Photography takes centre stage this week with two exhibitions within a few kilometres of each other.

One is of photographs that vary from documentary to general commercial work, while the other is of images pushing at the frontiers of technique and interpretation.

The doccies come in a heady mixture of styles and subjects at the Shifteye Gallery in Hurlingham, Nairobi.

Called Masterpieces, the exhibition is the annual competition of the Photographers Association of Kenya, held to recognise “outstanding and creative” work in nine different categories, which include Architecture and Interiors, Landscape and Environmental, Weddings and Street.

The results, 52 works by 45 photographers, are much as you would expect — technically proficient and with something to interest everyone.

Cameras are so good nowadays and so easy to use that a sharp and well-lit photograph can almost be taken for granted. So now, more than ever, the eye is everything — and that is where photographers pass or fail.

To take the passes, David Macharia Mwangi shows us a leopard turning to look at his lens while Paul Kinuthia notices a little girl in a bus shelter glancing back at his camera… and in Art and Abstract, Sushil Chauhan finds rhythm in the feathers of the gunpowder bird, a turkey.

Demonstrating Documentary at its best is Georgina Goodwin’s photo of Margaret Ngendo, who radiates dignity. Ms Ngendo, naked from the waist up, underwent a mastectomy to beat breast cancer 32 years ago, and this is a picture of personal courage.

In Masterpieces, this photo is a master class.

A quick drive away is Frontiers of the Present at the Circle Gallery in Lavington, where curator James Muriuki (who honourably resists the temptation to include his own work) sets out to explore new ideas in the medium with some 43 images by 10 photographers.

Twenty-one of these are by one man, Joel Lukhovi, who presents them in a panel of postcards taken with a pinhole camera. Called In Conversation, all are abstract and smoky and suggest conversations that are downright dull.

One of the features of a pinhole, like that of any stopped-down lens, is that it offers almost infinite depth of field, which means everything should be in focus. In Lukhovi’s case, everything is deliberately indistinct.

So here we have a new frontier in pinhole photography, rather as we would seek to advance the frontiers of conventional photography by sticking a finger in front of the lens; an exciting development that some amateurs achieve every day.

Thankfully not all the photos aggressively push frontiers; some do it subtly, for example Guillaume Bonn’s full length and nearly life size portrait Warriors 1. It is of a camouflaged bush ranger, festooned with grasses, twigs and bits of netting. I have rarely, if ever, seen such sharpness maintained over such a large area. It is a quirky tour-de-force.

Julian Manjahi’s three essays in urban living capture everyday moments and make them special, while Ray Piwi Ochieng offers a surreal farmyard scene of a man in a pig’s mask surrounded by cows. Paul Munene invites us for a walk in the park with four studies of people chosen as stand-ins for himself in different moods.

Sarah Walawa’s picture of a veiled bride called Assigned Social Responsibilities makes an elegant social commentary, and Muchiri Ngenga’s huge Passport 2091 — a head composed of found objects — dramatically interrogates perceptions of self.

Tahir Karmali is at the cutting edge with his video Tumia, which “searches for meaning through the application of pattern” (and here I quote from the excellent catalogue that accompanies this show) while Aron Boruya examines moments of shadow and silence with a series of richly resounding prints.

For Barbara Minishi, it is the open spaces in her Myrus series that tell the story and her photographs, lean and spare, encourage us to peer into what she describes as, “the visual language of sensualism.”

From exhibited photos to a snapshot of life at the financially challenged (read “broke”) Kuona Trust.

But this time it is good news.

The third annual Arts Fair run by Kuona, destined to be scrapped as the first major victim of the Trust’s woes, has been saved.

The owners of the Sarit Centre mall in Westlands, Nairobi, in whose exhibition hall the fair is held, have stepped in to keep it afloat and even hired some of the Kuona’s staff to organise the event.

It is going ahead as planned from November 10 to 13, and several exhibitors have already been pencilled in to take booths.

In addition to the booths, there are planned discussion groups, and the popular Wasani exhibition featuring works by upcoming talents to hang alongside those of established artists.

A competition has been lined up for the artists too — to make a work including graffiti on the themes of peace and positive change.

One positive change that would get my vote is to save the Kuona.

Frank Whalley runs Lenga Juu, an arts consultancy based in Nairobi.