‘Paris Photo is the largest international art fair dedicated to the photographic medium and is held each November in the heart of Paris. Since 1997, the Fair’s mission is to promote and nurture photographic creation and the galleries, publishers and artists at its source.

Paris Photo brings together up to 200 exhibitors from across the world, offering collectors and enthusiasts the most diverse and qualitative presentation of photography-driven projects today. Leading galleries showcase historical and contemporary artworks from modern masters to young talents. Specialized publishers and art book dealers present unique and rare editions, as well as book launches and signature sessions with many of today’s most renowned artists.

Paris Photo also provides visitors with first-hand insights and access to the art world. Programming includes curated exhibitions with renowned public and private institutions, awards, conversation cycles with curators, artists, collectors, and critics, and special events exploring the unique history of the medium; varying visions, practices and emerging trends. In addition, the Fair’s “In Paris during Paris Photo” programme reunites a dense network of cultural institutions throughout Paris comprising some of the most historically rich photographic collections in the world.’

I enjoyed looking at the work on display at Paris Photo, but the sheer range was honestly rather overwhelming. I found a few examples of work that I might wish to draw inspiration from for my personal study.

The above image is of a collection of Polaroid images of a TV screen taken by Tom Wilkins over 4 years (from 1978-1982) of various actresses, with individual captions. Sébastien Girard later buys this collection in an auction of Tom’s belongings following his disappearance and publishes it in a book in 2017. Girard describes this book on his website:

‘Tom is American.  He lives by himself. TV keeps him busy.  In 1978, he buys a polaroid camera and spends 4 years photographing the women who inhabit his TV screen.

Moreover, he carefully writes on each print a caption and the date. Over 4 years, Tom assembles an extraordinary diary, a silver harem of a thousand annotated polaroids arranged in albums, all titled My Tv girls.
Following the disappearance of its author, this lot was put up for sale on auctions together with other belongings.

Simultaneously interested by this story of appropriation and fascinated by Tom’s visual diary, I decide to buy this archive.
I then study them and recreate their incantatory dimension in a book, ten years later.’

This work is that of Horacio Coppola’s, an Argentine photographer of the cafes, side streets and neon-lit boulevards of Buenos Aires in the 1930s. He introduced avant-garde photography to Argentina. I particularly enjoyed the way in which he portrayed city nightlife and I find his images definitely inspire me to create similar ones to respond to the brief of nostalgia.

The above images are taken by Joel Meyerowitz, an American street, portrait, and landscape photographer. I like these because they also have a strong relation to the theme of nostalgia, and I think they have a particular style to them.

I like the work of Larry Sultan also, the above image was the one displayed at the exhibition and I really like the way he has used the light to perfectly capture the essence of the evening air. I think this also relates to the theme of nostalgia because all of his images have this kind of faded and forgotten feeling to them. This series, Pictures from Home, is significant as it is Sultan’s memories of his parents from when he was a child. He uses the typical architecture of the American suburb to create imagery that can be relatable to many viewers.