Satellite Group Updates

At our last meeting we discussed image and text – how they can be combined and how one affects the other. Ariadne van de Ven started the ball rolling by showing one image with two alternative titles, demonstrating how the title can completely alter the viewer’s perception. She explains: “It’s interesting to think about how a title frames a photo essay: these two opening slides create very different expectations in any viewer who doesn’t know me (for the record: both are true). Woman and Crow is just one of the images out of the 17-image photo essay that I submitted for my MA at Goldsmiths.”

Woman and Crow by Ariadne van de Ven

Text as inspiration for imagery was also discussed – whether in the form of literary quotations, poetry or just the odd phrase or sentence which can leap off the page and strike a chord. There was some discussion about whether the use of words to illustrate images added anything. Would the viewer have the same understanding without the words? In contrast, some members preferred to give no clues to their photographs, leaving them untitled for the viewer to interpret themselves or else just using simple or generic titles.

The glory of the garden lies in more than meets the eye by Maria Oldland, inspired by Rudyard Kipling’s poem The Glory of the Garden

From the series Puddles by Joe Jacob

Images incorporating text were also shown – the words adding a playful dimension to the work. Words can also form the subject of the work as in the Edith Templeton’s example below, one of a series about London signage.

It Wasn’t Me Mum by Chris Burrows

Take Note by Edith Templeton

The most obvious place for the juxtaposition of words and images is of course in book form. Ingrid Newton brought along a number of books illustrating the symbiotic relationship between text and image, where the words act as footnotes and background information to a photographic project.

From the book Footloose in the Footnotes, part of the series Par Hazard by Ingrid Newton

Our next meeting will take place on Wednesday 9th May 2012 at 18.45 at the usual venue – The Artworkers Guild, 6 Queens Square, Bloomsbury, London WC1N 3AT. There will be no set topic for this meeting – instead we will use it as an opportunity to show and discuss new work. As usual if you would like to show examples of your work, please bring along up to 6 images either as prints or on a memory stick or in book form.

Further examples of work from the group can be seen on our blog.

In our March meeting we discussed editing methods. Some members prefer dealing with the physical sorting and handling of prints – whether by pinning them to the wall, shuffling them around on the floor or hanging them from a washing line. This hands-on system encourages a slower, more contemplative way of sorting through work. Others favour editing on the computer, using Aperture to generate digital contact sheets and smart albums – tagging, starring, indexing as they go. Both methods seem to have their advantages and it is probably down to personal preference which method you favour. Examples of in-camera methods of editing were also shown – double exposures and full-frame uncropped prints. There were queries about editing work in process, both analogue and digital involving the discussion of unity of subject matter, cropping and orientation, weeding out images which were repetitive, of poor quality or which just didn’t fit the concept. There was also written feedback from one of our members who attended Tiffany Jones’ editing workshop the previous week – he stressed the importance of coherence and consistency, of identifying the intended audience and the medium in which your work will be displayed, and of establishing a rhythm within the project. Focusing on the goals of your projects – knowing what you aim to communicate is paramount.

The Editing Wall by Simon Head

Crutched Friars. Afternoon February 25th 2012 by Peter Luck

Egyptian Schoolchildren at Play from the series Leisure time for Egyptian Families and Children by Maria Oldland

Bark by Edith Templeton

Brendan Delaney

From the series Too Loud a Solitude by Ariadne van de Ven

Our next meeting will take place on Wednesday 11th April 2012 at 18.45 at the usual venue – The Artworkers Guild, 6 Queens Square, Bloomsbury, London WC1N 3AT. The topic for discussion will be Images and Words. Photographs seldom go out into the world without at least a few words attached to them by the photographer. Some points to consider might be titles (or their absence) of individual images/books/exhibitions/photo essays; the difference between titles and captions; the extent to which we want to steer the viewer’s response with the title or the caption; the incorporation of text into the image; words as inspiration – books, poems and quotations. Let your imagination run free! As usual if you would like to show examples of your work relating to the subject, please bring along up to 6 images either as prints or on a memory stick.

Further examples of work from the group can be seen on our blog.

Despite the bitter Arctic weather we had a very good turn-out for our February meeting. Our topic for the evening was Selection – how we choose what we photograph, how framing and composition can affect the meaning and reading of an image.

