Oliver Bryant Photography - Blog

On the 17th January 2026 I attended what I initially thought was a trade show (as advertised on Eventbrite) but was actually a yearly gathering of the society of London photographers and a trade show on top.

before I get started on the show I would like to express my views are my own and the show is free you can’t really go wrong with free but if you attended on the day they charged £10 so if I was to base my views on that alone I would be benchmarking this event with the photography and videography convention that happens in Birmingham in March.

The photography competition.

I want to be frank and honest, when I go to photography conventions there is still a seediness to how things are run. Often there are young female models posing for photographers and after spending many years watching the objectification of women in the gaming sector I’m not particularly keen to see this still exists within the world of photography. If you look at any of my photos you will a common trend, I don’t post images of naked women doing different poses. The trend I saw at the London Convention was a majority of the competition photos consisted of women posing naked. A lot of winning photos ended up going down this trend and me and my wife just looked at each other.

To counter balance things I thought surely there will be a naked male model and yes there was but guess where the photos had been placed? In eyeshot like the naked women or at the bottom? If you guessed at the bottom you’re absolutely right.

now without trashing the competition there was some truly spectacular art on offer with amazing wildlife images and pet images too but often we would see merits and only the highest ranks went to portrait photography in many instances. It just felt like the judges had a particular type (naked adult female blonde models) and for me personally it made me think “would I even submit photos to this competition?” And the answer is a resounding no.

The Trade Fair

The trade part of the fair was actually really good! I got to meet some great companies and vendors and I got try out some really nice cameras. I did notice Nikon and Fuji demoing products with SmallRig attachments for the additional grip. For example I tried the ZF and Nikon had bolted on a SmallRig so it felt better ergonomically. I also got to try the Z8 which was amazing, I do feel like I will never get this camera body as it’s out of my price range but it was very nice to get a glimpse across the pond to see how the other half live.

My favourite vendor to chat to was Cannon. I’m not switching to Cannon anytime soon, I’ve invested heavily into the Nikon Ecosystem and have even visited Nikon’s R&D HQ museum in Japan but Cannon has a very cornered niche in the photography printer market. I got to have some time to test their photography grade printers and what can I say? I am in love with them. Can I buy one right now? No. Would I have room for one right now? Absolutely not. Would my wife potentially scream at me if I bought one? Yes and No.

I really enjoyed my time at the event for the trade side of things and I would like to return again. The exhibition side of things was a bit of a disappointment but hey I might pluck up the courage to enter just so more artists can push the narrative that it’s okay and acceptable to have art that isn’t just women getting naked for grubby old men.