RHS Portfolio Photography Show 2019 - Selected Exhibits

Every year the RHS Photographic Competition has a special category for the Portfolio Exhibit - which replaces what used to be known as the Botanical Photography Show (i.e. the photographic counterpart of the Botanical Art Show)

This is the only RHS competitive exhibition for photographers which is eligible for RHS Medals.

Species Boundaries Fritillaria affines - won a Gold Medal for RHS Veteran Photographer Laurence Hill - who is not exhibiting in 2019

I'm very much hoping for a higher standard than last year. In my view, the 2018 exhibition included some very weak exhibits as well as some excellent (see above) exhibits when compared to the medal winners in previous exhibitions. There were also some really awful problems with reflections due to the strong sunlight and glass roof - and no exhibitor should assume a neutral and shadowless north light!

This exhibit should in my opinion be UNIQUE and should NEVER ever be mistaken for a landscape photography nor a still life 'arty farty' photography competition. 

It's entirely possible that the change in the quality of the exhibits on display changed because of a change in the method of selecting exhibitors.  The inconsistency between the Art and the Photography Exhibitions makes absolutely no sense to me since the value of all the Medals awarded should always be equivalent. That suggests to me that process and criteria - and application of same - should be very similar too.

For the 2019 Exhibition Selections Process

• those submitting did NOT have to go through a pre-selection stage as Botanical Artist still do.
• the entries are now submitted online 
• a number are selected anonymously for the show - which if course allows in the generic photographer with no specific experience, knowledge or expertise in either botanical or horticultural photography. ​

In my opinion, to be a proper RHS Portfolio Photography exhibition - which equals the current standard of the Botanical Art Show - and, at the same time, is distinctively different from the other categories within RHS Photographic Exhibition, it needs to be VERY firmly located in "botanical" or "horticultural". Pretty or clever or "mood" or "I love nature" photos alone do not cut it. What is important is that the exhibit includes:

• proper labelling of plant names in latin
• photographs that are useful to botanists or horticulturalists in terms of (1) identifying key distinguishing plant features and/or (2) habitats where they grow and/or (3) recording gardens
• an excellent presentation of the story of the exhibit.

​Art over horticultural or botanical content simply does not make the grade for me. There are LOTS of other photographic competitions for those types of photos. However there is only one RHS Show and medals!  
​
I'll be very interested to see what gets exhibited. I'm currently not optimistic that the current selection process is doing a good job. If there is not a big improvement in the standard of exhibit in 2019, then I may well stop covering it.
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Selected Exhibitors
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The Titles of the Selected Photography Exhibits - and associated Photographers are listed below.

I'm guessing (because of people being away at the RHS) that all the following are exhibitors in the Portfolio Category. Please note

• Exhibitors are categorised by country.
• Links in their names are to their websites or photo site (Aside, I'm somewhat surprised at the number of photographers who still have their photographs on an insecure site - as identified by Google. It's not difficult to create a secure site.)
• If their website has a unique page for their project I link to it
• ARPS means Associate of the Royal Photographic Society.

Having reviewed websites, I know whose work I'm looking forward to seeing.....

​UK (6 exhibitors)

