Feast and famine!
Everything around East Anglia for the last week has been all about photography.
The RPS East Anglia Contemporary Group opened their show at Thornham the morning after the PV for PhotoEast. Earlier in the week the graduates from UCS BA(Hons) Photography had their show – also part of PhotoEast but I had prior engagements in London. I’m not sure why theirs was on the Tuesday and the main event was on the Thursday but at least it was two big events at the Waterfront.
Friday at Thornham saw a trickle of visitors who were already salivating about PhotoEast and Mrs O and I beetled down there on Saturday morning for a full on day of a huge variety of talks and events. I had to choose three as events were options so it was the Guardian Picture Editor followed by Chloe Dewe-Matthews, finishing off with George Georgiou.
Such was the intensity and heat of the day we fell into the Turkish restaurant in Duke Street for our tea and what a good idea that was. On the way back taking in the ‘Monaco meets Ipswich’ scene of the bustling Waterfront full of people enjoying themselves either by promenading or quaffing and eating, Mrs O and I bumped into neighbours gazing at the billboard sized George Georgiou photograph when Mrs O spotted the man himself walking past his own picture. I hailed him and we had a great 1:4 chat about his work and PhotoEast.
Sunday was an early start to get off to Thornham and set up for visitors for our OV and we were not disappointed. We seemed to break records for a Sunday visit to the gallery. I even met Harry Worth.
Ian Moss and Eleanor May of the Freudian Sheep Gallery brought Oliver along to see our work along with 50 other guests.
Bank Holiday Monday was even busier and now I’m trying to have a rest day having just realised that I have not had a break in 10 days. That said I noticed a Tit at work on Sunday and took an appropriate camera with me yesterday. The lighting was down by 4 stops but the parents never stopped their endless feeding and toilet cleaning duties in the 6 hours I was there.
