For our May meeting the group made a trip to the Photographers’ Gallery to see the Deutsche Börse show. It was five years since our last visit so we felt it was about time to make a return. It was well worth it as this year’s selection revealed a range of approaches to contemporary documentary photography. 

Tarrah Krajnak uses self portraits and performances to challenge historic practices and processes, also displaying her large scale cyanotype prints. The book I carry Her photo with Me by Lindokuhle Sobekwa is also a deeply personal project and getting into it was, for me, helped by a wall-size projection of the pages. 

The other two photographers each reflect journeys. Cristina De Middel uses images, found belongings and a symbolic barrier across the floor of the space to evoke migrations across Mexico to the States. Hardtack by Rahim Fortune looks at Texas and the Deep South, at one level taking a traditional documentary approach to portraying people and landscapes, but also using it to reflect his own experiences and emotions.

A nice bonus to the evening was Peter Michell’s Nothing Last Forever. We’d seen his images of shop fronts from Leeds in the seventies but it was fascinating to understand they were part of a conceptual documentary project that wouldn’t have been out of place with the Deutsche Börse series.

We ended the evening with a discussion nearby on upcoming events and plans. The topic for the next meeting is timed with submissions for the next edition of fLIP on the subject of Imperfect.