• Tatiana Bogracheva ARPS - Togetherness - a scientist who was born in Moscow, who has worked with the John Innes Centre (for plant and microbial science) and is now based in Norfolk(?)  
• Kevin Dutton - Hellebores - Lives in East Dulwich and knows his botanical photographers (based on those who have inspired). Commercial photographer for print publications and media. Had a Trade Stand at the Hampton Court Palace Garden Festival.  Teaches botanical photography.
• Steve Le Grys - Nature in the Abstract - describes himself as a landscape and portrait photographer based in Sudbury, Suffolk, with 40 years experience in the printing, graphic and photographic industry. Recently awarded Bachelor of Arts in Photography from the University of East London and Associate membership of The Royal Photographic Society (ARPS). Very little evidence of botanical / horticultural photography on his website - although in 2018 he won the RPS 365 Competition for a Garden Photograph.
• Marion Sidebottom MA ARPS - Diversity of Beech Trees - a photographer and mixed media artist living in Essex. Also teaches photography.  Has developed some excellent projects relating to trees. This is her set of Ancient Beech Trees in Epping Forest. 
• Rachel Wallace - Woodscape -  just completed an M.A in Photography Arts at the University of Westminster . Studio is located in Chiltern Hills.  I like her bark photographs.​
• Francesca Wilkinson - Mary Delany's Garden (Winter) - a photo artist based in London. In 2013,. She graduated from the MA Photography course at the University for the Creative Arts with Distinction. You can see the complete set which will be exhibited on her website. (For more about Mary Delaney see my webpage about Famous Botanical Artists)

 In this particular series I wanted to depict the sorts of plants that might grow in the winter garden of an English lady such as Mary Delany.
To create these photographs I have used a camera-less technique that I have developed using the scanner attached to my computer. The way the scanner lights the objects placed on it creating a luminous effect, combined with the black backdrop, reminds me of Mary Delany’s paper collages. Using a camera-less technique also echoes the methods used for the very first botanical photographs that were taken in the early 19th century, such as the cyanotype photogram.
Francesca Wilkinson

​FRANCE (1 exhibitor)

• Melanie Grosbost - Tortulapolis - Lives in central France (Limousin?). No bio and few photos.

LITHUANIA (1 exhibitor)

• Emilija Petrauskiene - Silver Garden stories - Born in 1981 in Vilnius. Now working as a family doctor. Her 'Silver Herbarium' FB Page and Instagram account (and I'm guessing her exhibit) record the photographs she created after being asked by her parents to make a visual catalogue of the plants in her childhood garden. I think Lithuania might be a first for this show. Emilija also creates Wet Collodion Prints - hence the reference to 'Silver'​. I love the fact that every photo identified the correct Latin name and/or Horticultural cultivar

Analogue, slow photography is like a mindfullness for me. To set the camera, to compose image and to wait for the right moment. You can never hurry the process. Emilija Petrauskiene

Thumbnails from the Silver Herbarium Instagram account of Emilija Petrauskiene

​NEW ZEALAND (1 exhibitor)

• Marina DeWit - The Rose Garden - describes herself as a Fine Art Nature Photographer on her SmugMug site where she has a gallery of Rose Art (no species names)

RUSSIA (1 exhibitor)

• ​Sergey Kolyaskin - Life behind Glass - born in the city of Zlatoust, in the Southern Urals. Member of the Union of Photo Artists in Russia and a member of the Russian Geographical Society. Has won several contests in Russia. Does not specialise in any genre. Takes a nice photograph but very little botanical/horticultural.

UNKNOWN (3 exhibitors) 

• Tony Cook - The Beauty of Plants Revealed​
• John Shepherd - Botanical Illustrations of the genus Malus domestica
• Josh Westrich - Octopus’s Garden – the stunning life of macroalgae - an award winning photographer (says Google) with no website.

USA ( exhibitor)

• (the exhibitor from the USA has withdrawn)

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More about Botanical Photography
​and RHS Medal winners for photography

RHS Portfolio Photography (Medals)

Previous blog posts on this site about this show

• RHS London Botanical Photography Show 2018 - Awards and Medal Winners
• RHS Awards for Botanical Photography 2017

Botanical & Horticultural Photography

My website includes three pages about Botanical Photography:

• How to exhibit a Portfolio of Botanical or Horticultural Photographs at an RHS Show 
• ​Notable contemporary botanical photographers are included in my Page about Artists using other media - along with those using fine art printmaking, digital botanical illustration and sculpture.
• Famous Botanical Photographers (now deceased) - from all over the world, who used a variety of techniques not in common use today - such as cyanotope photograms, photogravures and radiographs