The RPS Journal February 2015

SPECIAL FOCUS

WOMEN IN PHOTOGRAPHY

COVER IMAGE BY GILLIAN LAUB

BEST SHOTS

LOVING MY LEICA

SUSAN DERGES ON IMAGES OF NATURE

HOW MARY ELLEN MARK GETS HER SHOTS

JOURNAL

THE

FEBRUARY 2015 / VOLUME 155 / NUMBER 2 / WWW.RPS.ORG

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© BRIAN MARCUS

S N rofoto S H KO /myp H T NI foto.com I W & w.pro W ON at ww O N AN L now C ir TT R FO r B1 and A you

Up

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| FEBRUARY 2015 | 81

OPENING SHOT GENDER IS ON THE AGENDA

I COMING UP

IN FUTURE ISSUES We’ve got amazing work from Honorary Fellows James Balog and Harry Borden, plus the latest from Society bursary winners. We’ll also showcase the nature photography of Jill Pakenham FRPS

’m putting this editorial together in a week when a storm in a tabloid-shaped teacup has been brewing. As we began production on this issue, news emerged that The Sun had ditched its topless Page Three girl.

That daily photograph of a nubile woman, chest bared, was something that many campaigners hoped would be consigned to history. But as we went to press, it turned out that reports were unfounded, and The Sun’s throwback to the 1970s made a reappearance. Once again, Page Three has become a battleground for those who’d prefer to see more sophisticated representations of women in the media.

This issue, we’ve decided to focus our features on women in photography; not just women in front of the lens, but behind it. The spark for the idea was the bicentenary this year of the birth of pioneering Victorian photographer Julia Margaret Cameron. But once we received writing from contributors such as Idil Sukan LRPS and Jacqueline Roberts, the issue began to take shape in a way that has challenged and intrigued me.

Why focus on women in photography?

There are great photographers, regardless of gender, from all walks of life. As Roberts says in her piece, Cameron defined herself not by the fact she wore petticoats, but by her artistic talent. For me, this issue is about creating food for thought – some of the world’s most exciting photographers working today just happen to be women, and we’ve featured them here too.

Take a look, and please discuss…

Next month you’ll get a chance to let us know what you think in person, when I’ll be at the Photography Show with the RPS Journal team to meet members and readers. If you’re heading along, come and find us at The Royal Photographic Society stand. I look forward to meeting you.

CLARE HARRIS Editor

MIKE WILKINSON

PATRON AND SPONSORS

VOL 155 / FEBRUARY 2015 / THE RPS JOURNAL / 81

IN THIS ISSUE The Royal Photographic Society Fenton House, 122 Wells Road Bath BA2 3AH, UK www.rps.org reception@rps.org +44 (0)1225 325733 Incorporated by Royal Charter

SPECIAL FOCUS WOMEN IN PHOTOGRAPHY VIEWS FROM BEHIND THE LENS

BEST SHOTS

LOVING MY LEICA

SUSAN DERGES ON IMAGES OF NATURE

HOW MARY ELLEN MARK GETS HER SHOTS

JOURNAL

THE

FEBRUARY 2015 / VOLUME 155 / NUMBER 2 / WWW.RPS.ORG

120

Grozny, Chechnya, by Diana Markosian

Patron Her Majesty the Queen President Derek Birch ASIS HonFRPS Vice-President Walter Benzie ARPS Treasurer Geoff Blackwell ARPS Director-General Dr Michael Pritchard FRPS Published on behalf of The Royal Photographic Society by Think Suite 2.3, Red Tree Business Suites, 33 Dalmarnock Road, Glasgow G40 4LA thinkpublishing.co.uk EDITORIAL ENQUIRIES Editor Clare Harris rpsjournal@thinkpublishing.co.uk 0141 375 0504 Deputy editor Andrew Cattanach andrew@thinkpublishing.co.uk Contributing editors Gavin Stoker, Geoff Harris LRPS Design Matthew Ball, Alistair McGown Sub-editor Sam Bartlett

020 8962 1257 Publisher John Innes john.innes@thinkpublishing.co.uk

700

A sporting highlight from Marc Aspland HonFRPS

Š 2015 The Royal Photographic Society.

All rights reserved.

EVERY MONTH

Every reasonable endeavour has been made to find and contact the copyright owners of the works included in this newspaper.

However, if you believe a copyright work has been included without your permission, please contact the publishers. Views of contributors and advertisers do not necessarily reflect the policy of The RPS or those of the publishers. All material correct at time of going to press.

ISSN: 1468-8670

Cover 'Aliza at the Memorial', Tiberias, Israel 2002, from TESTIMONY series, Gillian Laub

146 Diana Goss ARPS on night photography

82 / THE RPS JOURNAL / FEBRUARY 2015 / VOL 155

84 | BIG PICTURE Bulgaria's capital Sofia responds to the Charlie Hebdo massacre

102 | DISTINCTIONS Claire 'Pixie' Copley LRPS, plus guidance on the new categories

87 | IN FOCUS Including the debate on child photography and the campaign to save the Library of Birmingham

151 | MEMBER GUIDE A look at the coming events, workshops, talks and more

101 | BOOKS Boris Friedewald's Women Photographers

160 | TIMES PAST From a photographic essay about Vietnamese boat people by Joan Wakelin HonFRPS

DIANA GOSS ARPS; GROZNY, CHECHNYA, DIANA MARKOSIAN

Advertising Sales Daniel Haynes daniel.haynes@thinkpublishing.co.uk

| FEBRUARY 2015 | 83

128

Idil Sukan's portrait of comedy duo Shirley and Shirley

102

Claire 'Pixie' Copley's LRPS panel

114

Helen Clifton tries her hand at the wet collodion process FEATURES

IDIL SUKAN; CLAIRE 'PIXIE' COPLEY LRPS; HOWARD BARLOW FRPS

114 | JUST LIKE JULIA The legacy of Cameron's work, inside the studio and out 120 | WOMEN OF INFLUENCE We profile 15 of the best 128 | PICTURE POWER Idil Sukan LRPS on representation 134 | BEST SHOTS Susan Derges' images of nature

THE CRAFT

142 Canon PowerShot SX60 HS

141 | MUST TRY * LATEST KIT Review of the Panasonic Lumix DMC-GF7 and much more 145 | MASTERCLASS / IN DEPTH Find out how to take top-notch photographs by night 149 | MY FAVOURITE CAMERA Mary Ellen Mark on her ever-reliable Leica M6

VOL 155 / FEBRUARY 2015 / THE RPS JOURNAL / 83

DIMITAR DILKOFF/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

84 | BIG PICTURE |

84 / THE RPS JOURNAL / FEBRUARY 2015 / VOL 155

Charlie Hebdo

By Dimitar Dilkoff

THE ASSIGNMENT The French Embassy in Sofia had invited people to attend a vigil for the victims of the Charlie Hebdo massacre. I always go early to such events, before the crowd.

This was the first picture I took, and the best one from the whole event, even if I kept shooting for over an hour afterwards, when hundreds of people had gathered.

APPROACH I didn’t ask for permission to take this picture because it would have spoiled the intimate situation. It always depends on the situation – I always ask when I feel it is necessary and people might take offence. Yet, I don’t ask if it means me missing the shot.

TECHNIQUE I took the picture with a Sony a7S, which allows me to work in very dark environments.

It was late in the evening and I used only the street lighting.

TIPS Look at a lot of pictures and take as many as you can. Always be aware of the light.

TRAINING When I started as a photographer there wasn’t digital photography, so I was learning how to develop films and how to print pictures.

I taught myself by closely studying the pictures in the newspapers.

VOL 155 / FEBRUARY 2015 / THE RPS JOURNAL / 85

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87

CHILD RIGHTS AND WRONGS Is campaign group going too far? 90

IN THE FRAME Our choice of unmissable shows 92

I WISH I’D TAKEN Tessa Bunney’s inspiration 95

INFOCUS NE W S, V IE W S, E X HIBITIONS A ND MEMBER INSIGHT

Diego, 10, at Hogar La Alegría drug rehabilitation centre, by Emily Macinnes

IMAGE FROM ‘MAKE ME WHOLE AGAIN’, EMILY MACINNES

SOCIETY CELEBRATES WOMEN ON EACH SIDE OF THE CAMERA Series of talks will mark 200th anniversary of birth of Julia Margaret Cameron Leading photographers Gina Glover, Emily Macinnes and Anastasia Taylor-Lind will join a list of experts for

READ MORE

The Royal Photographic Society Visual Literacy talks this year, in partnership with the University of Westminster and the National Media Museum, Bradford.

The Society’s biannual Visual Literacy series will WITH OUR SPECIAL FOCUS

this year be themed around “women in photography”, to mark the 200th anniversary of the birth of Julia Margaret Cameron.

A fascinating programme of talks will reflect not just the legacy of Cameron herself,

but an increasing level of discussion around the work of female photographers.

‘The work women are doing in the field of photography seems to be in the national consciousness right now,’ says the !NEXT PAGE"

IMAGES AND WRITING BY WOMEN WORKING IN PHOTOGRAPHY TODAY, WITH FEATURES STARTING FROM PAGE 113 VOL 155 / FEBRUARY 2015 / THE RPS JOURNAL / 87

88 | IN FOCUS | Julia Margaret Cameron

Dead Weasel by Paul Hill MBE, and the Library of Birmingham, below right

WOMEN OF THE LENS

Watch this space for updates on dates, venues and speakers in the 2015 Visual Literacy series 88 / THE RPS JOURNAL / FEBRUARY 2015 / VOL 155

AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY HONOUR A portrait of architect Enrico Taglietti, taken by Edward (Ted) Richards ARPS, has been accepted into the permanent collection of the Australian National Portrait Gallery in Canberra. Ted took the portrait, pictured left, in the 1980s but only thought of offering it to the gallery when he retired. ‘It’s a reminder, if we need one, never to throw out old negatives,’ Richards said.

JULIA MARGARET CAMERON, HENRY HERSCHEL HAY CAMERON, WIKIMEDIA COMMONS; MIHAI COLIBAN, 3RD PRIZE IN LIFESTYLE, 2014 iPHONE PHOTOGRAPHY AWARDS

!FROM PREVIOUS PAGE" Society’s education manager, Liz Williams. ‘With the bicentenary of one of photography’s most influential figures, Julia Margaret Cameron, we thought it was a good time to focus on women in photography here at the Society too.’

Talks will take place around the UK, at venues including the National Media Museum, the University of Westminster and Nottingham Trent University. Emily Macinnes, a Scottish documentary photographer and winner of the Oxfam Photography Prize for Women, will talk about her work for non-profit organisations at home and overseas. Gina Glover, a recipient of the Society’s Hood Medal, is known for her innovative and artistic take on biomedical, and more recently environmental, photography. Society bursarywinner Anastasia Taylor-Lind has captured images of Cossacks, PKK fighters and Ukrainian protesters.

Linda Marchant from Nottingham Trent University will talk about the work of Cornel Lucas, who led the field in portraits of female film stars in the golden era of British filmmaking.

FEBRUARY 2015

BIRMINGHAM LIBRARY CUTS CRITICISED xx xxx

Society speaks out about threat to photographic archives The Society is supporting efforts to save the Library of Birmingham’s internationally significant photography collection and archive, which is threatened by cuts to staffing and opening hours.

Photographers with archives or collections at the library include Martin Parr HonFRPS, John Blakemore HonFRPS, Anna Fox, Maxine Walker and Paul Hill MBE. ‘When I and other depositors agreed to the library acquiring our archives

or collections we were assured that they would be accessible to the public as well as specialist researchers,’ said Hill, who has set up a petition against the proposal. ‘As the proposal currently stands there will be no photography collections team. Indeed, there may not be anyone left with any specialist knowledge of these nationally and internationally significant collections in the near future.

The public knows how important photography is to our personal and cultural lives, but it seems Birmingham City Council does not.’

The public consultation process on the proposals ended on 12 January but you can find out more about the plans, and sign the growing petition against them, at bit.ly/paulhill

PHOTOGRAPHER CRAFTS HIS OWN POLAROID

American photographer Lucus Landers has built his own instant press camera – with no viewfinder. See more at lucuslanders.com

ENTER NOW

The iPhone Photography Awards Deadline: 31 March 2015 ippawards.com

| IN FOCUS | 89

FROM THE PRESIDENT

WHAT THE SOCIETY CAN DO FOR YOU … and what you can do for the Society

O

ur Members’ Biennial Exhibition, which was featured in the January issue of the Journal, received a very positive response from those who attended its launch at the Grant Bradley Gallery in Bristol.

Among the guests I had the pleasure to meet the elected Mayor of Bristol, George Ferguson, who said that he appreciated the opportunity to visit the exhibition and expressed strong support for the Society. Turn to page 94 to see some pictures from the opening night.

We were delighted that the three winning photographers were able to come to the event so that I could present them with their awards. Boguslaw Maslak received the Bronze with his Last Taxi Home image, Marc Aspland HonFRPS achieved Silver with his photo of Louis Smith, and Steve Jones LRPS won the Gold with his Joie de Vivre stallion photograph. All of the 100 selected prints will be displayed at venues in the UK throughout the year.

More details can be found on the website, where the images can also be seen.

Visit bit.ly/rpsbiennial Nominations for

candidates to stand in the Society’s elections later this year are to be submitted to the Director General by the end of March. Our current elected Trustees on the Council, together with those elected members of the Advisory Board, will be completing their terms at the end of September.

I would like to add that it has been an honour for all of us to be elected. Each of us, of course, has our own special interests and backgrounds, but it is important to point out that all of the Society’s Trustees support the entire membership and the Society’s wide range of activities and interests as an educational charity, with its mission of promoting photography.

I was pleased to read about the six successful Fellowship applicants featured and discussed by Roy Robertson HonFRPS in the Journal last month.

Working to achieve Distinctions at all levels from Licentiate to Associate to Fellowship is a major ambition for many members. All of those interested in working towards a Distinction will find very practical information online about the processes, in particular how best to seek advice and prepare an application on the website. We look forward to all the submissions this year.

DEREK BIRCH ASIS HonFRPS President of The Royal Photographic Society

VOL 155 / FEBRUARY 2015 / THE RPS JOURNAL / 89

90 | IN FOCUS |

CAMPAIGN A THREAT TO PRESS FREEDOM? Society concerns over impact of high-profile lobbying group

Evening Meditation by Max Robinson

SWISS AND JAPAN CHAPTERS’ JOINT SHOW

It's perhaps hard to think of two more different places than Switzerland and Japan, but Society chapters from both countries are jointly exhibiting at the Frameman Exhibition Salon, Tokyo, from 27 February to 5 March. The exhibition then moves on to Shimonoseki and Nagasaki.

‘The exhibition is officially endorsed as one of the commemorative projects to

mark the 150th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Japan and Switzerland,’ said Yoshio Hibiya LRPS, from the Japan Chapter.

‘It will be interesting to see whether there are significant differences in style between the photographs from the two countries,’ added Richard Tucker ARPS of the Swiss Chapter. ‘We have members who are Swiss, French, German, Italian, Swedish, Dutch and British.’

REGIONAL FOCUS

See childrensprivacy.co.uk

2015 by popular request. Later in the year we enjoyed visits from Irish photographer John Hooton FRPS with some beautiful landscape images and Peter Yeo FRPS from Lincolnshire who showed a wide variety of work accompanied by an amusing and instructive talk.

We speak to Group Secretary Christine Langford LRPS

REGION PROFILE It’s a small region, with around

‘chilling effect on the free press’. Hannah Weller said: ‘The ask is simple: in a photograph where a child is identified, if there is no consent and publication is not in the public interest, publishers must pixelate the faces of minors to respect their privacy.’

The Society DirectorGeneral is meeting Weller early this month to outline photographers’ concerns.

Images by Andrew Kime FRPS, left, and Paul Kay FRPS

NORTH WALES

THE COMMITTEE Don Langford LRPS has been a member of the Society for more than 30 years, becoming Regional Organiser in 2013. The committee are Christine Langford LRPS, Secretary, Don Langford LRPS, Treasurer, and Tom Dodd FRPS and Gareth Jenkins ARPS. Tom is well known as a mountain photographer and from his days as a member of the Visual Arts and Travel Distinction panels.

Gareth has an IT background and is our technical support.

Hannah Weller: ‘The ask is simple’

NOTABLE MEMBERS Tom Dodd FRPS, Andrew Kime FRPS, Paul Kay FRPS and Margaret Salisbury FRPS.

120 members, but it offers lots of opportunities for stunning photography, from the Snowdonia mountains and valleys and a varied coastline to the local heritage railway lines, and annual sailing events.

RECENT ACHIEVEMENTS Last year we hosted the Society’s International Images for Screen Exhibition, closely followed by a show of member

90 / THE RPS JOURNAL / FEBRUARY 2015 / VOL 155

WHAT’S COMING UP We are planning a Distinctions Advisory Day in April and further lectures later in the year.

Distinction panels. We also hosted an informal print exhibition, which was a chance for members to get to know one another, and will be repeated in

Contact the North Wales Region on 01758 713572 or email donchrislangford@btinternet. com. See their events in our Member Guide, on page 151

TOMPOT BLENNY IN THE MENAI STRAIT, PAUL KAY FRPS; SNOWDON AND LLYN LLYDAW, ANDREW KIME FRPS

A diverse group of members says 'vive la difference!'

The Royal Photographic Society is monitoring the lobbying by the Campaign for Children’s Privacy to prevent the publication – without the consent of their parents/guardian – of images of children.

Where a child is identified, and there is no consent, the group wants the child’s facial image to be pixelated. Exceptions would be photographs published in the public interest, taken of a crowd or where there is “implied consent”, such as a redcarpet event or photocall.

The campaign – set up

by Hannah Weller, wife of musician Paul Weller – has been attacked by the National Union of Journalists as having a

FEBRUARY 2015

| IN FOCUS | 91

Draper’s Nebula, by Dr Henry Draper (1880), was the first photograph ever taken of a nebula

SOCIETY HELPS REVEAL PHOTOS THAT CHANGED THE WORLD

BBC Radio series brings to light the little-known images which altered the course of history

A series of essays to air on BBC Radio 3 this month will tell the stories behind five little-known photographs that have changed the way we see the world.

