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2012 Photography Exhibits Summer Picks
The main event in London this summer is admittedly the Olympic Games however the whole city will be buzzing and there are many other interesting events taking place around the capital including many imaginative photography exhibitions. Here are my top picks of photography exhibits to visit this summer.
OLYMPICS THROUGH THE AGES at Getty Images Gallery, Westfield Stratford City open until 30th September 2012. Everyone around London, the UK and the globe is talking about this summer’s Olympic Games, Olympics through the Ages is an extremely topical exhibition which allows visitors to catch a glimpse of the Modern Olympics through the decades. The exhibition features award winning photos from the beginning of The Modern Olympics which began in Athens in 1896 up until Beijing 2008. The photos showcase iconic moments and allow visitors to witness the winners, the losers, the drama and the action as well as admire the first class technical skills that are needed to capture such a unique and fast moving event. The gallery will also be working alongside Panasonic, to produce the first ever live 3D Olympic Games. Visitors will be able to interact with Panasonic’s exclusive showcase of Smart VIERA TVs showing live London 2012 Olympic footage both in 2D and 3D from all Olympic venues. TRAVEL PHOTOGRAPHER OF THE YEAR at Royal Geographical Society, Kensington Gore open until 19th August. The Travel Photographer of The Year 2011 competition produced some truly awe-inspiring images from the hot and humid rain forests of South American to the cold and inhospitable arctic regions of northern Canada. This exhibition is showing the winning photographs, including a showcase of work by Louis Montrose, the overall winner and an additional interesting display about the history of travel, featuring images from the Royal Geographical Society’s archive. The gallery is also organising ‘Travel Photography Live!’ which includes three days of photography talks and workshops, lead by some of the world’s leading photographers, writers and travellers.
London’s Olympic LomoWall
It seems that everyone in the UK is contributing and getting involved in the Olympics in all sorts of exciting and inventive ways. The photography world is playing its role in 2012 by making an Olympic LomoWall made up of over 30,000 photographs contributed by swathes of lomography enthusiasts.
If you haven’t heard of Lomography before, it began in the early 1990’s with two students visiting Vienna stumbling upon the Lomo Kompakt Automat, a small, enigmatic Russian camera. They were stunned by the fascinating photos it produced and loved the element of surprise that only analogue film photography can bring. When they returned home all of their friends wanted their own Lomo LC-A, starting a new world wide craze that we now know as Lomography. Lomography went global and there is now an active organisation dedicated to experimental and creative visual expression. It is this organisation that is partnering with the Museum of London to encourage people to participate in the creation of a visual record of London in the run up to the Olympics. Members of the public are able to submit analogue pictures responding to the theme “inspiring and achieving in London’s Olympic year”. These photos will make up a LomoWall which is a physical wall covered in thousands of snap shot-sized analogue photographs. Close up, visitors are able to enjoy each photo individually but when observed from a distance the LomoWall resembles a captivating mosaic artwork in its own right. The LomoWall exhibition will open in July 2012 and will span the Museum of London’s huge foyer and rotunda. If you would like a chance at seeing your own creative photography skills on display in the Museum of London this summer, submit your scanned analogue photographs to lomowalluk@lomography.com before 10 June 2012. The best images will be picked by the LomoWall designers to exhibit on the wall. For more information visit: www.museumoflondon.org.uk.
Staffan Tollgard
Stephane accepted a commision for a Townhouse designed by Staffan Tollgard Design Group.
