Deutsche Borse photography prize 2010 The Photographers Gallery

As ever always an excellent trip to photographers gallery. This time it was the very prestigious Deutsche Borse Prize. The winners Where Anna Fox, Zoe Leonard, Sophie Ristelhueber and Donovan Wylie.

Anna Fox took contemporary portraiture in an outdoor environment. They where interesting but not really my thing. Sophie Ristelhueber took images of various areas of conflict. I liked the images of the roads with bomb holes.

The main two pieces of work was interested in was Zoe Leonard and Donovan Wylie. Zoe Leonard was trying to capture the changing face of the area that she grow up in. She was documenting the little shops that we’re being closed down due to the opening of large modern shopping complex. Her work really made me think about Edward Weston early work documenting the depression in the U.S.

The work the really attracted my attention was Donovan Wylie. He is from northern Ireland. He had documented the demolition of the maze prison. In superb large format C prints. He had taken 7 different images of the same point of a block of the prison being knocked down. So it went from full fence to clear space. The deconstruction of the fence was really powerful. Maybe this was because it was showing the end of an era. I also liked some picture that where in the official book. He had taken images of each prison cell all taken from the same angle. Really strong repartition. All that changed was the curtains. Really considered and beautiful.