Satellite Group Updates

Our next meeting will take place at 7 pm on Thursday 25 March at The Gallery in the Willesden Green Library Centre. Please note that this is a new venue and this link will take you to a map (go to ‘About BAR’). The Centre is well served by public transport with Willesden Green tube being the closest and then a 10 minute walk or you can catch a bus (260, 266 or 460) from the stop across the road and alight two stops later. Buses 52, 98 and 302 also stop outside the Centre plus there is a large free car park to the rear.

As ever we are keen to see completed projects, work in progress or embryonic ideas. Bring them along! Paper prints are good but digital formats on a CD/DVD or flash drive also welcome as we will have a laptop and projector on hand.

We usually meet on the 3rd Thursday but local member Constantine Gras is organising an exhibition - Water Works - that opens at 6 pm on Thursday 18 March and everyone is invited to attend. More information here.

Talking of exhibitions I have booked The Gallery in Willesden for our annual show for a 4-week period from Sunday 15 August through to Saturday 11 September. At the moment I have had 14 people express an interest in showing. This is probably too many to accommodate comfortably but if we had 3 or 4 more then I think we could have TWO shows (Part 1 and Part 2) each for two weeks. This would mean two openings but where’s the harm in that? It would also mean that each exhibitor would only need to invigilate the show for a maximum of two afternoons (it will be open daily from 2-6 pm). On this basis each member would get about 2 line meters of wall space and it would reduce costs all round if we had more people participating. Speaking of costs, the hire of the gallery (£700) would be £50 each for 14 people or £35 each if we had 20 people. There would, of course, be some extra costs as we will need to produce some publicity and finance the openings (drinks and nibbles etc) plus a few other sundry items. Therefore I will be asking for a £40 deposit (cash or cheque made payable to our Treasurer – any volunteers?) from exhibitors at the next meeting. So, if you are interested in taking part and have not yet told me, please do so in the next few weeks before our March meeting.

Packed house, queuing all the way down Creek Road, bouncers overwhelmed, scumbag footballers excluded, car park trashed. Some images retrieved. Here’re some. All derived from Elizabeth Gowing’s poem Exposure. Or not.

Lady by Alan Phinbow

Sussex footpath by Bart Brownell

Brighton Silhouette by Roger Mead

‘… and plaster pocked and picked to an image of a girl’ by Caroline Fraser

Mokoe in snow by Chris Hudson

Window by Graeme Webb

Concrete by John Levett

Graff by Nick Cobb

Saatchi Gallery by Stefan Lubomirski de Vaux

Exposure by Alex McIlhiney

Ann’s Room by Kate Wentworth

Harminder Singh will be giving a seminar entitled ‘Unlocking Creativity’ at the Acton LIP satellite group.

Date:   Thursday 25th February
Time:   7.30pm
Venue: St.Mary’s Church, Acton marketplace, London W3 9NW Stations: Acton Town (Piccadilly line) or Acton Central (Overground)
Entrance fee: £2  Reserve a place at www.actonphoto.org.uk

Unlocking Creativity

Harminder is the author of Times Present, a collaboration with Trevor Crone, renowned landscape photographer which was written with two things in mind: how to remove the barriers to our creativity and the approaches by which you can produce photographs that are authentically yours.This evening will see Harminder discuss the ideas in his book, which complements the articles in Black and White Photography magazine ‘10 Steps To Taking Great Photographs’.

You are invited by Harminder to bring along your own images, particularly work-in-progress, as he would like to use these as the basis of discussion. He has done similar with Greenwich LIP, and he comes highly recommended by them. Because his ideas are just as relevant to any visual image the seminar will be relevant to non-photographers as well, so bring along partners and friends on the one ticket.

‘Gorgeous’ B&W Magazine

Harminder and Trevor are keen to diffuse their ideas and promote discussion on creativity in photography.

So Times Present is offered at £24 (20% discount) plus your choice of an archival digital print using K3 pigment inkset, and signed by Trevor.

(Cash or cheque only please)

More information, images and links can be found on www.timespresent.com

Peter Spurgeon

info@peterspurgeon.com

Tel: 07968 210533

Ray Higginbottom of the Ealing LIP group joined other LIP members to take part in the section 44 protest. His page has some photos and he reports…

I went up to Trafalgar Square on 23 Jan to support other photographers in the defence of our rights to take photographs in public places and to protest against the police use of stop and search powers. As quoted in the British Journal of Photography photographers were protesting against the use of section 44 of the terrorism act 2000 which gives broad stop and search powers to police officers. These powers have been found illlegal by the European Court pf Human Rights. The court said officers could easily abuse the powers and that, since officers can stop anyone without need for suspicion, it was virtually impossible for a member of the public to prove thyat the powers had been abused

There were an esitmated 2000 photographers gathered and LIP was well represented. I met up with five others including John Stead. Organised by the campaign group I’m A Photographer Not A Terrorist, the event seemed well attended, if a little unfocused. There were no speakers as such although I did meet Baroness Sarah Ludford, a LibDem MEP who was there to support the action. Generally a good time was had by all and I don’t think I’ve seen so many cameras in such a small area.

The Ealing LIP group always meet on the first Tuesday of the month. From time to time the group take on a challenge. The latest one was people drawing the name of another member of the group out of a hat and then arranging to photograph them. Everyone has been given a cheap ikea 4×6 frame to put their photo in and bring to the next meeting – Tues Feb 2. We’re looking forward to the results… If you weren’t part of that you are of course still welcome to come. We meet at 7:30pm, North Hanwell Baptist Church, Cuckoo Avenue, W7 1BW

A multitude of ‘favourite’ photographs/photographers; some real live ones; LIP mag’s all-new editor giving out basic info on submitting work to LIP mag’s all-new mag.

