Aberystwyth Photography Festival the Eye

I have just got back from this weekends photography festival The Eye in Aberystwyth (http://www.aberystwythartscentre.co.uk/theeye/). This was a fantastic weekend with inspirational photography and presentations. The topics were varied covering aspects of photography including the perspectives of picture editors, educators, photojournalists, documentary and natural history photographers.

While I could go into great depth about what was explored I will limit my blog to what I gained from the weekend personally. This focuses on three main areas, namely the so called crisis of photography, who inspired me and what direction I would like to take with my own photography.

Firstly much was made of the crisis in photography in the sense of maintaining a livelihood. This is based on the eroding of established photojournalists income because of the ease with which citizen photographers can flood the internet with work of a good standard. It appeared to me this was dependent on your point of view, certainly from the position of established photographers and editors such a Eamonn McCabe this was true. But as David Hurn and Abbey Traylor Smith and Sophie Batterbury pointed out the business model has changed and there are new opportunities available for those who can exploit the internet. From my perspective photography is not in crisis, rather it is in a new democratizing golden age with a plethora of authors with an unlimited audience. While the competition will be fierce those who shine within the crowd will still be noted and become successful. There was however a view that new graduates would need to be more adaptable and expand their knowledge to include video as future work would be media intensive.

The work I saw over the weekend was of an incredibly high standard. I was particularly impressed by the work of Andy Rouse, a wildlife and natural history photographer,who was himself an enthusiastic and energetic speaker. He is going for more expression in his photography by using back light to illuminate his subjects. While I can appreciate his images I doubt that I would have the patience to capture 'the shot' in a hide for 12 hours.

Chloe Dewe Mathews a young documentary photographer presented her work and I found it to be intimate in expression. This was in stark comparison to Marco Longari the chief photographer of AFP whose powerful work is high impact and raw that focuses on the conflicts in the Middle East and North Africa. While Roger Tiley's social documentary photography eloquently charted the decline of the coal industry in the South Wales valleys and the impact of the strikes of the 80's and the hardships that followed. His work has a particular resonance within Wales and an historically important piece of work.

The portrait photographer Cambridge Jones presented a series of high profile celebrity images whose attention to detail, lighting technique and ability to work with his subjects was astounding. But it was

John Downing's presentation that was a particular high point who was knowledgeable, interesting, funny and harrowing at the same time. He charted the changes in photojournalism as seen through his eyes over a career spanning 56 years.

How did all this new stuff affect my thought processes? I think for me it became clear that social documentary was the direction I would like to follow. This I think gives meaning to the idea that the photographer has to share the experience of life with their subject to be able to record it effectively. It means that you should interact but not manipulate or direct your subject as much as possible. It also became clear that personal projects must be driven by the photographer by investing time with the subject. But a clear idea of what the objectives of the project are will help focus on the issues you want to explore. In terms of composition, form and balance the movie presentation of Bresson's work and the capture of the critical moment helped crystallize these ideas in my mind.

I guess that has to be it for now as this is a massive blog post, but I guess the festival covering two and a half days was crammed with concepts and inspiring work. I am sure I have not done it justice and I have not mentioned all the photographers whose work was also impressive.