Satellite Group Updates

I hope you are all well and finding the odd moment to grab your cameras. Although the weather’s not been that good, we are forecast a few nice days next week which will be great – a last blast before the darker days of winter truly set in and the clocks go back… argh!

Never mind the gloom, lets all marvel at the wonderful selection of ‘progression’ pictures that we had last month – Leonard’s idea and it really turned on the inspiration for some of you – brilliant.

Lesley Bruce photo

Karen Dixon photo

Andrew Wilson photo

Our next meeting is set for Wednesday 24th October at 7pm. The theme put forward for this month was ‘unusual angles’ and if last month is any guide, I’m looking forward to some great stuff. Please remember to bring anything along you wish to share, either from our theme or something else you have on a USB Drive (preferred), or if that’s difficult, prints would be fine.

Our outing last month was suggested by Lesley, which was to meet in Bishops Park with our old film cameras. This was great fun and I hope that as many of you as possible will be able to bring along some examples of what you caught that day – we were very lucky with the weather I seem to remember.

The theme from our last meeting was our own personal photographic journey – how we reached our current stage of photographic practice and the various points along the way. This turned out to be a very popular topic with a number of new faces turning up to discuss how their photography had progressed over the years and the direction it might take in the future. In some cases there was a gap of many years between early photographs and more recent work whereas others had only recently taken it up seriously. Some had found their photography changing direction after studying for an MA, finding new ways of approaching their work. Later work was largely more project-based and personal (perhaps due to LIP’s influence?!) There was also a definite move from early black and white into more recent colour work, and from analogue to digital and mobile phone cameras, though it was heartening to see that some people were still using film, and continuing to experiment with different cameras, processes and formats.

What came across was that photography is an evolving process – not always moving forward at the same rate. There can be quite lengthy periods of time when we can feel stuck in a rut, making little progress or finding sparse inspiration. That could be a good time to pause and take stock of our achievements so far – in the course of evaluating our work, an idea may crystallise and a new project or fresh direction may emerge.

Edith Templeton

Sue Czapska

Jana Schlenkrich

Hugh Look

Ingrid Newton

Robert Royston

Our next meeting will take place on Wednesday 10th October 2012 at 18.45 at the usual venue – The Artworkers Guild, 6 Queens Square, Bloomsbury, London WC1N 3AT. This month we will be looking at the use of different formats – landscape, portrait, square, panorama etc. Suggestions for discussion: your personal choice of format and reasons for it; how format may affect your photographs – shaping and altering meaning and mood; suitability or otherwise for particular subject matter. Whether you usually work with a particular format or like to vary the format, if you would like to show examples, please bring along a maximum of 6 images, either on a memory stick or as prints.

There was a very good turnout for our last meeting where members were invited to submit 2 images for inclusion in an anonymous slideshow, organised and led by Katrin Nodop. Each image was subsequently discussed in terms of subject matter, composition, technical merits and emotional impact. It was generally agreed that anonymity was a positive factor – not knowing the identity of the photographer allowed us to abandon any preconceived ideas we might have had about individual styles of photography. It also enabled a more open and honest critique (possibly harsher than usual!) but hopefully we all took it in the spirit it was intended, for how can we learn and improve without constructive criticism? At the close of the meeting, images and photographers were matched up, identities revealed with some surprises and unexpected results. It was a popular evening and definitely something we will repeat, probably with photographs on a particular theme next time. Here is a selection of images that were shown on the night:

Sue Czapska

Maria Oldland

Katrin Nodop

Krystina Stimakovits

Ingrid Newton

Edith Templeton

Ariadne van de Ven

Peter Luck

Our next meeting will take place on Wednesday 12th September 2012 at 18.45 at the usual venue – The Artworkers Guild, 6 Queens Square, Bloomsbury, London WC1N 3AT. This month’s theme will be on our own personal Photographic Journey – how we reached our current stage of photographic practice and the various points along the way. This could be a very good opportunity to evaluate how your photography has progressed and how you see it evolving in the future. If you would like to show work on this theme, please bring along a maximum of 6 images which illustrate how your work has developed over time, either on a memory stick or as prints.

In addition to the usual discussions about exhibitions and members’ projects, we are developing two interesting ‘workstreams’. The first is mobile ‘phone photograpy, the second is scanner photography. Yes, that’s right, using a flatbed scanner to take photographs!

Duncan Unsworth (website: http://www.duncanunsworth.com) has very much pioneered this process and he has been joined by Ray Higginbottom (http://www.zeebopimaging.co.uk/). Both brought along their latest work for review and we had a long ‘how to discussion’ including the apparently laborious task of removing dust from the scanning glass.

An example of Duncan’s work is shown below.

Tulips #3 Duncan Unsworth

Our next meeting is on 28th August

Our topic in the last meeting was Focusing on a Theme or Project and there was a good variety of work shown from prints to digital media. Some projects were complete or in their final stages – the fruit of long periods of hard work and commitment. Others were at the planning stage or just beginning. There were themes which focused on a single subject matter and those that were more conceptually based. Some were meticulously planned and executed, others evolved spontaneously or developed in a more relaxed way over time. Here are a selection of images, each from individual projects.

From the series Trees Blowing by Janet Nabney

Redlight by John Nabney

From the series Waiting for Customers by Maria Oldland

Teresa Levitt

From the series Images of Masculinity by Sue Czapska

From the series London Muse by Ingrid Newton

Jane Goodall – Research Scientist, Landscape Photographer, from the series Renaissance Women by Stefanie Reichelt

http://stefaniereichelt-photography.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/2012-renaissance-women.html

Our next meeting will take place on Wednesday 8th August 2012 at 18.45 at the usual venue – The Artworkers Guild, 6 Queens Square, Bloomsbury, London WC1N 3AT. We will be presenting members’ work in a slideshow with a difference – the photographs will be shown anonymously followed by a group discussion! Work in other formats – i.e prints or books also welcome.