The images include pioneering examples of aerial photography and X-rays. Assisted by The Royal Photographic Society, expert research has revealed some surprising and fascinating stories behind the photographs we may have missed, such as Draper’s Nebula, discussed here by Dr Omar Nasim, lecturer at the School of History, University of Kent.

‘I was born and raised on the Canadian prairies. If you’ve never been, you should know that when standing in a field, you see as far as the eye can, horizon to horizon – because it is so flat. Whenever I return, I am struck by the vastness.

It is as if you’re standing in the sky itself.

‘And then there were the

clear night skies, conducive not just to astronomy, but to a love for it. As a young and aspiring astronomer I would spend nights examining the skies in wonder. But my eyes always came back to those three stars that formed Orion’s belt. I’d read somewhere that beneath those stars, a celestial nebula should be visible to the naked eye. This was the nebula in Orion, also known as M42.

‘M42 was the first celestial nebula to be photographed, by Dr Henry Draper, a New York physician and amateur astronomer, on 30 September 1880. By this time photography had been around for over 40 years. It had already been used to picture the Moon, the Sun, stars, comets, and even some planets. However, the nebulae, among the most mysterious objects in the heavens, resisted photography — their faint and misty light was too delicate for

Dr Omar Nasim is a historian of 19th and early 20th-century science, with a particular interest in the observational sciences, perception, and visualisation practices

cameras attached to telescopes.

So when Draper announced to the world that he had finally photographed one, he made it a point to remind his audience of the significance of what he had captured: “the gaseous nebulae are bodies of interest,” he wrote, “because they may be regarded as representing an early stage in the genesis of stellar or solar systems. Matter appears to exist in them in a simple form.”

‘The photograph is nothing but a small, fragile glass plate, which contains foggy tracings of the very blend of materials that were said to have formed entire worlds,’ adds Dr Nasim.

‘It is a photograph that changes everything.’

Hear more from Dr Omar Nasim and other experts in The Five Photographs (You Didn’t Know) Changed Everything, from February 16 to 20 at 10.45pm, on BBC Radio 3

VOL 155 / FEBRUARY 2015 / THE RPS JOURNAL / 91

92 | IN FOCUS | WHAT NOT TO MISS BUILDING IMAGES Sto Werkstatt Exhibition and Trade Centre, London UNTIL 28 FEBRUARY

Winners from The Arcaid Images Architectural Photography Awards 2014, celebrating the power and impact of the medium on how we sense and experience spaces. It showcases 14 of the world’s top architectural photographers, including overall winners Hufton + Crow. werkstatt.sto.com

OF OUR TIMES: THE PRICE OF MONEY Artspace Gallery, The Ropewalk, Barton upon Humber UNTIL 1 MARCH

18 FEBRUARY ( 16 MAY

Rawiya, meaning ‘she who tells a story,’ is the first all-female photographic collective to emerge from the

Middle East. With a focus on gender and identity, this touring exhibition by New Art Exchange (NAE) presents a thoughtful view of a region in flux, balancing its contradictions while reflecting on social and political issues and

stereotypes. Photographers include Myriam Abdelaziz, Dalia Khamissy, Tamara Abdul Hadi, Laura Boushnak, Tanya Habjouqa (see page 120) and Newsha Tavakolian. impressions-gallery.com

The first exhibition of images based on the eponymous photobook which earned Nigel Tooby, a member of the Society’s Contemporary Group, his FRPS in 2012. ‘The pursuit of power and fortune can exact a heavy price,’ he says. the-ropewalk.co.uk FEBRUARY ONWARDS

ALSO SHOWING

BEHIND THE SCENES: RELOADED Sun Lounge, Fairfield Halls, Croydon

HUMAN RIGHTS HUMAN WRONGS The Photographers’ Gallery, London

9 FEBRUARY & 21 FEBRUARY

6 FEBRUARY & 6 APRIL

Following the success of his recent Fairfield Halls exhibition, Frazer Ashford ARPS has been asked to reprise his 60-print show, featuring many famous artistes who have appeared at the venue, giving a rare behind-the-scenes insight. frazerashford.com

Taking the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights as a starting point, this exhibition features more than 250 original press prints from the Black Star Collection of 20th-century photoreportage, highlighting the key role such images can play. thephotographersgallery.org.uk

92 / THE RPS JOURNAL / FEBRUARY 2015 / VOL 155

LAURIE SIMMONS The Arts Club, London UNTIL 25 APRIL

A selection of work spanning the career of this eminent US photographer. Simmons is best known for her photographs of meticulously staged scenes using dolls, ventriloquist dummies, mannequins and people, creating images with intensely psychological subtexts. This exhibition will include her iconic ‘camera on legs’ image. theartsclub.co.uk

Drawn by Light (The Society Collection). Science Museum, London. Until 1 March Cairo to Constantinople: Early Photographs of the Middle East. Queen’s Gallery, London. Until 22 February Astronomy Photographer of the Year. Royal Observatory, London. Until 22 February The City of Six Towns Albion Square, Stoke on Trent.

Until 20 February The Ipswich and District Photographic Society’s Annual Exhibition The Council Chamber, Ipswich.

3–14 March

HORIZONTAL MAN WOMAN HORSE, 1979, LAURIE SIMMONS; MARTIN L. KING )DR MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.*, BOB FITCH; KEN DODD, FRAZER ASHFORD; THE MISSING + LEBANON, 2010+ONGOING, DALIA KHAMISSY; HEYDAR ALIEV CULTURAL CENTRE, HUFTON + CROW; NIGEL TOOBY FRPS

REALISM IN RAWIYA Impressions Gallery, Bradford

94 | IN FOCUS |

DISTINCTION SUCCESSES

Well done to all the Members on their recent achievements

LRPS 09/14 – London Region Assessment Damien Abbott, London Pat Barbour, Yorkshire Shelagh Bidwell, Cambridgeshire Tim Chapman, Cambridgeshire Steve Cheetham, East Yorkshire John Alan Clark, Middlesex Julian Cook, Middlesex Peter Cox, Suffolk Barrie Duffield, Kent Linda Findley, East Sussex John Gerhold, North Yorkshire Tracy Hughes, Kent Martin Patten, Hertfordshire David Peck, Sussex Peter Sorrell, North Yorkshire Frances Walding, Kent Les Welton, Kent LRPS Multimedia 11/14 Brian Marjoram, Surrey Sue Winkworth, Avon ARPS Multimedia 11/14 Malcolm Gee, Norfolk FRPS Research, Education and Application of Photography 11/14 Philip Harris, Derbyshire Nick Robertson-Brown, Cheshire ARPS Research, Education and Application of Photography 11/14 Wendy Allard, Cornwall Paul Colley, Wiltshire ARPS Exemption 01/15 Nicky Callis, Northamptonshire Kathryn Ellen Sawbridge, West Midlands

BEST OF THE BIENNIAL

Here are some pictures from the 2015 Members’ Biennial.

It was great to see all the medal winners in attendance, including, above, Steve Jones LRPS (Gold), Marc Aspland HonFRPS (Silver) and Boguslaw Maslak (Bronze).

MAJOR TRAVEL AWARD FOR NOTED MEMBER

The Society of American Travel Writers has named Robert Holmes ARPS as its 2015 Travel Photographer of the Year. ‘The award was particularly significant for me because it was 25 years since I was given the award for the first time,’ explained Britain-born Holmes. ‘I am the first photographer to get it four times.’

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FEBRUARY 2015

| IN FOCUS | 95

DG’S DIARY

NEW SERIES STILL GOING STRONG On 8 January I attended an event to launch a year of celebrations for the 150th anniversary of Cheltenham Camera Club, which was formed in 1865. The evening was organised by Ian Gee FRPS and it was great to see so many Society members present.

I WISH I’D TAKEN JUSTIN PARTYKA’S BLACK FEN SERIES Tessa Bunney, Food Photographer of the Year, 2014 When did you first see these?

We met at a Magnum event around 2007, and I have kept in touch with his ongoing project on the flatlands of the fens in eastern England.

Why do you like them so much?

Because of the connection with my work in rural Yorkshire. However, what Justin photographs is very different and the allium crop seemed unusual – and a little exotic. The man is in a dirty shirt – it’s work, not pleasure

– and this challenges the romanticism of the place. I like how the light accentuates the contrast of the purple of the flowers with the blue sky.

What can other photographers learn from these images?

They are the kind of pictures that you get when you have spent time, patiently waited and studied how man and the land intimately shape each other.

How have they influenced you?

Justin said that photography is

not just documenting a way of life, it is about our journey through this world. You have to find the story you want to tell and be prepared to spend a lifetime doing it, have faith in your work and know it is important. It’s also made me realise how static my images can be and to begin to look for more fluidity and movement.

See more of Bunney’s work at tessabunney.co.uk, and Partyka’s at justinpartyka.com

CORRESPONDENCE

SOCIETY ELECTIONS 2015 Nominations are sought for members willing to stand for election to The Society’s Council and Advisory Board for the 2015-2017 term. Nomination papers, which were included in the January Journal, can be downloaded at www.rps.org/ election2015 and should be returned by 31 March.

INTERNATIONAL with the digital era?

JOURNAL Richard Harper FRPS PHOTOGRAPHIC SALONS Last year, I was INSPIRATION awarded 101 The January 2015 acceptances in the issue has made PSA-sponsored salons me think about Colour Division, but putting together a only ones that were taking place Fellowship panel, as it was abroad – I never get anything in many years ago that I gained the UK. I enquired about this at my ARPS. The Journal is one of the UK salons only to be there to encourage us all told that they had checked my to try harder and take style of work and found it was photography forward. too Photoshop-oriented. Does Richard Heyes ARPS that mean that most UK salons and judges are still stuck in WRITE TO: The RPS Journal, Think, Suite 2.3, Red Tree Business Suites, the old ages of point and shoot 33 Dalmarnock Road, Glasgow G40 4LA and have not come to grips or email rpsjournal@thinkpublishing.co.uk WWW.RPS.ORG

REVEALING THE INVISIBLE HOW X!RAY ARTIST HUGH TURVEY BRINGS EVERYDAY OBJECTS TO LIFE

TRAVEL

EXHIBITION

TEN PLACES TO BAG AMAZING PHOTOGRAPHS

INTERNATIONAL BIENNIAL: OUR PICK OF THE BEST

THE

JANUARY 2015 / VOLUME 155 / NUMBER 1 / WWW.RPS.ORG

HUGH TURVEY HONFRPS

TRAVEL DESTINATIONS INTERNATIONAL MEMBERS’ BIENNIAL

NEW CHAPTERS APPROVED At their January meeting Society trustees approved the formation of a Chapter in Sichuan, China. Details of the Organiser will be announced shortly and web pages set up.

THE RPS JOURNAL / JANUARY 2015 / VOL 155 NO 1

NEWS IN BRIEF

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IMPACT STATEMENT The right of photographers to photograph and publish pictures of children became a live issue early last month. I will be meeting Hannah Weller from Protect: The Campaign for Children’s Privacy to highlight the impact on amateur photographers and to see if they might accommodate our concerns. You can read more about this issue on page 90.

DER STOCK IMAGE I chaired the selectors for Accademia Apulia’s Freedom to Love photography award.

I was delighted to present the winner, Belgian photographer Liza Van der Stock, with her medal.

DR MICHAEL PRITCHARD FRPS Director General of The Royal Photographic Society

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96 | IN FOCUS | 365 WINNERS

REVIEW OF THE YEAR WINNERS January’s online competition successes

THE PAST IS NOT THE PAST

By Leigh Eros The image was the final part of my Wanderer series, using a model in Finnich Glen. From a technical point of

view, the image was stitched together, similar to a panorama, from multiple close-up photos. I then copied and inverted the picture to make a

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mirror image below and created a reflection effect in Photoshop. I used two colour schemes for the different halves of the image – one cool, one warm.

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SHAGGY CHRYSANTHEMUM

By Danielle Knight This is one in a series entitled perfectus imperfectus.

The project continues my

exploration of western culture, which has become, in general, ‘the throwaway society’ that only wants to see or to have perfection.

AIR LIFT

By Philip Field LRPS This photograph is of Swiss female extreme skier Leti Mathez being airlifted from the Mont Gond during the final of the Nendaz Freeride 2014 extreme ski/ snowboard event in Switzerland.

I was one of four photographers employed on the event and was able to capture the action from the mountain as the sun glared down and the snow from the rotors painted the air. Leti contacted me after seeing the shot and informed me she’d made a full recovery.

Photographing cut flora that is past its best highlights their natural cycle, yet most are discarded without a second look when they begin to fade.

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98 | IN FOCUS |

REMEMBERING JIM

A year on from the death of Society Fellow Jim Moreland, Roger Reynolds HonFRPS pays tribute to an outstanding photographer and larger-than-life character

J

im Moreland FRPS, a native of Belfast, first got involved in photography in the mid-60s when he took a tour of Ireland in a car he borrowed from his father.

He was with a friend and his girlfriend, who would become his wife. His friend was very keen on photography and spent the trip taking shots, and talking about photography. Jim soon became intrigued, and as soon as he returned from holiday he visited his friend’s darkroom. That experience of seeing the image appear hooked him on photography for the rest of his life.

By the 1970s Jim decided to take up photography fulltime, even though he was told that it was difficult to make a living out of it. He left his job as an office machine technician and took a significant drop in salary to take a job in a local photographic studio and, later, with a local professional photographer. His self-belief was soon justified when he won first place in the architecture section of the Ilford Print Awards, receiving a cheque for £1,000. At the time, his annual income was around £800. It was the first time that a photographer from Northern Ireland had won this award.

In 1974, he saw in the local paper that the Northern Ireland Electricity Service (NIES) was expanding and wanted a professional photographer to run its new photographic department. Jim applied for the job and got it. He spent the next 20 years at the NIES. During his time there, he won two further Ilford

HE WAS AT HIS BEST WHEN HELPING OTHERS TO IMPROVE OR REALISE THEIR POTENTIAL awards in the commercial and portraiture sections.

He met the late Larry Bartlett when he was speaking at one of the Ilford Roadshows and was invited to become one of its junior speakers. It was Larry who helped him to get the quality of printing required for British Institute of Professional Photography (BIPP) Fellowship level – he would go on to win the BIPP award for the most outstanding panel of the year. It was the morning after the award ceremony in Bath that he came across The Royal Photographic Society headquarters where he spent some time talking to the staff. Within weeks he had become a member and considered it one of the best decisions he had made. Soon afterwards, he was awarded

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his Royal Photographic Society Fellowship in the Applied category.

Jim was an outstanding monochrome printer with a love of rich tonal images depicting strong backlighting or directional lighting. His printing style was very rich, with strong blacks and superb tonal control that made his images sing. That excellence did not come without a great deal of effort and a very high level of darkroom skill. The testament to this skill was that his images could be easily recognised because of their unique style and quality.

Invited to sit as a panel member for the Society’s Distinctions in the Applied and Professional category, he fulfilled the role for 12 years.

In 2011, as Chair of the Distinctions Advisory Board,

I was delighted to be able to invite him to become part of the Board and also join the Fellowship Board. Here he was able to use his immense knowledge and skill to promote and improve the Society’s Distinctions. He was also a fearless assessor on the Fellowship Board where his knowledge of technical standards was put to good use. He ensured that those who received the Fellowship of The Royal Photographic Society demonstrated the highest possible technical skills.

In 2011 The Royal Photographic Society honoured Jim with the award of the Fenton Medal for his outstanding service to the Society.

Jim’s photographic credentials are beyond reproach and I am sure many will remember him for his outstanding contribution to the advancement and improvement of photographic standards.

However, behind this was the man, diminutive in stature but a giant in photography. To be around him when he was involved in photography was infectious. He had so much knowledge to impart and was at his best when he was helping others to improve or realise their potential.

He was also the life and soul of any social occasion and was never happier than with a pint of Guinness in his hand and the opportunity to talk photography.

It has been a great pleasure for me to be part of many of Jim’s achievements within The Royal Photographic Society right from the early days of his involvement. I was one of

The Sleeping Giant – Harland & Wolff

Halifax HQ: ‘His images could be easily recognised because of their unique quality’

the panel members who assessed his Fellowship application and it has left an indelible memory. The rich series of monochrome prints set out in four groups of five set an outstanding standard that was immediately recognised as Fellowship photography by the whole panel. Even to this day the image of the Harland and Wolff shipyard with immense chains in the foreground, and the beautiful road in Northern Ireland where the trees form a deep tunnel, live in my memory.

Later I was privileged to be the Chair of The Royal Photographic Society Awards Committee when he was awarded his Fenton Medal

and latterly as Editor of The Royal Photographic Society Portfolio series of publications I was delighted to be able to include him in the members’ Portfolio section. In Portfolio Three there is an outstanding series of his superb images and a fine article by David Cooke ARPS to whom I am indebted for some of the information in this piece.

There are few people you meet who immediately make a lasting impression. Jim was one of them. The world of photography is a far worse place for his passing and his infectious humour and commitment are greatly missed by all those who had the pleasure to know him.

ROGER REYNOLDS HonFRPS

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Photography in Iceland with Frank Bradford

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JOURNEYS TO BEAUTIFUL PLACES ATOL PROTECTED. Images courtesy of www.frankbradfordpix.com

BOOK REVIEWS

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LOS MENONOS Jordi Ruiz Cirera Éditions du Lic (£35.00) In a world of enforced austerity it is strange to encounter a group who deliberately choose an austere lifestyle, rejecting most modern-day “conveniences”. For the Mennonites of eastern Bolivia, as for the Ohio Amish, this is a choice with consequences, finely captured in Jordi Ruiz Cirera’s colour photography.

With advancing, allencompassing globalisation and the ever-shrinking availability of land I wonder how long people of this persuasion will be able to live as their conscience demands.

DR DONALD STEWART FRPS

Marina’s Room (1987) by Tina Barney

WOMEN’S WORK

One man’s introduction to 55 female image makers

© TINA BARNEY

WOMEN PHOTOGRAPHERS: FROM JULIA MARGARET CAMERON TO CINDY SHERMAN Boris Friedewald Prestel (£24.99) The author presents an alphabetical catalogue of his selection of 55 female photographers with a single-page biography for each, including their portraits and examples of some of their more significant photographs. It is elegantly designed and pleasing to look at, privileging the beautiful range of photographs above the other elements.

