Cathy's Art Diary

Stunning exhibition at Beetles + Huxley of work by photo journalists Steve McCurry. In 1979 he was the first photographer to go into Afghanistan smuggling film in sewn into his clothes and he is best known for the picture of the young Afghan girl with green eyes. He focuses on the human cost of war. He has an amazing sense of composition for a picture, giving many of his works a painterly quality. I loved one from 2006 of a man in Bamiyan Mosque where the main plain of the picture was a two tone wall in which there was a window through which you saw a mad reading with a picture on the wall. It became three rectangles within each other. He produces beautiful, insightful portraits particularly those of the people of Tibet taken from 1999 to 2001. I also loved his portrait of a portrait photographer in Afghanistan which somehow included McCurry in the photo as you felt a connection between the two photographers. My favourite picture was Clover Gatherers from the Yem...

Interesting exhibition at the Photographer’s Gallery looking at photojournalistic practice and its impact on human rights using work from the Black Star Collection. The show took the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights as a starting point and was displayed chronologically. In particular it looks at struggles against racism and colonialism. I found the show good as a history of these struggles but I think it was trying to say something bigger from reading the leaflet which I didn’t get from just looking. It said that the show also gave an insight into the production process and choosing of images but this was not signposted. It might have been helpful to know more about which image from a group was chosen to be published and where it was used. I liked the fact they had large sets of images such as over 60 of a jail break on Achieta Island however I would have liked more explanation of the events. Also I liked the fact the inscriptions on the back of the pictures were...