If You Leave: The world’s best single image photography
- Photography by Thomas Line
The best documentary photographers build compelling stories through weaving images together. They spend days, months, years getting to know the people, communities and issues they’re documenting, adding a new piece to the story with each picture.
But what if you had to grab people’s attention, hold their gaze and say everything you wanted to say with just one photograph?
If You Leave celebrates the best of contemporary photography which speaks in a single image – separate from any body of work. The 2016 IYL Showcase draws together twenty of the best single shots, selected by a panel of judges including Huck, Dazed and Confused, Aperture Foundation, and The Photographers Gallery, from thousands of entries made by photographers from across the globe.
The third edition of the Showcase takes 20 photographs, selected by 20 co-curators to be showcased in 20 distinct venues around London before departing for New York in January 2017. But you can see the full selection of 200 images on If You Leave’s Instagram and grab prints here.
For the first time, the Showcase has a base at Shoreditch’s Red Gallery, a new creative pop-up space that provides photographers with the opportunity to meet, communicate and learn. It offers visitors a wide-ranging series of talks, workshops, masterclasses, book launches, digital and analogue printing services, work spaces, film screenings and portfolio reviews that will take place during the course of the pop-up.
Find out more about the If You Leave Showcase 2016 and pop-up in London, November 30 to December 21 at Red Gallery’s The White Room.
Enjoyed this article? Like Huck on Facebook or follow us on Twitter.
Latest on Huck
Petition to save the Prince Charles Cinema signed by over 100,000 people in a day
PCC forever — The Soho institution has claimed its landlord, Zedwell LSQ Ltd, is demanding the insertion of a break clause that would leave it “under permanent threat of closure”.
Written by: Isaac Muk
Remembering Taboo, the party that reshaped ’80s London nightlife
Glitter on the floor — Curators Martin Green and NJ Stevenson revisit Leigh Bowery’s legendary night, a space for wild expression that reimagined partying and fashion.
Written by: Cyna Mirzai
A timeless, dynamic view of the Highland Games
Long Walk Home — Robbie Lawrence travelled to the historic sporting events across Scotland and the USA, hoping to learn about cultural nationalism. He ended up capturing a wholesome, analogue experience rarely found in the modern age.
Written by: Isaac Muk
The rave salvaging toilets for London’s queers
Happy Endings — Public bathrooms have long been contested spaces for LGBTQ+ communities, and rising transphobia is seeing them come under scrutiny. With the infamous rave-in-a-bog at an east London institution, its party-goers are claiming them for their own.
Written by: Ben Smoke
Baghdad’s first skatepark set to open next week
Make Life Skate Life — Opening to the public on February 1, it will be located at the Ministry of Youth and Sports in the city centre and free-of-charge to use.
Written by: Isaac Muk
Nydia Blas explores Black power and pride via family portraits
Love, You Came from Greatness — For her first major monograph, the photographer and educator returned to her hometown of Ithaca, New York, to create a layered, intergenerational portrait of its African American families and community.
Written by: Miss Rosen