Plus Elizabeth Gowing’s new poem Exposure. LIP members are invited to submit a photographic interpretation of …

Exposure

Louise Forrester, curator of & our host at Viewfinder writes:

The Viewfinder is inviting members of London Independent Photography to participate in our first workshop exploring the relationship between photography & poetry.

Please take Elizabeth Gowing’s poem as inspiration for your own photographs—this can be as literal or lateral as you like.

Bring your own photograph/s to the February satellite group meeting (Wednesday 17 Feb 7-9pm) & see how others found this challenge.

Please also email them to louise@viewfinder.org so we can publish them online. We’ll create a dedicated page to publish a selection of the photographs taken.

Worth a shot!

Our next meeting will take place at 7 pm on Thursday 21st January at our usual venue of PhotoWorks in Westminster. Location details here. All welcome and please do bring along some work to share. This can either be good old paper prints or in an electronic format as we will have a laptop and projector to hand.

As ever we will first look at work and then share any photo news on exhibitions etc. Speaking of which it may be a good idea to start thinking about our 2010 show if it is to proceed. I think our show last year was very strong and proved to challenging – what should we do this year? Come along and pitch in your ideas!

It was wonderful to see so many of you at the party before Christmas and I hope Santa delivered some nice prezzies!  Maybe you have been inspired to get out and take some stunning images. I have to admit I am finding it difficult to leave the sanctuary of the house when it is so cold but when I have made the effort it seems to worth it.  Here’s a sample of a frosted pavement pattern that I thought had its own beauty even though it was only to last a few hours. Maybe you have been out too and have some seasonal images to share?

Hope to see you at the meeting.

Seasons greetings!

We have 2 events in January: -

Saturday 9th January 2010 at 11.30am

Group visit to Political Landscapes exhibition at Magnum Print Room
63 Gee Street, London EC1V 3RS

Over the years Magnum Photos and it’s photographers have explored the notion of landscape photography, from the ‘Magnum Landscape’ publication (Phaidon 1997) to more recent and personal projects by photographers such as Carl De Keyzer and Stuart Franklin.
This exhibition seeks to take the concept one step further by specifically highlighting issue-based material both from our archive and from contemporary projects. These self-contained compositions contrast with traditional journalistic narrative, yet represent the same passion for recording the political nature of our engagement with the world.

http://events.magnumphotos.com/exhibition/political-landscapes

Wednesday 27th January 2010 at 7.30pm

Group meeting in the George and Dragon pub in Acton High Street, W3 9DJ. A chance to share and discuss recent photos.

Also, I have created a website for our group: -

www.actonphoto.org.uk

Regular attendees can have some of their images included in the showcase on the home page. Events and links to members’ websites are also listed.

Cheers,

Peter

In from the cold & non-arrivals on London Bridge station to a ‘cushions-on-the-floor’ meeting with faces we hadn’t seen for ages & some never seen before. Fine stuff on view with some extraordinary excavations from the archive, uses for airport lost property, commissions from the highlands & Astrid Schulz as our guest to introduce ‘Car Park: Under Snow’ her current Viewfinder show & show us how she got to here from somewhere else.

Car Park by Astrid Schulz

Melon Pilot by Astrid Schulz

Bankside Power Station by Jon May

Ivan’s Door by Anita Strasser

Security Camera by Alex McIlhiney

The Old Lady by Tony Othen

Statement by Tom Lakeman

Sunbed by Tom Lakeman

Six head off for a shoot in the Borders By Stefan Lubomirski de Vaux

A windy day in Southwold by Nigel Rumsey

The Shoreditch group met last night with a focus on editing a series of work. A few weeks in advance we put a callout to those on our mailing list:

Many of us are working toward achieving an end result with our series of pictures, whether it be an exhibition, portfolio, book or a magazine submission. As this process is lonely work and hard to complete on your own, we would like to offer assistance! We aim to have the group give constructive feedback, ideas and suggestions which will assist you in making the difficult decisions when it comes to selecting and sequencing a series. So if you have a series or body of work which is complete or nearly so, and would like to work on editing a final presentation, here’s what to do:
- Think about the end goal for working on this edit (book, magazine submission, website portfolio, etc)
- Select the images you want to bring along (10-60 depending on your goal)
- Email us as with a description of your project, how many images there are and what end goal you have in mind

Because of time constraints we planned to just look at one series from one photographer (though others brought new work to share and discuss also).

We had an excellent turnout and were very excited (and ‘titillated’ in some cases!) to look at Alicia Clarke’s Backstage Burlesque project. She brought along about 60 6×4″ prints to work with, having an exhibition in mind, and laid them out on a table for all to have a look. It was somewhat ambitious to think 25 people could begin to make shapes out of one project, but we gave it a shot.

Alicia says, “Attending the Shoreditch LIP meet-up, with the opportunity to ask the group to help with a particularly difficult edit was a really helpful and positive experience for me. Slightly nervous before the event, lest anyone should damage my fragile photographer’s ego with unkind words, I was massively relieved initially just to find that everybody was enthusiastic and friendly and that any constructive criticism was delivered gently. After this I relaxed with a glass of wine and tried to take on board the wealth of advice being offered. Previously a huge pile of photographs taunting me with their inaccessibility, I now have the beginnings of a coherent project and a number of ideas for different edits of the work for different contexts, as well as suggestions for galleries to approach and hopefully some new friends!”

The group is looking forward to further editing sessions such as this. To discuss bringing a series of work to a future meeting, please get in touch with Susanna Suovalkama