Photography Gallery Trip

As a photography student I attended the World Press Photo 2010 Exhibition at the Royal Festival Hall and the National Press Gallery on Monday 15th November. This is taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Press_Photo about the background story of the World Press Photo Exhibition World Press Photo which is an independent, non-profit organization based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Founded in 1955 the organization is known for holding the world's largest and most prestigious annual press photography contest.
The awards ceremony is held in the Oude Kerk in Amsterdam. After the contest, the prizewinning photographs are assembled into a traveling exhibition that is visited by over a million people in 40 countries. A yearbook presenting all prizewinning entries is published annually in six languages.
In addition to selecting the World Press Photo of the Year, the contest determines winners in the following categories:
-Spot News
-General News
-People in the News
-Sports Action
-Sports Features
-Contemporary Issues
-Daily Life
-Portraits
-Arts and Entertainment
-Nature.
Another primary objective of the organization is to support professional press photography on a wide international scale, to stimulate developments in photojournalism, encourage the transfer of knowledge, help develop high professional standards in photojournalism and promote a free and unrestricted exchange of information.

I really enjoyed the World Press Photo Exhibition as it opens your knowledge about what is happening around the world and the photographs evoke strong emotions as the subject matter of the photographs are strong topics. For example, one photograph was about the affects of drugs and people smuggling drugs, one photograph which I found most shocking was of a gang who nine hours before shot some one.

I wanted to research in to the history of the National Portrait Gallery which I found on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Portrait_Gallery_(London). The National Portrait Gallery is an art gallery in London, England, housing a collection of portraits of historically important and famous British people. It was the first portrait gallery in the world when it opened in 1856. The gallery moved in 1896 to its current site at St Martin's Place, off Trafalgar Square, and adjoining the National Gallery. It has been expanded twice since then. The National Portrait Gallery (NPG) also has various satellite outstations located elsewhere in the UK, mostly for aristocratic portraits. It is unconnected to the Scottish National Portrait Gallery in Edinburgh, with which its remit overlaps. The gallery is a non-departmental public body sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.

At the National Portrait Gallery some photographs were very explicit as it showed naked people, however most photographs were of people in different locations which expressed different emotions for instance, one photograph was of a girl in a forest which portrays her freedom.