Nature and scapes used to reign supreme. But this time the popular choice of visitors to our annual print exhibition was an image in the contemporary category. “Spiral staircase” by Marié Botes received 29 of 408 votes cast by 136 visitors. The exhibition, from 9 to 17 June, was part of the Hermanus FynArts festival. Visitors were asked to indicate their personal three favourite images.
During our previous five print exhibitions, a contemporary image was voted into the top five favourites only once. Two more unusual choices were of images in the photojournalism category in second and joint third place – “Workers at night”, also by Marié Botes, with 22 votes, and “Clean-up after the burn” by Daniel Reddie (21). It was also only the second time during six exhibitions that a photojournalism image made it to the top five.
Could the visitors’ choice of a contemporary image be part of a general growing interest in creative photography? A significant development in the Western Cape emphasising this trend was the founding of Ignite, the online photographic club which aims to develop photographic artists by encouraging and exploring creative photography.
Two nature images still made it into the top five. They were voted into joint third place and fifth place – “Wet wet wet” by Charles Naudé (21 votes) and “Togetherness” by Phil Sturgess (20).
The final five prints in the visitors’ top ten choices are, “Autumn trees and dark skies” by Carina de Klerk (18), “Just like mum” by Phil Sturgess (18), “Please save water” by David Wilson (14), “Secretary bird in silhouette” by Judy Armstrong (14) and “Brown hyena at Sossusvlei” by Carina de Klerk (13).
