Guernsey Photography Festival

Guernsey Photography Festival Sponsors include Raven Property Group, Guernsey Arts Commission and Guernsey Museums.

The Guernsey Photography Festival brings together major names in international photography with a host of emerging talent, for a packed month of exhibitions, workshops and events on the beautiful island of Guernsey.

30/01/2025

Our Photo Symphony event proved an emotive finale to the 2024/25 edition of the Guernsey Photography Festival.

Thank you to all the artists and musicians involved, and to Jean Owen, Jean-Christophe Godet and the many volunteers who helped to make the evening a success.

Here, On Screen Creations share the video highlights and some of the thinking behind the planning of the event.

Photographers featured included Joan Alvado (Spain), Mael G. Lagadec (France), Tasmin Ferguson (Guernsey), Estelle Moseley (Guernsey), Yulia Skogoreva (Russia), Jessica Bernard (UK), Isabelle Vaillant (France), Carolle Benitah (France/Morocco), Max Miechowsky (UK), Paul Reas (UK), Wolfgang Zurbon (Germany), Anaïs Ondet (France) and Siân Davey (UK).

This event was produced by the Guernsey Photography Festival in collaboration with the Guernsey Symphony Orchestra, and supported by Guernsey Tourism Management Board, Guernsey Museums & Galleries, Guernsey Arts, The Island of Guernsey, Hamilton Brooke, and Hand Picked Hotels.

See you next time…

What a night ! What a great feeling ! Thank you all (the audience) for being present and for the warmth and encouragemen...
20/01/2025

What a night ! What a great feeling !
Thank you all (the audience) for being present and for the warmth and encouragement you showed us and shared. We keep receiving all your wonderful feedbacks. It means so much to us. Thank you to all the musicians and artists. Your energy and skill brought this special event to life. To the support team, technicians, administrators and volunteers thank you for your, behind the scene efforts, that made everything run so smoothly.
This Photo Symphony was a celebration of photography, of music, of community, and of the power of coming together to create something beautiful. I’m beyond grateful for all the people who made it possible. Jean-Christophe Godet Artistic Director
All photos Olly Tracey by On Screen Creations Hand Picked Hotels Guernsey Arts VisitGuernsey Guernsey Museums Hamilton Brooke

Who is Jean-Christophe Godet, artistic director of the Guernsey Photography Festival?Born in Normandy, France, Jean-Chri...
18/01/2025

Who is Jean-Christophe Godet, artistic director of the Guernsey Photography Festival?

Born in Normandy, France, Jean-Christophe Godet is the founder and artistic director of the Guernsey Photography Festival (UK), created in 2010 and Glaz Rencontres Internationales de la Photographie (Rennes) (France). He has worked for many years for organisations such as the London Philharmonic Orchestra and The Barbican Centre and as a professional travel photographer.

As a curator, Jean-Christophe has worked with major names in the world of photography including Josef Koudelka, Siân Davey, Alec Soth, Cristina De Middel, Mark Power, Chloe Dewe Mathews, Bruce Guilden, Carolle Benitah, Martin Parr, Anastasia Samoylova, and many more. He is a regular guest reviewer and judge to many international photography events and competitions.

JC will be overseeing the photo projections tonight at our Photo Symphony event, collaborating with Jean Owen and the Guernsey Symphony Orchestra.

Photo credit Florence Chevallier.

Musician spotlight: Deborah BideauDeborah Bideau is an accomplished soprano soloist and graduate of the University of Yo...
18/01/2025

Musician spotlight: Deborah Bideau

Deborah Bideau is an accomplished soprano soloist and graduate of the University of York, gaining both a BA Hons and MA in Music. She's now Faculty Head of Performing Arts at Les Varendes High School & Sixth Form Centre.

Deborah has undertaken a varied range of principal roles in both the UK and Guernsey including works such as Mozart’s Requiem, Elgar’s Sea Pictures with Rutland Sinfonia and Handel’s Laudate Pueri Dominim, to name but a few. She has performed as a soloist with a wide range of choirs during her career, starting with world and UK tours with the National Youth Choir of Great Britain. She is currently a member and soloist of Guernsey Chamber Choir and Octo Voces.

Deborah will be performing a solo rendition of Dvořák’s ‘Rusalka Song To the Moon' during our tribute to Carolle Benitah this evening.

As part of this year's Photo Symphony event on Saturday, we will be including a tribute to Carolle Benitah, who very sad...
18/01/2025

As part of this year's Photo Symphony event on Saturday, we will be including a tribute to Carolle Benitah, who very sadly passed away last year.

Carolle’s work was exhibited as part of the Guernsey Photography Festival in 2016. Her practice involves the use of photography and materials that populate the domestic world such as placemats, monogrammed handkerchiefs, tea towels and wedding trousseau linens.

Her project ‘Photos Souvenirs’ will be shown to the sounds of ‘Rusalka Song To the Moon' by Antonin Dvořák, performed by soprano soloist Deborah Bideau.

Who is Jean Owen, conductor of the Guernsey Symphony Orchestra and musical director of 2025?Jean Owen studied conducti...
17/01/2025

Who is Jean Owen, conductor of the Guernsey Symphony Orchestra and musical director of 2025?

Jean Owen studied conducting at the Royal Academy of Music in addition to her main studies in bassoon and piano. She was made an Associate of the Royal Academy of Music for ‘Distinction in the Profession’ and was a recipient of the gold medal and title ‘Commonwealth Musician of the Year’ awarded by the Royal Overseas League.

