Visit to the RPS Travelling Print Exhibition, Taunton

RPS 165^th International Print Exhibition

 Friday March 7^th 2014

The RPS 165^th Print Exhibition came to the end of its stay in Taunton yesterday so I visited it before it closed.  There are 100 prints from over 20 countries; hence its content is truly ‘International’.  Evidently this exhibition is the first to allow images to be submitted in digital format and over 80% were submitted in this way.  I was lucky when I arrived at the museum to view the exhibition, as there was no one else in the room.  Eventually several more people came in and caused a disturbance as they worked their way round discussing the images as they went.

Whilst I didn’t necessarily understand what all the photographers were trying to say with their pictures, I did appreciate approximately three quarters of the images themselves.  What I found more intriguing was those pictures that had an explanation beside them (and not all did) some of the wording was incomprehensible.  Why do people do that?  Is it to big themselves up or do they really believe their ‘hyperbole’?

(c) John Eaton, Watching and Waiting

In my opinion the majority of the exhibition is one of excellence and something to strive for.  For example I enjoyed John Eaton’s ‘Watching and Waiting’ with its areas of symmetry and non symmetry with one person just visible in the bottom right hand corner; this made your eye move around the picture again.

(c) Jane Donnelly 'War Horse'

I also found Jane Donnelly’s ‘War Horse’ extremely imaginative showing how such a large domesticated animal with such immense strength can be so gentle and amenable.   

There were one or two images that had no impact on me at all, there were some that I felt were mere record shots and I wondered why the selection committee included them.  Surely, a picture should be one where the photographer has added something of him or herself to it and not just taken what was in front of them.  The picture by Vinci Weng titled ‘A Wonderful Time’ was intriguing where it was obviously comprised of many images but why had the photographer cut off the majority of people's and animals’ feet?

 

I enjoy pictures that show symmetry and there were several in this classification.  My favourite was the image byMike Mills entitled ‘The Go-Between’.  The shades of grey and black add to the symmetry to me and the punctum is the person captured walking between the two buildings that gives the eye a focal point.

(c) Mike Mills, The Go-Between

All in all, I found this exhibition visually stimulating and it has given me some interesting ideas to move my photography forward into different areas.