Pete Smyth is a documentary photographer who in his exhibition “Local” has examined his home surroundings of west Tallaght where he has been living for 30 years. The exhibition spans over two floors and multiple rooms. The entire collection is in black and white which brings a cohesiveness to the pictures that otherwise seem so different from each other. There is a clear focus on family life and community. He has one room dedicated to women in the traveller community in Tallaght and another one with portraits of different families from Tallaght. They all seem to portray different aspects of the suburb and as a whole give a good impression on the photographers way of life.
As I have never been to Tallaght and being based in North Dublin, this was especially interesting to see life on “the other side”. I particularly enjoyed the part of the exhibition where Smyth uses multimedia to express himself. One of the focus points for him was his ‘local’ pub in Tallaght where he spent a lot of time with his community. Over the last few years he took photos from nights out and they convey his message of community perfectly. He portrayed this photo-series via a slideshow which was accompanied with a soundtrack that was recorded at multiple pub sessions and was edited together seamlessly.
Overall, this exhibition perfectly blends different aspects of Tallaght into one big picture. It gives people who have never visited the feeling that they’ve known the area for years and people who are from Tallaght must feel like Pete Smyth has perfectly translated their surroundings onto the images in front of them.
Megan's Photoblog 