Before the Royal Photographic Society headquarters was moved from the atmospheric Octagon Gallery in central Bath to the anonymous and characterless office on the outskirts of the city it was a magical place to visit. It was a big deal to take the train for a day out in Bath. There was a real sense of excitement and delicious anticipation as the train approached the city and the honey-coloured buildings in the valley were slowly revealed.

And the Octagon was the jewel in the crown, I would put off walking up the hill to the gallery for as long as possible, enjoying the anticipation. I would cross Pultney Bridge and walk a circuit back around to the Roman Baths, pause for tea in the square and join the audiences for the various buskers, knowing that the best part of the day was still to come. The magnetism of the Octagon would inevitably draw me up the hill though and with a genuine, spine-tingling thrill I would finally allow myself to walk into the narrow bookshop and two or more hours of real delight would commence.

The bookshop was so narrow that you'd have to squeeze in to let people pass but that small area contained a wealth of photographic books and postcards that I just would never have seen anywhere else. Having looked at probably every book in the small shop and selected my postcards to buy on the way out I would continue into the Aladdin's Cave of the gallery itself. I'm sure I must have seen lots of exhibitions with colour images in the Octagon but in my memory all of the photographs were black and white. The first exhibition I saw there contained stark photographs taken in Haiti. Dark studies of men holding severed pig's heads and carrying coffins down dusty tracks, photos of voodoo dolls and fat women with fearsome expressions. Oh God, it was divine.

Walking slowly around the eight-sided room, studying these outrageous images made you feel like you'd entered a special underground club. The knowledge that in the daylight outside, people were walking along the street, shopping, using the cash-point, waiting for the pedestrian crossing, only heightened the sense that you were one step removed from the rest of the world briefly.

I eventually joined the RPS and took the train to Bath more regularly, attending opening nights and private views of exhibitions there. I once saw Don McCullin open an exhibition in the Octagon and, at that time at least, I wouldn't have been more impressed if I'd bumped into Mick Jagger or Bono or the Pope. In fact, I'd have been a lot less impressed.

And now? A few years ago the RPS moved its headquarters to a small office building on the outskirts of Bath. It looks like an office for an Insurance Broker or an Estate Agent. Magic? It has none. Disappointed? I was gutted.

None of which has anything to do with what I started this post about so please forgive the rather self-indulgent digression. This post is actually about the Deutsche Borse Photography Prize and the fact that the Photographers' Gallery in London is relocating to a "£15.5 million, architect-designed, purpose-built address in Soho". I'm hoping that the Photographers' Gallery will offer some of the magic that was lost to me when the RPS moved.

I was going to write about the Deutsche Borse because it's a great competition and the shortlisted works are inspirational but instead I'll simply point you to this article in the Telegraph and suggest that you take a look at the work of Fazal Sheikh, the first of the shortlisted photographers featured.

Tags: photographer's gallery, exhibitions, photography

If you're looking for a slightly cynical and tongue-in-cheek, yet often worryingly incisive, review of the Commercial Photography year in 2007, then the EPUK Golden Cameraphone Awards are for you.

Tags: epuk, photography

Congratulations to Wink, winner of the 2007 Photoblog awards. Congratulations too to our friends at Chromasia for making it to the final ten and for scooping the title of Best European Photoblog.

Taking a look through the finalists' web sites will give you a real treat, there is some really creative and quirky work being presented. One thing I did notice is that the photoblogs do seem to increasingly rely upon post-production effects. I've no argument against that, it's all part of the production process and I admire the skill of those people who can manipulate their images in Photoshop to get the very best out of them.

It did strike me though that there seem to be fewer photographs that work purely on the subject matter and composition alone. I may have seen a skewed selection of pictures as I flicked briefly through the nominated web sites and it's really just an observation in passing. There's a certain, very obviously "Photoshopped" style that seems to be prevalent in Photoblogs these days. I'm not saying that's a good or a bad thing, it just is.

One site that did buck that trend (to immediately contradict myself) was The G8 (pronounced "The Gate" not "Gee-Eight"), which has some lovely portraits.

There are some lovely, atmospheric pictures at SHOTZZ, some stunning black & white surfing shots at Shazeen Samad and some evocative landscape photographs at the photo-passion web site.

