Nick Otto - photo exhibition

I took a trip out to the wild east side of town at the weekend to support the launch of 'Smoke and Light', a first show by magazine photographer and long-time drinking buddy Nick Otto. (He's got his own website now: www.nick-otto.com.)   His photographic inclinations, it seems, at least in this selection, coincide pretty well with my own, with an emphasis on unusual viewpoints and - as you'd expect from the title of the collection - on a striking use of light. Most of the pictures have very muted colours, or have been converted to pure black & white; they tend to rely heavily on high contrast, and artfully composed shadows, silhouettes, and reflections.   One shot has an old man in an indoor fruit & veg market suddenly stepping into the dusty but dazzling shafts of light falling from an oblong window high overhead - looking for all the world as if he's being beamed down from an alien spaceship.  Another favourite of mine among the monochrome shots focuses on the lower legs of a group of Beijing commuters tramping through a rain-slicked underpass, legs mirrored in the puddles to create a barcode effect.  And there's a splendid, ethereal colour one of the crazy incense-stick overkill that breaks out at the Yonghegong Lama Temple over Chinese New Year - a hellish scene of shadowy supplicants jockeying for position in front of the massive censers, engulfed in a sulphurous swirl of mist and smoke.   Yes, well worth a look.  I don't think he's particularly looking to sell prints, or to snaffle up a book deal - but if you're interested, he probably wouldn't say no.   The photos are on view for the next couple of weeks at the CNEX Saloon Café. CNEX is a worthy venture, an artsy but cosy bar and performance/exhibition space that's already put on an impressive variety of documentary and short feature film screenings in its first six months of existence.  Ufortunately, it is a very long way away, and not at all easy to find (they don't seem to have their own website yet, but the address is in the listing for them linked to above).    I'm rather hoping Nick might repeat the show later on somewhere a bit more accessible, like Gulou Dongdajie's Café Zarah maybe.