June has been manic in terms of photography exhibitions. The late May Bank Holiday Weekend saw the launch of Photoeast and the exhibition I was involved in – CONTRADICTIONS, plus the degree shows of Anywhere & Everywhere from UCS, at UCS and in Hoxton.

The three of us involved in CONTRADICTIONS were rostered to attend the gallery during opening hours so that we could have dialogue with visitors. We were very pleased with the visitors we received and on our closing day we had two very keen ‘A-level’ photography students from Bungay who got an impromptu tutorial in what a medium format camera looked like and how it worked and a lesson in depth-of-field and how to take control of their digital SLRs. That made the day go quite quickly.

As ever the sausage rolls and cake from the on-site cafe were very good. I reckon quite a few punters drive out there for the cake alone. Cake and galleries go hand in hand. It just needs some public transport for all all the punters without cars.

With the silver halide crystals running out of the hour glass for Photoeast I headed up to Halesworth today to take in the north-westernmost outpost of the festival at the Cut displaying Libby Hall’s collection ‘These are our Dogs’ – well worth the 65 mile round trip in grim drizzly June weather. The pictures lifted my spirits, as did the mostly small dogs in the images. It reminded me of our much loved last dog  who was small physically but big of spirit.