The 240-page hardback volume is printed on good-quality stock, as befits the reproduction of high-resolution, large-format prints in monochrome and full colour. Each image is accompanied by the author’s observations. A list of images at the back of the book gives their titles, processes, dates and sizes but sadly no sources for the images. There is a lack of full citations for quotes to allow readers to follow specific lines of interest.

Ironically, the cover image, a photograph of Margaret

Bourke-White, was taken by Oscar Graubner in 1935. It would have perhaps been more fitting to choose a female photographer’s work.

Friedewald sets out his aim in a brief introductory essay – to highlight a diverse range of interests, applications and genres of photography. His selection covers a wide range of nationalities, but tends to favour those with American or German connections, born post-1940.

It is commendable that he has brought lesser-known photographers to the fore, although iconic individuals such as Diane Arbus, Marilyn Silverstone, Annie Leibovitz, Ouka Lele and Lucia Moholy have been overlooked.

The abundance of beautiful photographs, accompanied by well-crafted, concise texts, will appeal to a popular rather than scholarly readership. This book is an attractive introduction for those interested in getting a glimpse into the history of high-quality photography by women.

It is competitively priced and an informative read.

JANINE FREESTON

YOU AND I Ryan McGinley Twin Palms Publishers (£56.00) McGinley has been photographing American youth since 2000. Gambolling in the countryside or copulating in the shower, they appear to be having a lot of fun.

Once his peers, their frolics are captured with a candid innocence. Lately, he has taken a more directorial approach, but his subjects remain young, thin and mostly naked. Nothing highlights time’s passing like photography; here we see the growing distance between a photographer and his subjects.

CHRISTOPHER WILLIAM MORRIS ARPS

CAIRO TO CONSTANTINOPLE: IMAGES

BY FRANCIS BEDFORD Sophie Gordon Royal Collection Trust (£29) In 1862, leading British photographer Francis Bedford was commissioned by Queen Victoria to accompany her heir, the future Edward VII, on an ambitious journey around the Middle East. This beautifully produced book documents that journey, featuring images from the Mediterranean ports, Egypt, the Holy Land, Syria and Lebanon.

GEOFF HARRIS LRPS

VOL 155 / FEBRUARY 2015 / THE RPS JOURNAL / 101

102 | FEBRUARY WHAT ARE DISTINCTIONS?

Distinctions are standards of achievement recognised throughout the world

LRPS Applicants need to show good photographic competence in five key areas

Claire ‘Pixie’ Copley LRPS

‘I have a passion for bright colours and love photographing nature’ I STUDIED ART, DESIGN AND photography at college where I used to process my own black and white film. My photography style completely backflipped when I left college and colour became my passion.

I live in Cambridgeshire, and run my own graphics and web-design company, so I spend most days and nights on my computer or going on long walks with my camera.

My panel includes some of my favourite images from the past few years. When I started planning it I was thinking about how I could display my images so that they hung together well and after coming up with a few ideas it suddenly clicked that I should create a colour spectrum.

My portfolio shows images that use different techniques, methods of lighting and focal lengths. I have a passion for bright colours and love photographing nature, so these feature strongly in my portfolio.

I decided to apply for my LRPS in January 2013, and as I already had a big portfolio of work I set myself the task of going through it and selecting some images to use for my panel.

I spent every evening for a week experimenting and swapping pictures until it all fitted into place.

I gained my LRPS in June 2014 and the nerves soon turned into excitement when my name was called out and I was told I’d been successful.

I was delighted when I heard all the positive comments.

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ARPS Evidence of a creative ability and personal style, plus complete control of the technical aspects of photography

FRPS Our highest Distinction is given for excellence and a distinguished ability in photography

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I set up a studio indoors to capture this image against a black background. I used two small Softbox lights and got as close as I could to capture a section of the gerbera with the water drop on the petal.

Samsung GX-10 camera with a Schneider D-Xenon 50-200mm lens

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‘PIXIE’ 104 | DISTINCTIONS | CLAIRE COPLEY LRPS

FACTFILE

Claire Copley runs her own graphic design agency after studying art, design and photography. She also creates handcrafted items such as beeswax candles and felt art

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Left: This shot was set up in my home studio, with a black backdrop and two flash guns. I set the camera up on a tripod as close as possible without getting it wet. Canon EOS 5D Mark III with an EF 100mm f/2.8L macro lens

Above: I used natural afternoon lighting for this shot, and a long focal length so that I didn’t risk scaring off the butterfly. Samsung GX-10 Camera with a Schneider D-Xenon 50-200mm lens

Above left: This was taken with available light, just after it had stopped raining.

Samsung GX-10 camera with a Schneider D-Xenon 50-200mm lens

Left: I got as close as I could to this clematis to capture the details in the centre of the flower, using bright available light with a white reflector to eliminate harsh shadows. Samsung GX-10 camera with a Schneider D-Xenon 50-200mm lens

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‘PIXIE’ 106 | DISTINCTIONS | CLAIRE COPLEY LRPS

Top: I used a fisheye lens and available light to capture this image. I had to lie down on the floor as close as possible to the daffodils and point the camera up slightly to achieve the effect.

Canon EOS 60D with a Samyang 8mm f/2.8 fisheye lens 106 / THE RPS JOURNAL / FEBRUARY 2015 / VOL 155

Left: This was taken in evening light. I positioned myself so that I could place it on the dark background of the water without any distractions.

Samsung GX-10 camera with a Schneider D-Xenon 18-55mm lens

Above: My underwater camera was used here. I had to wait until the sun was in the right position to create the reflections of the cornetfish on the surface of the water.

Canon PowerShot D10 with a focal length of 6.2mm

ASSESSOR’S VIEW

TREVOR GELLARD FRPS ONE OF THE PLEASURES OF chairing a Licentiateship panel is not quite knowing what to expect, and the panel from Claire ‘Pixie’ Copley was no exception.

Panels are normally presented with 10 images in two or three rows, but here was a panel in one single row. I noted a look of surprise on the judges’ faces as this was something very different from the norm. The panel consisted of mainly flower studies with a butterfly, fish and a water droplet. My immediate reaction was that there was sufficient variety of approach within the similar subject matter.

As judges our first consideration is whether the panel is coherent, with sufficient variety of approach within the subject matter. We also consider whether the technique and camerawork are up to standard, with appropriate lighting, highlight and shadow detail.

The technical side required the prints to be free of defects and post-processing errors. Visual awareness is also important, with composition and design playing an important part. Evidence of imagination with personal input, understanding and empathy with the subject matter is the final section to be scored.

It did not take the panel long to mark in the scores and as I collected the score sheets I noted a very positive result to each section.

The panel of judges loved Claire’s work, and in my opinion this is a highly creative panel with the wow factor.

Left: Natural lighting was used in this image, shot in a greenhouse. After I had acclimatised my camera and waited for it to defog, I shot it from an angle that would compliment the patterns of the leaf. Canon EOS 60D with an EF 100mm f/2.8L macro lens

HANGING PLAN

‘Here was a panel in one single row … I noted a look of surprise on the judges’ faces’

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108 | DISTINCTIONS |

The new Creative and Pictorial categories explained

I

Roy Robertson HonFRPS, deputy chairperson of the Society’s Distinctions Advisory Board, explains how the new Creative and Pictorial categories could affect how you submit your work

n September, the Journal published an article on the new Distinctions criteria. Perhaps the change of most significance to potential applicants involved the development of Visual Art into two categories – Pictorial and Creative.

The guidelines define the difference between the two. In Pictorial ‘the emphasis is on the use of the camera to create the image. Images are not fundamentally altered in post-camera or with in-camera manipulation’. The Creative category is 108 / THE RPS JOURNAL / FEBRUARY 2015 / VOL 155

ABOVE: Mersehead Barnacles by Hazel Marr FRPS, part of her Creative panel based on Natural History images

‘based on photography, but the photographer will have subsequently creatively altered the reality of the images through manipulation either in camera or post-processing. All imagery must be photographically based, and must be the work of the applicant’.

Since then, a number of questions and interpretations of these guidelines have been put forward, and this article attempts to answer some of these, and to clarify in members’ minds where

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Underwater Maiden, Julie Donovan ARPS

Untitled by Richard Greswell ARPS. He uses Photoshop to ‘subtly alter the original image without losing its essential photographic quality’

the boundaries lie. To do this, we can look at two established specialist categories the Society has in Distinctions – Natural History and Travel. In Natural History, one of the requirements states ‘image manipulation that alters the truth of the photograph is not permitted, apart from the removal of minor distractions or blemishes’.

Similarly, in Travel, ‘image manipulation that significantly alters the truth of the situation or event is not permitted’.

Both these categories have a clear line. Members understand these definitions and are comfortable with them. If you go beyond these definitions, you can still apply, but it would be submitted in the Creative category. For example, Hazel Marr FRPS recently submitted a successful Creative panel that was based on Natural History images (see far left).

The new definitions were introduced as a result of feedback from members, who were concerned that graphic skills on a computer were being recognised more by the Society than camera skills. The standards have not changed, but perceptions of what is acceptable as a photographic image have.

The best way to answer questions is to look at some past panels. The Creative image will be typified in many people’s minds by that of Julie Donovan ARPS (left), whose Associate panel showed a series of montages created in Photoshop. It can be less obvious, as in the Associate panel by Richard Greswell ARPS (below left), utilising Photoshop to obtain ‘a painterly, soft and watercolour-like rendition that subtly alters the original image without losing its essential photographic quality’.

Also less obvious is the Associate panel by David Pearson ARPS, whose high-key images of the Ashmolean Museum use the computer to remove distractions and amend tone and perspectives. David’s

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110 | DISTINCTIONS | IT IS IMPORTANT TO REMEMBER % WE WANT YOU TO BE SUCCESSFUL WITH YOUR PHOTOGRAPHY panel lies on the border between the Pictorial and Creative categories. Minor distractions can be removed, tone and perspective can be adjusted, but in the example shown on the right the figures at the top of the stair are more than a ‘minor distraction’ in the original, and different timing in producing the original would have been required. It’s the reality as envisaged, not as seen through the lens.

Both Richard and David would now be awarded an Associateship in the Creative category.

It is also understood by the Society that in the early stages of the introduction of the categories there may be applications that are inadvertently entered in the incorrect one. In such cases the Society will transfer these to the correct category and afford the applicant the opportunity to alter the statement of intent if that is required.

Two very different panels which would now be successful in the Pictorial category are a highly imaginative panel by Zhi Guang Ju FRPS using camera speeds to create abstract photographs, while pinhole photographs by Paul Mitchell FRPS use a very different and traditional technology. These clearly meet the criteria as being ‘not fundamentally altered in post-camera or with in-camera manipulation’.

Applications to both Pictorial and Creative categories are coming in, and the first Assessments will be held in March. Further panels will be in June and October. In future Journals we will show examples from each category.

It is important to remember – the Society wants you to be successful with your photography, in whatever genre.

The names have changed, but the standards remain as they were. It is no different from when the Society split the original Pictorial Art category, to form the Visual Art and Contemporary categories, in order to accommodate developments in photographic practice.

Photography continues to develop. So does the Society.

I would like to thank those members whose successful Distinctions submissions I have used as examples.

To see the Panels referred to in this article in full, log on to rps.org/distinctions, then go to the ARPS and FRPS galleries 110 / THE RPS JOURNAL / FEBRUARY 2015 / VOL 155

An original image by David Pearson ARPS

BEFORE

The same image, now subtly altered

AFTER

Zhi Guang Ju FRPS uses camera speeds to create abstract photographs

Frequently asked questions truth of the image? If it does, it should be considered in the Creative category.

The examples of work on these pages, along with the criteria for each category, perhaps answer many of the questions being put forward, such as:

Is in-camera manipulation acceptable in a Pictorial submission?

If it involves shutter speeds and exposures – yes. If it involves software within the camera – no.

Can I convert a colour image to monochrome in a Pictorial submission?

Yes, but if you desaturate some areas, retaining others in colour, or partially

desaturate the image, then it would be considered in the Creative category.

Can I clone out small details? Does it alter the

Can abstracts only be considered in the Creative category?

The instances on these pages might clarify this, but as a final example the Associate submission by Richard Tickner ARPS (left), with ‘highly reflective materials … light bouncing from surface to surface …

Textures come alive’, clearly shows how abstract images can be created in the camera, and are appropriate to the Pictorial category.

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The pinhole photographs by Paul Mitchell FRPS use traditional technology but ‘meet the criteria as being “not fundamentally altered in post-camera or with in-camera manipulation” VOL 155 / FEBRUARY 2015 / THE RPS JOURNAL / 111

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WOMEN IN PHOTOGRAPHY

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TOP ROW FROM LEFT: © HERWIG PRAMMER/REUTERS/CORBIS; CORBIS; © ARNOLDAS KUBILIUS; MARY EVANS/EVERETT COLLECTION MIDDLE ROW FROM LEFT: RICHARD YOUNG/REX; MARY EVANS/ALINARI ARCHIVES; DR SD JOUHAR; MARY EVANS/EVERETT COLLECTION BOTTOM ROW FROM LEFT: NEILSON BARNARD/GETTY IMAGES; MARY EVANS/EPIC/PVDE; MARY EVANS/© YEVONDE PORTRAIT ARCHIVE; © HANNEKE VAN LEEUWEN

Women in Photography

This year we celebrate the bicentenary of Julia Margaret Cameron, one of the most influential early photographers, whose use of the wet collodion technique produced portraits so enduring that they’re now part of our visual lexicon. Two centuries on and women are still far outnumbered by men when it comes to the world of photography. We’re not here to fathom why, but in the indomitable spirit of Cameron we’re gathering a few of the most fascinating female photographers of the modern era for our special Women in Photography focus. Enjoy.

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Julia Margaret Cameron and me Society award-winner Jacqueline Roberts tells how she connects with one of photography’s great pioneers through her work and images

Julia Jackson, 1867, by Cameron and, right, an albumen print by Roberts 114 / THE RPS JOURNAL / FEBRUARY 2015 / VOL 155

I tend to photograph in an intuitive manner and although I compose the image, I rarely have a fixed idea of the image itself. I am fascinated by images, whether they are digital, analogue or oil paintings. Now, regarding photographic techniques, I love the endless possibilities that digital photography offers, but I felt very strongly that I had to go back to the roots of photography. Going back to basics. To shadow and light. Silver and sun. Working with wet plate collodion went beyond the photographic process itself to become more of an internal one. A state of mind.

It’s a state of mind in which I can feel connected to one of photography’s pioneers, Julia Margaret Cameron. I’m following the process that Cameron followed, 150 years later. Like her, I took up photography later in life. Like her, I photograph my friends and family.

Like her, I experience frustration and

WOMEN IN PHOTOGRAPHY

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VOL 155 / FEBRUARY 2015 / THE RPS JOURNAL / 115

DERGES HonFRPS 116 | BEST SHOTS | SUSAN

excitement with the process. I go through the same motions of pouring the plate, coating it with silver nitrate, loading the plate holder, exposing the image, developing and fixing it. Like her, I make long exposures, although hers could take up to seven minutes, as she made glass plate negatives that required longer exposures. Like her, sometimes I try my sitters’ patience when the chemistry fails. Like her, I smell like chemicals after a session.

Like her, I am after the image, rather than technical perfection. Like her, I was born on 11 June.

The work of Julia Margaret Cameron is beautiful, compelling and groundbreaking. She was a pioneer in the incipient world of photography and 116 / THE RPS JOURNAL / FEBRUARY 2015 / VOL 155

FOR ME, LIKE CAMERON, THE EMOTIONAL CONTENT IS ESSENTIAL TO MY WORK she contributed significantly to elevate the medium to an artform during a period when technical prowess overrode artistic expression.

Cameron was ahead of her time. She departed from the commercial formal portraits common during that period to develop her own aesthetics, her own style. The soft focusing of her images, her allegorical works and the emotional charge of her portraits set her apart from her contemporaries.

Photography at the time was seen as a technical means to reproduce reality,

to record and document places and people. This was done in a rather disengaged manner. As she wrote to Sir John Herschel, renowned scientist and lifelong friend: ‘I believe in other than mere conventional topographic photography – mapmaking and skeleton rendering of feature and form.’

Cameron put soul into photography.

For me, like Cameron, the emotional content is essential to how I approach photography. The sense of aesthetics, the composition, the metaphors, the pictorial references are all features that

WOMEN IN PHOTOGRAPHY

PREVIOUS PAGES: BRIDGEMAN ART LIBRARY; JACQUELINE ROBERTS. THESE PAGES; BRIDGEMAN ART LIBRARY; DR MICHAEL PRITCHARD FRPS

An image by Roberts, left, and Cameron’s The Return After Three Days, a sepia photograph (c. 1865)

I pursue in my work. Engaging with the sitter, photographing with intimacy, transcending the portrait to look for the ‘greatness of inner’, to borrow Cameron’s words.

She often photographed children, and children are subjects that I return to again and again. Why? Because they present themselves to the camera as they are, unselfconscious, uncontrived. I find it moving. As Cameron’s images might be, they originate from a particular cultural, social and historical context. The children depicted in her work echo the romantic belief in childhood innocence and the notion of the sacred child that still prevails today in western societies. Nevertheless, that notion contrasted with the reality of

child labour in Victorian times. In that respect, what an image shows is as significant as what it doesn’t. I think it is important to place ourselves in the contextual timeframe.

Does her work reflect that she was a woman? Perhaps, in the same way that her life experience, her beliefs, her education, her values, her social background, her personality, her interests and her cultural references did. I think the same applies to a male photographer. In my work, I owe so much to so many, both men and women. Julia Margaret Cameron, clearly. Emmet Gowin, August Sander, Josef Sudek, Heinrich Kühn, Sally Mann, Edward Steichen, Jan Saudek, Gertrude Käsebier, Ingar Krauss, Eva Watson-

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AUTHOR PROFILE JACQUELINE ROBERTS Roberts was born in Paris in 1969. Her image Menina won gold in the Society’s International Print 157 and her work is published by Edition Galerie Vevais. She lives and works in Germany

Schütze, Doris Ulmann, Alessandra Sanguinetti, Shelby Lee Adams, Antanas Sutkus, Sebastião Salgado, W Eugene Smith and so on… Above all, the Old Masters, all of them men.

