Anna Fox
Went to Impressions and saw Anna Fox’s exhibition again, and also went to the Media Museum and saw exhibitions on Film photography and beach photography.
The beach photography had some chuckle worthy pics and the room had been done out in very bright deckchair like colours, it was quite amusing and light (for the Media Museum).
The film photography exhibition combined film stills with photographs made to promote the ’stars’. There was some quite detailed information on the film photographers from different eras. Early photographers dedicated to movie studios being gradually replaced by big name photographers. The photographs dated from the 1800s through to the present, some classic black and white pictures from hollywood’s golden age in the 1930-1940s. The whole exhibition was interesting not just for the quality of the photography but also for the stars themselves, and the description of the films they were doing at the time – many of the later photographs being film stills taken by specialist film still photographers.
I had seen Anna Fox speak earlier in the year at the Media Museum, so not all her photography was unexpected. Work such as the Cockroach Diaries, her Goldfrapp series and pictures of one of her female friends were enhanced by the stories she had told earlier about the series. They were better to be seen in the gallery environment – and there was much fuller coverage of each series of images. The pictures I was most drawn to, however were taken in churches of children dressed in fancy dress. The children, with their expressions and stances were in direct contrast to the austere church environment they were framed in. Overall her work is somewhat disquieting and not entirely easy to look at.
