Marc Provins

I managed to catch the excellent Format Festival in Derby last week, just before it closed. It has quietly become a major player over the years, representing the best British and international photography, displayed in a range of intriguing venues dotted around the city. I like picking up the brochure and using the map to navigate around town, a place that I only ever visit for the festival. This makeshift tour provides an insight into the place itself as I travel north, south, east and west, getting a bit lost, taking pictures as I go. Like all cities in Britain it has many sides, but I must say that this time it did seem to be wearing some of it's social problems more prominently than last time. Just like in my home town of Manchester there appears to be a growing population of homeless people and some quite visible class 'A' drug imbibing going on right in the centre. This was being nervously observed by perturbed looking office workers eating ...

I've been poorly and feeling sorry for myself recently, housebound as a result so no new photographs to share. So instead here is a link to A Family Of: www.afamilyof.com This is the collectives' response to the theme 'Factory' adopted by the Format Photography Festival in Derby this year. A Family Of are a loose group of photographers who come together to work on projects away from their usual practice, responding to each other's work and exploring new ways of sharing and distributing photography. Format continues to get bigger and more influential each time. I've always really enjoyed the fact that it's all based in the perfectly formed city of Derby and the calibre of the work is excellent. I've not been along this year yet, so will report back in a week or so. If you are there, do look out for wage slip envelopes, there might be some intriguing contents... www.formatfestival.com