She was a woodwind finalist in BBC Young Musician of the Year, and has enjoyed sitting on adjudicator panels over the years. Jean was a founding member of the New London Orchestra, recording and performing extensively with them. She was also a guest principal bassoon with many of the leading orchestras in the UK.

Memorable performances have included playing at the Proms, Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, Edinburgh Festival, and the Olympic Games. Jean has conducted the Guernsey Symphony Orchestra on several occasions, including the first Guernsey Photography Festival concert in 2021. She is grateful to the musicians of the orchestra who willingly give their time to rehearse.

“I hope that the audience will feel enriched and stimulated by the wide variety of musical styles and textures entwined with international contemporary photography. Once again, it has been a privilege to work with Jean-Christophe Godet and tonight’s event is the culmination of almost two years of collaboration in finding music that we feel will support the amazing photography and communicate with the listener."

The Photo Symphony event on Saturday is now sold out. If you don't have a ticket but would still like to come, you can g...
16/01/2025

The Photo Symphony event on Saturday is now sold out. If you don't have a ticket but would still like to come, you can get in touch and we can arrange a 'waiting list' in case any tickets holders can no longer attend.

See you on Saturday!

Artist spotlight: Siân DaveySiân Davey is a photographer with a background in Fine Art and Social Policy. She worked for...
16/01/2025

Artist spotlight: Siân Davey

Siân Davey is a photographer with a background in Fine Art and Social Policy. She worked for 15 years as a humanist, Buddhist psychotherapist and then photography found her in 2014. Her work is an investigation of the psychological landscapes of both herself and those around her, with her family and community being central to her practice.

Her project ‘The Garden’ is made up of a series of portraits taken in the back garden of her house. After being neglected for 10 years, Davey and her family sowed wildflowers and meadowseeds to breathe new horticultural life into the garden. She then invited members of the community to visit and be photographed in the space.

“As the garden evolved it became an expression of joy, interconnectedness, yearning, sexuality, and defiance. The garden became a metaphor for the human heart itself.”

See this captivating work as part of the Photo Symphony at the St. James concert hall on Saturday.

Artist spotlight: Anaïs OndetBorn in Toulouse in 1997, Anaïs Ondet graduated from ETPA in 2018 with the Special Jury Pri...
15/01/2025

Artist spotlight: Anaïs Ondet

Born in Toulouse in 1997, Anaïs Ondet graduated from ETPA in 2018 with the Special Jury Prize. She lives and works between Ariège and Toulouse, and focuses her personal work on the environment and the relationships between image and memory. Through this, she explores loss and memory with a range of plastic installations, documentary work and portraiture. More recently, she has turned to ecological and rural issues, which she uses as a means of activism in her artistic practice.

Her project ‘Sans Soleil’ is about nostalgia among young people, taking the viewer into a dark and nebulous cinematic universe. The eerie, atmospheric photographs explore themes of climate anxiety and dystopian technological futures.

The work will be presented as part of our Photo Symphony event happening this weekend, alongside a rendition of Charles Yves’s ‘The Unanswered Question’.

Last few tickets remaining so act fast if you want to attend.

Artist spotlight: Wolfgang ZurbornIn addition to his own artistic work, Wolfgang Zurborn is constantly interested in com...
13/01/2025

Artist spotlight: Wolfgang Zurborn

In addition to his own artistic work, Wolfgang Zurborn is constantly interested in communicating the richness of the medium of photography in various forms.Together with Tina Schelhorn, he has been running the Gallery Lichtblick in Cologne for 38 years. In 2010 he founded the Lichtblick School. Since 1998 he has been on the board of the German Photographic Academy (DFA). He also has various teaching assignments for photography at German universities and imparts his knowledge in many international workshops. In collaboration with the German Research Foundation and the German House of Research and Innovation in New Delhi, he led master classes with young Indian photographers in Ahmedabad and Kolkata in 2012/13.

The photographs of the series "Play Time" draw a highly complex picture of our everyday world in multilayered levels, in which the human being is shown in a state between privacy and public. Immersed in urban sceneries full of media attractions, the search for protection in the unmanageable mass can be felt everywhere.

"It is not about trying to present one photographic vision as the right way of seeing things or to visually substantiate ideological claims. Photography is something I understand as a wonderful medium of dialogue with the world that makes possible a kind of cross examination of the myriad forms of contemporary life.”

With only a handful of tickets remaining for the Photo Symphony, be sure to secure your spot and see Wolfgang's work presented alongside 12 other photographers set to the sounds of the Guernsey Symphony Orchestra.

Artist spotlight: Paul ReasPaul Reas is one of the most significant photographers to emerge from the new wave of British...
12/01/2025

Artist spotlight: Paul Reas

Paul Reas is one of the most significant photographers to emerge from the new wave of British colour documentary of the mid-1980s. He is part of a pioneering generation of photographers, that included Paul Graham, Martin Parr and Anna Fox, who revealed and critiqued British class and culture. Reas has exhibited widely both nationally and internationally and his work is held in private and public collections.

Paul's exhibition ‘Fables of Faubus’ ran throughout the autumn as part of the festival, along with an artist talk with Artistic Director Jean-Christophe Godet. The thirty-year retrospective spans Paul's career chronologically, revealing three decades of social and economic change in Britain as well as the photographer’s personal artistic development over the years.

This work will be shown as part of our Photo Symphony event taking place next weekend.

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