POV: TPOTY At The Royal Geographic Society

Well, to be perfectly honest...the exhibition's style, layout, mounting of the prints and overall arrangement was unimpressive.

As I posted yesterday, The Royal Geographic Society today opened a free exhibition marking 10 years of the Travel Photographer of the Year competition, showcasing dozens of the best entries (about 200 all in) from its most recent contest as well as winning images from previous editions.

Just a few minutes walk from here...not a cloud in sight, sun shining, hot (probably the hottest ever for Britain so far), so ideal conditions to enjoy a travel photography treat.

Not entirely. For one thing, most of the exhibition is mounted in the open, so the sun's reflection on the prints was distracting to the viewers (and will probably eventually damage the ink-jet prints which are not covered by glass or plexiglass).

I certainly enjoyed viewing photographs by fellow travel photographers, including those by Alessandra Meniconzi of Siberia and Lalibela), and those of Ethiopia’s Omo River Valley, by Jan Schlegel, amongst many others.

That said, I thought TPOTY and the RGS should've done a better job in choosing a venue within the building itself, and should've spent more money to better mount and frame the photographs. I realize it's a free exhibition, but I was disappointed. It looked cheap. The photographers' talent deserve better.