light
A restrospective of legendary photographer Terence Donovan (1936-1996)
A great selection of images by Donovan, showing his range and just the volume of images that he took.
Here is Robin Muir curator of the exhibition explaining a bit more about the exhibition.
The highlight for me was seeing Donovan's notebooks, he meticulously noted down every setup for every scene. Where the lights were, where the camera, the hight of the camera, the speed of the film, the focal length and then some information about what could go wrong. I just loved the detail in the craft but also the cleverness of it, next time you do a shoot that you want a similar look to you don't have to go from memory you have detailed notes on exactly how it was achieved.
The Thermodynamic fashion shoot image for About Town magazine was one of my favourite images of the exhibition.
What I learned: I did not realise that Donovan and Bailey had such similar styles, or was it the style of the time? On some of the images If you said they were Bailey I would not have questioned it. But I guess its the 70s and early 80s black and white images on a white background.