RED CARPETS AND OTHER STATEMENTS OF PRIVILEGE
This photograph was taken at the opening of a new university just outside Delhi last weekend. Beyond the red carpet, there were thankfully few other symbols to denote distinction among the guests. But it doesn’t take a great deal of searching to find loud pronouncements of status and social standing all over India.
TAYLOR WESSING PORTRAIT PRIZE
I welcome the diversity of style of the Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize and also the exciting prospect of seeing how differently individuals interpret the idea of a ‘portrait’. But I do wonder about the effect on the viewer’s ultimate understanding and interpretation of a photograph when it is hung beside so many unrelated images. When an environmental portrait that directly raises an important and urgent subject is denied context or placed alongside work that has no relevance to it, surely good caption information is more important than ever.