Visual Art Magazine No. 158/2020/Issue 2

COMMITTEE

Andreas Klatt ARPS (Chairman & Editor) visualart@rps.org

David J Wood ARPS (Vice Chair & Programme Secretary) wood.david.j@virgin.net

John Cavana ARPS (Honorary Secretary & Headline Event Organiser) visualartsec@rps.org

Andrew Leeming LRPS (Honorary Treasurer & Co-ordinator of The Stephen H Tyng Foundation) andrewleeming@googlemail.com

Michael Butterworth LRPS (Group Web Editor) visualartweb@rps.org

Mark Deutsch LRPS (Membership Secretary) mrkdeutsch@aol.com

Gill Dishart ARPS (Circles Secretary) gill@dishart.plus.com

Wendy Meagher LRPS (Exhibitions Lead) wmeagher@gmail.com

CO-OPTED

Robert Herringshaw ARPS (Exhibitions Co-ordinator) robertherringshaw@me.com

SUB-GROUP ORGANISERS

Rollright

Andreas Klatt ARPS rpsva@klatt.co.uk

South West Di Wilkins ARPS diwilkins@hotmail.co.uk

If you are interested in having or organising a Visual Art Sub-Group in your area, please contact:

Andreas Klatt ARPS visualart@rps.org

VISUAL ART

CONTENTS

NO. 158 / 2020 / ISSUE 2

4. A View from the Chair

Andreas Klatt ARPS

4. Editor’s Comments

Ray Higginbottom ARPS

5. Drawn to Serenity Wendi Schneider

10. Mood, Atmosphere and Emotion

Steven Le Provost FRPS

15. Organic Topography

James Burnett

Front Cover Image: Bob and Denis by Steven Le Provost FRPS

Inside Front Cover Image: Locust by Wendi Schneider

20. Hidden Beauty

Kristina Zvinakeviciute

26. Learning and Developing Astrid McGechan LRPS

GUEST EDITOR: Ray Higginbottom ARPS (ray.hig37@gmail.com)

DESIGNER: Paul Mitchell FRPS (paul@pmd-design.co.uk)

Visual Art is The Magazine of the RPS Visual Art Group and is provided as part of the annual subscription of the Group. © 2020 All rights reserved on behalf of the authors. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the written permission of the copyright holder. Requests for such permission must be addressed to the Editor. The Royal Photographic Society, RPS Visual Art Group and the Editor accept no liability for any misuse or breach of copyright by a contributor. The views expressed in this magazine do not necessarily reflect the policies of the Royal Photographic Society or of the Visual Art Group.

Printed by Henry Ling Ltd, The Dorset Press, Dorchester. DT1 1HD

A View from the Chair

ANDREAS KLATT ARPS

One of the few things the Visual Art Group can give you in these difficult times is our magazine. And as ever I am proud to represent such a strong team able to produce this publication in such fabulous quality.

But why do we love a good print? Let’s play with some numbers.

A full-frame DSLR may typically give us an image size of 21 megapixels (5616px x 3744px). A monitor, say 21-inch, will have a display grid of 1920px x 1080px

(2 MP). If we want to show a 21 MP image on a 2 MP screen we have to shrink it - even more so because the aspect ratios don’t match (3:2 into 16:9). The net result is a staggering loss of image content: almost 92% of definition, tone and texture detail will have disappeared.

‘Poppycock’, you may well say, ‘the human eye can’t tell the difference.’

Perhaps. Size reduction, in online streams and collections for instance,

Editor’s Comments

RAY HIGGINBOTTOM

I am sure that all our lives and daily routines have been dramatically changed during the Covid pandemic. Many families have lost loved ones, others have had to adjust to new ways of working and our children and grandchildren are missing their education and schoolfriends. For me, although missing my family, I have found I have had more time to explore new photographic opportunities and to search out inspiration and new challenges from many sources. As one of the guest editors for the Visual Art magazine, it is always a pleasure for me to present some of the work of artists and photographers who may be new to you. I hope they challenge and inspire you too.

I was in New Orleans last year and found ‘The Gallery for Fine Photography’ and it was here, among a fantastic selection of images, that I discovered the work of Denver-based artist, Wendi Schneider. Her work literally shone out, by the use of precious metals to gild the reverse of her work, she creates other-worldly representations of the environment around us. I admire the way she has

produced a beautiful body of work in a unique and magical way.

I cannot remember when I first came across the sublime work of the Guernseybased photographer Steven Le Provost but his imagery has always stuck in my mind. His impressionistic approach to portraying the world around us, presents us with an alternative view and imbuing each scene with a soft delicate hue of colour and textures, in which landscapes, inhabited by fanciful characters, hark back to bygone days.