We had a good meeting last Tuesday at Ealing OPEN, the last at our current venue. Several people brought work along to share. Thank you, everyone!

Stephanos Kaminis brought along some photos he’d taken in Greece, amongst them this picture of a young boy in Athens. He’d been driving his car when he spotted the boy on the bus in front of him. Luckily he had his camera to hand and was able to grab this shot!

Richard Baker-Donnelly showed us some photos he’d taken in poor weather conditions in the Lake District. One might have expected some of these to be rather grey and flat but with his Lightroom skills, Richard had managed to perk them up.

Ron McCammon brought some work from his series on local trades people. Ron exhibited some of these in our annual local show a couple of years ago but since then the project has been growing.

Angelika Berndt had been to a workshop presented by dance photographer Chris Nash and brought along some photographs she’d taken over the two days. The image shown here is currently on display in City Hall.

Finally, we saw some photographs from Debbie Burrows’ trip to the Scilly Isles, where the birds actually come and sit on your table while you’re eating. The yellow on this one’s forehead is pollen!

Thanks to all who came along. We’ll be back on the 4th of September at a new venue. Details of this will follow later.

Our June meeting was well attended and it was good to see some new faces. The topic for discussion was Alternative Versions – how small changes to a photograph can result in different or better compositions. We were shown examples of addition of subject matter by digital manipulation, cropping in camera to tighten composition and change the emphasis, differences in depth of field, differences between colour and black and white versions, landscape and portrait formats, and the way a figure walking into the frame can change the dynamic of the image. These sometimes smallest of differences can make a huge impact on the image and its meaning, interpretation and effect. Some examples below – see which versions you prefer!

Ariadne van de Ven

Ariadne van de Ven

Hugh Look

Hugh Look

Katrin Nodop

Katrin Nodop

David Reed

David Reed

Ingrid Newton

Ingrid Newton

Our next meeting will take place on Wednesday 11th July 2012 at 18.45 at the usual venue – The Artworkers Guild, 6 Queens Square, Bloomsbury, London WC1N 3AT. As the prospect of the annual LIP exhibition appears on the horizon, we will be talking about Focusing on a Theme or Project. There will also be feedback from the upcoming Working with Structures Workshop and if anyone who attended the Preparing for Exhibition workshop in June would like to come along and talk about it, we would love to hear from you. As usual if you would like to show examples of your work relating to this topic, please bring along between 6 and 12 images (depending on the number of people wishing to show work, time may be limited) either as prints, digital images on a memory stick or in book form. New members always welcome.

This month we had an open meeting where members showed new work and discussed projects in progress. A selection of examples can be seen below ranging from a still taken from Hugh Look’s elegiac video of shots of commuters at various stages of their daily journeys (all human life is there), Edith Templeton’s series of brightly coloured images taken at her art class, Maria Oldland’s pictures of street musicians from all over the world, Ingrid Newton’s tongue-in-cheek self-portraits using a phrenology head as a stand-in for herself, Richard Alton’s amusing black and white photographs of penguins at the zoo and Sue Czapska’s ethereal landscapes of the Dorset coast. A fine opportunity to appreciate the wide diversity of work engaged in by our members.

Still from the video An Affinity by Hugh Look

From the series The Work of Art by Edith Templeton

Brazilian street kid playing the guitar from the series The Music Makers by Maria Oldland

From the series Je pense, donc je suis by Ingrid Newton

Rockhopper Penguin – Mirror by Richard Alton

Chesil Beach No 4 from the series Using the Camera as a Paintbrush by Sue Czapska

Our next meeting will take place on Wednesday 13th June 2012 at 18.45 at the usual venue – The Artworkers Guild, 6 Queens Square, Bloomsbury, London WC1N 3AT. We will be discussing the topic of Alternative Versions how small changes to a photograph can result in different or better compositions. This may include digital manipulation, cropping, two consecutive but slightly different photographs, examples of before and after etc, etc. Sometimes the smallest of differences may add up to a big change but we are not always able to spot the potential ourselves. As usual if you would like to show examples of your work, please bring along up to 6 images either as prints, digital images on a memory stick or in book form. New members always welcome.

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

Mira Joshi

Andrew Wilson

Good to see you all this evening; there was some fine work done around our theme of bikes and I hope that the people who couldn’t get down to the estate in Roehampton were pleased to see what the artist had done with his bikes – the artist’s Romanian inspiration of dreaming of crazy ideas was certainly realised with his installations.

We agreed a theme for the coming month – ‘Jubilee’. We agreed that an outing to Bath was an excellent idea for our next trip and Sunday 17th June was set aside for this – more on this to follow.

Farnborough Airshow is set for the weekend of 14/15 July – again the Sunday was the suggested day.

This weekend’s end to the Wandsworth Art Festival culminates with something they call ‘the Shimmy‘ – I will be going and anyone else fancying coming along please let me know. The Shimmy is a celebratory outdoor event, showcasing the work of local artists and organisations and those further afield – join us on Sunday 27 May, along Putney Wharf, Deodar Road and Wandsworth Park.

Our next meeting will be Wednesday 27th June (Wimbledon will have started and it will officially be summer – blimey how time flies).

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.