Photography Live 2014

I went to the Photography Live show today at the NEC. I really didn’t have any purchases in mind so it was basically just a wander around.


Good Lord, it was busy!


Do so many people really do photography with DSLR’s? Whenever I go out (which is every week) I normally see five phone photographers to every DSLR user. What happens to the DSLR hordes outside of trade shows? Do they gather their backpacks and shoulder bags around them like dragon gold and just wait for the next show?


It was a Monday and it was packed. In places the gap between the company stands were almost impassable. There were, as you would expect, lots of people around the main company stands, Nikon, Canon, Manfrotto etc, but it was around the few independent retailers that the crowds really got silly. The companies that sold bags, filters and second-hand equipment had people four or five deep waiting to be served. The whole show really needed to spill over into another hall to enable people to move around more freely.


The other thing that was really noticeable were the number of people who were carrying backpacks stuffed full of cameras into the exhibition. Well, I assume they were packed with camera equipment, they could easily just contain sandwiches and a Mars bar. However, I digress. I reckon for every three people that came in, two were carrying photo bags. That made negotiating the narrow aisles between stands somewhat of an Indiana Jones adventure. To successfully see the exhibition, you had to duck and dive, weave and bob to avoid being knocked out by the multitude of Lowepro back-pack wielding punters suddenly turning around. Why, by the lord Harry, would anyone want to take their backpack of gear to a photographic fair, when the photo opportunities were limited to the odd shoot with a car or strangely made-up model, and even then you would be only one of many photographers stacked ten deep?


Even more bizarre was an indoor garden area where people were crowding in and crouching down to get a photo of a flower. Just go outside and find your own for crying out loud.


I wonder if you had to have a DSLR hanging around your neck as a sign to the other Christmas Trees (a piece of camera equipment hanging from every branch) that you were actually ‘one of them’, a proper, bona fide photographer.

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