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.