DECEMBER 2020
Newsletter of the RPS Documentary Group In this Issue: • • • • • • •
Feature - Our Engagement Talk Series All roads lead to Wigan Pier - Tim Foster Our Updated Workshop Series Feature - Documentary Photographer of the Year 2021 Upcoming Events Our October Bi-monthly competition winner and gallery Help needed for DPOTY 2021 (please)
... from the Chair As we head into 2021, and with the promise of a vaccine, we are beginning to think about physical events again. However, given the popularity of our online talks and workshops and the continued uncertainty, we are planning to hold all our January to March events online. Hopefully by the summer we can begin to hold exhibitions or in-person workshops. Going online has created a number of benefitis though, our events are much more accessible. We now have attendees from across the globe and the RPS community; something that was almost impossible before. Our workshop series has been close to fully booked since we started earlier in the year. We plan to run three more workshops in January, February and March 2021. Booking for these is already open. I have been particuarly pleased with the response to our Engagement Talk series, aiming to connect with the wider documentary community. We have had excellent talks from some of our DPOTY 2019 winners, John Bulmer, Mik Critchlow, Margaret Mitchell and, in our last before the break, Jim Mortram. Jim talked about his long term social documentary work in his local community and the importance of being really invested in why you are doing the project something we also emphasise in our workshsops. In the new year we already have three talks booked and at least one more planned, which will be to coincide with the launch of DPOTY2021. Watch this space. Take care Mark
Feature - Our Engagement Talk Series In 2020 we have run five talks in our Engagement Series. Our final talk of the year was with Jim Mortram, a social docucmentary photographer. We are taking a short break before our next one in February 2021. All of these Engagement Talks have been fully booked, so it is recommended you book early for our upcoming events. In 2021 we have three talks already lined up, which can be booked via the RPS website: Arteh Adjidja - 25 February - Book Here Melanie Friend - 25 March - Book Here John Walmsley - 29 April - booking information will be posted soon If you are interested in these or our other events, please also check RPS Documentary Events
All roads lead to Wigan Pier
Mock Tudor garage and loft conversion.
“The project began with failure by first believing I could walk the entire length of the country to find what we all had in common, all I found was that Tudors made loft conversions”
Orwell:
“Revert to handwork in a machine age, and you are back in Ye Olde Tea Shoppe or the Tudor villa with the sham beams tacked to the wall”
Tim Foster’s project ‘All roads lead to Wigan Pier’ was featured in The Decisive Moment in 2017. Following a successful crowdfunding campaign a photographic book will be produced early next year. A colourful 100 page photographic book about artist Timothy Foster’s hometown of Wigan in ‘Lancashire’, 80 years after George Orwell walked its streets. With an introduction written by Orwell’s son - the book blends the past and present with quotes from George Orwell’s astounding book, ‘The road to Wigan Pier’, and personal encounters with the artist that are often funny, reverent and energising. Foster’s words and photography combine his knowledge of local customs with current affairs to document the ongoing moment, but also to poke fun at himself and our own misconceptions whilst cross-referencing Orwell’s accounts of the time, and, acknowledging that some things from the past don’t always go away - they just change in form. Read the Documentary Group journal article in Edition 9 of The Decisive Moment. See more about the project at timothyfoster.co.uk
Our Updated Project Workshop Series
We are continuing our online workshops with three courses in our Telling Stories series: Starting Out, The Shoot and Editing & Seqencing. These cover the stages of any documentary or long-term photographic project - each reveals a tool kit of professional techniques to help you develop, shoot and complete your project. Each course is listed in our Documentary Events section on the RPS website. The price for each workshop is ÂŁ56 for members (and ÂŁ75 for non-members). Each course consists of 5 hours of instructorled tuition and a 50 page guide to keep, plus free access to our closed Facebook page, where course participants can have ongoing feedback and support.