Each of the finalists' web sites is thoroughly engaging and whatever the arguments about the relative health of the commercial side of photography, photography as an art form can surely never have been healthier or more popular. The ability for any photographer to so easily publish their work to a worldwide audience will undoubtedly continue to make photography an increasingly popular pastime, both for the takers and for the viewers. And Hurrah for that say I.

Tags: photography, blogs

The winners of the 2007 Travel Photographer of the Year competition have been announced at Cat Vinton is the lucky winner of a £2,500 Bursary and an opportunity to photograph the Dalai Lama. Looking at Cat's winning images, I'm sure she'll do justice to the opportunity and I really look forward to seeing her pictures in the future.

There were entries from 51 countries this year so it must have been a tough competition to judge. Looking through the winners, the standard looks as high as ever and I enjoy seeing so many different styles of travel photography represented.

The "One Place, Many Lives" category is the one that deals with travel portraiture and you'll see a certain UK photographer by the name of Gavin Gough among the finalists. I'm chuffed to bits to be associated with such great images and, although I'm not a winner this year, am delighted to have got so far.

It's no exaggeration for me to say that looking at Tim Allen's and Larry Louie's winning images gives me goose-bumps. Tim's use of colour and his composition is so impressive and Larry's monochrome images have the most delicious light. Gary Wornell's images from Finland are really bold and I'm pleased to see the judges pulling out images like that for recognition. Personally, I think it's good to see a variety of styles.

Finally, Jean-Calude Louis' portraits have bags of character - these are the images probably closest to mine in terms of style, although I wish I'd taken any of his four portfolio images. I love the one of the two kids at the window especially.

If I ever remember what images I submitted (honestly, my memory is shocking) then I'll post them here.

In the mean time, I guess I'd better start thinking of my entries for 2008!

Travel Photographer of the Year 2007 winners
One Place, Many Lives Category

Tags: photography, tpoty

I've been putting together a selection of images for a themed competition. These five images showing people's hands won't be in the final selection but I do like them and so thought they were worth posting to the blog. The theme of the competition is, loosely, "people". You can tell a lot about a person by their hands of course. And these hands in particular give away a lot about the people they belong to.


I was pleased with the picture of the woman praying because it seems to say a lot about her religious devotion without even showing her face. Hands tattooed with henna are something you can see often in India although I was pleased to find a lady wearing a sari with such wonderfully sympathetic colours. Those reds and oranges really go with the henna. The man pouring sweet Jalebi mix into hot oil didn't seem to be doing a roaring trade although he was wearing the grubbiest t-shirt in the whole of India so perhaps he wasn't a great advert. The old man's hands, placed on his knees like that, were an obvious subject although he seemed slightly bemused by my request to photograph his cigar. He shrugged his agreement and kept perfectly still, even, I suspect, holding his breath. Sometimes being a strange foreigner can be an advantage. Lastly, the lady's hand on the photo on the right is holding out an offering of flower heads. She was selling small newspaper parcels of flowers to devotees at the Pushkar Camel Fair. Pilgrims would pay a couple of rupees for the flowers, take them to a nearby ghat and release them onto the water.

So, let's hear it for hands. In fact, let's give our five-fingered friends a big...

Tags: india, themes, photography

The photo above was taken three years ago on the descent from Annapurna Base Camp in Nepal. I’ve posted it here to introduce the 2007 National Geographic Best Mountain Photos competition, the winners of which were announced this month.

The seven photos you can see on the National Geographic site were all taken in the Americas, six in North America and one in Bolivia. I’m not sure if entries were restricted to that continent but it seems strange to me that there were no winners from the Alps or the Himalayas or any of the other mountain ranges across the globe. Perhaps it’s just another example of an American institution being America-centric. Nonetheless, the photos are interesting. I’m not sure about the photo of the plane dropping fire retardant, it seems more than a little artificial to me, but the picture of the grizzly bear holding the head of a caribou in its mouth is fascinating.

The photo above might not win any prizes and yet it’s a favourite of mine as it was taken by a Dutch friend as we walked down from Annapurna Base Camp. I had been up before dawn that day to watch the sun come up over the Annapurna range. It was bloody freezing but one of the most memorable things I’ve done.

Tags: national geographic