Format Photo Festival 2019

It's "SPA" week at Uni meaning its basically an excuse for the University to not run any lectures. Luckily BA Photography has put on two trips for us to attend. 

To kick off Spa week I'm heading to Format Festival in Derby. We visited for the last event in first year and although the location is a bit run down; The content of the festival is a hub for photography In the UK and around the world.

The Theme for this year's Festival is "FOREVER/NOW": 

Forever is an idea built into the very nature of the photograph that records the moment and immediately presents us with a visual memory of the past. Forever touches upon our obsession to record and share the continuous moments of our lives. Yet forever is an illusion and the immortality photography proffers can quickly sour when digital anonymity becomes virtually impossible to obtain. The eruption of selfies and Instagram is contradicted by campaigns around the right to be forgotten or opt out.

Now is the new photography orthodoxy, in which the message is all, the product of an era that is seen as “post truth”, regardless of whether it is a fictionalised story or a factual narrative or an aesthetic mixture of the two. The challenge for the photographer is how to establish their message in the now and stop it being transitory.