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Your own photographic experience may be limited to the images of holidays, street scenes and family members that you snap on your digital camera or mobile phone – but the art of photography itself spans dozens of techniques, styles and materials, many of them dating back well over a century.
And one of the objectives of the excellent, biennial Bristol Festival of Photography is to show that, far from dying out, many of these fascinating and beautiful techniques are in fact thriving.
The third instalment of this festival runs throughout May and features about 45 exhibitions in cafés, galleries and community venues across Bristol – plus a wealth of photography workshops in both traditional and modern photographic processes. You’ll also find photographic and projection-based performances, a Victorian photo parlour (why not have your portrait taken 19th-century style?), pop-up art installations and an itinerant exhibition (in a suitcase), as well as a range of innovative events that combine photography, creative writing and fine dining.
Exhibition highlights include the South West Graduate Photography Prize, a showcase of the best new photography talent from the region, hosted by Knowle West Media Centre. This exhibition includes a special preview of a new commission from SWGPP winner Nicholas White: a landscape exploration of Bristol entitled 5000 Island Forest.
North of the river, Somerdale: Unwrapped at the Folk House is a document, by local photographer David Calvin, of the vast, beguiling interiors of the former Fry’s/Cadbury’s Somerdale factory at Keynsham. Following its closure over three years ago, architectural and landscape photographer Calvin revisited the factory by invitation, documenting the historic industrial site as it awaits redevelopment.
Elsewhere, Oxfam’s Clifton Village bookshop hosts an exhibition of beautiful images by the international, Bristol-based photographer Michael Reeves.
Using a variety of film cameras, Reeves’ work includes dreamlike images of overlooked scenes and abandoned objects.
Outdoor exhibitions, meanwhile, include The Big Photo Show, an inventive outdoor installation of large photos created by the young people using Easton’s Felix Road Adventure Playground, in collaboration with the artist Deborah Weinreb. Not far away at Lawrence Hill railway station, you’ll find an exhibition by City Academy students, who have worked with community artist Rachel Sokal to explore neighbourhoods, people and history along the Severn Beach Line.
Apart from providing Bristolians with a host of beautiful, fascinating images and introducing them to the various techniques behind them, one of the main thrusts of the festival is to demonstrate that traditional photographic techniques are standing up well against the onrush of technology.
“In this second decade of the 21st century you could be forgiven for thinking that digital photography has swept all before it, and that traditional techniques have all but died out – yet our festival shows that classic ‘chemical’ photography is still alive and well,” explains festival organiser Chris Waller. “What is more, archaic photographic processes such as salt-printing, wet collodion and gum-bichromate printing, dating back to the very origins of photography some 175 years ago, are still being practised. Visitors to the festival will not only have the opportunity to see work produced by these processes – they can also learn the basics themselves, at one of the many workshops running throughout the month.
“Photography is a broad church – and this has never been more evident than in this year’s festival!”