The Shoreditch group of London Independent Photography meet every month in the Red Lion Pub. Its a warm, friendly place – with an extremely small front door. So always a tight fit if you’re entering with a back-pack and projector…

‘Wandsworth’ by Andy Preston

Andy showed us a selection of his recent urban landscapes. They look like they’ve been shot on a large format camera – but are in fact digital images. Andy has an eye for capturing revealing moments of urban life – often with an underlying sense of humour – and these garden chairs in front of a massive gas holder are a great example of this.

It’s well worth some time looking at more of Andy’s photography portfolio online. Andy composes beautiful and rhythmic images out of subject matter you wouldn’t initially think could be interesting – like industrial estates.

‘Waiting for the Bus: Jerusalem’ by Jonathan Goldberg

Jonathan showed us work from his ‘Waiting for the Bus’ project which he’s been photographing around the world for several years. The series includes photos from Japan, India, Turkey, Australia, Italy, Mexico, USA and this image shot recently in Israel.

I think this project is a great example of building up a body of work over a very long period of time. If Jonathan had tried to shoot all of this project at once he’d have needed a lot of time on his hands (and he’d also probably need to be independently wealthy!) And photographers, as a general rule, are neither time or cash rich… But, by adding one or two countries each year he’s creating an impressive collection of images that are all of the same thing – a bus stop – but are actually all completely different and reveal specific details about the culture and way of life where they were shot.

You can see more from this project on Jonathan’s editorial photography website.

‘Marble Arch Subway’ by David Solomons

David is a highly respected street photographer that has been taking photos for twenty years. He did a fascinating talk showing his work from pre-student days, through college and up to his present projects.

His work captures moments of great spontaneity like this image above – but there is a huge amount of thought, patience and planning that goes into his photos. This image is from an on-going series entitled ‘The West End’ and David has shot over 1000 rolls of film for what he expects to be a 60-70 photo book.

In other words, these apparently spontaneous images are actually the result of many hours of hunting down these moments. (And then being ready with his camera when they happen.) Back in the studio, another process then begins – which is to edit and select the images that reveal story David wants to tell.

Something I found particularly interesting was David describing his journey from using film cameras, to digital cameras and then back to film again. He now shoots on a Leica – which is small, discreet and very quiet. This allows him to get close to his subjects which he felt the larger and noisier digital cameras prevented.

You can see more of David’s work on his street and editorial photography website.

‘On a string’ by Patrick Wilken

It takes something special to impress a room of photographers with a single shot – but that’s just what Patrick Wilken did with this fantastic photo of a horse being led by a man driving a van. He took it on a day out in Tornowsee, eastern Germany. He heard a noise behind him and turned round to see the horse on a string. It’s one of those ‘once in a lifetime’ shots where you just hope you have your camera with you and around your neck (and not at the bottom of your bag…)

Patrick is relatively new to photography and has already got a firm technical foundation. One of the things I hope these slide-show talks will encourage is helping people with a portfolio of excellent single shots, start developing longer-term projects like the ones Jonathan and David showed.

You can see more of Patrick’s work on flickr.

About 20 of us gathered in the warm upstairs room of the Red Lion pub in Hoxton Square, as the snow swirled outside.

The Shoreditch LIP members upstairs at the Red Lion

First up was Tiffany Jones, who also edits fLIP magazine. She showed work from New York, London, India and Ukraine. Tiffany talked about the evolution of her work through several projects. Some of my favourite photos were portraits of vegetable sellers in India.

Vegetable Seller in Paharganj by Tiffany Jones

Steve Richmond showed work from London, Syria and a recent trip to North Korea. This last series of photos is featured in the latest issue of fLIP and I’d really enjoyed reading about Steve’s visit a few days before. Some of the photos Steve made were shot on old Kodachrome, and my favourite is this candid portrait of a tour guide.

Kimology by Steve Richmond

I then showed work from my Family Project. It documents the lives of 20 families in six countries. I selected two families to talk about – the Vogelgesang’s from Charlottesville, Virginia and my friend Kenny who lives in the Highlands.

Kenny, 2010 by Mark Burton

Finally, Craig Stevenson showed a series of photos he’d taken covering the Debutantes Ball. He was following in the footsteps of Henri Cartier Bresson who photographed the event in the 50′s.

Debutantes from the 2009 London ‘Season’ by Craig Stevenson
We’re looking forward to seeing work by other members of the group next year!

“I found a rooming house near my job. Moving wasn’t hard. I only owned enough to fill half a suitcase…” – from Factotum by Charles Bukowski

With one starting point for two parallel paths, where do we end up?
What decisions do we make along the way to lead us there?
How different are the routes we choose?
Will the paths cross, and how far apart are our final destinations?

The Shoreditch Group are showing the result of Parallels, a collaborative project by two teams creating a narrative from the same starting point. Inspired by the Charles Bukowski quote one image was made and handed to another photographer from each team. Those people each took an image inspired by the last, wrote a short caption, and passed along to the next person on their team. Only the most recent image and caption were passed on, resulting in a two loose parallel narratives created by 24 contributors.

The project shows alongside THE SECOND ANNUAL EXHIBITION of the LIP Shoreditch satellite group, featuring our members’ personal work from the past year. The exhibition is part of the Photomonth festival, now in its 10th year.