Cameron’s approach to portraiture derives first and foremost from her talent, her curiosity, her intelligence, her sensitivity. Not for being a woman, but for being an artist. Our gender is a conditioning factor to how we experience life, but I believe it should not be determining. Now, if I was to look at an image without knowing the author, could I say whether it was taken by a man or a woman? It is not always that obvious. Artistic expression is ultimately about self-expression, well beyond gender.

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‘How I made an albumen print’

I’m a wet collodion novice and I’ve been sent to the Manchester studio of John Brewer, an expert in the historic process, to find out about making a print using the same techniques as Julia Margaret Cameron used in her pioneering images.

Walking into John’s studio is like entering a veritable Aladdin’s cave of Victorian photography. Shelves stuffed

with dolls, skulls and other antique curios give the space a distinctly otherworldly feel.

John teaches the wet collodion method, and he’s a great admirer of Cameron’s work. To mark the bicentenary of her birth, John will help me recreate one of her most famous images, Mary Mother (1868).

The piece, which depicts Cameron’s servant, Mary

Hillier, in the role of Mary grieving for Jesus, perfectly encapsulates the unique ability of collodion to impart emotion and story.

‘Cameron’s images were part vision, part technique,’ John explains. ‘A lot of people criticised her because she had quite a lot of movement in the images – but it was not a mistake. Her methods created atmosphere.’

1. COAT PLATE WITH ALBUMEN The first stage in the process is to clean the glass plate to ensure it’s dust free. Next, we cover the plate with albumen (egg white). ‘The albumen ensures the collodion sticks to the plate,’ John explains, ‘otherwise it can just peel off.’

He instructs me on how to tilt the plate so it’s evenly coated. The preparation is meticulous, requiring an almost meditative approach.

2. POUR ON THE COLLODION Once the plate is dry, I scrape off the albumen, ready for coating with the collodion. In the darkroom, I carefully pour the collodion onto the plate. I find it very difficult to keep my hands steady.

3. PLACE IN A SILVER BATH When the plate is covered, I plunge it into a ‘silver bath’. After five minutes, the plate is ready to use and I slide it into an antique, light-tight plate holder, picked up from eBay.

4. PREPARING THE SITTER Kate – our model for the day – is patiently waiting in the studio. She is dressed in a perfect imitation of Hillier, and rearranges her outfit in preparation for the minute-long sitting needed to correctly expose the plate.

5. MAKE THE EXPOSURE ‘Apparently, Cameron would scare her subjects stiff into sitting still,’ Kate tells me. I insert the plate holder into the huge camera, and gently focus. John removes the shutter – fittingly, a Victorian-style bowler hat – and he counts to 60 seconds before covering the lens.

6. FIX THE PLATE The plate holder is then swiftly taken back to the darkroom for developing. So far, so good. The image on the plate looks fantastic, very Cameron-esque, with that feeling of mystery. I fix the plate, and leave it to dry.

7. NEGATIVE IMPACT I’m left with a perfect negative image. At this stage, the back of the plate can be coated with black vinyl to create the finished piece.

However, John has prepared some albumen paper – drawing paper coated in egg white – so I can make a photographic print.

8. MAKE PHOTOGRAPHIC PRINT I evenly coat the paper in silver nitrate so it becomes light sensitive, then align the plate over the paper. Cameron would have used sunlight to expose the image, but I use a lightbox. After a few minutes, I slide back the plate – it has worked. Next, I pour developer onto the print for half an hour to bring out the tone. Once ready, I fix the image, before a final wash.

Helen Clifton uses wet collodion to recreate Cameron’s Mary Mother

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HOWARD BARLOW FRPS

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9. THE FINAL PRINT The evidence of each stage of the process is beautifully reflected in the final print. The marks on the edge are where my nervous hands smudged the collodion and the small air bubbles that prevented an even coating of silver nitrate all add up to an imperfect but lovely image.

The slight blurring makes Kate look even more like Cameron’s original model.

Sometimes you get a bit of serendipity,’ John says. ‘What can be a mistake actually ends up creating more character.’

Go to johnbrewerphotography.com

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Women in How to select just 15 female photographers creating waves today? Rachel Segal Hamilton looks at who’s winning awards, who’s catching attention, and who continues to be an influence to generations of image makers. Do tell us who we’ve missed!

Tanya Habjouqa Born 1975 Nationality Jordanian Genre Photojournalism

Originally from Jordan and now living in East Jerusalem, Tanya Habjouqa, 39, is a founding member of the all-female Middle Eastern collective Rawiya, work from which is on show at Impressions Gallery this month. Much of Habjouqa’s work, such as Occupied Pleasures and Women of Gaza, highlights the reality of day-to-day life in the Palestinian territories with a nuance that tends to be lacking in mainstream coverage. We see women and men do yoga, plan weddings or visit the zoo, sharing in their moments of humour and hope.

Her latest project, Tomorrow There Will Be Apricots, is about the widows and daughters of Free Syrian Army fighters. tanyahabjouqa.com

Hélène Binet

Hélène Binet, 55, has redrawn the boundaries of what architectural photography can be. The SwissFrench photographer, one of the foremost in her field, shoots buildings for clients such as Zaha Hadid, Daniel Libeskind, Peter Zumthor and Caruso St John. In place of landscape-style shots, however, Binet offers something more akin to the architect’s creative vision. Using large-format, blackand-white film she zones in on details: how light falls, the texture of a given material or the way particular lines intersect. The results look almost abstract, altogether unlike the conventions of the genre. helenebinet.com 120 / THE RPS JOURNAL / FEBRUARY 2015 / VOL 155

WEST BANK, HYATT © TANYA HABJOUQA; ZAHA HADID, BAKU © HELENE BINET

Born 1959 Nationality Swiss-French Genre Architectural

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TOP IMAGE: ‘AMBER AND REGGIE’, MOUNT VERNON, GEORGIA 2011; BOTTOM IMAGE: ‘JULIE AND BUBBA’, MOUNT VERNON, GEORGIA 2002, FROM SOUTHERN RITES SERIESN © GILLIAN LAUB

the frame

Gillian Laub Born 1975 Nationality American Genre Documentary

Empathetic and astute, the work of New Yorker Gillian Laub, 39, presents the rituals, familial relationships and tribal loyalties that underpin social and political issues. Her series Nikki followed a child adjusting to gender reassignment – with the support of friends, siblings and parents. Testimony

consists of photographs and revealing interviews with people from all sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, while Southern Rites shows teenage promgoers in Mt Vernon, a small town which, until 2009 had a school with two sets of homecoming kings and queens - one black, one white - posing in their finery. Laub has embraced the potential of video, winning accolades for her multimedia work and her first documentary feature, a film of Southern Rites, is being broadcast on HBO in May. gillianlaub.com VOL 155 / FEBRUARY 2015 / THE RPS JOURNAL / 121

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Beverly Joubert Born 1957 Nationality South African Genre Wildlife

Viviane Sassen

Gina Glover

Since the 2000s Viviane Sassen, 42, has established herself as a visionary fashion photographer, shooting bold, surreal images for Stella McCartney, M Missoni, Adidas and Miu Miu. Stark shadows, bright colours and twisted poses also characterise her personal work - as it becomes increasingly experimental.

Sassen regularly works in east, west and South Africa, and cites her time living in Kenya between the ages of three and six, before returning to her native Netherlands, as a formative influence. Her photobooks – including Flamboya and Parasomnia – are highly collectible and her exhibition Umbra has put her in the running for this year’s Deutsche Börse Photography Prize. vivianesassen.com

A scientific core informs the work of Photofusion founder Gina Glover, 69.

She has worked and exhibited widely in hospitals, including a residency in the IVF unit at Guy’s and St Thomas’, London. Her playful, innovative biomedical images earned her the Society’s Hood Medal. Her series Melt addresses coastal erosion, Playgrounds of War depicts the residues of conflict in the UK, and her latest project, the Metabolic Landscape, looks at climate change through meditative, painterly studies of forms of energy production. ginaglover.com

Born 1972 Nationality Dutch Genre Fashion/fine art

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Born 1945 Nationality British Genre Landscape/scientific

ICEBERG II, JÖKULSÁRLÓN LAKE, ICELAND; GARRISON DAM INTAKE SYSTEM, LAKE SAKAKAWEA, NORTH DAKOTA, USA; CUSTER TRAIL, GOLDEN VALLEY COUNTY, NORTH DAKOTA, ALL © GINA GLOVER; AXIOM © VIVIANE SASSEN; HERD OF MIGRATING AFRICAN BUFFALO © BEVERLY JOUBERT

South African photographer, filmmaker and conservationist Beverly Joubert, 58, has been documenting wildlife in Africa for the past 30 years. Whether photographing lions, elephants, buffalo or other animals her work is motivated by attempting to safeguard the preservation of these creatures and their environments. She and her husband Dereck are National Geographic Explorers in Residence and co-founders of the Big Cats Initiative – a conservation project working in 23 countries to. beverlyjoubert.com

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Rinko Kawauchi Born 1972 Nationality Japanese Genre Fine art

FROM MAIDAN, PORTRAITS OF THE BLACK SQUARE © ANASTASIA TAYLOR +LIND; UNTITLED, FROM THE SERIES OF ‘AMETSUCHI’, 2013 © RINKO KAWAUCHI; MATTI BACK )THERE I WAS...*, ELLWANGEN, 2001 © COLLIER SCHORR, COURTESY 303 GALLERY, NEW YORK

The photobook is the format of the moment and Rinko Kawauchi one of its most prolific, celebrated contemporary proponents. The Japanese photographer, born in 1972, has published 12 books to date, and first came to international attention in 2001, with the simultaneous release of three books – Utatane, Hanabi and Hanako. Critics fell for her magical 6x6 images of otherwise unassuming still lives. A flower, some halfeaten food, or droplets of water take on a dreamlike quality through her delicate palette and judicious sequencing. She was made an Honorary Fellow of The Royal Photographic Society in 2012. rinkokawauchi.com

Collier Schorr Born 1963 Nationality American Genre Fashion/fine art

Anastasia Taylor-Lind Born 1981 Nationality British-Swedish Genre Photojournalism

Siberian aspiring supermodels, young women Cossacks and female PKK fighters are some of the women Taylor-Lind, 33, has photographed. The National Womb, on

Nagorno-Karabakh’s Birth Encouragement Programme (paying women to have children and boost the population) won the Center Project Award. Her first book, Maidan (2014), formal portraits of Ukranian protesters and mourners, taken in a makeshift studio – shows her ability to find a new angle in an image-saturated news environment. She is a 2014 TED fellow. anastasiataylorlind.com

Young, pretty, androgynous men are the muses of choice for Collier Schorr. Drawn to male subjects partly, she has claimed in interviews, as a way to avoid objectifying women, Schorr’s aesthetic has been hugely influential. She has worked as a fashion photographer for more than two decades, shooting editorial and campaigns. Alongside this, her artistic practice explores ideas of power and beauty. Her photobooks Jens F and Forests and Fields were followed with last year’s publication of 8 Women, a collection of her pictures of female models since the 1990s. collierschorr.com VOL 155 / FEBRUARY 2015 / THE RPS JOURNAL / 123

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WOMEN IN PHOTOGRAPHY

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BALKANS © VANESSA WINSHIP; PRIVATE JOSEPH BYERS, PRIVATE ANDREW EVANS, TIME UNKNOWN / 6.2.1915, PRIVATE GEORGE E. COLLINS, 07:30 / 15.2.1915, SIX FARM, LOKER, WEST+VLAANDEREN © CHLOE DEWE MATHEWS. CHLOE DEWE MATHEWS: SHOT AT DAWN IS COMMISSIONED BY THE RUSKIN SCHOOL OF ART AT THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD AS PART OF 14-18 NOW, WW1 CENTENARY ART COMMISSIONS; NATHI DLAMINI AT THE AFTER TEARS OF MUNTU MASOMBUKA’S FUNERAL. KWATHEMA, SPRINGS, JOHANNESBURG, 4 JANUARY 2013; CHARMAIN CARROL PARKTOWN JOHANNESBURG 2013, BOTH © ZANELE MUHOLI

Zanele Muholi Chloe Dewe Mathews Born 1982 Nationality British Genre Documentary

After starting in the film industry, the 32-yearold Briton Chloe Dewe Mathews began taking images in her spare time. Since dedicating herself to photography, she’s steadily gained

Vanessa Winship

Born 1960 Nationality British Genre Landscape/ documentary/portraiture Her approach - shooting on large format, in black and white using natural light – is classic. But the 54-year-old brings an enigmatic energy to the medium, in projects

Born 1972 Nationality South African Genre Portraiture/fine art recognition for her thoughtful, understated documentary style, winning the British Journal of Photography International Award in 2011 for Caspian, about people living by the world’s largest inland sea – to be published as a book this year. Shot at Dawn, which visits sites where World War I soldiers were executed for desertion, is on show at Tate Modern as part of the Conflict, Time, Photography exhibition. chloedewemathews.com

Gay couples may be legally entitled to marry in South Africa – but they’re still a long way from acceptance. Zanele Muholi, 42, who describes herself as a ‘visual activist’, is on a mission to change this.

Beautiful in their own right, her images have a campaigning agenda: to make visible the LGBTI community in the post-Apartheid state. Of Love and Loss featured photographs of gay weddings and the funerals of victims of hate crime. Her work has received the Prince Claus Award, the Carnegie Fine Prize and she is nominated for the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize for the book Faces and Phases, a series of portraits of black South African lesbians, alongside moving first-person accounts. stevenson.info/artists/muholi

such as Imagined States and Desires: A Balkan Journey, Black Sea: Between Chronicle and Fiction and Sweet Nothings: Schoolgirls of Eastern Anatolia. After winning the 2011 Cartier-Bresson Award (the first woman to do so), she travelled across the USA, publishing the results as an acclaimed book in 2013, She Dances on Jackson. vanessawinship.com VOL 155 / FEBRUARY 2015 / THE RPS JOURNAL / 125

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Sally Mann

HAVE YOUR SAY We’d love to hear your views. Get in touch by emailing rpsjournal@ thinkpublishing.co.uk

Born 1951 Nationality American Genre Fine art/landscape/portraiture Mann’s first book, At Twelve, was a study of adolescent girls in Virginia, where the 63-year-old was born and still lives. But it was the publication of Immediate Family in 1992 that seized the world’s attention.

Intimate, large-scale pictures of her nude children, blending documentary with staged moments, attracted controversy and admiration. Her series Proud Flesh (published in 2009) is a study of her husband, Larry Mann. Favouring an 8x10 bellows camera, Mann has experimented with older methods, including the 19th-century wet plate collodion process. She was made an Honorary Fellow of the Society in 2012, and is considered one of the world’s leading living photographers. sallymann.com

Born 1976 Nationality Indonesian Genre Wildlife

Diana Markosian Born 1989 Nationality Russian-American Genre Documentary

At just 25, Diana Markosian’s portfolio is remarkably impressive. It includes stories about isolated communities – Muslim girls in Chechnya, an elderly couple who remained in Chernobyl

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following the nuclear disaster, Kachin separatists in Burma and Jews in Belarus – all portrayed with great sensitivity. In 2014 Markosian won the Firecracker Grant and a Burn Magazine Emerging Photographer Grant for Inventing My Father, a poignant look at her new-found relationship with the father she hadn’t seen since leaving Moscow for California aged seven. dianamarkosian.com

Wildlife photography is one of the most male-dominated areas of the image industry.

A notable exception to this is Indra Swari, aged 39. The Indonesian photographer has been shooting colourful, mesmerising underwater photography since 2006.

While it was with a wide-angle shot of two whale sharks passing each other that she won the underwater category in the 2014 Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition, Swari has a particular passion for making macro images of the ocean’s tiniest inhabitants. indraswariw.com

ZEBRA CRAB, INDRA SWARI; CHECHNYA, RUSSIA, DIANA MARKOSIAN; SEMAPHORE, 2003, GELATIN SILVER PRINT, 15X13.5 INCHES )38.1x34.3cm*, EDITION OF 5 FROM THE SERIES PROUD FLESH © SALLY MANN, COURTESY GAGOSIAN GALLERY

Indra Swari

THE POETIC IMPOSSIBILITY TO MANAGE THE INFINITE

7 FEBRUARY - 2 MAY 2015 Image: Mobile gantry for the Vega launcher, seen from underneath (CSG-Europe’s Spaceport, Kourou, French Guiana) © Edgar Martins (www.edgarmartins.com)

Delve into humanity’s quest to explore the universe in order to better understand time, space and matter.

Artist Edgar Martins was granted unparalleled access to the European Space Agency and its partners. See his stunning work as he travelled to 20 locations across 3 continents to photograph facilities using a 10x8” large format camera and long exposures (some up to hour).

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I am a female photographer and I am a feminist.

What’s funny about that?

I JULIA SUKAN

Idil Sukan LRPS on creating images of women in comedy

work in entertainment where many artists, regardless of gender, seem preprogrammed to perform for the camera in ways that propagate damaging and narrow gender stereotypes. The go-to tropes are so pervasive that it’s difficult to fight against them. There are expectations and demands from producers, magazine editors, the sitters themselves, budgets to be met. In my work, I use feminism as a tool, a lens to critique those images and begin to create alternatives. As photographers we can effect change from inside the system.

More and more, female and male photographers are identifying insidiously damaging depictions of femininity – such as the paradoxical ideal that demands simultaneous virginity and sexual availability – and challenging those depictions. It’s very exciting to be a photographer at a time when we’re inventing new ways of depicting women.

Cultural gender norms include the male stereotype of the muscle-bound alpha Adonis but comedy, the world in which I work, has given us a huge range of alternative masculinities: stupid, funny, idiotic, absurd and surreal men. It’s so easy

to summarise the feminist cause in entertainment to simply wanting “strong female characters”.

Whack a gun on a model and a producer can sign off on his feminist quota for the year. But that’s not what I want; I want more female characters, full stop. I want complex nutbags, isolated nerds, loud idiots. I don’t want women to be pigeonholed into the triptych of stereotypes we are usually allowed: virgin, whore or mother.

When I started five years ago, comedy photography looked like a Butlin’s entertainment catalogue. Comedians looked like the dead-eyed wacky typecasts who appeared on iStockphoto if you typed in ‘comedian’. It was horrifying.

