REVIEW: The Photography Show 2019

The UK’s biggest photo and video event of the year, The Photography Show, at Birmingham’s NEC was a must visit for any level of photographer looking for inspiration.

With over 250 exhibitors, photographers were treated to the latest and finest tech from the camera industry.

This year, many stages have returned to offer a greater breadth of knowledge and practical training. It is also the first year where The Video Show has been officially launched in conjunction with The Photography Show.

Once again, the industry’s major brands dominated the exhibition floor. In recent years however, Sony has taken the industry by storm with their innovations and technological spec for video production, autofocus and mirrorless cameras.

The Photography Show ran for four days to cope with demand.

A little late to the party, Canon and Nikon have put much more of a focus on delving into the mirrorless market with the release of their latest mirrorless full-frame cameras to sway the swathes of photographers transferring to Sony.

Canon has released a follow up to its successful and more senior Canon EOS-R in the shape of Canon EOS-RP. It also exclusively unveiled five Canon RF lenses to the European market in conjunction with launch of the EOS-RP at The Photography Show.

A plethora of talks from experts were on offer.

Overall, the tide is turning towards mirrorless and this year’s show embodied this with Lumix and Fujifilm profusely showing the merits of their new full-frame mirrorless range.

Once photographers got away from the infinite glare of consumerism – the stages at The Photography Show provided a great amount of knowledge for beginner and advanced photographers alike. The Great Outdoors and the Wedding and Portrait stages have returned due to public demand.

The Wedding stage was host to many insightful talks for budding wedding photographers. The talks were succinct and showed visitors how can they improve their images, for example, modelling how photographers can achieve great results from using a single flash and minimal equipment.

Award-winning landscape and travel photographer, Dave Noton discusses the story of his images.

The Great Outdoor Stage revealed the many layers behind the planning and execution of landscape, wildlife and nature photography. From engaging behind-the-photograph stories and the magic of close encounters with wildlife – the Great Outdoor Stage kept listeners gripped.

Providing an insight to the inner workings of some of the world’s most famous photographers, The Super Stage welcomed Pete Souza, the chief photographer during the Obama presidency, gave his commentary on some of his most compelling images in the White House. The legendary Martin Parr, Moose Peterson and Annie Griffiths were also part of the Super Stage’s exciting line up.