Runs October 1 – November 20, 2010
Private view Thursday, October 7th from 7pm

Red Lion Free House (1st floor)
41 Hoxton Street N1 6NH

Andy Preston who is a member of the Shoreditch Group has arranged a screening of the film Shooting Under Fire, which documents the work of Reuters photojournalists working in the Middle East.

The evening will begin with an introduction to the film by Andy who works for Reuters, and he will also answer questions after the screening.

The cafe will be staffed to serve food and drinks, and discussion afterwards is encouraged.

Title: Shooting Under Fire
Director: Sacha Mirzoeff
Producer: Context TV Gmbh, Berlin, 2005
Featured Photographer: Reinhard Krause, Reuters

There is a cost to attend to cover venue fees: £4 LIP member / £5 Non-member

See the Shooting Under Fire event page for full details and to register.

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

Our group gathered Sunday at the Red Lion in Hoxton to hang our first exhibition there. Our show Paint it White features selected work from 21 photographers on display throughout the pub.

The official opening party is Thursday August 13th from 7pm, so please come join us upstairs for some wine and nibbles on the night, and we hope you enjoy the exhibition!

Runs August 10 – September 20, 2009
Opening Night August 13 from 7pm

Red Lion Free House
41 Hoxton Street (at Mundy St)
London N1 6NH
Nearest tube: Old Street

Street photographer David Gibson will speak about his work at the next meeting of the Shoreditch Satellite Group..

Thu 4th June at Theprintspace, 74 Kingsland Road E2 8DL
6.30pm-8.30pm

David was born in Ilford, Essex in 1957. He worked for several years as a Residential Social Worker before pursuing photography full-time in 1994. In 2002 he completed an MA in Photography: History and Culture at the London College of Printing. David is often commissioned by design agencies in London and his photographs are held in several prominent stock libraries and private collections. He is a member of in-Public, a collective of photographers showing work at “the on-line home of street photography”.

David says:
“I probably spend more time looking at photographs than I do actually taking them. My shelves at home are lined with photography books. The work of the so-called master photographers – and the less heralded – have always been a source of reassurance and stimulation for my own photography.”

“Photographers such as Elliott Erwitt, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Mario Giacomelli, Robert Frank, Sylvia Plachy and Tony Ray-Jones, to name but a few. The list is endless and always open to change.”

“Street photography for me is an instinctive urge. After more than 15 years of wandering with my camera, it still remains about staying curious and just looking for the luck.”

As David is not exclusively a street photographer but keeps going off to other, more abstract directions as well, we should be in for a treat of an evening!

Please note that seating (of the chair kind) at this event is limited. In order for us to allow more people to attend, standing or sitting on the floor is encouraged!

PLEASE RSVP to susannathefinn@yahoo.co.uk

The Shoreditch Spring Crawl was a great success and fun was had by all! We had about 20 people armed with cameras walking through much of Bethnal Green, along Broadway Market, beside the canals and finishing up in Commercial Road. Though sticking to the themes drawn from a hat was possibly secondary to the priorities of socialising and shooting whatever inspired us, there is a growing collection of photos to view in the flickr group.

Thanks to everyone who came out to enjoy the lovely weather and festive jaunt – hope to see you next time!

We meet and greet in a pub, have a beverage, write shooting ideas/themes/mini projects on bits of paper which are placed in a hat. A couple of those are then drawn and we go and shoot the said themes on the way to the next pub. This is then repeated several times until…. well, we’ll see what the day brings! (Possibly falling over) The resulting masterpieces are posted to our flickr group and hopefully shared at an upcoming meeting, too.

This will be quite a long walk and we’ll be seeing some of the prettiest and grittiest parts of east London. We’ll be ambling past, or through, for example the Hackney City Farm, Broadway Market and Regent’s Canal and the old Krays bros’ stomping ground! So plenty of photo opportunities along the way. There will also be lots of opportunities to have food.

Arrival times
1PM – The Florist – 255, Globe Rd, London, E2 0JD
3PM – The Nelson’s Head – 32, Horatio St, London, E2 7SB
5PM – The Cat and Mutton – 76, Broadway Market, London, E8 4QJ
6.30PM – The Palm Tree – Haverfield Road, Bow, London, E3 5BH
8PM ON – The George Tavern – 373 Commercial Road, London, E1 0LA

Click here for Locations MAP

The last stretch is rather long but the George is worth the hike (or bus ride)

So, arm yourself with a camera, A-Z (we’ll have prints of the route but it’s best to have your own map too), a couple of shooting ideas, sensible shoes and a less sensible mindset. General silliness is very highly encouraged. We’ll provide the hat, pens and paper.

Fingers crossed for sunshine!!! See you at the Florist!

Venue and Details:
74 Kingsland Road, E2 8DL
Wed 6th May, 6.30pm for 7pm
The tour will start at 7pm exactly, please don’t be late!
Afterwards (around 8pm) we’ll most likely pile into the nearest pub.

The tour and talk are free and all are welcome, but SPACES ARE LIMITED (just a few left). PLEASE RSVP to susannathefinn@yahoo.co.uk