Chris Tribble showed images from work-in-progress for the London Villages Project, involving a documentation of the building he lives in and a set of portraits of the people who live here. These ranged from head and shoulders portraits to studies showing people in their environment – a good example of how composition can alter the context of an image. Teresa Levitt’s photographs of shadows crossing a bridge in Venice, all taken from a similar viewpoint, showed how just slight variations can produce images which work well together, either as a series or a triptych. Chris Burrows showed a series of shots of people in the street, framed in different ways but unified by the subject matter. Brendan Delaney’s black and white images demonstrated how cropping and use of shallow DOF can be used to direct attention and heighten atmosphere. Ingrid Newton also showed work undertaken for the London Villages Project – her pictures of advertising hoardings juxtaposed with elements from the real world played with variations of scale to leave the viewer unsure of where fantasy ends and reality starts.

from the London Villages Project by Chris Tribble

Shadows on the Bridge, Version 2 by Teresa Levitt

Food for Thought by Christopher Burrows

St Paul’s Wedding from London Street by Brendan Delaney

from the series Model Landscape by Ingrid Newton

We also discussed the possibility of working towards putting on an exhibition of members’ work later in the year. Most people present at the meeting expressed enthusiasm for the idea, so once we have found a suitable venue, we can start making some concrete plans.

Our next meeting will take place on Wednesday 14th March 2012 at 18.45 at the usual venue – The Artworkers Guild, 6 Queens Square, Bloomsbury, London WC1N 3AT. We will be discussing Editing – something we all seem to struggle with at times. Different approaches to editing both digital and analogue work, including hints on how best to narrow down the sometimes massive amount of photographs we tend to take, into a coherent set of images which work well together, will be gratefully received! It would also be good to hear feedback from anyone who went to the recent LIP Editing Workshop. As usual if you would like to show examples of your work relating to the subject, please bring along up to 6 images either as prints or on a memory stick.

Further examples of work from the group can be seen on our blog.

Despite the chilly weather we had a great turn out for our February meeting. This included a couple of newcomers and a visiting Lip member based inSwitzerland, who wanted some help with a project!

Jonny Baker, was presented with a bottle of Georgian wine. Thanks go to Jonny for looking after our website so well during the last couple of years.

First up was Jonny, with a presentation of PechaKucha 20×20. For those who don’t know, this is a presentation format where you show 20 images, for 20 seconds each. As the images forward automatically, you talk along to them. Apparently it was devised for use by architects to show their work! Several people thought this might be a nice idea for a future ‘assignment’ for the group.

An image from the PechaKucha demo by Jonny Baker

Chris Hirsch gave a presentation of her work for the London Village Project. Chris is based in ‘Olde Hanwell’ and has photographed the local people and architecture where she lives. Chris was looking for feedback and ideas on how best to edit down her work to the 12 required by the project, from the large number of images she has taken.

Hanwell rooftops, from the London Villages Project by Chris Hirsch

March will be the last meeting we can hold in our current venue as Ealing OPEN are moving to new premises. At the moment we don’t know whether they’ll have room for us. Meanwhile, a couple of members have elected to check out potential spaces.

Lastly, we had a lively discussion about our next annual exhibition. We didn’t have one last year so members are keen to get going on this. We elected to make a start on finding a venue.

Our next meeting will be at 7.30 on Tuesday March 6th at OPEN Ealing,113 Uxbridge Road,London,W5 5TL. We welcome old and new members. Please bring along any work that you’d like to show the group.

Our first meeting of the new year got off to a flying start last week – many thanks to all those who attended and contributed. The topic was Out With the Old and In With the New – a chance to evaluate our past achievements and start thinking about future projects.

The work shown featured a range of images – long-term projects such as Peter Luck’s black and white photographs documenting urban landscapes in transition over the years; Chris Tribble’s commission from the British Council to photograph a language school in Morocco, sympathetically portraying the interaction between teacher and pupil; Brendan Delaney’s poignant series – London Cycling Deaths – documenting locations of cyclist fatalities in the neighbourhood where he lives; Edith Templeton’s magpie selection of her favourite subjects of shape, texture, colour and reflections; Ingrid Newton’s highlights from the year’s projects and blogs, from Hipstamatic to Hassleblad, lith prints to digital (note to self for the new year: focus!); Krystina Stimakovits shared her beautiful book of images taken through glass Thresholds, where the viewer is invited to step into ‘layered in-between worlds’. Looking towards the future, some members have recently embarked on new work – Brigitt Angst’s images of the Swiss Alps challenge and confuse the viewer’s assumptions about scale, and Teresa Levitt’s new departure into portraiture – her sparkler portraits show people’s relaxed poses and delighted absorption at parties. A combination of new challenges, reappraisal, and renewed focus should ensure that the coming year will be even more fruitful than the one just past. Just don’t forget where your strengths lie!

