At The Photographers' Gallery, London

As I'm (a) working in London and (b) doing a part-time photography degree, I thought I'd take advantage of the former in support of the latter and go visit a photography exhibition or two. I need to expand my photographic horizons and become more familiar with the works of photographers both legendary and contemporary.

So after work tonight I nipped into central London to visit The Photographers' Gallery just by Oxford Circus. There are currently two exhibitions on: firstly, Mass Observation, about the experiment – started in the 1930s and still going on today – to record the lives of everyday folk in Britain. I found the really old b/w stuff fascinating, the 1980s snapshots not so much.

The second exhibition was more interesting to me: called Deeds Not Words, it's a series of photographs taken in the former steel town of Corby in Northamptonshire, and is on the face of it a straightforward, slightly kitsch, slice-of-working-class-life portfolio. But on closer examination, and on reading the accompanying text, it becomes apparent that it covers a very specific point about the cluster of childhood deformities prevalent in the town, ultimately traced to the handling of toxic waste and the reuse of contaminated land. So it has a whole other layer to it, examining the community not just in and of itself, but in the context of the years of legal battles about the issue. Photography as activism. I found it fascinating, and if you're at all interested in contemporary photography and in the area, I recommend the exhibition.

<pretentious twaddle over>