Photo 2010, the annual exhibition of Dublin Camera Club, was officially opened last night at Pearse Street Library in Dublin by the president of the Irish Photographic Federation Mark Sedgwick. The opening coincided with the club’s annual awards night and dinner, which this year was held at Ely Gastro Pub in my favourite photographic spot in Dublin – the Grand Canal basin. Before I could relax and enjoy dinner I was assigned the task of photographing the opening and the awards, which meant I took lots of photographs of people shaking hands and exchanging certificates, medals and cups. But there was also time to get some more candid shots around the exhibition itsef.
The exhibition is well worth checking out for two reasons, neither of which is that I have 11 images on display (though that can be a third if you wish).
Firstly, it is both free (which is always a good thing) and quite accessible thanks to the library’s opening times which are 10AM to 8PM (Mon – Thurs) and 10AM – 5PM (Fri & Sat).
Secondly, and more importantly, the quality of 260 colour and black & white images on display is very high, as they represent the best of what the camera club has to offer, and offer a huge variety of themes and subject matter.
Most, but not all, of my images on display have appeared on the blog before, and even though I’ve attended most club evenings this year, there were many images on show from other photographers that were new to my eyes.
I didn’t get to properly explore the full exhibition because of my photographic duties, but look forward to returning to it for a proper browse around before it closes on 29th July.
The photograph on the poster that you see at the top of this post was taken by Paul Timon, who’s name has now been mentioned two days in a row (he took the setup shot in my previous post), and has been one of the most talked about images in the club this year.
Here’s Paul checking out some other photographers’ work…
I moved from photographing around the exhibition to photographing in the adjacent room where the speeches and presentations were being made and it was a tale of two lighting extremes. The exhibition space is bright and airy, and I was able to take most of the photos without the use of any flash – any time I added flash, bouncing off an adjacent white wall or white panel for instance, I found I wasn’t doing any better at creating soft light than the room’s own windows, so it was one of those times where it was important to recognize that the available light was the best light. Inside the room where the presentations were being made was a different story, and even though I turned on the ceiling lights, and used flash throught a stofen diffuser, bounced towards the ceiling, I was still at relatively high ISOs and wide apertures to get decent exposures.
A quick look at the images last night when I got home showed all to be fine in terms of the key things like exposure, focus and framing, although photographs of one person shaking another person’s hand quickly get boring. Still, they are record shots of an event that is central to the camera club’s year, and so as the club’s president correctly pointed out to me the day before, it was important that they were captured on camera. Photography is not always about being creative.
Photo 2010 is part of Photo Ireland Festival 2010, which runs from 1st to the 11th July and is aiming to become Ireland’s International Festival for Photography. You can find out more about the festival and the other events taking place as part of it on the Photo Ireland Festival 2010 website.
While the Photo Ireland Festival officially finishes on 11th July, Photo 2010 at Pearse Street Library runs until 29th July.
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