Worse still was how women were represented.

They were cheeky, cute and vacant. It was the photographic equivalent of sucking a lollipop while skipping down a rainbow in pigtails. Sometimes they had pigtails. Sometimes they even had lollipops. Pouting coquettishly, their eyes would dart to the side. They were infantilised, nonconfrontational, non-aggressive and non-threatening. They weren’t funny, just cheeky.

These weren’t teenagers, but women of all ages.

They were clever, interesting women.

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MORE PEOPLE WILL SEE THE PHOTOGRAPH THAN EVER SEE THE SHOW. THE IMAGES STICK AROUND ABOVE Olivia Colman

FACING PAGE Anna Morris

I wanted to do something different. And it’s challenging. Comedy is a visceral thing, whether it’s cerebral wordplay or gross toilet humour, all of it really aims for a gut reaction from the audience. Timing is crucial; delivery everything.

The moment, the slightly arched eyebrow, the pause, the look; it can all make or break a joke.

A routine, which looks so effortless to deliver seemingly off the top of a comedian’s head, can take years to perfect. This was so exciting to me, to try to represent this live, time-based, complex medium in a static, two-dimensional form. I work really closely with the comedian, we talk about the show, develop an art direction that fits in with their themes. That’s how I worked with Bridget Christie, Anna Morris, Danielle Ward, Shirley and Shirley and Sara Pascoe to develop images to represent their Edinburgh Festival shows, which they then tour or interpret for TV and radio.

More people will see the photograph than ever see the show. The images stick around

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forever online. So the images are so critical – they can be what introduces fans to you, a way to create a tiny little visual universe that an audience member can buy into, can get excited about, can remember you by: it’s how the comedian has chosen to represent herself. In the entertainment industry, the universality and cultural impact that an image can take on once it’s released to the world can be significant. We live in a world where we’re still fighting for equality, and each image can create change.

I feel that a feminist perspective is also important in high-pressure environments. I met Celia Imrie and Olivia Colman backstage at the British Independent Film Awards and we only had a few seconds, and I met Katherine Ryan and Ruby Wax backstage at their venues after their shows. In just a moment you have to somehow create a magical sphere of calm between you and your sitter where the bustling press and sponsors and agents and managers crescendoing around

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TOP Shirley and Shirley ABOVE Celia Imrie

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AUTHOR PROFILE IDIL SUKAN LRPS runs London marketing agency Draw HQ. She was a stand-up comic before moving into portrait photography of figures in the entertainment and comedy world. Her portrait of actress/comedian Celia Imrie was acquired by the National Portrait Gallery in London.

you don’t matter. What’s amazing is these women were devoid of self-consciousness. They were happy being themselves, making jokes, in whatever they were wearing. It’s such a rare privilege to photograph someone like this. It’s not related to gender or looks or success. Perhaps they are riddled with hang-ups (I know I am) but that night they’d left them all behind.

Even in difficult circumstances trying to create an atmosphere of trust and of equals where that kind of confidence can flourish is critical. At the very least you should say hello. It sounds obvious, but I’ve seen many photographers take celebrities’ photos and run off without saying hi or bye. It’s weird, offensive, aggressive – gazing through a dispassionate lens, blinding them with a light. The picture you take like that may have commercial worth, sure, but it’s devoid of soul.

You have to be a human being and treat them like a human being. You have to listen, make eye contact, even if you’ve only got a moment.

Being a photographer is a privileged position.

You are imposing your artistic and personal preferences upon your sitter and I have always held that to be sacred. I shouldn’t admit this, but it’s so easy to create a bubble in the studio where you can lead the willingness of the subject astray.

So. Goodness. That’s a heady amount of power.

And with great power, comes a great need to not be an arsehole. You have to be aware of the historical and social context in which your photo exists, how it contributes to sexual and racial politics and culture, the subliminal or overt influence it can have on the viewers. And you and your sitter must be equals. The photograph must be, even for that flicker of a moment, a collaboration between two equals. However small the social impact of this approach is, it’s my way of expressing and enacting change. This is the tiny part of the world that I can influence, that I want to and can effect change in. I want to broaden the kinds of cultural imagery within the world of comedy, and treating my sitter as an equal participant is the start of that.

My view of feminism is all-encompassing. It is not just about equality for women but a fight for equality for all sections of society that continue to suffer a secondary status. This kind of pluralism isn’t about censoring certain types of images, it is about creating greater freedoms through a more equal society. As photographers, our images of women have a huge social impact, and we can choose what that future will look like.

Idil Sukan’s debut exhibition, This Comedian, a retrospective of a decade of her work in the comedy industry, is from 20 February to 2 March, Embassy Tea Gallery, Southwark, London. For more information go to thiscomedian.com or follow her on Twitter: @idilsukan

ALL IMAGES © IDIL SUKAN EXCEPT AUTHOR PROFILE IMAGE, JULIA SUKAN

THIS IS THE PART OF THE WORLD I CAN INFLUENCE, THAT I WANT TO AND CAN EFFECT CHANGE IN

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Waterworld Susan Derges HonFRPS uses the power of nature to create her ethereal, layered images.

Colin Pantall meets an innovator with a singular eye for the world

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SUSAN DERGES HonFRPS

I

grew up in Fleet by the Basingstoke Canal and was very interested in the waterway,’ says Susan Derges HonFRPS. ‘I was mesmerised by it.’ Water, and the idea of it, are omnipresent in Derges’ large-scale, dreamy photograms, which she creates without a camera, often out of doors. Awarded an honorary fellowship of The Royal Photographic Society in 2014 for her contribution to photography, the artist has an almost personal involvement with water that began in that canalside childhood, and has been a hallmark of her imagery ever since.

‘You’d get barges going by, and you’d get wave patterns with interference, or a duck would land and the droplets would ripple across each other,’ she recalls. ‘In the seasons everything would change; shiny and still in summer, frozen in winter, moody and dripping in autumn.’

The fascination with water was filtered through an organic minimalism

that emerged from an experience in the early 1980s. ‘I went to live in Japan for five years,’ she says. ‘The country reflected my fascination, because water is venerated there; in the temples, in the gardens, even in modern office buildings you’ll go in and there will be a quiet place with a small pond where you can sit and contemplate.’ She laughs. ‘Japan is completely watery.’

After returning to the UK, Derges continued researching new ways to portray the world. ‘I was reading a lot about physics, and the observer and the observed, and was really interested in finding ways to visually articulate that.

I was exploring the invisible world and appropriating things from early science.’

This curiosity with how to make visible the sensory and emotional has been a hallmark of her career. She has experimented with process, symbolism and the environment to create one of the most distinctive bodies of work in photography today.

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SHORELINE ‘I was processing my own prints by the time I made the series Shoreline.

These prints were made on the South Devon coast around Sidmouth and Dawlish. I’d go there and wait for high tide and then let the waters flow over them. They were 3.5 feet x 8 feet long, and I got quite adept at reading the patterns of the water

and the moon and the effect it would have on the paper.

‘There was such an investment in taking these big prints and you could lose so many prints in one night and end up with nothing if the waves went the wrong way.

And I started to get headaches and eye strain from spending hours and hours in the darkroom. It was physically taxing.’

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FULL MOON HAWTHORN ‘I had got very tired of being dictated to by a process but I got really interested in the moons, the clouds and the star fields so I started to do a lot of night photography of moons and star fields. Then I used an enlarger head on a rail to make a tracking device and put in the transparency of the moon or stars and projected that on to the Cibachrome in the tank with the leaves and branches laid on top of it.’ 136 / THE RPS JOURNAL / FEBRUARY 2015 / VOL 155

ASCENDING MOON BRIDGE ‘This is made with constructed silhouettes. It’s an imaginary place with the branches brought in. It’s a digital print made with a digital camera.

‘In a way it’s about death. There’s this symbol of crossing the river and there’s the symbol of the fading moon but I wasn’t thinking about these things when I made it. I made it just after my mother’s death and I had a strong sense of the transience of life. It refers back to my childhood and the canal I used to play at, but I’ll probably never go to that place again because the person associated with it is gone.’

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RIVER BOVEY ‘In Devon I got more interested in what I was looking at rather than how to represent it. I got interested in life cycles, the cycles of frogs and bees, and the processes of what was going on in the landscape.

‘I thought I could go outside at night with big sheets of paper and be led by the place and the situation. That was what I experienced with the rivers Taw and Bovey. Our bodies, our mental processes work in a way that is very similar to what happens in a river.

There are streams and flows and blockages, so I was dabbling in reading complexity and chaos, and considering myself a participant rather than an author.’

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FULL CIRCLE ‘Making The Observer and the Observed series I was in Notting Hill Gate, doing very science-based work.

But I moved to Devon in 1991 and found the landscape enormously rich.

I saw this pond on Dartmoor – sun was hitting the frogspawn and the shadow from the sun looked just like a photogram. I thought I can do that in the studio. So I did.’

SUSAN DERGES HonFRPS

An image maker known internationally for pushing the medium’s boundaries

ALL IMAGES COURTESY OF THE ARTIST AND PURDY HICKS GALLERY, LONDON; PORTRAIT COURTESY ELIZABETH NOVICK

SUSAN DERGES HonFRPS

OBSERVER AND OBSERVED ‘I had a marvellous book from the 1950s called Soap-Bubbles and the Forces Which Mould Them.

It had an experiment called musical fountains. You charged the fountains with a tuning fork and then lit it with a strobe light so it seemed as though the water wasn’t moving. I set this experiment up in my darkroom with a transducer, a jet of water and a frequency generator for the sound and it was amazing. You had these water droplets hanging in space and they looked so still, as though you could reach out and touch them, but of course if you did that your hand got wet

| BEST SHOTS | 139

because they weren’t still at all.’

Derges says she ‘…took lots of boring Harold Edgerton-like images…’ and then her camera jammed.

She went in front of the lens to unjam it, the film apparently ruined. ‘When I developed the film I was about to throw it away, but then I looked more closely and saw the water droplets. They were like little fisheye lenses reflecting multiple images of me.’

VOL 155 / FEBRUARY 2015 / THE RPS JOURNAL / 139

THE MUST TRY

CRAFT FEBRUARY 2015

THE L ATE S T TECHNOL OGY, TECHNIQUE S A ND SK ILL S

Panasonic Lumix DMC-GF7

Model aims to build on firm’s success in the compact-system camera market, finds Gavin Stoker

A

s DSLR sales slide, compact-system cameras (CSC) continue to rise, while narrowing the gap in terms of output performance. Not as much of a game changer as the Panasonic GH4, this more consumerorientated system camera nevertheless borrows some of its bigger brother’s mini-DSLR styling, as well as the same Four Thirds sensor and Venus engine as the GX7 premium model. OK, so while diehards will gripe that we don’t get a larger APS-C chip or full-frame sensor, at this end

of the market billboard-sized prints aren’t the intended result.

Weighing less than the prior GF6, the GF7 has bowed to the ‘selfie’ craze by including a 180° tilting monitor, and two selfportrait-enabling features in “face shutter” and “buddy shutter” – the latter firing off a shot when the camera detects two faces pressed together in the frame. A smartphone can also be used as a remote control, to facilitate fun features such as a “jump snap”: self-portraits where you leap in the air with abandon. The camera has a new

PRICE: £TBC SENSOR: 17.3x13mm Four Thirds sensor LENS: 12-32mm lens kit in silver or brown SCREEN: Tilting touchscreen LCD display WEIGHT: 266g body only MORE: Panasonic.co.uk IN BRIEF: Pitched at those who want better results than their smartphone will allow, the DSLR-styled GF7 compact continues the drive to offer serious oomph from palm-sized proportions

wi-fi button and there is no need to enter a password to share images. Casual snapshot-type movies, with “rack focusing” set in advance, are also achievable.

Of greater interest to enthusiasts is the lightning quick autofocus response, in conjunction with supplied 12-32mm lens (2464mm in 35mm terms) and the 240fps AF drive. With the GF7 it feels like Panasonic is making even its entry-point devices serious contenders for those favouring a smaller form who don’t want to compromise too much on picture quality.

VOL 155 / FEBRUARY 2015 / THE RPS JOURNAL / 141

142 | THE CRAFT |

3

LATEST KIT

1

2

HD Pentax-DA 16-85mm f/3.5-5.6 ED DC WR £599.99

Canon EF 100-400mm Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ70 f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM £1,999.99 £349

Durable, splashproof wide-angle zoom to twin with the brand’s flagship K-3 digital SLR ricoh-imaging.co.uk

Pro class, second-generation super telephoto zoom for ‘enhanced image quality and usability’ canon.co.uk

1 This wide-angle weather-resistant

2 Hitting the UK market is the latest

Travel zoom model aims to take you to places other pocket cameras cannot reach panasonic.co.uk

3 Offering Raw file format capture, a

5.3x K-mount zoom lens, to complement the range-topping K-3 APS-C DSLR, is pitched at advanced users. Consisting of 16 optical elements in 12 groups and with a sturdy-feel build, the focal range is the equivalent to an extra-wide 24.5mm-130mm in the 35mm format, making it useful for a variety of subjects, from portraits to landscapes, where the splashproofed aspect, thanks to eight separate seals and specially coated lens to repel water and grease, comes in handy. Useful features include a quick-shift focus system, which allows manual operation of the lens even after the AF has done its stuff, as well as quiet autofocus operation for more candid photography.

MkII iteration of this whopper of a lens that has a far-reaching focal range while being compact and lightweight for its class. For outdoor work the water and dust-repellant construction is obviously a must, while the 21-element lens structure claims to have been completely redesigned, with three-mode built-in image stabilisation providing the equivalent of four stops. Thanks to a dedicated zoom touch adjustment ring, zoom torque can be adjusted, the lens can be locked at a desired focal length, plus a tripod collar is now built in for those how don’t fancy hand holding such a beast. Used with an APS-C sensor DSLR, focal range is equivalent to 160-640mm on a 35mm camera.

lens control ring so we feel we’re getting hands-on despite its typically ‘auto everything’ point-and-shoot proportions, this model was unveiled in early January. Other enthusiast-enticing features include an LCD screen boasting a sharp one million-dot resolution and industry-standard 30x optical zoom, married to a 12-megapixel, rather than 16MP, resolution. The reasoning is so Panasonic can improve low-light performance, avoiding smudging of detail due to image noise on a camera that crammed too many pixels on to too small a sensor. At the time of writing March availability was promised for the TZ70 and a trio of lower-specified models sitting just below it.

IN BRIEF Pentax-only all-weather optic for shooting everything from landscapes to portraits, come rain or shine THREE MORE TO TRY Sigma 17-70mm f/2.8-4 OS HSM, Tamron SP AF 17-50mm f/2.8, HD Pentax-DA 55-300mm f/4-5.8 ED WR

IN BRIEF High-grade super telephoto lens offers dust and water resistance plus a tripod collar THREE MORE TO TRY Sigma APO 150-500mm f/5-6.3 HSM, Tamron SP 150-600mm f/5-6.3 Di VC USD, Nikon AF VR Zoom Nikkor 80-400mm f/4.5-5.6D ED

IN BRIEF Sometimes we just want a jack-of-all-trades camera to slip in our top pocket with better lens and zoom reach than our mobile phone can provide THREE MORE TO TRY Sony Cyber-shot HX60, Nikon Coolpix S9700, Olympus Stylus Traveller SH-60

142 / THE RPS JOURNAL / FEBRUARY 2015 / VOL 155

5

4

6

Kodak Pixpro SP360 From £299

Oberwerth bags From £279 to £699

Canon PowerShot SX60 HS £449.99

Matchbox-sized 360° camera for imagery with a wow factor kodakpixpro.com

Handmade German camera bags newly available to photographers in the UK oberwerth.com

Easy-to-handle, one-size-fits-all bridge camera with gargantuan 65x optical zoom lens canon.co.uk

4 Admittedly it resembles a quiz

5 Sometimes premium kit deserves

6 If we’re talking lens reach, a case in

show buzzer, but this 16.38-megapixel back-illuminated 1/2.3inch CMOS chip device lets you capture the world around you in glorious 360°, all while sitting in the palm of the hand – or being strapped to your helmet or handlebars. Select panoramic mode for the automatic generation of a fish eyetype elongated image. There is no built-in viewer so it’s a case of point and hope as regards capture, meaning that it takes a degree of familiarisation and experimentation to achieve satisfying results. Its features are crudely navigated via a basic control layout and a statusdisplay LCD, but full HD video and 10-megapixel stills are equally possible if you want imagery with a wow factor.

a premium look-and-feel bag to protect and transport it. Resembling a doctor’s briefcase, Oberwerth bags are handmade in Germany and are available here via distributor BMM Photo Solutions. All the bags in the range, which mix leather and Cordura materials, have internal dividers, and what are described as theft-proof straps that cannot easily be cut. With buttonlocked catches, the bags’ openings are pitched as tamperproof, further reassuring those who may want a camera bag that doesn’t obviously resemble one, for added security.

Prices vary depending on features and capabilities, and come in light or dark brown leather, olive, beige or black.

point is the extremely broad, ultrawide 21-1,365mm-equivalent focal range in 35mm terms provided by this latest PowerShot, or 65x optical zoom.

The most powerful camera in the series replaces the SX50 and with a DSLRstyle grip provided, the reach of the zoom is not just for stills but for shooting video, with manual control provided over full HD movies at 60fps along with wi-fi and NFC. Pictures are composed via a 922K-dot electronic viewfinder, backed up by a creatively advantageous flip-out 3-inch LCD. Its Achilles’ heel is the ‘mere’ 1/2.3-inch back-illuminated CMOS sensor with 16.1MP resolution – but if it’s a big reach you want the SX60HS is worth a look.

