the brighton photo biennial is fantastic – i had no idea what to expect but have been blown away by the experience. the main festival is curated by martin parr and this opening weekend are lots of private views and launches with a series of talks and lectures. we attended an interview with martin parr on the exhibition and saw several photographers show and share stories about their work. hearing those stories made the work come alive. it made a complete nonsense of the idea that art is just about the work – in many cases the process and the story were as much a part of it.

for example alex soth who was one of three photographers commissioned to produce new work on brighton was banned by customs from taking photos as he didn't have the right visa so got his daughter to take photos. stephen gill literally put pieces of brighton (seaweed, ants, discarded objects) in his camera to take photos layering brighton stuff with images of brighton to get at the essence of the place – bizarre but somehow compelling. suzanne opton shared  how she had captured portraits of returned soldiers from wars in iraq and afghanistan getting them to lay their heads down on the table – go to her site to see the images. alejandro chaskielberg told of his night shots documenting the people of the panama delta – often taking 3 – 10 minutes for a shot. look at high tide on his site to see these magical photographs. but without doubt the most powerful moment was when oscar fernando gomez read his story in spanish but completely broke down inconsolably and had to sit down. he had an interpreter who told his tale. it turned out he had never spoken in public and was overwhelmed. i don't want to do his story a disservice but some of it is here. it was hard to know whether he was overwhelmed by the occasion or being reminded of the sadness of his daughter's death at birth when he was taking photos to share with her. his photos were utterly compelling! if there had been a book i would have bought it straight away. in some ways the blend of photos he showed in the lecture were better as a set than when the ones from the taxi window were isolated which was how they were in the exhibition. here's a few i found on a blog… it was fun being able to go round three private views on the opening night having heard the stories.

on top of the main festival there is a huge fringe of maybe a hundred exhibitions. we visited quite a few – go to the co-op building upstairs if you can! anyway i think you get the point – go visit if you are anywhere near brighton in the next month or so!

hearing martin parr on curation was also inspirational – i'll blog about that separately!