Saturday 28 November 2009

Strains, sprains & Paris Photo Predictions Part 1


Well, well, well, how silly was I to predict how sore my feet would be. Little did I know when leaving the fabulous Vee Speersapartment late Wednesday night after a wonderful evening of photography conversation and fabulous food (her husbands method of boosting the bar-b-que with a hairdryer was a classic moment) I trotted down the polished wooden spiral staircase and slipped! Yes yours truly badly sprained her ankle, pulled all the tendons and bruised the bone. So the rest of Paris Photo was spent with a considerable limp.

That aside, the Vernisage was good that day. The collectors were out in force, anxious to see new work. First you spot all the familiar work then secondly that which is new or less familiar. The great thing about the fair is the atmosphere of expectancy, finding the photographer you know little or nothing about. The photographer that caught my eye this time was Jorma Puranenwhose work I made assumptions about when I first saw it, but revealed much more when I enquired further. Landscapes that looked like they were taken through sheets of ice, was in fact the reflections of the landscape upon a wooden board that had been painted with gloss black paint and held in the sunlight. The project was fascinating though and I'm sure that I will watch his progress in the future.

Then there were the events in the evenings. Magnum have a new space in Paris and the crowds turned up in force. I then went on to the Prix Prictet vernisage and had a brief chat with the prize winner Nadav Kander, who was lovely as ever. I got the chance to catch up with the lovely Kerstin from Arbetets Museum in Sweden. A fabulous display of handbags caught our eye on the way back and Robert Phillips image sums up the colourful, wonderful flavour of the evening.

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