IN BRIEF As an alternative to the action camera line-up from the likes of GoPro, this is a bit of fun for skiers, cyclists or motorsport fans wanting imagery with a difference THREE MORE TO TRY Ricoh Theta m15, HTC RE, GoPro Hero

IN BRIEF While a premium price tag makes this a niche product, the hardwearing leather materials should ensure this bag lasts and is worth the investment THREE MORE TO TRY Billingham 335 & Hadley Pro Original, Peli S115 pack

IN BRIEF “Super zoom” camera from one of the masters of the genre for those who don’t want to spend a fortune on an equivalent reach for an SLR THREE MORE TO TRY Nikon Coolpix P600, Olympus Stylus 1, Fujifilm FinePix S1 VOL 155 / FEBRUARY 2015 / THE RPS JOURNAL / 143

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TECHNIQUE MASTERCLASS

| THE CRAFT | 145

How to photograph at night Ann Miles FRPS reveals her tips for nocturnal success

‘If your composition includes trees avoid windy nights, although blustery conditions can give interesting cloud effects’

A

lot is made of the need to restrict evening photography to the golden hour – the time around dusk when the tonality of the sky matches that of the land – but it is very rewarding to photograph when night has set in. It takes around two hours for the sky to become completely dark and if you’re anywhere near civilisation, there will be some artificial light pollution – even at the darkest time.

What not to do

Planning the shoot

The set-up

Foreground lighting

lenses as they make it hard to avoid camera shake and star trails.

Do not include the moon or floodlit buildings – the contrast range will be too great, and you’ll get flare spots.

If your composition includes trees avoid windy nights, although blustery conditions can give interesting cloud effects as in the image above.

choose a composition and determine the positions of the moon and possible bright lights. Check for potential hazards. Get used to your camera’s controls when set to manual as you’ll need to use them efficiently in the dark. Mark the infinity setting on your lens so you can set this easily in the dark.

exposure at f/8 and ISO 800.

If you need more than 30s set your camera to bulb (B) mode – the shutter will stay open as long as you hold down the shutter button. To avoid too much camera shake, use a remote shutter release/self-timer, and the live view setting, which eliminates mirror shake. Shoot RAW.

illuminate the foreground.

I used a torch in the image above, selecting the area of grass at the bottom of the frame to give a sense of depth and atmosphere. You could alternatively try taking two separate exposures, one for the foreground and one for the sky, before combining them in Photoshop.

1 Do not use long focal length

2 Visit a location in the daytime,

3 Start with a 30-second

4 Use a torch or flashgun to

ABOUT THE AUTHOR ANN MILES FRPS Ann Miles FRPS has 30 years’ experience as a photographer and runs courses in many areas of her profession, including night photography.

For more information go to pin-sharp.co.uk or pin-sharp.blogspot.co.uk

WHAT YOU NEED

Post-processing

5 White balance can vary. Here,

the sky was warm due to the city’s tungsten lights, with cooler fluorescents on the path. Tonal corrections with highlight recovery and shadow fill were needed, and clarity increase for the stars. Apply gradients to the sky to adjust hue/ exposure, and noise reduction/lens correction to remove the vignetting.

l Camera with a wide-angle or standard lens l Sturdy tripod l Remote control if possible l A torch with a red LED is ideal to be able to see the buttons on your camera without affecting the scene. A head

torch can also be useful for, for example,

painting in the foreground, leaving the

hands free l Warm clothing and gloves

VOL 155 / FEBRUARY 2015 / THE RPS JOURNAL / 145

MASTERCLASS IN DEPTH 146 | THE CRAFT | TECHNIQUE

Shot in the dark For eight years Diana Goss ARPS has been fascinated with night photography, finding solace after sundown

ABOUT THE AUTHOR DIANA GOSS ARPS Diana Goss became an ARPS on 17 June 2011 with a panel of night photography works.

Last year she exhibited in the UK, Hong Kong and Russia, and a DVD on night photography is for sale on her website.

Bridge of Fire and Light 146 / THE RPS JOURNAL / FEBRUARY 2015 / VOL 155

N

ight-time photography is an essential part of my life. The still of the night has an ambience I find thrilling, and I have a restless desire to explore the endless possibilities hidden in the dark.

I got interested in night photography eight years ago when I saw some work by Dan Bennett that captured my attention. After seeing Dan’s work I found out he and some others were having a nighttime meet-up to take some photos. So, in a disused railway tunnel, in the pitch black except for a few torches, I met Dan, who first showed me how to focus in the dark.

Since then my style of photography has attracted many clients, most of whom work in low-light

environments, such as actors in theatres, and musicians and dancers. One such artist is the guitarist of British rock band EMF, Tim Stephens. I have done a lot of work for Tim and took the photos that appear on his website.

Like many self-employed individuals, I have a portfolio of different roles. I work as a consultant psychotherapist and sometimes find that photographing at night can help me process the stories I’ve heard in the consulting room that day. My co-photographer Elmer Maniebo, who accompanies me on most shoots, is a trauma nurse, so being out under the night sky is therapeutic for both of us.

Having company helps a lot when night shooting – for

TECHNIQUE IN DEPTH

| THE CRAFT | 147

Arise by Paul Reiffer

City Lights

Urban night photographer Paul Reiffer on what it takes to get that perfect shot

What is it that attracts you to shooting cities at night?

Cities are always evolving. The lights change every night and no two shots can possibly be the same. You’re capturing energy, movement and progress in a single frame. Secondly, I love being above it all. You can look down at the city before you and just imagine what’s going on out there.

Love is Strange

safety reasons mainly but also as otherwise you’ll be spending long periods in some quite unsettling places on your own. For instance, stacking the stars over a Neolithic burial site at Pentre Ifan can be just a little spooky. Stonehenge at night has a lovely energy but it’s not something you want to necessarily experience alone.

And it’s always useful to have a spare pair of hands when focusing in the darkness and for light painting.

This night-time ambience is central to a lot of my work, especially my personal, noncommissioned images, and it has often been said I present a deep psychological message in my work. I like people to bring their own emotions when confronted

with my images, even if they don’t correlate with the feelings I had when creating them. One FRPS judge said to me that my work needs to be ‘looked into’ as opposed to ‘looked at’.

For me, the photography process is intuitive.

Something might trigger an emotion, such as a piece of music, which inspires me to go on a night-time shoot. I will search for a location that best expresses the combination of stimulus and emotion. Often I’ll turn to the locations I photograph most often as I find solace there.

And it’s this therapeutic aspect of taking photos after dark that makes night-time photography part of my life.

For more visit notmagnum.co.uk

To what length would you go to get the perfect night shot?

Well, I haven’t found my limit yet! I’ve been chased from areas by armed officials. I’ve had encounters with police who’ve

not been happy at me being on top of their building. But recently I’ve taken a more official route and even have a hotel making me a harness so I can dangle off the side of their 50th-floor roof to take a shot.

What is the most photogenic city you’ve encountered?

San Francisco. I absolutely love that city, and will never get tired of being there or photographing the area. It is the one city that has it all: skyscrapers, the bay, quirky villages, cool neighbourhoods, mountain views, ocean sunsets, stunning bridges and sweeping vistas.

TOP TIPS

l Don’t stand where everyone else is standing. Get down low, up high and in among the buildings. l It sounds obvious, but keep your lenses clean. You’re capturing bright lights, and tiny

specks of dust on the lens surface can cause unwanted flares. l Don’t immediately go for your widest aperture just because it’s dark – you’ll blow out some of the lights.

Inside Henge by Diana Goss. ‘Stonehenge at night has a lovely energy,’ she says VOL 155 / FEBRUARY 2015 / THE RPS JOURNAL / 147

The Photography Show is the event for professional and aspiring photographers of all levels.

Join us in March and discover the latest kit and accessories from world-class brands, explore our interactive live stages and gain access to a wealth of information and networking opportunities to enhance your photography.

Book your tickets today at:

photographyshow.com

| THE CRAFT | 149 M Y FAV O U R I T E C A M E R A

Leica M6

TINY IN HER HALLOWEEN COSTUME, SEATTLE, WASHINGTON, 1983; CHAE KIHN

Mary Ellen Mark tells why her trusty M6 has served through decades of human encounters

I use a Mamiya 7 and a Hasselblad, but my first camera was a Leica. If I had to choose any camera, it’d be a Leica M6.

I know film, I’ve shot it my whole life. I shoot a lot in black and white, I love the idea of what a black and white silver print is.

I know negatives, and I like the sense that my negatives are something solid, that they exist.

I started with Leicas, with an M2, then an M3. But the M6 is the camera I stay with. It’s beautifully engineered, the lenses are fantastic, it’s easy to manage, and fast. If I was going on assignment on a spaceship, that’s the camera I’d take.

When I took the Tiny series, following the life of a 13-yearold prostitute I’d met in Seattle, I used a mix of medium-format and 35mm; the majority done with the Leica. It’s just so convenient. You have to care for any camera; you can’t abuse it, but I trust it, it doesn’t break

easily as long as you respect it.

I’ve always believed that when you’re taking documentary photos, you start to shoot immediately – you don’t make friends and then take out your camera, I think that’s dishonest. As a woman, I

TINY IN HER HALLOWEEN COSTUME Tiny was a Seattle runaway Mark met in the 80s, whose life she subsequently followed

think there is an advantage because you can knock on any door and go in. Women are less threatening. It’s all about the person and the eye, but I do think women have an advantage really in terms of intimacy.

As a child I took terrible pictures with my Brownie, but I regret that I didn’t document my life more, just because I had to take the films to the drugstore.

I didn’t really start doing what I do now until I was in grade school. Each thing becomes special to you; and you’re only as good as the next thing you do. I’m really hoping that people will respond to the story of Tiny’s life, now that we’ve revisited it. It’s interesting to see a person’s life unfold.

The documentary Streetwise: Tiny Revisited by Mary Ellen Mark and Martin Bell will be released later this year. The book, Streetwise Revisited, is published this autumn by Aperture

AUTHOR PROFILE MARY ELLEN MARK Over four decades Mary Ellen Mark has travelled the world as a documentary photographer. Her photo essay on runaway children in Seattle was the root of the Oscar-nominated film Streetwise (1984), directed by her husband Martin Bell

VOL 155 / FEBRUARY 2015 / THE RPS JOURNAL / 149

MEMBER

| GUIDE | 151

GUIDE

YOUR RPS EVENTS ! COURSES PROGRAMME

FEB!MAR!APR GO TO RPS.ORG/EVENTS FOR THE LATEST UPDATES

Tea and Toast at the Newcott Chef Image: Sam Mellish

On the road to success Well-travelled photographer talks about putting his projects in print

E

ast Midland Region continues its series of events on understanding contemporary photography with a talk on 14 March by documentary and editorial photographer Sam Mellish. He will be discussing the way he interacts with funding bodies such as the Arts Council, and the workings of his own publishing company, Diesel Books.

Mellish’s projects, such as Roadside Britain and Watford Gap, have been celebrated for capturing the culture that sprouts up around trunk roads in a series of beautifully shot images that

are by turn warm, nostalgic, quirky and melancholic.

Mellish learned 35mm photography at the age of 19 in Namibia, and in his early career worked around the globe as a freelance chef before becoming a photographer for leading extreme sports magazines.

Aged 28, Mellish returned to the UK to study for an MA in photojournalism. Now based in London, he works with some of the UK’s leading commercial brands as well as exhibiting and publishing his own work.

For full details see page 152

CREATIVE GROUP CELEBRATE A celebration of the final showing of the Society Creative Group’s Annual Exhibition of Prints and Projected Images was held last month at the Woodbridge Library in Suffolk. Vice-President Walter Benzie ARPS, along with 30 members and guests, went to the event. Seventy four prints and 110 projected images, including RPS Gold Medal and RPS Ribbon-winning awards, had been on show for the whole of January.

MOIRA ELLICE ARPS

For information about the Creative Group go to rps.org/creative

VOL 155 / FEBRUARY 2015 / THE RPS JOURNAL / 151

GROUPS 152 | GUIDE | REGIONAL

REGIONS

Meet photographers and view work in your area CENTRAL

GO TO RPS.ORG/EVENTS FOR THE LATEST UPDATES

MIKE SHARPLES ARPS, 07884 657535 MIKES.SHARPLES*VIRGIN.NET

RPS AND SMETHWICK PHOTOGRAPHIC SOCIETY FRIDAY FOCUS GROUP JOINT EVENT

Ann Miles FRPS, 01223 262637, ann@pin-sharp.co.uk

gblackwell@fastmail.fm For details see Historical Group

KEN PAYNE, GETTING THE BEST FROM YOUR IMAGES USING LIGHTROOM AND PHOTOSHOP

GETTING PUBLISHED 2: SAM MELLISH TALK

SUNDAY 19 APRIL / 10:15,16:30

£16/£12/£8 group members Foxton Village Hall, Hardman Road, Foxton CB22 6RN John Margetts ARPS, events@rpseasterndigital.org.uk For details see DI Group

JOHN HOOTON MFIAP, FIPF, FRPS

FRIDAY 20 FEBRUARY / 19:30, 22:00

£3.50/£2.50 RPS members Photography with a Difference by Glyn Dewis Smethwick Photographic Society, The Old Schoolhouse, Oldbury, West Midlands B69 2AS Ray Dowding, 0121 550 5594, raydowding@btinternet.com

SUNDAY 12 APRIL / 10:30,16:30

Free John’s work captures the ever-varying light and mood of Ireland’s Atlantic coastline. The RPS Members’ Biennial exhibition will also be on display Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute, Li Ka Shing Centre, Robinson Way, Cambridge CB2 0RE Ian Wilson ARPS, as above

EAST ANGLIA IAN WILSON ARPS, 07767 473594 IAN*GREENMEN.ORG.UK

EAST MIDLANDS

SATURDAY 14 MARCH / 13:00,17:00

£5 Sam Mellish will discuss working with The Arts Council, printing books commercially and collaborating with photographers such as Martin Parr Keyworth Parish Church Hall, Selby Lane, Keyworth NG12 5AN Howard Fisher, 07955 124000, handjaf@virginmedia.com

WILDLIFE, WILDPLACES JOHN GARDENER AND HUMMINGBIRD ADDICTION IAN NEWTON ARPS SUNDAY 15 MARCH / 10:30,16:00

£10 Park Inn by Radisson Nottingham, Mansfield Road, Nottingham NG5 2BT Ralph Bennett ARPS, as above For more details see Nature Group

FRPS ADVISORY DAY NOTTINGHAM

FIELD TRIP TO WICKEN FEN

RALPH BENNETT ARPS, 01636 651277

SUNDAY 19 APRIL / 10:30,16:30

SATURDAY 14 FEBRUARY / 10:00,16:00

RALPH.EMRPS*GMAIL.COM

£31.95 Park Inn by Radisson Nottingham, Mansfield Road, Nottingham NG5 2BT Ralph Bennett ARPS, as above

Free for National Trust members Photograph the beautiful winter fenland landscapes Wicken Fen Cambridgeshire, Lode Lane, Ely CB7 5XP Ann Miles FRPS, 01223 262637, ann@pin-sharp.co.uk

CELEBRATION OF DISTINCTIONS SUNDAY 8 FEBRUARY / 10:30,16:00

£10 We will be showing successful print Licentiates, Associates and Fellowships Park Inn by Radisson Nottingham, Mansfield Road, Nottingham NG5 2BT Ralph Bennett ARPS, as above

DISTINCTIONS ADVISORY DAY SATURDAY 21 MARCH / 10:30,16:30

£20/£15/£10 spectators Distinctions Advisory Day Foxton Village Hall, Hardman Road, Foxton CB22 6RN

Capture short-eared owls at Wicken Fen with the East Anglia group, 14 February Image: Wicken Fen by Richard Nicoll ARPS

A DAY OUT IN DERBY TUESDAY 24 FEBRUARY

Free 45 Midland Road, Derby DE1 2SP Geoff Blackwell, 0114 266 8655,

LONDON DEL BARRETT ARPS LONDONEVENTS*RPS.ORG

LONDON URBAN " FEBRUARY MEETING MONDAY 2 FEBRUARY / 18:30

Free Informal meeting of the London Urban Group Covent Garden, London WC2E 8RD Del Barrett ARPS, as above

FIRST TUESDAY: LICENTIATE ADVICE TUESDAY 3 FEBRUARY / 19:00,21:00

Free An introduction to RPS Distinctions The Greenwich Gallery, Linear House, Peyton Place, London SE10 8RS Del Barrett ARPS, as above

LONDON STREET FEBRUARY WORKSHOP SATURDAY 14 FEBRUARY / 10:00

£5/£3/free for regional members Continuing our series of street photography workshops led by Norman Smith LRPS London, TBC Del Barrett ARPS, as above

FIRST TUESDAY # MARCH MEETING TUESDAY 3 MARCH / 19:00

£5/free for regional members Details to be confirmed The Greenwich Gallery, Linear House, 152 / THE RPS JOURNAL / FEBRUARY 2015 / VOL 155

| GUIDE | 153

Peyton Place, London SE10 8RS Del Barrett ARPS, as above

ARPS $ FRPS ONE#TO#ONE ADVISORY SESSION SATURDAY 7 MARCH / 10:00

£30/£20 (see website for details) Fully booked. Email us for a place on the waiting list London, TBC, Del Barrett ARPS, as above

LONDON, STREET # MARCH WORKSHOP SATURDAY 14 MARCH / 10:00

£5/£3/free for regional members Details to be confirmed London, TBC Del Barrett ARPS, as above

Refine your street photography with the London Region’s workshops Image: Redvers Street, N1, by Andreas Busch from the Bleeding London project

NORTH WEST

SCOTLAND

DR AFZAL ANSARY ASIS FRPS, 07970 403672

JAMES FROST FRPS, 01578 730466

AFZALANSARY*AOL.COM

JAMES.FROST11*BTINTERNET.COM

PHOTOBOOK MASTERCLASS AND AGM

PRINT EXHIBITION SELECTION 2015 AND AGM

SUNDAY 8 FEBRUARY / 10:30,16:30

SUNDAY 1 MARCH / 11:00,16:00

£20/£15 RPS members Run by Brian Steptoe FRPS Hough End Centre, Mauldeth Road West, Manchester M21 7SX Dr Afzal Ansary ASIS FRPS, as above

£8 Members will select the 40 prints for the 2015 touring exhibition Edinburgh Photographic Society, 68 Great King Street, Edinburgh EH3 6QU James Frost FRPS, as above

NORTHERN JANE BLACK ARPS, 0191 252 2870

PHOTO FORUM # LASSWADE

J.BLACK70*BTINTERNET.COM

SUNDAY 12 APRIL / 11:00,16:00

NETHERWOOD HOTEL WEEKEND FRIDAY 13 , SUNDAY 15 MARCH

NORTH WALES DON LANGFORD LRPS, 01758 713572 DONCHRISLANGFORD*BTINTERNET.COM

ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING SATURDAY 7 FEBRUARY / 13:30,17:00

