What you need to knowAn exhibition of finalists for the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize 2013 has opened at the Photographers' Gallery, London. The prize celebrates photographers who have exhibited or published a significant body of work in Europe in the previous year, with a top award of £30,000.
This years' nominations include Mishka Henner's images of street workers sourced from Google Streetview cameras and a retrospective of Chris Killip's black and white documentary photographs of Northern English communities in the 70s and 80s.
Cristina De Middel has created mockumentary images inspired by an actual space programme in Zambia, while duo Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin use images sourced from the internet and mobile phones to document the War on Terror.
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Exhibition runs until 30 June.
What the critics likeNow in its 17th year, the Deutsche Börse prize "never disappoints", says Richard Dorment in the Daily Telegraph. This year is particularly lively, because each artist explores different aspects of documentary photography in utterly different ways.
Chris Killip's retrospective is "a welcome reintroduction to classic 70s and 80s black and white photo-journalism's starkness", says Sue Steward in the Evening Standard. His series depicting disintegrating lifestyles in the post-industrial north of England is poignant and shocking.
"The definition of photography today is pushed and pulled in fascinating directions at this year's Deutsche Börse Prize shortlist show", says Amy Dawson in Metro. Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin's book, inspired by Bertolt Brecht's 1955 War Primer and iconic pictures from the War On Terror, is incredibly affecting.
What they don't likeHenner's Google images of street workers might be regarded as exploitative and violating privacy rights, says Kerim Aytac on Artlyst. But it is perhaps "no more ethically dubious than the classic work of Magnum photographers who constantly chart the agony and distress of others".
