Review: Uncle Willy�s Photo Night

You’re young, enthusiastic and wield a camera like a pro, but making sure other people see the results is a challenge many potential success stories never quite overcome. Being arty is not the same thing as understanding self-promotion.

Sometimes however, an artist comes up with an idea that combines all the golden rules of getting the word out, and a photography exhibition by William Pine at 93 Feet East did just that.

Firstly, choosing a venue in one of the most fashionable parts of London ensured that ‘Uncle Willy’s Photo Night’ attracted the cool, the connected and the self-aware, giving the experience an instant tick of credibility.

Pine’s second good decision was to base his event around beer and socialising, dispensing with the formalities and presenting his photography as an overhead slide show, accompanied by his personal collection of vintage soul and blues on the sound system. Relaxed and swigging lager, the audience had only to settle back and watch as the images flowed past.

Pine describes his work as relief, a way to escape his struggle with the social order and to capture the world forever. His pictures, unprocessed and taken using film, are intended to document his turbulent feelings and love of the ‘truth’.

Each picture was shown for less than 10 seconds. The emphasis was placed as strongly on quantity as quality and the pictures, though loosely arranged by theme and topic, were random enough to feature something for every taste.

By inserting his work into a relaxed, summer evening in the heart of the city, Pine made sure that, for 20 minutes, the eyes of London’s in-crowd were upon him. The word of mouth starts here.

93 Feet East