I recently came across the work of James Burnett via Instagram and was immediately drawn to his approach to photography. Using natural elements in the Dorset landscape and alternative processes he has created strange abstract images, imbued with mystery which are totally captivating. Using just the power of sunlight and very long exposures, his Lumen prints produce unique records of this environment and the passage of time.

One day I had a call from Andreas, our Chairman, asking me to have a look at a photographer he thought I might like. Well, he was right, Kristina

may even have a positive effect in that it favours high-impact pictures and an easier appreciation of concept and implementation.

In that case, is the importance of a high pixel count no more than a myth? I think not, and that’s why we love a good print. I hope your Visual Art magazine will give you much to enjoy.

Andreas

Zvinakeviciute’s images are certainly stunning. Originally from Lithuania, the Manchester-based photographer’s macro photography is full of colour and a frail beauty. She conjures up a magical world only revealed by her macro lens and creative talent.

Born in East Germany, Astrid McGechan took up photography fairly late in her life. A fortuitous meeting with landscape photographer Charlie Waite for a portfolio review really kicked her photographic focus into life. There followed the publication of her first book and after a number of years, an invitation to tutor for Light and Land, one of the UK’s leading landscape photography tour companies. As she quotes on her website, ‘a still picture is not a space filler, it can be a powerful and concentrated moment of thought, reflection, enjoyment, learning or remembering a moment’.

Thanks to all the contributors to this edition, I hope you delight in their skills and passion.

Ray

ARPS

Drawn to Serenity

WENDI SCHNEIDER

Wendi Schneider is a Denver-based visual artist widely known for her illuminated impressions of grace in the natural world. Drawn to the serenity she finds in the sinuous elegance of organic forms, she preserves vanishing moments of beauty

amidst the chaos in our vulnerable environment. Schneider has perfected a gilding process in which her images seemingly dance on the paper’s surface amidst reflections of light on precious metals, creating a synthesis of technique and subject.

Using photography and digital layering of colour and texture, Schneider creates an image that is printed on translucent vellum or kozo paper and layered with white gold, moon gold, silver, or 24k gold on verso. These layers of colour, texture, and reflection, often altered

within the edition, create a luminosity that varies as the viewer’s position and light transition. This method infuses the artist’s hand in each print and suffuses the subjects with the implied spirituality and sanctity of the precious metals. Honouring the inconsistency of this handcrafted process, each limited edition piece is a unique object of reverence.

Born in Memphis, TN in 1955, Schneider grew up in a family of artists, later earning an AA in Art History from Stephens College and a BA in Painting from Newcomb College at Tulane University. Having originally worked as a painter and designer, her interest in photography germinated in the early 1980s with the use of a camera to reference models for oil paintings. Mesmerised by the possibilities of the photographic art form and the alchemy of the darkroom, yet missing the sensuousness of oils, Schneider began to layer oils on photographs to manipulate the boundaries between the real and the imagined. This process laid the groundwork for the unique layering and gilding that would later become the foundation of the States of Grace series. In 1988, Schneider moved to New York City and began a diverse and successful career that included fine art commissions, photography for magazines, book covers, and advertising, and later (after a move

to Denver in 1994) design and art direction.

Schneider’s photographs are held in the permanent collections of The New Orleans Museum of Art, The Center for Creative Photography, The Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, The Auburn University Library Special Collections, and The Try-me Collection (among others), as well as numerous private collections. Her work has been published and exhibited extensively in solo and group exhibitions worldwide including AIPAD and Art Basel. Schneider is represented by A Gallery for Fine Photography in New Orleans, Louisiana, Catherine Couturier Gallery in Houston, Texas and Galeria PhotoGraphic in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico.

Schneider is a collector of art and objects, primarily Art Nouveau and Arts & Crafts, as well as photogravures from the turn of the 20th century. She has

In 2012, she began to produce a collection of photographs featuring flora and fauna - States of Grace - which was to become her signature body of work.

juried several successful exhibitions and sits on the executive board of the Colorado Photographic Arts Center.