Sheffield early afternoon, 12th July 2009 by Peter Luck

Chris Tribble

From the series London Cycling Deaths by Brendan Delaney

Edith Templeton

From the blog Hymn to the Hipstamatic by Ingrid Newton

From the book Thresholds by Krystina Stimakovits

Brigitt Angst

From the series Sparkler Portraits by Teresa Levitt

Our next meeting will take place on Wednesday 8th February 2012 at 18.45 at the usual venue – The Artworkers Guild, 6 Queens Square, Bloomsbury, London WC1N 3AT. Our topic for the evening will be Selection – how we choose what we photograph, how framing and composition can affect the meaning and reading of an image. As usual if you would like to show examples of your work relating to the subject, please bring along up to 6 images either as prints or on a memory stick. We will also be turning our thoughts to mounting an exhibition of members’ work later in the year so any ideas, advice or offers of help all welcome.

Further examples of work from the group can be seen on our blog.

Our topic for the December meeting was ‘When does a technical flaw or weakness invalidate a photographic image’. This produced another interesting discussion.

One of the ideas emerging was that where composition is sufficiently strong this can sometimes carry an image, in spite of some technical limitations to its quality.
For example Brendan Delaney’s photograph was taken on an iPhone in a strobe-lit room of a night club, where cameras would not have been permitted. It has a grainy quality but the composition is powerful enough to balance this weakness.

Although, in Edith Templeton’s image of the moon and diagonal strings of lights, the lights were not in clear focus, most of us found it striking. We again discussed composition, here both simple and evocative. There was discussion of the value of a well-crafted object versus chance or random elements which can produce a special kind of beauty, provided the elements are, in themselves, pleasing.

Sue Czapska’s photo was taken moving the camera but had sufficient contrast to survive the distortion, producing an ominous effect, reminiscent of a Golem.

Ariadne’s black and white prints of Kolcata are always a delight – in this diptych the woman asked to be photographed, then stuck her tongue out (pulling the tourist’s leg). Working as quickly as the medium of film allows, two images were taken but the second one is totally out of focus. However, it is as a pair that the prints work, despite one being blurred.

The last contribution to our topic was from Hugh Look, who raised issues of when it is vital to have clear focus. Again this related to the overall composition. In an image of a young man moving in front of a blue brick wall, only the wall is in sharp focus. We suggested cropping to reduce the image to just these two elements, when the blurring might become a strength instead of a weakness.

Slimelight Club, Angel by Brendan Delaney

Moon Lights by Edith Templeton

Man in the Wood from the series Moving the Camera Like a Paintbrush by Sue Czapska

Bidi Woman 1 and 2 by Ariadne van de Ven

Hugh Look

For more images relating to this topic, please visit our blog.

There was also a briefing on the Hargreaves Report on Intellectual Property Law. This recommends a shift in onus of responsibility from those seeking to use material having to trace an owner of copyright and obtain permission, to the author needing to protect their rights by making their identity clear and providing a means of contact. Hugh’s advice is that the essential thing to do is to embed your name in images. Adding a way to contact you will assist but is not essential.

Our next meeting will take place on Wednesday 11th January 2012 at 18.45 at the usual venue – The Artworkers Guild, 6 Queens Square, Bloomsbury, London WC1N 3AT. Given the season, our topic this month will be Out with the Old and in with the New which will give us the opportunity to review the past year’s achievements and also discuss our plans and photographic New Year’s Resolutions. As usual if you would like to show examples of your work relating to the subject, please bring along up to 6 images either as prints or on a memory stick.

There was a large turn-out for our November meeting where the subject of crossing the line in photography was discussed. It very soon became clear that everybody’s line was drawn in the sand in a different place – what one person felt unhappy photographing, another wouldn’t bat an eyelid when pressing the shutter release! It is fair to say though, that everyone was aware of their own limits beyond which they would not venture. The images shown ranged from the hilarious to the moving but for the most part, shared an authenticity and awareness of sometimes delicate situations.

Subjects included candid portraits of strangers in unflattering poses; portraits of friends or relations at vulnerable times in their lives; pictures of a personal nature relating to illness or death; photographs where consent was withheld or where the subject was unable to give informed consent; photographs involving tongue-in-cheek nudity reversing stereotypical gender roles; images where the photographer imposed their will on the subjects to make a particular point; photoshopping people out of the frame; pictures where the photographer crossed their own line in terms of authenticity.

