Four presentations as usual.
Tony Othen, chairing in the absence of John Levett, began with a consideration of the work of Lord Snowdon based around two books of London photos from the beginning and end of his career, and a survey of his portraits.  This led into a presentation of portraits by Greenwich member Martin Jordan and an extended discussion on the practice of portraiture with a reminiscence of working with Snowdon and thoughts on how to set subjects at their ease from Stefan Lubomirski de Vaux.
Chris Burke opened his presentation with an impassioned declamation from Oscar Wilde’s De Profundis, introducing a series of photos from the interior of Reading Gaol. Chris had taken advantage of the recent ArtAngel project in the gaol to photograph the repressive architecture and some of the installations which dealt directly with Wilde’s time there. Despite C20 improvements to the prison, the sense of an architecture dedicated to the destruction of character came over strongly.
Meirion Harries followed with a representative set of his work: impressive,   varied material frequently inflected by a metallic surface character.

Stefan Lubomirski de Vaux ended the evening with a sample of his street photography from the last few years. Almost all included figures but few brought them into the foreground, more a case of an urban landscape given point by the people passing through it. As often, Stefan’s images had high colour and took advantage of strong low angle sunlight. The rare softly lit B&W image was also much appreciated.

Other images to follow

Report by Peter Luck