These courses have been really popular, so, if interested, we recommend you book soon. The next workshop dates are: Starting Out - 23 January 2021 - Book Here The Shoot - 27 February 2021 - Book Here Editing & Sequencing - 27 March 2021 - Book Here
Feature - Documentary Photographer of the Year 2021
We were not able to show the DPOTY winners exhibition as planned in 2020. However, we are still hoping to exhibit during early 2021, once allowed and venues re-open. More importantly, we are now working on plans for the 2021 competition. There will be an Opening Event in late April or early May, with an Engagement Talk from an award winning photographer. Submissions will then run from May until early August with judging in September and October. We hope to announce the short-list in October and the winners in November or early December 2021. Consistent with trying to encourage more in-depth documentary work and to engage with the wider community, we plan to expand the competition with three categories: • RPS Members • Students (any age, who are in full or part-time degree courses) • Open (open to anyone, anywhere) We also plan to increase the number of images to allow more extensive bodies of work to be entered, we are just finalising this, but it is likely to be from 10 to 16 images per entry, with an accompanying statement. We will announce more details during early 2021. We wil also post up to date competition information on our dedicated competition web page and on our RPS website pages in due course. Good luck!!
Upcoming Events RPS Documentary and Contemporary Events Start Date Time Title Location 05/12/2020 10:00 Workshop - Building a Photographic Series - Execution Online 10/12/2020 18:15 Engagement - with Jim Mortram Online 12/12/2020 10:00 Workshop - Editing and Sequencing a Series Online 15/12/2020 14:00 Giacomo Brunelli the Street Photographer Artist Online 21/12/2020 19:00 In conversation with Giles Duley HonFRPS Online 18/01/2021 19:00 In conversation with Carolyn Mendelsohn Online 23/01/2021 10:00 Telling Stories with your Camera - Starting out Online 26/01/2021 18:00 My Life as a Photographer Mimi Mollica Online 25/02/2021 18:15 Engagement - Arteh Odjidja Online 27/02/2021 10:00 Telling Stories with your Camera - The Shoot Online 25/03/2021 18:15 Engagement - Melanie Friend Online 27/03/2021 10:00 Telling Stories with your Camera - Editing and Sequencing Online For an up to date list of Documentary and other RPS Events, please us the links below:
Link to RPS Documentary Events
Link to other RPS Events
A selection of Other Events and Online Talks you might find interesting, and as location is no object we list some overseas events too. Don McCullin - Retrospective - Tate Liverpool, 16 September 2020 – 9 May 2021
Talks: Magnum Quarantine Conversations (various) (Online, free) There are also a number of on-line talks via Martin Parr Foundation (for subscribers) and also BJP/1854 subscribers. Please get in touch if you know of any future events that you think would be of interest to Documentary Group members.
Bi-monthly
Competition Winner
THE OCTOBER BI-MONTHLY COMPETITION WINNER IS...
Angus Stewart - John, 10 Days Post Op
In January 2020 John was told that he needed to have open heart surgery to repair a leaking valve - however due to lockdown restrictions in March the operation was postponed. The NHS were amazing, ringing him every two weeks to check on his condition and remind him that he had not been forgotten. With a lull in infection rates during the summer he was called to the John Radcliffe Hospital for surgery, during the operation it was discovered that he had two valves that needed repair, not one, making the operation longer and more complex than expected. One week post surgery he was released and came to stay with us for a few moths to recuperate - this picture was taken on his third day with us. He was still very tired we managed three or four images and called it a day. John loves this picture and has even given a copy to his surgeon, as he likes to say ‘having a sick note from the doctor doesn’t get you out of modelling’
The Gallery
Bi-monthly Competition Website - call for entries (A reminder that the revised rules now allow any images taken within the last 12 months) Competition Page
Help and Volunteers needed ... The RPS Documentary Group is currently looking for help (and volunteers) for the following: DPOTY 2021 (still looking for volunteers) We plan to expand the competition in 2021 to include competitions for RPS Members, and new Student (any age) and Open categories. We also plan to have a touring exhibition. We are looking for help and two part-time volunteers in setting up DPOTY 2021. The roles will include help with planning and promoting the competition. In the first instance, please contact Mark at doc@rps.org Website, Newsletter and Journal We are always looking for features that would be of interest to Documentary Group members. If you have a project you could submit, are aware of an event worth publicising or have an exhibition or book review in mind please get in touch. Details below.
Š All images and text are the copyright of the individual contributors and may not be copied without their consent Newsletter articles and features: Please send to doc@rps.org Decisive Moment articles and features: Please send to decisive@rps.org Submission Guidance All Text in Word format, Images in jpg format max 2Mb (no watermarks please) Documentary Resources Information on reference books, photobooks, websites and archives Other Documentary Group links here: RPS Website Facebook Instagram Decisive Moment