The British Museum – Shoot Bloomsbury – The Shoot Experience with the LIDF
Still photography is a new addition to the Festival this year, with an exhibition at the Free Word Center – Salt Water Tears by award winning photographer Munem Wasif – during the Festival, reminding us of the potency of the simple photograph: sans voiceover, sans split screen, but still a lasting effect. The Shoot Experience runs fantastic photography competitions with an edge that I’ve been wanting to participate in for ages. You pay to register, then get a group of friends together, give yourself a funny group name, and head off round the chosen area of London with your cameras with a pre-written story and take pictures of your interpretations of the answers. Your pictures can be equally cryptic, interpretative, or downright amusing, and after your day is done, a slide show and prizegiving rewards those with the most inventive or interesting takes on Bloomsbury, or Portobello, or Spitalfields, or wherever you’ve been sent, with gifts of cds, cameras and other goodies – such as the cachet of having your photos admired. A photographic exhibition of the best photos takes place at a gallery a few weeks later.
To celebrate the festival, the theme of today’s ‘Experience’ was Bloomsbury and Film, with teams given lines of script and stage directions to interpret rather than the normal pre-written story, using the Museum and surrounding area as a backdrop.
I joined the teams and the Shoot Experience directors for the fun-filled Prizegiving again in the BP theatre, where the facilities were put to good use with a presentation of the best pictures in each category, including Best Use Of Location and Best Interpretation Of A Phrase, along with crowdpleaser Funniest Photo. In fact, pretty much all of the photos shown got a reaction of applause or laughter, and this was used to judge the winners of the categories.
Although Shoot Experience is mostly about the fun element of photography – they have even produced a ‘London Treasure Map’ that you can get from stockists or their website in order to have an ‘Experience’ at your own convenience – they also offer workshops for the more serious side of photography, team building events, royalty free photos, public exhibitions, and are doing an awful lot to remind people of the importance and fun of simply taking a picture.
The best pictures from today’s event will be on display at the British Museum in the Sackler Room next Saturday 8th May from 12 – 6pm.
