Tuesday, 16 February 2016

Caravan Gallery exhibition

Last May I bought, and wrote briefly about, a book by The Caravan Gallery (Jan Williams and Chris Teasdale) - extra{ordinary}. An exhibition of the pictures in the book is on tour and right now, until the end of March, the Museum of Lancashire, in Preston, is hosting it. Why I chose a day during half-term to go and see the show is one of life's mysteries. It wasn't too busy though. Most of the kids were in the other exhibitions.

What was nice was to see the pictures printed larger than ion the book. Even though I'd seen them all before some still made me chuckle. The pictures show the general quirkiness of of Britain and it's people in an affectionate way. What I like about the work is the way it documents Britain in an unpretentious way, and the pictures aren't about being technically great photographs, they're all about being documentary. The subject is what is most important. That's not to say there aren't really some good photographs, there are.


One of the aims of The Caravan Gallery is to get people involved with their Pride of Place projects. Photography helps engage people in this with a competition, and the projects are documented in books. All in all it's a feel-good use of photography, which makes a change from some of the up-its-own-arse stuff you see in galleries these days which has to be deciphered to be understood.

 I'm a sucker for books, especially reasonably priced ones, so I took the opportunity to pick up a copy of the Lytham Pride of Place book, a guide to Liverpool and half a dozen postcards.


Having parked across town I used my compact to take some snaps on my way too and from the museum. That meant passing by a footbridge which I had photographed back when I was a foundation student doing a one week photography course. The bridge hadn't changed, but my photos have.




When the sun shines colours are more striking, which I guess is why most landscape photographers only venture forth on sunny days. Sunlight certainly does make pictures look different. I think it also explains why a lot of the photos I take outdoors don't look like everyone else's - because I go out regardless of the sunshine, or lack of it. Even when the sun does come out for me I carry on photographing the same kind of rubbish!


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