Visit to the V&A print room

Some weeks ago now I attended the OCA visit to the print room.  Due to circumstances I am only getting round to writing about this visit now.  Better late than never though as they say!

The day was very different to any other OCA photography study visit I have been on.  The group was small - approximately 10 people - which made for more interesting discussion at lunch.  I have found before that on these visits when there's too many people the group gets split up and kind of filters out along with many of the ideas and personal experiences shared.  This wasn't the case with this visit and I feel this greatly contributed to its success.

A note about visits
I know that the OCA do as much as they can to include people in these visits.  I have been on a number now over the last couple of years and I have found that it is the same people that attend these visits.  This has led to these people forming what seems to be a bit of an in-group and I have witnessed what appears to be an unwillingness to include others in their group.

This doesn't really bother me too much but it can be very off putting for people who are on a first study visit.  Maybe this is something that should be looked.

Back to the day
The print room in the V&A is a wonderful hidden gem - well it was hidden from me.  We had booked our visit in advance and they had about 10 boxes of images laid out for us when we arrived.  The boxes charted the history of photography from its very beginnings to work by modern photographers.  It set out to introduce you to some of the technical issues photography has overcome over the years to the more creative questioning images can produce.

They included:

Photographic process and technique
which looked at the daguerrreotype and the direct positive process and also included an early colour photograph by Arthur E Cope which was a portrait of his children.  I really enjoyed seeing my first daguerreotype.  From reading about these I always wondered what they would be like.  I did find the daguerreotype to be quite sharp but I think I expected it to be bigger for some reason.  When I think about it though why would it be?

This section also included a second box which focused on the different processes including photogravure, carbon prints, cyanotype and calotype.  This was particularly interesting to me as I have heard a lot during my studies about printing processes but never truly understood or could see the differences between them until seeing prints in the flesh.

History of photography
This collection included Fenton's Hardships in the Camps and John Thompson's street life in London.  It looks at examining the way in which photography has been used and its role over the years.

Contemporary photography
This box focused on the work of Nicholas Nixon which I found to be the most interesting and thought provoking.  Nixon took a portrait of the Brownlee sisters over a number of years one of which was his wife. It is very interesting how over the years the women age and how we can see that ageing process documented by the camera.  However it is more interesting to see how the roles within the group change over the years.  We can see the sisters being protective over one or another depending on what that particular sister is experiencing in her life.

Cultural identity and photography
This box included the work of David Goldblatt and Marketa Luskarova.  This collection looked at people's cultural identity capturing and documenting the role in plays in society.  This is especially true of Goldblatt's work.
A second box on the history of the photographic medium is more questioning and interrogative using the work of Lewis Hine to question society's acceptance of child labour and Man Ray's manipulation of the image.

All in all the visit was a successful one for me.  I found that it was interesting to be opening boxes and looking at images rather than seeing them on gallery walls.  It reminded me of looking at old photographs at home as a child.  It also made for a more intimate, personal experience as there wasn't the distance that you sometimes find between viewer and gallery wall.

Most of all however, it made the pictures, many of which I have been looking at over the last few months - real!