The eighth edition of Slidefest organised by Gulf Photo Plus is back ths week, on Wednesday 8th October, in it's usual place, the Knowledge Village Auditorium.

If you are new to Slidefest, it's an event organised by Gulf Photo Plus where photographers present their personal projects in a variety of genres that can range from documentary projects to fine art, still-life and landscape images. The event also aims to bring photographers (amateurs and pros) and people from the photography community together where people can network, connect and share stories.

The line up looks very good and includes photographers that I really admire and some very good friends, so trust me when I say don't miss this one. Here's the full line up:

Catalin Marin

Catalin Marin, a Dubai based photographer and previously featured on this blog specialises in architectural and interior photography as well as corporate and environmental portraits. His blog, Momentary Awe won the 2011 best photoblog for Asia and Oceania at the Photoblog Awards.

Catalin also travels to amazing places and I'm always jealous of him when he shares photos from his trips. He's presented at Slidefest before and this time he will be sharing his photography from a recent trip to Madagascar.

While spending two weeks in Madagascar, Catalin had the opportunity to board a traditional pirogue, a small, flat-bottomed boat, for three days, capturing a snapshot of the Malagasy life along the Tsiribihina River photographing interesting people, wild animals and amazing landscapes.

Clint McLean

Clint McLean, another Dubai based photographer who also presented at Slidefest before will share 'The Girl Who Married a Snake' series, a staged narrative of images taking its name from a fable native to India. The fables in the series are from the Middle East, North Africa South Asia (MENASA region) depicting brief moments from the fable staged in the country of the fables origin. This body of work is a collaboration between Clint, the locals acting out the scene and those helping him to source props, costumes and appropriate landscapes.

I've seen some of this series before, and really love the idea of recreating fables from the region through photographs.

Deigo Lopez Calvin

Spanish photographer and filmmaker, Deigo Lopez Calvin will be joining Slidefest from abroad via a specially prepared video describing the workings of his Solography project. Beginning with a team in 1999, Deigo Lopez Calvin has been experimenting with pinhole cameras, setting up these film-less devices to capture the changes within a single landscape over extensive periods of time, a year or more. The intriguing images trace the path of the sun creating unique patterns with in the sky, and unusual photographs you'll be intrigued to know more about.

I am a big fan of pinhole photography and been dabbling with it myself lately, so will be great to see this body of work and hopefully learn a thing or two from it.

Hala Salhi

Hala Salhi, from Gulf Photo Plus will present her ongoing photo series 'Color of Dreams'. She's been working on this project for a number of years, where she's interviewed people from all walks of life, aiming to capture the light in their eyes as they speak about their hopes and dreams.

Heike Buelau

In an attempting to capture The Essence of Architecture, New York based fine art photographer Heike Buelau climbs onto construction sites and city scapes in order to depict what she feels is the ultimate art form. Accessible to everyone, arcitectural design by nature must lend itself to the everyman, to the public that it is exposed to and used by. Rather than being intimidated by an illusive message or purpose, architecture can be understood kinetically, as it serves those who interact with it. Approaching her images with a minimalist sensibility, Heike Buelau hope to emphasize the beauty in raw materials.

Munsif Molu

Munsif Molu is a Canadian photographer, currently based out of the UAE. His fascination with people and their connections to society, traditions and history is what drives a lot of his photo stories. He will be presenting a series of photos from India at Slidefest.

Richard Allenby-Pratt

Imagine it's 2017, and Dubai is a ghost town. Due tounforeseen circumstances, everyone has fled the country and the only city dwellers are those exotic creatures who once populated the zoos and animal centres throughout the UAE. Deserted landscapes play host to surprising characters in locally base photographer Richard Allenby-Pratt's award winning series titled Abandoned.

I've heard Richard talk about this series before and I'm really glad he will present it to an audience based in Dubai. I'm very curious to see how the crowd reacts to this series.

Event details:
Date: Wednesday, 3rd October at 7pm
Location: Knowledge Village Auditorium, Dubai (location map)
Free entry

www.gulfphotoplus.com

Slidefest VIII - 3rd October 2012