This weekend we took a train down to London to meet up with some friends and fellow wet plate photographers to see some exhibitions.
First up was China and Siam Through the lens of John Thomson at SOAS. FREE
Thanks to Sean Hawkey for pointing this one out to me. I wasn’t sure what to expect as I’d not been to the Brunei gallery before. A large selection of two touring exhibitions of Thomsons work over two floors. Reproduced large scale so you can truly appreciate the detail achieved in a collodion negative. Well worth a visit and on till the 28th June. Oh and did I mention it is FREE! Go see it if you can.
Next onto Victorian Giants at the National Portrait Gallery. £12 tickets. This is the main one we were looking forward to. Sadly no photography allowed. The usual suspects plus plenty more, surprisingly it didn’t take very long to get around. Good to see they had some glass negatives on display and not just prints. There was also an interesting video, although greatly edited I’m sure, by Almundena Romero showing the process and albumen printing. The book by Phillip Prodger that accompanies this exhibition is well worth buying.
Some of us didn’t make it into the Tate Modern to see the Shape of Light exhibition as there was gin and tonic that needed drinking in the sunshine outside. I’m sure it was very interesting, here’s a youtube video for an idea.
On Sunday Steph and I went to see T-Shirts: Cult-Culture-Subversion at Fashion and Textile Museum, this was the closing day of this exhibition so timed it just right. Now I’m not usually into fashion exhibitions but this had a bit of something for everyone. Political, iconic and nostalgic Tshirts galore. It even gave me an idea for a Tshirt design for work…
We then travelled on to Monet and Architecture at The National Gallery.
The exhibition is supported/sponsored by Credit Suisse, a multinational investment bank and financial services company, so you’d think the price of admission would be subsidised somewhat? Think again, an eye-watering £22 admission price! Sorry but I can say hand on heart it was really not worth it.
And more importantly this trip was an opportunity for me to pick up my Dallmeyer 4B from Patrick. He handed it over willingly. I have a workshop coming up on my next free weekend. I’ll get this ready for them and onto a studio camera.
It was good to see you all Andy, John, Mark, Patrick, Anna, Tony and Robert.