AGM, then members’ mini-exhibition Craig-y-Don Community Centre, Queens Road, Llandudno LL30 1TE Christine Langford, as above

DISTINCTIONS ADVISORY DAY SUNDAY 19 APRIL / 10.30,16.30

£20/£15/£10 spectators Craig-y-Don Community Centre, Queens Road, Llandudno LL30 1TE Christine Langford, as above

£225 Netherwood Hotel, Lindale Road, Grange-over-Sands, Cumbria LA11 6ET Price includes two nights’ dinner, bed and breakfast and lecture programme Brian Pearson ARPS, 0191 257 5051, brianpearson41@btinternet.com

DISTINCTIONS WORKSHOP / ADVISORY DAY SUNDAY 26 APRIL / 10:00,17:00

Backworth Hall, Backworth, Nr. Newcastle, Tyne and Wear NE27 0AH Brian Pearson ARPS, 0191 2575051, brianpearson41@btinternet.com

£10/£8 RPS members Informal day to meet members for constructive feedback on all levels of work Midlothian Camera Club, 7 Polton Road, Lasswade EH18 1AB James Frost FRPS, as above SOUTH EAST TERRY MCGHIE ARPS, 01323 492584 SOUTHEAST*RPS.ORG

ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING OF SOUTH EAST REGION 2015 SUNDAY 1 FEBRUARY / 10:00,10:30

Free The AGM will be held immediately before the members’ day Beechwood Sacred Heart School, 12 Pembury Road, Tunbridge Wells, Kent TN2 3QD Terry McGhie ARPS, as above

VOL 155 / FEBRUARY 2015 / THE RPS JOURNAL / 153

GROUPS 154 | GUIDE | REGIONAL SOUTH EAST REGION MEMBERS’ DAY SUNDAY 1 FEBRUARY / 11:00,16:00

£7.50/£5 RPS members A full-day event at which members and non-members can meet and display examples of their work Beechwood Sacred Heart School, 12 Pembury Road, Tunbridge Wells, Kent TN2 3QD Terry McGhie ARPS, as above

OFFICIAL OPENING OF VISUAL ART GROUP MEMBERS’ EXHIBITION 2015 SATURDAY 28 FEBRUARY / 11:00,15:00

Free Fairfield Halls, Park Lane, Croydon CR9 1DG David Wood ARPS, wood.david.j@virgin.net For details see Visual Art Group

VISUAL ART GROUP MEMBERS’ EXHIBITION 2015 SATURDAY 28 FEBRUARY , SATURDAY 14 MARCH

Free Fairfield Halls, Park Lane, Croydon CR9 1DG Jay Charnock FRPS, jaypix@hotmail.co.uk For details see Visual Art Group

Hear Susan Brown FRPS and Cathy Roberts FRPS talk in Bovey Tracey Image: Triptych Poolside on Black, Susan Brown FRPS

SATURDAY 28 MARCH / 10:30,16:00

£10/£8/£5 group members The Dolphin Hotel, Station Road, Bovey Tracey TQ13 9AL Linda Wevill, 01752 873162, linda.wevill@btinternet.com For details see Visual Arts Group

SUNDAY 26 APRIL / 10:30,16:30

£20/£15/£10 spectators Distinctions Advisory Day for Licentiate and Associate categories The Dolphin Hotel, Station Road, Bovey Tracey TQ13 9NG Martin Howse ARPS, as above

SUNDAY 1 MARCH / 10:30,16:00

£20/£15/£10 spectators Guidance for RPS members and nonmembers who are considering applying for the LRPS Distinction The Haven Centre, West Sussex, Hophurst Lane, Crawley Down RH10 4LJ Terry McGhie ARPS, as above

SOUTHERN PETER HARTLAND ARPS, 07774 184120 SOUTHERN*RPS.ORG

SOUTH WALES

DISTINCTIONS ADVISORY DAY VISUAL ART $ TRAVEL

CONTACT RPS HEADQUARTERS 01225 325720, RECEPTION*RPS.ORG

SUNDAY 15 FEBRUARY / 10:30,14:30

SOUTH WEST MARTIN HOWSE ARPS, 01326 221939 MGHVKH*BTINTERNET.COM

SUNDAY 22 FEBRUARY / 10:30,16:00

Free AGM and viewing successful local panels in addition to some other panels The Dolphin Hotel, Station Road, Bovey Tracey TQ13 9AL Martin Howse ARPS, as above

WEEKEND AWAY IN PORTLAND FRIDAY 27 FEBRUARY , SUNDAY 1 MARCH

Free Field trips and presentations of work Portland Heights Hotel, Yeates Road, Isle of Portland DT5 2EN Martin Howse ARPS, as above

A DAY WITH CATHY ROBERTS FRPS AND SUSAN BROWN FRPS

VISUAL ART GROUP MEMBERS’ EXHIBITION 2015 WEDNESDAY 25 MARCH , 6 APRIL

DISTINCTIONS ADVISORY DAY

LRPS ADVISORY DAY SOUTH EAST REGION

REGIONAL AGM

Woosehill Community Hall, Emmview Close, Wokingham, Surrey RG41 3DA Laurie Pate, digthamesvalley@rps.org For details see DI Group

YOUR EVENTS To ensure inclusion of your events in The RPS Journal please post them on the RPS website six weeks prior to publication. For a list of deadlines, cancellations or lastminute amendments please contact Emma Wilson on 0141 375 0504 or email emma.wilson@ thinkpublishing.co.uk These listings are correct at time of going to print

154 / THE RPS JOURNAL / FEBRUARY 2015 / VOL 155

£20/£15/£10 spectators Please book in advance Kinson Community Centre, Millhams Road, Kinson, Bournemouth BH10 7LH Peter Hartland ARPS, as above THAMES VALLEY MARK BUCKLEY.SHARP ARPS, 020 8907 5874 MARK.BUCKLEY.SHARP*TISCALI.CO.UK

DIG THAMES VALLEY: JEFF MORGAN, GADGETS $ GIZMOS

£2 Landmark Arts Centre, Ferry Road, Teddington Jay Charnock FRPS, jaypix@hotmail.co.uk For details see Visual Art Group

DIG THAMES VALLEY: PHOTO MEDLEY SUNDAY 26 APRIL / 10:00,15:30

£12/£8 group members With Colin Trow-Poole FRPS Woosehill Community Hall, Emmview Close, Wokingham, Surrey RG41 3DA Laurie Pate, digthamesvalley@rps.org For details see DI Group

FELLOWSHIP ADVISORY DAY SUNDAY 26 APRIL / 10:00,16:00

£30 Small group workshop with two advisors (TBC) from the Distinctions Advisory Board or Fellowship Board Lacey Green, Millennium Hall, Main Street, Lacey Green HP27 0QN Mark Buckley-Sharp ARPS, as above WESTERN

SUNDAY 15 FEBRUARY / 10:00,15:30

TONY COOPER ARPS, 01225 421097

£12/£8 group members Wooshill Community Hall, Emmview Close, Wokingham RG41 3DA Laurie Pate, digthamesvalley@rps.org For details see Digital Imaging Group

TONY*PHOTOSCOOP.CO.UK

DIG THAMES VALLEY: DEBBIE JONES WITH LIGHTROOM SUNDAY 22 MARCH / 10:00,15:30

£12/£8 group members Advance booking essential

WESTERN REGION MEMBERS’ MEETING IN BATH SUNDAY 8 FEBRUARY / 10:00,12:30

£2 Members’ own digital work – digitally projected images, panoramas, AVs RPS HQ, Fenton House, 122 Wells Road, Bath BA2 3AH Tony Cooper ARPS, as above

| GUIDE | 155 DI GROUP WESTERN: DISTINCTION APPRECIATION

WESTERN REGION MEMBERS’ MEETING IN ILTON

SUNDAY 15 FEBRUARY / 10:00,16:00

SUNDAY 19 APRIL / 10:00,13:00

£8/£7/£5 group members Merryfield Village Hall, Ilton, Nr Taunton TA19 9HG Glenda Colquhoun, digwestern@rps.org For details see Digital Imaging Group

£5 Presentation by Pauline Rook Merryfield Hall, Ilton TA19 9HG Mick Humphries LRPS, 01823 443955, mick@somersite.co.uk

WESTERN REGION MEMBERS’ PRINT COMPETITION

MARY CROWTHER LRPS, 07921 237962

SUNDAY 8 MARCH / 10:00,16:00

PHOTOBOX50*GMAIL.COM

£7 Print competition for Society members RPS HQ, Fenton House, 122 Wells Road, Bath BA2 3AH Tony Cooper ARPS, as above

WESTERN REGION MEMBERS’ MEETING IN HIGHNAM SUNDAY 15 MARCH / 10:00,13:00

£5 An opportunity for members to show and discuss their work Parish Rooms, Highnam Community Centre, Newent Road, Highnam GL2 8DG Bob Train, 07825 325799, bobtrain@tiscali.co.uk

LRPS AND ARPS DISTINCTIONS ADVISORY DAY SUNDAY 29 MARCH / 10:30,16:30

£20/£15/£10 LRPS and ARPS (Pictorial/Creative and Natural History) Distinctions advisory day RPS HQ, Fenton House, 122 Wells Road, Bath BA2 3AH Gordon James FRPS, gjphotomail@gmail.com, 07890 016956

WESTERN REGION MEMBERS’ MEETING IN BATH SUNDAY 12 APRIL / 10:00 ,12:30

£2 Prints for display and discussion RPS HQ, Fenton House, 122 Wells Road, Bath BA2 3AH Tony Cooper ARPS, as above

GO TO RPS.ORG/EVENTS FOR THE LATEST UPDATES

SPECIAL INTEREST GROUPS

Explore more about aspects of photography and imaging

YORKSHIRE

3D IMAGING + HOLOGRAPHY

ADVISORY DISTINCTION WORKSHOP

PETER FREEMAN LRPS, 01462 893633 3D*RPS.ORG

SUNDAY 1 MARCH / 10:30,16:30

£20/£15/£10 LRPS and ARPS in travel Star Theatre, National Railway Museum, York YO26 4XJ Robert Helliwell, 07802 413570, bobhelliwell@clara.co.uk

ARCHAEOLOGY + HERITAGE RODNEY BERNARD THRING LRPS, 01276 20725 RODNEY.THRING*NTLWORLD.COM

SALISBURY CATHEDRAL THURSDAY 12 MARCH / 10:00

£6.50 Photograph one of England’s finest cathedrals Salisbury Cathedral, Salisbury, Wiltshire SP1 2EF Ken Keen FRPS, 01753 886036

LOOK AND LEARN SUNDAY 19 APRIL / 10:30,16:00

£10/£7 RPS members Geoff Blackwell ARPS reveals all about his three passions of photography, photographs and postage stamps Carleton Community Centre, Carleton Road, Pontefract WF8 3RJ Robert Helliwell, bobhelliwellclara.co.uk

AUDIO VISUAL HOWARD FISHER LRPS, 0115 9372898 HANDJAF*VIRGINMEDIA.COM

ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING

CONTEMPORARY

SUNDAY 19 APRIL / 10:30,16:00

PETER ELLIS LRPS, 07770 837977

£2/£1 RPS members Have your say Carleton Community Centre, Carleton Road, Pontefract WF8 3RJ Mary Crowther LRPS, as above

WORDSNPICSLTD*GMAIL.COM

GETTING PUBLISHED 2: SAM MELLISH TALK SATURDAY 14 MARCH / 13:00,17:00

DONCASTER CAMERA CLUB FRIDAY 24 APRIL

£2/£1 RPS members An evening with Peter Cairns. Tickets available from club members The Twickenham Suite, Doncaster Rugby Football Club, Armthorpe Road, Doncaster DN2 5QB Mary Crowther LRPS, as above

An evening with Peter Cairns is being held in Doncaster on 24 April Image: Red Deer by Peter Cairns

£5 Keyworth Parish Church Hall, Selby Lane, Keyworth NG12 5AN Howard Fisher, 0795 512 4000, handjaf@virginmedia.com For details see East Midlands Region CREATIVE BARRY COLLIN LRPS CREATIVECHAIR*RPS.ORG

PRINT AND PDI EXHIBITION SELECTION + AGM SATURDAY 28 MARCH / 10:30,16:30

£8/£5 group members Details and application on website Foxton Village Hall, Hardman Road, Foxton, Cambs CB22 6RN David Jordan, daveandjoanjordan@ yahoo.co.uk, 01603 866475 DIGITAL IMAGING JANET HAINES ARPS, 07779 728844 DIGCHAIR*RPS.ORG

ADOBE LIGHTROOM WORKSHOP WITH DAVID MALLOWS SUNDAY 1 FEBRUARY / 10:30,16:00

£20/£15 RPS members Lightroom introduction and workshop Backworth Hall, Backworth, Newcastle upon Tyne NE27 0AH VOL 155 / FEBRUARY 2015 / THE RPS JOURNAL / 155

INTEREST GROUPS 156 | GUIDE | SPECIAL Foxton CB22 6RN John Margetts ARPS, events@rpseasterndigital.org.uk

DIG THAMES VALLEY: PHOTO MEDLEY SUNDAY 26 APRIL / 10:00,15:30

£12/£8 group members With Colin Trow-Poole FRPS Woosehill Community Hall, Emmview Close, Wokingham, Surrey RG41 3DA Laurie Pate, digthamesvalley@rps.org DOCUMENTARY AND VISUAL JOURNALISM MO CONNELLY LRPS, 01590 641849

NATURE MARGARET JOHNSON LRPS, 01159 265893 M.JOS*BTINTERNET.COM

WILDLIFE, WILDPLACES, JOHN GARDENER AND HUMMINGBIRD ADDICTION, IAN NEWTON ARPS SUNDAY 15 MARCH / 10:30,16:00

£10 Day of superb natural history featuring hummingbirds and other wildlife Park Inn by Radisson Nottingham, Mansfield Road, Nottingham NG5 2BT Ralph Bennett ARPS, 01636 651277, ralph.emrps@gmail.com

DVJ*RPS.ORG TRAVEL HISTORICAL JENNIFER FORD ARPS, 01234 881459

Brian Pearson ARPS, 01912575051, brianpearson41@btinternet.com

DI GROUP WESTERN: DISTINCTION APPRECIATION SUNDAY 15 FEBRUARY / 10:00,16:00

The Digital Imaging Group will host a talk by Ken Payne on 19 April in Foxton, East Anglia Image: Dolls’ Tea Party by Ken Payne

£8/£7/£5 group members Presentations of successful panels Merryfield Village Hall, Ilton, Nr Taunton TA19 9HG Glenda Colquhoun, digwestern@rps.org

A DAY OUT IN DERBY TUESDAY 24 FEBRUARY

Free Visit the studio of W W Winter Ltd which opened in 1855 and continues in business 45 Midland Road, Derby DE1 2SP Geoff Blackwell, 0114 266 8655, gblackwell@fastmail.fm

SATURDAY 28 MARCH / 10:30-16:00

Free The AGM and presentations will be followed by a guided tour of the Drawn

by Light exhibition National Media Museum, Bradford Donald Stewart, 01592 840277, donaldstewart42@aol.com

SUNDAY 15 FEBRUARY / 10:00,15:30

£12/£8 group members Learn how gadgets and gizmos can strengthen your creative photography Wooshill Community Hall, Emmview Close, Wokingham RG41 3DA Laurie Pate, digthamesvalley@rps.org

BAGPOINT*AOL.COM

JENNYFORD2000*YAHOO.CO.UK

ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING

DIG THAMES VALLEY: JEFF MORGAN, GADGETS $ GIZMOS

KEITH POINTON LRPS, 01588 640592

IMAGING SCIENCE DR TONY KAYE ASIS FRPS, 020 8420 6557

DI GROUP: AGM 2015 + PRINT SELECTION + GUEST SPEAKER ADRIAN LINES

TONYKAYE*HOTMAIL.CO.UK

SUNDAY 22 FEBRUARY / 10:00,16:00

DR AFZAL ANSARY ASIS FRPS, 07970 403672

Free For DI Group members and committee invitees only Smethwick Photographic Society club rooms, The Old School House, Churchbridge, Oldbury B69 2AS Janet Davies, digsecretary@rps.org

AFZALANSARY*AOL.COM

MEDICAL

PILGRIMAGE TO JEREZ TUESDAY 31 MARCH , MONDAY 6 APRIL

£1,795 A visit to southern Spain during Holy Week 2015 Hotel Casa Grande, Plaza las Angustias, 3, Jerez de la Frontera Colin Howard, colin.howard@me.com

IMAGES OF MYANMAR TUESDAY 26 MAY , THURSDAY 4 JUNE

£1,750 An escorted photo visit to Myanmar Yangon, Mandalay, Bagan Keith Pointon, as above

TRIP TO ZAMBIA AND MALAWI FRIDAY 3 JULY , SUNDAY 19 JULY

£3,479 Photograph wildlife, rural and fishing life, and contribute to the Book Bus literary project Liz Rhodes, lizrh@tiscali.co.uk

WESTERN CANADA SAT 29 AUGUST - SAT 12 SEPTEMBER

£2,169

DIG THAMES VALLEY: DEBBIE JONES WITH LIGHTROOM SUNDAY 22 MARCH / 10:00,15:30

£12/£8 group members Advance booking essential Woosehill Community Hall, Emmview Close, Wokingham, Surrey RG41 3DA Laurie Pate, digthamesvalley@rps.org

KEN PAYNE: GETTING THE BEST FROM YOUR IMAGES USING LIGHTROOM AND PHOTOSHOP £16/£12/£8 group members Create maximum impact and improve your images for club and other competitions Foxton Village Hall, Hardman Road,

The Historical Group’s Day Out in Derby on 24 February includes a visit to the studio of W W Winter Ltd, which opened in 1855

156 / THE RPS JOURNAL / FEBRUARY 2015 / VOL 155

© WW WINTER LTD

SUNDAY 19 APRIL / 10:15, 16:30

| GUIDE | 157

WORKSHOPS

Hear from the experts and hone your skills

Workshops take place at The Royal Photographic Society’s headquarters and other venues around the country The Royal Photographic Society, Fenton House, 122 Wells Road, Bath BA2 3AH For further information, go to rps.org/events and search under ‘Workshops’ or call 01225 325733 or email reception@rps.org