THE PATINA COLLECTION

‘The most cherished childhood memories with my mother were spent haunting antique shops in Memphis, and the love of gathering old things flourished over the following decades. I began collecting antique frames in the early ‘80s, and more earnestly the past several years, as I prepared to fill the assembled Art Nouveau and Arts & Crafts frames with my illuminated impressions of the natural world. I recall seeking solace and solitude as a child beneath the swaying limbs of a venerable weeping willow tree as the light faded end of day. My work is influenced by those lush landscapes of Memphis and New Orleans, and the paintings and photographs of the Tonalists and Pictorialists. I photograph intuitively – what I feel, as much as what I see - and am transfixed and transformed in capturing the stillness of suspended light, preserving the visual poetry of these fleeting moments of beauty. States of Grace has evolved organically into series within series that can be curated by subject, feeling or treatment.’

www.wendischneider.com

Mood, Atmosphere and Emotion

STEVEN LE PROVOST FRPS

Where possible, my aim is to challenge the fundamentals and boundaries of photography and to strive to be unique in my preferred style of photographic art.

All of my work is influenced by Impressionism. My goal is to create pictures that portray mood, atmosphere and emotion. Genres covered are still life, character and nautical studies.

My roots in photography started in the mid eighties, a borrowed rangefinder camera taken on a holiday to Lanzarote grabbed my attention. I was excited by the way I could totally transform the composition by moving the camera viewfinder,

what to leave in and what to leave out and how that can alter and impact the scene in front of you. After returning home I attended a night school ‘basic camera’ course; the course also introduced you to the darkroom. Two techniques we experimented with in the darkroom really opened me up to all sorts of creative possibilities that could transform your work into something quite removed from the picture initially made with the camera. Sandwiching a texture screen with the negative in the enlarger head added a new and different dimension to the finished print. Likewise during say a 10 second exposure we learnt how defocusing the enlarger head for the last few seconds of the exposure could soften the colours, allowing them to bleed and appear more fluid. Both techniques had the potential to create a print with real artistic feeling.

The introduction to digital photography allowed even more opportunities to be creative; Photoshop even had a filter library. My initial excitement of discovering the ‘find the edges’ filter led to disappointment after realising that every other photographer worldwide had also made the

same discovery. I soon realised that Photoshop was just as frustrating as the wet darkroom. A different set of skills but at the same time there were also similarities. Ultimately my thoughts are that if treated with love, care, respect and maybe some creativity so much is achievable.

All pictures begin as a photograph/s, well exposed and as sharp as possible. From here I then set about distressing the detail, removing that clinical sharpness that we generally associate with a photograph. The end result is I hope a picture that has a subtle softness and timeless artistic feeling. Whilst in creative mode I will try to free my mind of any restrictions so I am free to take any approach I feel suits - no handcuffs, no consideration for compositional rules or any restraints.

I have previously served on the Royal Photographic Society’s Fine Art Distinctions Panel and have some work included within the RPS Tyng Collection. I hold three Fellowships, two with the RPS and one with the Irish Photographic Federation. In 2011 an invitation to membership of the London Salon of Photography was proudly accepted. Other distinctions that I am equally proud of are MPAGB and AFIAP.

Home is the Channel Island of Guernsey, although you may often find me away from island life at various photographic events. For a number of years I have received sponsorship from Fotospeed; this allows me the opportunity to test drive some of the wonderful papers currently available.

www.stevenleprevost.com

Organic Topography

JAMES BURNETT

I was brought up in Dorset, and this has inspired most of my work which attempts to respond to the landscape around me.

To overcome the limitations that photographic images often have in recording the changes in landscape over a noticeable period of time, I use traditional processes such as lumen prints, or through long exposures with a handheld pinhole camera. I’ve drawn inspiration from a range of photographers, painters and craftspeople who use their environment as not only the subject of their work, but who make it a physical part of what they create - I’m particularly energised by the photographic work of the Japanese

photographer Mika Horie, the painter Amanda Wallwork and the potter Charlotte Jones.

The Organic Topography series of images are made in situ on monochrome photographic paper and use organic and mineral materials for exposures up to eight hours under glass. By using parts of the landscape itself - which themselves change over the exposure period, drying out, absorbing ambient moisture, moving because of wind or rain - I hope to incorporate an essence of temporal change within the image. Fixing the paper alters the colours so instead I let the images continue to change and degrade over time until all that remains is a memory of the landscape.