Obviously in this day and age where the sharing of images on the internet is so ubiquitous, issues of invasion of privacy take on a greater significance but it was generally agreed that there are not many situations in the public realm which are totally out of bounds. It was suggested that as photographers, we should respect ‘private moments’ which take place in public and that perhaps we should ask ourselves ‘would we mind if someone did it to us?’ However, if that were the generally accepted rule, some of the most iconic shots and hard-hitting photojournalism of the past would never have seen the light of day. Now you can make up your own mind as to whether you think any lines have been crossed……

Brendan Delaney

Chris Tribble

From the series Equal Oppor-nudities by David Reed

A photograph I hate by Hugh Look

Ingrid Newton

97 and counting by Sue Czapska

For more images relating to this topic, please visit our blog.

Our next meeting will take place on Wednesday 7th December at 18.45 at the usual venue – The Artworkers Guild, 6 Queens Square, Bloomsbury, London WC1N 3AT. Our topic for discussion will be When (lack of) technique gets in the way – investigating the idea of so-called ‘technical failure’ and ‘flaws’ in photographs and whether it matters. As usual if you would like to show examples either of your own or of the work of others which demonstrate these issues, please bring along up to 6 images either as prints or on a memory stick.

Our meeting was packed full of brilliant content – both photographically and of a practical nature. We reviewed everyone’s contributions to our theme of the month – freeze motion – which included the images below.

Photo by Justin Welch

Photo by Guy Conway

Photo by Andrew Wilson

Photo by Leonard Caudrey

Justin gave a demonstration on picture mounting, which was excellent. This was particularly timely, as we have our first exhibition coming up and everyone needs to consider how they may wish to present their work. The group is also now sharing work in progress online at liputney.posterous.com

For details of future meetings contact Andrew Wilson

Our October meeting carried on where we left off last month with the theme of ‘inspiration’. A number of people showed work demonstrating their inspiration – Chris Tribble finds his in the intensity of the gaze or the exchange of glances in his portraits of people performing, rehearsing or engrossed in watching; Sue Czpaska delights in ambiguity and the fluidity of things in flux where breaking the rules and the excitement of looking at the world with a different eye become the defining motivation for her photography; Brendan Foster’s street photographs portray a series of stories about the lives of people in his local neighbourhood and Katrin Nodop was inspired by a massive, abandoned holiday camp – a vast crumbling edifice – built for the German workers by Hitler on the Baltic coast of Germany.

Chris Tribble

Chris Tribble

From the series Shooting Blind over the Fence by Sue Czapska

From the series Shooting Blind over the Fence by Sue Czapska

Prora – Der Speisesaal by Katrin Nodop

Crucifix Lane from the Bermondsey series by Brendan Delaney

Some members felt inspired by the works of others. Amongst those discussed were the current exhibition at Photofusion in Brixton featuring Joachim Froese’s Archive and Andre Penteado’s Dad’s Suicide, both dealing with the difficult topic of death and memory; literary inspiration from psychogeographic and science fiction works and the painter John Martin’s exhibition Apocalypse at Tate Britain, and a book of photographs It’s Beautiful Here, Isn’t It? by Italian photographer Luigi Ghirri, who surely deserves to be better known in this country and whose enigmatic work has reawakened the creative instinct. A more in-depth discussion of some of the topics covered can be found on our blog.

Please note that our next meeting will take place on THURSDAY 10th November instead of the usual Wednesday at 18.45 at the usual venue – The Artworkers Guild, 6 Queens Square, Bloomsbury, London WC1N 3AT. We will be looking at the idea of Crossing the Line in photography, including issues of invasion of privacy, abuse of power, cultural taboos or simply revealing too much of our own personal experiences. Are there or should there be limits to what can be shown? If you would like to show examples either of your own or of the work of others where you feel that the line has been crossed, or is too close for comfort, please bring along up to 6 images either as prints or on a memory stick.

September’s meeting was fun, we were pleased to welcome new member Kathryn Geels and some old faces. The pub crawl theme appeared to go down really well, with a tremendous amount of creativity on show:

Justin Welch photo

Justin Welch photo

Andrew Wilson photo

Kathryn Geels photo

This month’s outing is to Brentford and Strand on the Green, Saturday 15th October, and the theme for October is ‘freeze motion’. I very much look forward to seeing how we all tackle this, as it’s a lot broader than first appears.

For more details about the Putney Satellite Group, contact Andrew Wilson