Taylor Wessing Portrait Prize Unsafe Journey

I always look forward to the Taylor Wessing Portrait Prize, when it comes round each year and we’re in the midst of a cold and rainy February, it seems to bring with it an immense range of colour and variant topics which are not really seen in any other mainstream photography exhibitions.

Although this year there were great works shown, not to mention the first prize (David Chancellor Huntress with Buck) there was one particular image that really caught my eye. Amy Helene Johansson’s Unsafe Journey took me right back to my time in India and also brought to mind my imminent return there next month.  During the month of Ramadan tens of thousands of people leave the city of Dhaka in Bangladesh heading north to spend the celebration with their families, the train tickets sell out fast and some people simply can’t afford to buy them, the woman in the image finds herself a spot where most people would never settle.  Johansson has completely captured the essence of Asia here, the no nonsense approach to travel and life in general, the birds eye view of the woman and the ground whirring past below complete the image and her studium is clear. Yet this image held a punctum for me. When I was thirteen or fourteen on one of the many trains we took whilst travelling from north to the south of India, I passed the kitchen carriage on my way to the loo. The sight was truly astonishing scrawny men in shorts and flip flops balancing on the side of gaping hole, ground whirring past much like that of Unsafe Journey, above which was perched a huge vat of boiling oil. The men swayed from side to side fishing out samosas by the dozen, without even batting an eye lid. I remember thinking that wouldn’t pass safety laws in England! Johansson’s image took me right back to that day the smell, the taste of the samosas and the sheer absurdity of the entire seen. Thank you Amy!  

http://www.npg.org.uk:8080/photoprize/site10/exhibition.php 

http://www.amyjohansson.com/ 

The Unfortunate Lady Gaga Phenomenon

It is an unfortunate fact that the vast majority of the younger generation today look toward this strange and in my opinion shallow woman as a role model . I can only imagine that it is her eccentric and (ahem) ridiculous outfits that have drawn these fans in there masses to worship the Gaga brand the world over because it can't be her music. Perhaps it is this whirlwind hysteria that has inspired Polaroid, a long standing household name and staple of my family albums, to recruit her as Creative Director for their company.   I can understand that since Polaroid Corporation filed for bankruptcy in 2001 it was a necessity for Polaroid to revamp their product and also to ‘get with the times’ in terms of the digital conversion.  However using a woman who is supposedly a musician but in reality is just a highly polished manikin shaped on the concepts of other people’s ideas doesn’t sit well with me and I imagine most people who remember Polaroid as a brand that helped to create fun, carefree spur of the moment pictures. The idea that Gaga is now the ‘face’ of Polaroid, to me, sends out completely wrong message to my knowledge she never leaves the house unless she has in a usually ridiculous costume and her performances are constructed down to a T. Surely this is in fact a complete opposite to all the things that an instant snapshot is meant to be. It surely leaves a bitter taste in my mouth but then I would never buy the new camera sunglasses so perhaps the fond memories I hold of Polaroid are a thing of the past like so many seemingly out of date photography mediums and it is I who needs to ‘get with times’.

http://www.bjp-online.com/british-journal-of-photography/news/1648132/impossible-relaunches-polaroid-instant-films-speculations-update 

http://www.nationalpost.com/related/topics/story.html?id=1361555