London Photo Festival

[Mike Farley]

The London Photo Festival is taking place between 3rd – 5th October 2013 at The Crypt, Borough High St, London, SE1 1JA, which is opposite Borough Station. Entry is free and it is open 10:30 - 18:00 on the Thursday and Saturday evenings, with a "Click and Clique" event on Friday evening between 18:00 - 20:00 to meet the photographers.

http://www.londonphotofestival.org/

In essence it is an exhbition on set themes, which on this occasion are Black and White, and Night Photography open to photograhers who might not otherwise get the opportunity to exhibit in such a central location. The images are judged and there is an opportunity for participants to win a prize, as well as sell their images. A poll is currently running for the theme (or themes) for the next event in May.

The exhibition's fees are reasonable, so why not have a go yourself next time? If you want to have an idea of the standard, the catalogue for the last event in May can be downloaded from the website.

http://www.londonphotofestival.org/catalogue_may_2013

[Mike Farley]

UPDATE

There seems to be an intermittent problem with the festival's website. I delayed writing my post as the site was unavailable and I could not check it out. Trying again this morning, it seemed to be down again, but it was accessible a few minutes later. Very odd. All I can suggest is to keep trying if ou experience problems.

[davidc]

I've looked into this before. To me, it seemed quite expensive and wasn't sure how much foot traffic the venue would attract. If memory serves it's about £120 for two a4 prints and any sales you make (with sale prices averaging £40-£50 per print) incur a 20% commission rate too.

I contacted a number of people about their experiences including a couple who I met in person, entirely coincidentally, at the photo24 event. While they didn't go so far as to say outright it was a waste of money, not one person made a single sale. While there is definitely some appeal in simply exhibiting for a short while in a near-Central London occasion and I'm still considering putting some images together for March, I'm going in expecting absolutely nothing at all beyond te invite to meet with and mingle with other photographers.

Others may get more from this or consider the entry fees more to taste but I figured it might be worth sharing my research!

If I do go for it I'm planning for next March's deadline.

[Mike Farley]

I went along this afternoon to take a look. As you would expect, the standard was varied with the better ones being on a par with the best that you would see at a camera club exhibition. Some prints were framed, others were just mounted. Given that the location is a bit off the beaten track, I am not sure how much footfall there would be although there were a reasonable number of people there during the time I was visiting. As Dave indicated, very few images had sold and I only saw four red stickers. Three of those were for prints by the same photographer who had some traditional, if unremarkable, mono landscape images on display. The other one was plain weird with nothing in focus. It did not mean anything to me, but obviously the photographer and at least one other person likes it.

What does disappoint me is the website. It was unavailable before I left when I wanted to check the location and still not working when I got home, although it did spring into life a bit later on. To my surprise, at the time of writing there are no images from the current exhibition, not even the winners. All the photos are from the last exhbition in May. Booking is now open for the next exhibition in May 2014, but the application form does not seem to have been updated and requests exhibitor information to be supplied by 2 September, which is before bookings opened! It all seems a bit half hearted.

Incidentally, I did speak briefly to Emma Mapp (one of the organisers) and told her about the website availability issues, which came as a surprise to her. If you had an exhibition coming up for which you had taken people's money, isn't that one of the things which you would want to check?

[davidc]

You'd think so!
If I'm being honest, the impression I had was that it is a money spinner for the organisers and not much else. No one I know who entered did so more than once.

Problem is the allure of an exhibition + potential sales is always strong... And I think the organisers know that

[Mike Farley]

Having been to the exhibition and experienced the problems with the website, I have lost any interest I might have had in displaying any of my own images there. As you say, there is the feeling that this is a NLE* for the organisers. OK, not enough to live on for the year, but a useful income boost.

Did you go to the Click and Clique event last night?

* Nice Little Earner. (Probably showing my age by using that particular catchphrase. )

[davidc]

No, we only arrived back from France at 00:40 this morning. Straight to bed!

[Mike Farley]

No, we only arrived back from France at 00:40 this morning. Straight to bed!

No staying power, some people!