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.