Original bands, original music from Lincoln & Beyond

Thursday, 28 August 2008

Feature #006 - Hannah Devereux Photo Exhibition

Pioneer - a collection of photographs by Hannah Devereaux
Ruston Room, Drill Hall, Lincoln.

By Pete

For some time now the live music scene here in Lincoln has been inching ever closer to the moment when some hot little band breaks into the national consciousness. So far it’s a kinda special feeling to regularly get to hear amazing music full of verve and energy played up close and personal at places like the Biv or Christophers and not from the back at Rock City or stood in the mud and rain in a field - and their are other fringe benefits to this phenomenon. This is one of them. Tonight saw the opening of an exhibition by Hannah Devereaux of gig photographs taken at hugely popular Pioneer nights at the Drill Hall.

 Making an image of someone singing, playing guitar or keyboard isn’t necessarily all that difficult - most people at a gig usually have a pop with their mobile phone cam to at least be able to show their mates at home what a great night out looks like.  To make something a bit more special and to do it repeatedly takes ability, and again and again Hannah’s photos have that something special that sets them apart.  These are not just every day gig photos, they are seriously much more interesting than that.

Expectations of what a good performance image looks like can be a bit narrow.  It should at least be sharp, well composed and, ideally, timed to capture some moment of peak intensity.  It’s a lot to ask but these expectations can also be just simply limitations to photographically seeing something else that is going on when people hit that stage.  Searching outside those boundaries is what art does - and the photographs at this show are just that, art, all shimmering with creativity - and if you look closely and think about them for a bit you will maybe see how very unique and lovely they actually are.

Put another way, think of a band with a bit of an edge that you’re hearing for the first time.  At first they sound kind of wrong and it takes a little while to figure out what this is - and that’s what makes them worth following.  Some pictures here ain’t easy to get either.  For a start tthe shots where the sheer quantity of clutter and junk and cabling on the stage is recorded in so much haphazard detail, all spilling madly across the frame, it looks like chaos.  That’s cos it is.  That paraphernalia makes it all happen and it is treated with the same visual reverence shown the actual band which is what most people are looking at.  Then there are shots using long exposure - and some with flash-drag - to cause lush toned ribbons of light to flame and sparkle, smearing reality into something new, melting the frantic movements on stage into a silky lightshow.  Take a moment and it maybe begins to dawn on you that that these seeming accidents have been intently searched for and have been recognised for the complex and sensual thing that they are.  It’s all pre-figured, played with, like feedback from a guitar brought up close against an amp.  More unexpectedly, some of the bigger prints let go of light and subject altogether and express instead that deep ocean of darkness outside the spotlight.  Images breathe with a raw, inky space, celebrating how cool that actually looks. So much so that that which is actually lit up is displaced, pushed off to the outer edge of the frame, used like a counterbalance to that which should be unphotographable.

The rules of photographic engagement are challenged in just about every way you can think of.  That’s not to say there aren’t successful and accessible band shots here, there are plenty of them - but there is always some more sophisticated idea speaking out and that’s what makes this a seriously major exhibition.  Coming from an 18 year old photographer this is nothing less than astonishing - that this work is on show in Lincoln and not in a hip and happening gallery in London is even more weird.  Go see.

Pioneer - A Collection of Photographs continues till  31st March.
Entry is free.
Opening hours - 01522 873894

Pete

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