The pinhole images record my own movement as well as the environment around me and thus, for me, are a truer record of what I am seeing than an image that is captured in a fraction of a second.

www.james-burnett.com

Hidden Beauty

KRISTINA ZVINAKEVICIUTE

I am a visual artist based in Manchester. Originally from Lithuania, I started my career as a fine artist but it was only later that I discovered an interest in photography which became my primary creative focus. Using macro photography I realised a fascination for the minute details of nature, its beauty and frailty. It is my belief that Nature is the greatest creator of colours, lines and shapes. I see

myself as an artist who has been given the chance to communicate, through my images, the delicate rhythms of nature. I prefer my photography to be called Nature Art and would like to think people may stop to enjoy some timeless moments in our ever-changing world. I am passionate about the art of macro photography where every plant, every flower or small creature has its own unique look, mood, character and hidden beauty. I feel most inspired by the fields and meadows close to where I live. Throughout the changing seasons I can always find something interesting and unexpected that captures all the magic that nature has to offer. In post production I sometimes make changes to colours and shapes to produce an image that satisfies my creativity and vision.

Learning and Developing

ASTRID McGECHAN LRPS

I grew up in East Germany, and my first camera was a Penti II, a little golden-coloured box that took smallformat pictures. But I didn’t seriously engage in photography until a few years ago, when I started to struggle with an increasingly stressful day-today routine. Photography provided me with a means of escape, spending time outdoors and photographing allowed me to regain some balance.

In around 2011, I reached a point where what and how I photographed had become stale, what I saw didn’t excite me any more. I had become too comfortable. So, I searched for some fresh input and booked a portfolio review with landscape photographer Charlie Waite, whose work I really liked. The universe must have known what I needed and directed my subconscious to book this review. What I needed most happened – Charlie kicked me out of my

comfy chair, so to say, in relation to my photography. I spent the next 3 years working on my first book, which was published in 2014. These were exciting years, with a steep learning curve, full of setbacks and success. Nothing quite compares with holding the first advance copy of my own book in my hand. Publishing it has been one of the most exciting things I have ever done, and it really helped me to develop as a photographer and as a person.

I have a number of photography books on my shelf that I look at for inspiration from time to time, but there are two I seem to be referring to more often these days. One is called “The Shape of Light”, which was a companion piece to an exhibition in London last year.

The exhibition was like a light-bulb moment for me in that it provided an interesting perspective and answered some questions on why my photography is moving in the direction it currently does, towards searching for details and shapes created by light and shadow in my surroundings, and presenting them in a more abstract way.

It also made me look at artists whose work had never meant that much to me until then – Paul Strand, Alfred Stieglitz from the earlier days of photography, Edward Ruscha too, and a few others.

The second book is Charlie Waite’s “Arc & Line”. It languished on my bookshelf for a number of years, before I actually took the time and really looked at it properly. Now, I find great pleasure in just opening it on a random page, and exploring the image I find, the purposeful composition, where every minute detail is carefully attended to, and the way shapes,

FEATURED PHOTOGRAPHER

light and contrast combine into a beautiful photograph. Charlie’s ability to see and then translate what he sees into a photograph is extraordinary. The book never fails to lift my spirits. I frequently read the musings of David duChemin, a Canadian photographer. I find his writings tremendously helpful for my photographic mindset. One of his blogs, “The Voice of Fear”, has been hanging above my desk since he published it back in 2012.

I always enjoyed going on photographic trips and workshops in the past and have fond memories of the fun and companionship those expeditions brought to me. Every single time I came back from a trip enriched, having learned and developed, having made new friends and having made photographs I still treasure. So, when I was invited by Light & Land, the UK’s leading landscape photography tour company, to join their team of tutors, I felt honoured and very excited. To be able to work as part of such a fantastic group of people is a wonderful opportunity for me to share my love of photography with like-minded folk.

Aside from my work with Light & Land, I teach photography, work on commissions and lecture at camera clubs. But in addition, I always have a couple of personal projects on the go. One of them is to explore no more than 100 metres of a street and see what I can find. So far, this has proved to be a fascinating exercise, which has led to two other projects already. Not having any expectations of what I will find helps me to be more open, to see more, to be more visually alert.

Photography is not just a hobby for me, it is a way of life. I believe that to make and share a photograph is to communicate with others on an emotional level. I feel I have succeeded with an image if the viewer can engage with the subject and share at least part of the emotion I felt when I photographed it.

www.astridmcgechan.com

POSTAL AND EMAIL PORTFOLIOS

Get even better value from your membership of the Visual Art Group: join a circle. Email circles are free to join, while print circles will cost you no more than postage. Meet new people keen to share their experience, to ask questions and to comment on your photographs. Get a different angle on your work from people who are neither fellow club members, nor your family! Members range from new recruits to very experienced photographers, from people who just want to enjoy their photography with new friends, to people working towards distinctions.

There are print and email circles and we’d welcome a few more members. Join a circle.

To join or ask for more information, just email Gill Dishart ARPS (Gill@dishart.plus.com)

https://rps.org/groups/visual-art/