ONE#DAY INTRODUCTION TO YOUR DIGITAL SLR SATURDAY 7 FEBRUARY / 10:00,17:00

£85/£63 members

WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHY SATURDAY 7 , SUNDAY 8 FEBRUARY

£160/£135 members How to create a viable business strategy Lacock, Wiltshire

£65/£48 members Get the most from your images with the potential to license and sell

CREATIVE TECHNIQUES IN PHOTOSHOP

Coastal Landscapes, 28 March. Some of the fabulous rock strata on display at Spekes Mill Mouth on the north Devon coast Image: Shutterstock

Bideford, north Devon

INTRODUCTION TO BUSINESS FOR PHOTOGRAPHERS MON 13 APRIL, TUE 14 APRIL / 10:00,16:00

£190/£165 members

TUESDAY 3 MARCH / 10:00,16:30

AMBROTYPES WORKSHOP SATURDAY 14 FEBRUARY / 9:30,17:00

£120/£95 members Bristol

WET COLLODION NEGATIVES AND PRINTS SAT 21 , SUN 22 FEBRUARY / 9:30,17:00

£195/£170 members Bristol

SATURDAY 18 APRIL / 9:00,18:00

WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHY TECHNIQUES £135/£110 members A focus on photographic elements Thrumpton, Nottingham

ONE#DAY INTRODUCTION TO YOUR DIGITAL SLR

SATURDAY 21 FEBRUARY / 10:00,16:30

SATURDAY 7 MARCH / 10:00,17:00

SATURDAY 21 FEBRUARY / 10:00,16:00

SATURDAY 14 MARCH / 10:00,16:30

SUNDAY 22 FEBRUARY/ 10:00,17:00

£85/£63 members Make your own book with Blurb

HOW TO PHOTOGRAPH CHILDREN AND BABIES SUNDAY 22 FEBRUARY / 10:00,17:00

£95/£71 members Learn how to enhance your images and boost your business Lacock, Wiltshire

PHOTOSHOP (TWO DAYS) SAT 28 FEBRUARY,SUN 1 MARCH / 10:00,17:00

£165/£140 members Builds on the one-day introduction

SHOOTING FOR STOCK MONDAY 2 MARCH / 10:30,16:30

SATURDAY 18 APRIL / 10:00, 17:00

£85/£63 members

WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHY SAT 18 APRIL , SUN 19 APRIL / 10:00,16:30

LIGHTROOM

CREATE A PHOTOBOOK

ONE#DAY INTRODUCTION TO YOUR DIGITAL SLR

£85/£63 members

INTRODUCTION TO THE CREATIVE EYE

£95/£71 members Provides a simple way to create an archive of your growing image library

£130/£105 members This fantastic location offers historic buildings and wonderful countryside Cromford Mill, Derbyshire

WEDNESDAY 4 MARCH / 10:00,17:00

ART NUDE PHOTOGRAPHY £115/£90 members Lacock, Wiltshire

THE DIFFERENT LANDSCAPE # CROMFORD MILL

£95/£71 members Milton Keynes

£160/£135 members Lacock, Wiltshire

INTRODUCTION TO PHOTOSHOP

£95/£71 members Learn to compose interesting shots

SUNDAY 19 APRIL / 10:00,17:00

£95/£71 members

NIGHT SHOOT

ART NUDE PHOTOGRAPHY

SATURDAY 14 MARCH / 18:00,22:00

£35/£26 members Bath Abbey, Bath

SATURDAY 25 APRIL / 10:00 ,16:30

£115/£90 members Lacock, Wiltshire

DEVELOPING COMPOSITIONAL AND CRITIQUING SKILLS

PLANT AND GARDEN PHOTOGRAPHY

SUNDAY 15 MARCH / 10:00,16:30

£45/£33 members

SATURDAY 25 APRIL / 10:00, 17:00

£155/£130 members For those who love photographing plants and landscapes and may be considering it as a profession The Walled Garden, Selwood St, Mells, Somerset

STUDIO PORTRAITURE SAT 28 MARCH,SUN 29 MARCH / 10:00,16:30

£160/£135 members Lacock, Wiltshire

COASTAL LANDSCAPES SATURDAY 28 MARCH / 12:00, 19:00

£95/£71 members An afternoon and evening along one of Devon’s most beautiful coasts North Devon, Hartland Quay, near

GO TO RPS.ORG/EVENTS FOR THE LATEST UPDATES

HOW TO PHOTOGRAPH CHILDREN AND BABIES SUNDAY 26 APRIL / 10:00,17:00

£95/£71 members Lacock, Wiltshire

VOL 155 / FEBRUARY 2015 / THE RPS JOURNAL / 157

GROUPS 158 | GUIDE | REGIONAL 2015 is to be shown at the Landmark Arts Centre, Ferry Road, Teddington Jay Charnock FRPS, jaypix@hotmail.co.uk

A DAY WITH CATHY ROBERTS FRPS AND SUSAN BROWN FRPS SATURDAY 28 MARCH / 10:30,16:00

£10/£8/£5 group members Cathy Roberts FRPS and Susan Brown FRPS show their work to the SW Visual Art Group The Dolphin Hotel, Station Road, Bovey Tracey TQ13 9AL Linda Wevill, 01752 873162, linda.wevill@btinternet.com

VISUAL ART GROUP SPRING WEEKEND: PERTH THURSDAY 16 APRIL , MONDAY 20 APRIL

From Calgary to Vancouver, through some of the west’s remarkable scenery, including Banff National Park, Icefield Parkway, the Athabasca Glacier and falls, Whistler and Vancouver Island Aline Hopkins, alinehopkins@btinternet.com

WEEKEND IN FALMOUTH FRIDAY 9 OCTOBER , SUNDAY 11 OCTOBER

£140 members/£36 meeting and dinner only Guided visits to places of photographic interest The Falmouth Hotel, Castle Beach, Falmouth TR11 4NZ Margaret Hocking, 01872 561219, bosrowynek@btinternet.com

Travel Group’s Jerez trip Image: Semana Santa by Tony Smith ARPS

EXHIBITION 2015 SATURDAY 28 FEBRUARY / 11:00,15:00

Free Official opening and awards presentation of the Visual Art Group Members’ Exhibition 2015 Fairfield Halls, Park Lane, Croydon CR9 1DG David Wood ARPS, wood.david.j@virgin.net

PATRONAGE

Society patronage has been granted to the following exhibitions and salons

VISUAL ART GROUP MEMBERS’ EXHIBITION 2015

PCA SALON 2015 Closing date: 21 February 2015 pca-exhibition.com/pcasalon

Free Fairfield Halls, Park Lane, Croydon CR9 1DG Jay Charnock FRPS, jaypix@hotmail.co.uk

VISUAL ART GROUP MEMBERS’ EXHIBITION 2015

VIVECA.KOH*GMAIL.COM

STROM Closing date: 8 February 2015 fotostrom.eu

SATURDAY 28 FEBRUARY , SATURDAY 14 MARCH

VISUAL ART VIVECA KOH FRPS, 07956 517524

See website for cost Four nights in Perth, Scotland, for the Visual Art Group Spring Weekend 2015 Mercure Perth Hotel, West Mill Street, Perth PH1 5QP David Wood ARPS, wood.david.j@virgin.net

ALL PHOTOGRAPHERS ARE ONE WORLD Closing date: 22 February 2015 photoclubkragujevac.com

WEDNESDAY 25 MARCH , 6 APRIL

OFFICIAL OPENING OF VISUAL ART GROUP MEMBERS’

£2 Visual Art Group Members’ Exhibition

OVERSEAS CHAPTERS

Royal Photographic Society members around the world AUSTRALIA Elaine Herbert ARPS, eherbert@ alphalink.com.au BENELUX Stephen Johns, Steve_johns@ me.com DISTINCTIONS ADVISORY DAY IN BRUSSELS SATURDAY 21 FEBRUARY / 10:00,16:30

Swedish Church

and Cultural Centre, 35 Avenue des Gaulois, Brussels 1040 Stephen Johns, +32 (0) 479 01 63 20, steve_johns@me.com CANADA John Bradford, jb.rps@cogeco.ca CHINA BEIJING Yan Li, yanli88@yahoo.com

158 / THE RPS JOURNAL / FEBRUARY 2015 / VOL 155

CHINA CHONQING CHINA SICHUAN Wei Han (Richard), oolongcha@hotmail. com CHINA SHANGTUF Guo Jing, shangtuf@ yahoo.com.cn CHINA QUANZHOU Xiaoling Wang, hgudsh@163.com GERMANY Tony Cutler LRPS, aec.flynn@t-online.de

HONG KONG Shan Sang Wan FRPS, shansangwan@ yahoo.com.hk INDIA Rajen Nandwana, rajennandwana@ gmail.com INDONESIA Agatha Bunanta ARPS, agathabunanta@ gmail.com ITALY Olivio Argenti FRPS, info@rps-italy.org JAPAN TOKYO Yoshio Miyake, yoshio-raps@ nifty.com MALAYSIA

PERN IMAGES 1ST INTERNATIONAL Nick Ng, nickng6208@ gmail.com MALTA Ruben Buhagiar, info@rubenbuhagiar. com NEW ZEALAND Mark Berger rps@moothall.co.nz SINGAPORE Steven Yee Pui Chung FRPS, peacock@ sandvengroup.com SOUTHERN SPAIN Mike Naylor, mike@mikenaylor.es SRI LANKA

Romesh de Silva, romesh@access.lk SWISS CHAPTER Richard Tucker ARPS, tucker42@bluewin.ch TAIWAN Joanie Fan Hui Ling ARPS, djpassionfoto@ gmail.com USA ATLANTIC CHAPTER Carl Lindgren, lindgren.carl@ gmail.com USA PACIFIC CHAPTER Jeff Barton, rps@vadis.net

| GUIDE | 159 PHOTOGRAPHY COMPETITION $ EXHIBITION 2015 Closing date: 25 February 2015 bspabd.com AVON VALLEY PHOTOGRAPHIC SALON Closing date: 1 March 2015 avonvalley.photography/salon.html

GO TO RPS.ORG/EVENTS FOR THE LATEST UPDATES

EXHIBITIONS

Shire Hall Gallery, Market Square, Stafford ST16 2LD

RPS MEMBERS’ BIENNIAL PRINT EXHIBITION

LESLEY GOODE, EXHIBITIONS MANAGER 01225 325720, LESLEY*RPS.ORG

MONDAY 9 MARCH , FRIDAY 24 APRIL

INTERNATIONAL IMAGES FOR SCIENCE EXHIBITION 2013: BARNSLEY

Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute, Li Ka Shing Centre, Robinson Way, Cambridge CB2 0RE

UNTIL SATURDAY 7 FEBRUARY

GERMAN INTERNATIONAL DVF#PHOTOCUP 2015, INCLUDING SALON NIEDERSACHSEN AND SALON HESSEN Closing date: 15 March 2015 germanphotocup.de 3RD CHELTENHAM INTERNATIONAL SALON OF PHOTOGRAPHY 2015 Closing date: 12 April 2015 cheltenhamcameraclub.co.uk

INTERNATIONAL PRINT EXHIBITION: LONDON

FRIDAY 20 MARCH , SUNDAY 21 JUNE

The National Media Museum, Bradford, West Yorkshire BD1 1NQ

UNTIL SUNDAY 15 FEBRUARY

Royal Albert Hall, Kensington Gore, London SW7 2AP

INTERNATIONAL IMAGES FOR SCREEN EXHIBITION " DEVIZES SCREENING

INTERNATIONAL PRINT EXHIBITION: STAFFORD

TUESDAY 28 APRIL / 19:30,22:00

Devizes Sports Club, London Road, Devizes, Wiltshire SN10 2DL

SATURDAY 14 MARCH , SUNDAY 10 MAY

COUNCIL REPORT NOVEMBER 2014 CO,OPTION Derek Birch welcomed Gary Evans, an elected member of the Advisory Board, to the meeting. He was subsequently co-opted on to Council.

MATTERS ARISING The proposed UK regional boundary changes would be discussed with the affected Regional Organisers before implementation. Geoff Blackwell raised additional regional boundary concerns and Vanessa Slawson offered to investigate these.

Walter Benzie reported that the Groups representatives’ meeting would take place at Fenton House on 14 February. The elected Advisory Board members would be invited and be asked to set the agenda for the March Advisory Board meeting.

SOCIETY FINANCE Geoff Blackwell circulated a draft budget for 2015 which projected a small surplus. The increase in Journal advertising income was highlighted and its increased cost which had been planned for. The Society’s Distinctions were costing a significant amount but Council noted that they were considered a service to members rather than an income source. The DAB would be asked to review the submission fees. The Finance Committee had approved the budget and Council accepted it, and thanked Nick Rogers for his work in compiling it.

Geoff Blackwell reported that the current financial position was satisfactory. The second part of a

DRAWN BY LIGHT: THE ROYAL PHOTOGRAPHIC SOCIETY COLLECTION

The Civic, Hanson Street, Barnsley S70 2HZ

legacy had been received and The Society was awaiting the final settlement at which point notice would be made in the Journal. The sum would be placed into the development fund. Council asked that legacies be highlighted on the website.

SOCIETY PREMISES The Director-General, Roy Robertson, and Geoff Blackwell were meeting on 2 December to firm up The Society’s building requirements. Geoff Blackwell had started to model the associated financial implications.

MEMBERSHIP Membership stood at 11,226. Council noted the loss of Italian members associated with the Scuola Romana di Fotografia after one year. The lapsed member mailing had resulted in 38 renewals so far and had covered its cost. Compustat, which helps with membership administration, had reported that the new Journal was being very positively received.

GROUPS/REGIONS/ OVERSEAS CHAPTERS Council considered an email from John Tarby, past Group chair, in response to the closure of the Film & Video Group. It affirmed its decision and would encourage him to be involved with a new moving image group.

Laura Pannack had accepted The Society’s invitation to be the Regional lecturer in 2015 and the Regional Organisers would be advised.

The Digital Imaging Group had submitted a request for financial

support for a major event in September 2015. It was proposed that The Society should underwrite the event up to an agreed amount in the event of a loss.

Proposals to form a Sri Lanka Chapter and Chongqing Chapter were approved.

Vanessa Slawson raised a twinning initiative between Regions and Chapters. The Membership Department would keep a record of those that were established.

STRATEGIC REVIEW AND DEVELOPMENT PLAN Council reviewed the plan and the revised version would be circulated with the minutes for approval at the January meeting and then be published on the website.

AWARDS Council accepted a proposed change to the criteria of the Combined Royal Colleges Medal, subject to the approval from the Colleges.

DISTINCTIONS AND QUALIFICATIONS At the request of the CIQ Board Council approved six recipients for a direct CIQ and one application. Andy Moore reported that the UbiCast was to be trialled later in the week. The marketing leaflet for Distinctions had been well received and a new Distinctions application form was ready for 2015. The Distinctions pages on the website and the Journal articles were being positively viewed. Online advice and guidance via the website was being launched in January 2015 and it was estimated that 300500 applications per year were

likely to be received.

EXHIBITIONS Robert Gates gave a summary of The Society’s exhibitions with details of submissions and online developments. It was not intended to repeat the screen exhibition and an alternative may be considered.

EDUCATION, WORKSHOPS AND TRADE SHOWS David Cooke reported that The Society’s first online course was still on schedule for a May 2015 launch.

The course modifications were in hand. The proposed affiliation scheme had been well received.

The universities had wanted a fixed fee rather than an additional charge for students. He would prepare a firm proposal for Council to approve and discuss how such a scheme could be handled at Fenton House. The DirectorGeneral reported that the Photography Reimagined event at Wolverhampton University had been attended by 60 students.

Tony Mant had attended it on The Society’s behalf.

NATIONAL MEDIA MUSEUM The Director-General reported that The Society had purchased a quantity of the Drawn by Light exhibition catalogues which it was able to sell at a discount through its web shop.

ANY OTHER BUSINESS Council considered a complaint against a member for copyright infringement. It would take a decision once the outcome of a possible court case between the two parties was known.

VOL 155 / FEBRUARY 2015 / THE RPS JOURNAL / 159

THE RPS COLLECTION 160 | TIMES PAST | FROM

Picture that paints a thousand words Joan Wakelin HonFRPS was an empathetic master of gritty photojournalism

W

hether hunkered down with the women in the Greenham Common Peace Camp to document their protest against nuclear weapons at the RAF base, or championing with her

camera the rights of indigenous Maori and Aboriginal communities in New Zealand and Australia, Joan Wakelin HonFRPS (1928-2003) lived photography. Her specialty was a low-key, gritty, grainy type of photojournalism.

Wakelin’s images not only

demonstrate the special empathy that she was able to develop with her subjects, but they are also imbued with her trademark emotional intensity.

This image, Cages, is from her 1989 photographic essay on Vietnamese boat people, those hundreds of thousands

of refugees who fled to Hong Kong seeking asylum during, and after the end of, the war in Vietnam. Their displacement became an international humanitarian crisis for decades. Cages captures the indomitable spirit of those whose misery continued after the war ended, after struggling to cross the sea in makeshift boats, to be interned in closed camps. Wakelin also shows us the hope in the faces of those who were prepared to live in inhospitable conditions until future repatriation was possible.

Despite other awards and exhibitions, Wakelin considered this work to be her greatest achievement when it was included in the 1990 World Press Awards.

Apart from her photographic legacy, she bequeathed an annual Joan Wakelin bursary for the production of a photographic essay on an overseas social documentary theme, administered by the Society and The Guardian.

PATRICIA RUDDLE ARPS

Read more about the current Joan Wakelin Bursary winner in the next issue of The RPS Journal DID YOU KNOW?

l Joan Wakelin taught photography in New Zealand during the 1980s and 1990s l She was awarded an Honorary Fellowship of the Society in 1992

1989 This was a year of many important international events, including the fall of Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceaucescu 160 / THE RPS JOURNAL / FEBRUARY 2015 / VOL 155

MAIN IMAGE © ROYAL PHOTOGRAPHIC SOCIETY COLLECTION/ NATIONAL MEDIA MUSEUM; © CHRISTOPHER PILLITZ/ALAMY

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