Summershow 2010: Shortlisted (slideshow)
Welcome to the annual Foto8 summer celebration of photography. We have had the privilege of looking through over 2,500 images received from photographers across all six continents to make our editors’ final selection of 156 prints, which is now hung on the walls of HOST Gallery in London.
The 2010 Summershow is a true democracy of photography. It’s refreshing to note that while Foto8 specialises in documentary photography, our reach extends beyond the limitations of a specific mode. Famous names and unknown photographers alike submitted work covering a wide variety of genres, including landscape, portraiture, fashion, street and conceptual, as well as the downright unclassifiable.
The way in which each photographer conceives their own work is in itself a fascinating process to observe: how they describe it in the caption that will accompany it in the catalogue, how they choose to price it and of course how they decide to frame it are all highly personal choices, and as such are part of what charges the Summershow with its own unique energy.
If one identifiable change has occurred since last year’s judging took place, it would be that the idea of what constitutes ‘good photography’ is changing, as is the industry itself, and the people who populate it. No longer do practitioners feel they have to emulate the great and the good of yesteryear. Contemporary image-makers are creating a new aesthetic, one that is less formal, perhaps, and harder to define. There is a feeling that photographers are being guided increasingly by their subjects and their own internal voice in order to make work that stands out. While the history of photography remains relevant and fascinating, the future of photography promises its own riches.
A single winner will be chosen by a distinguished panel of judges, announced at the opening night party on 23 July , whose expertise spans the gamut of photographic talent in the UK today. It will not be an easy task. So we would like to offer our thanks to them – Monica Allende, Stefanie Braun, Colin Jacobson and Mark Power, as well as HOST’s Harry Hardie – and also to our generous sponsors Stones the Printers, Metro Imaging and Tiger Beer.
And finally, a very special thanks to everyone who entered the 2010 Summershow. Photography is more interesting because of you.
(image above © Laura Pannack)
Slideshow of shortlisted entrants:
