Hull International Photography Festival 2015

Yesterday I visited the second running of the Hull International Photography Festival.  Not quite, Arles, perhaps, but well worth the visit all the same.  The festival is centred on  Princes Quay, where there is a permanent Photo and POP Gallery, but there are other venues around the city. Photographers exhibiting include John Bulmer, Peter Dench and Frieke Janssens among others. There is also the RSP Members' Biennial.  I had an excellent afternoon, but eventually reached saturation point and will need to go back again, particularly to see the John Bulmer exhibition.

Matthew Finn: Students
For this portfolio Matthew Finn has photographed female art students all aged 17 in the art school they attend.  The images are all black and white A2 (ish) mounted with a white border in white frames.  The subjects all look out disarmingly at the camera.  He has portrayed these girls at a time when they are still finding their way in the world and unsure of themselves.

Friekke Janssens: Diannas
Friekke is a Belgian photographer, born in Bruges.  She says that she is inspired by paintings and comics and appreciates humour and surrealism.  I think this comes over in this body of work portraying young women playing the part of the Roman godess of the hunt.  I found them both fascinating and humorous, reminding me a little of 'steampunk', amazons and Lara Croft in 'Tomb Raider'.  My wife felt they were reminiscent of fashion photographs found in the Gudrun Sjoden catalogue.  These were colour photographs framed in wood box frames with no border.  They were very staged tableaux images.

Peter Dench: The British Abroad
Peter Dench is a documentary and reportage photographer and in this series he takes 'an uncompromising look at drunken holiday hooligans'.  It makes you really proud to be British!!!  I find his work reminiscent of Martin Parr.

Andrea Lea:

Bathroom Stories
For this series the Norwegian photographer took photographs in our most private of rooms: the bathroom.  I was fascinated by the presentation of her black and white images.  They were printed in a traditional darkroom onto ceramic bathroom tiles (sometimes broken into shards or incomplete) using liquid light emulsion.  They were grainy and streaked but very atmospheric and evocative of a time past.  I liked that as I have been experimenting with ICM images and will do more with long exposures and black and white conversions in my body of work to try to evoke memories of my past.

Odda Smelteverk
This series of images were taken inside a disused and derelict Norwegiam smelt factory in the village of Odda  close to the Hardanger Fjord. (Urbex images?).  Again these photographs have a feeling of the past, haunting and sad.  The once busy industrial building is 'now hanging in limbo, neither of use or interest to man or animal; just left for another generation to deal with.'
These are colour images with black frames and mounts; a mix of documentary, cityscape, landscape and urban exploration.

RPS Biennial
This exhibition features 100 images from the 3284 submitted by members.  All were of a very high standard and I pick out a few here that particularly resonated with me.

• Reflection - Adrian Theze.  A fabulous reflection in a pool of water inside a derelict building.
• Worship Paul Yates.  An African children's choir.  Excellent differential focus which picks one girl with a brilliant facial expression.
• A Guides Eye View.  A black and white shot of a helicopter framed between two people on a snow swept mountainside.
• Solace - Coco Bordeos  A beautiful haunting portrait with muted colours, which reminded me of 'The Afghan Girl'.
• Moonlight and Mist - Desma Edney  I looked at this image for a long time trying to work out how it had been produced.  It is a minimilist block and white shot with cliffs and snow and (I think) a long exposure to streak the wind blown mist.
• Osprey with Trout - John Boyd A nod to my love of wild life photography.  I nearly didn't select it as it is a shot that has been done many times before (although not by me!) and must have been taken at Rothiemurchus Trout Farm, but I like the excellent positioning of the head underneath the wing; it could so easily have been hidden (as no doubt it is in the many other shots from the series).
• Dusky Sawfly Eggs and Larvae - Karen Berry  Another nod to my love of wildlife, but I know how difficult it is to get a macro shot like this pinsharp.
• Fairfield Church - Mike Longhurst  A frosty landscape with reeds in the foreground and then a water channel leading the eye to the church in the background.  I like the fantastic detail in the foreground reeds.  A classic picturesque (is this wrong?) image.
• Graziani's Fence, Libya, Matthew Arnold  A 270 km barbed wire fence in the Libyan desert, built in 1931.  I found this chilling.  
• The Journey Begins - Adrian Fretwell  A square colour image of a pier leading out into misty water with boats.  (Probably the Lake District)
• In the Ash Cloud - Colin Westgate  A very low key, contrasty image of the Icelandic ash cloud swirling in the black ground.  The hill side is spotlit by the sun.  A very menacing image that I would definitely include in the sublime category.  Wish I could get it in Lincolnshire!!!

I shall very definitely be returning to see some of the other exhibitions.  The festival runs until the end of October.