Two exhibitions are drawing to a close next week, which, if you happen to be in London and have a bit of time to spare, it’s worth dropping in to take a look. Given what they’re displaying, they also make an interesting compare and contrast exercise.
You might want to start with Hipstamatics at the Orange Dot Gallery in Bloomsbury. Six inch by six inch pictures taken on a mobile phone, where blue takes on a green hue, greens look yellow, and yellows turn orange. Even if you took the picture yesterday, it can look as if you pulled it out of a shoebox of prints you found in your attic.
Then head down to Shoreditch, to the Association of Photographers Gallery, where there’s an exhibition celebrating the colour-perfection produced by the now-discontinued Kodachrome film; from seas dyed red with blood to desolate railway tracks extending across the plains. There’s a selection of images from AoP members, as well as the public, and you can even walk away with one of Adam Woolfitt’s slides. (Mine’s of a butterfly.)
Some people might say it’s unfair to mention them in the same breath. Think of it this way, though: It’s a quick reminder of the diversity of photography, from how pictures are taken, to who takes them, to how they’ll look, maybe even to why we take them. Enjoy what you can do with a camera.
Hipstamatics is showing at the Orange Dot Gallery, 54 Tavistock Place, London, WC1H 9RG until Friday 11 February.
A Celebration of Kodachrome is showing at the Association of Photographers, 81 Leonard street, London, EC2A 4QS until Thursday 10 February.
(Featured image: Faroese whale hunt by Adam Woolfitt.)