London Independent Photography

London Independent Photography is a community organisation for amateur and professional photographers with about 300 members. Our activities are designed to bring together photographers with different interests and levels of expertise who wish to develop their personal approach to photography, improve their skills and gain recognition for their work.

If your passion is photography or you'd just like to know more about getting involved with photography in London, feel free to contact us for more information.

Group Activities

We organise an ongoing programme of practical workshops, classes and talks, and also hold regular group sessions in locations around London where members bring their current work for discussion.

Attending satellite group meetings is an excellent way to keep in touch with other LIP members in your area. Find out more about the currently active groups are here.

Magazine

Our magazine is free to all members and currently published three times a year. Our aim for each issue is to inspire, inform and entertain readers by featuring members' photographic work and articles that are engaging.

The magazine is funded entirely by annual membership fees (no sponsorship, advertising or outside funding) which allows us to provide a truly independent and public forum to share thoughts, exchange ideas and discuss our individual approaches to photography.

Details can be found on the Magazine page, and archived versions of past issues are available for sale or downloadable in PDF format.

Exhibitions

Many LIP members have exhibited widely and held solo exhibitions, but gather together to show their individual approaches to photography in an annual group show in London. Each year we invite impartial selectors to view submissions and choose what work will be in the show. Past selectors have included Francis Hodgson, writer and co-founder of the Prix Pictet, Helen Trompeteler, Assistant Curator of Photographs at the National Portrait Gallery, Bridget Coaker, Picture Editor at Guardian Newspaper Group, Photographers Gallery Curator Clare Grafik, Photographer/teacher Paul Hill MBE, ex Photographers Gallery director Sue Davies and Curator of Photographs at the V&A Mark Haworth-Booth.

Become a Member

To join LIP, please complete a membership application online.

 

Pssst: We're always on the lookout for members who are willing to volunteer time and effort to help keep LIP running smoothly and to improve our programme. If you feel like you might want to contribute some time in any area, please get in touch with our Membership Secretary to express your interest!

 

Introduction to LIP

London Independent Photography was formed in 1987, conceived by Janet Hall and Virginia Khuri and taking inspiration from workshops organised by Paul Hill at the Photographers' Place.


Behind the workshops conducted in the 1970s and 1980s was the conviction that photographic images can mirror the personal experience and feelings of the photographer and that making them can be a means to personal growth, that "what is deeply and personally true to an individual can be explored through a photographic participation in life." Those workshops' intention was always to foster such individual explorations in a non-competitive, supportive informal community setting. It is this which LIP seeks to continue. As stated by American photographer Robert Adams in his book, Why People Photograph, "your own photography is never enough. Every photographer who has lasted has depended on other people's pictures too – photographs that may be public or private, serious or funny, but they carry with them a reminder of community."


LIP exists to encourage and support individual photographers; whether just beginning or well advanced, all benefit from shared reactions to each other's work. The first such group event was held at Hammersmith and West London College in September 1987, bringing together fifty individuals to share their images and projects. This led to regular events being hosted at various central London venues, and then to the setting up of satellite groups across London. There are currently twelve satellite groups, based upon locations and differing approaches to photography. Each group organises events such as talks, photo walks and social occasions.


LIP hosts annual exhibitions, which in recent years have been held at Espacio Gallery, Shoreditch. Some individual satellite groups also hold their own exhibitions, as do informal groups of collaborating members.


LIP also publishes its own magazine, fLIP, which has evolved over time from a typed and photocopied sheet into a nationally circulated and respected magazine with full colour reproduction. This is published three times per year and includes members' images along with reviews and features, following the original mission to instruct, inform and inspire both members and wider public through work that is always based upon 'personal truth'.

LIP's web site displays the latest updates from satellite groups and electronic editions of fLIP, a members' gallery featuring work, together with a bio and links, along with news and opportunities from the wider world of photography.