Tate Britain's Painting with Light and Red 153

The exhibition is extensive and well laid out

A big show

Tate Britain's current 'Painting with Light' exhibition almost feels like a companion piece to the Science Museum's exploration of Fox Talbot's early photography work.

It's a big show and plays effectively off the early connections between Artists and early enthusiasts - I would say that you need a comfortable pair of shoes and the ability to take in a fair amount of information.

The show begins with an interesting exploration of images from an early collaboration between artist David  Hill (1802–1870)  and a young  camera man Robert Adamson born in 1821 who died at the early age of 26.

The two were based in Edinburgh and it's easy to think the look of the project will be one sided but the work that dominates the early rooms is 'Disruption Assembly' a historic painting informed by individual photo's (of individuals) which sums up how the two approaches fed into each other.

the exhibition actually provided me with some context for the Pre Raphaelites too -Henry Peach Robinson was important here as was Julia Cameron a pioneer of women in the photography sector.

I was impressed to see that Queen twang-master Dr Brian May had loaned some of his collection  of early stereoscopic images (although they didn't work for me).

Whistler and another US figure   Alvin Langdon Coburn  were influential and the standout image for me was a painting by Theodore Roussel- The Reading Girl - bringing to mind US depression artist Hopper.

I liked too the early night photo' experiments of Paul Martin - where mood was captured and day for night was born.

It probably isn't what I should say but for me the photography exhibition came alive with the rooms where photographers had  discovered and were using 'colour' this exemplified by the images of John Cimon Warburg.

The omission is pretty much any mention or description of the cameras used which would have been another strand that would add to my enrichment from this ambitious project.

Red 153

Sometimes it feels like things are going on forever and

it's  always good to keep some perspective