Format Festival, Derby

The Format Festival in Derby, UK is one of the UK's leading international contemporary festivals of photography and related media. For 2011 the theme was Street Photography and in some cases the venue often matched the images on show, as the venues where sometimes slightly run down and dirty which matched the subjects in the images that were also run down and dirty. 

Dougie Wallace

Dougie Wallace (b. Glasgow) has lived in east London for 15 years but spends a lot of time traveling abroad in search of subjects. His work has been widely exhibited internationally. He has been shortlisted as a finalist in the Travel Photographer of the Year awards, the results of which will be announced in December 2010. His awards include The Gallery Prize at the 2008 Foto8 Summer Show.

Wallace's work was exhibited in the QUAD building at the Festival, being exhibited on the stair well of the building rather then in a gallery space. Instead of being lighten up by spot lights or artificial light it was lit up by natural light that came through a large window by the stairwell. 

His images were of people commuting to their daily lives: work/school, through the windows of the transport though the main transport featured in each image seemed to be buses. The photos not only document the faces of the people traveling but also the reflections that, more often then not, distortion the reflections gave the subjects faces. Adding to a mystery about them and makes the audience question things about the person, like who they are, where they are going and generally think the questions you sometimes think when on public transport and make assumptions about the people also traveling with you. 

His website: http://www.dougiewallace.com/

Brett Van Ort

Brett Van Ort was born in Washington D.C. and raised and schooled in Texas.  His photography focuses on the landscape, the outdoors and how humans use the environment both to our benefit and detriment.

His work was exhibitied in the Silk Mill on large wooden boxes, the front of the boxes showing relaxed pictures of nature, landscapes and water ways but opened up to show explosive devices (such as mines and grenades) that had had an effect on the landscape so many years earlier. This created a stark contrast to the images on the outside of the box, which were calm and peaceful, to the pictures of the grenade on the inside and information of the damage the explosive would do to a person and the cost/years it was use. 

I liked his work due to the high contrast between the photos and how they were created and formed by man and also the horror the information on the inside gives which changes the way you see the image and almost the feel of it. 

His website: http://www.brettvanort.com/