to a polluted paradise
The photographer who dreamed up Alice in Wonderland
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PANDEMIC
Six photographers cover life under Covid-19
PANDEMIC / MANDY BARKER FRPS / LEWIS CARROLL
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Front cover and spine
THE RPS JOURNAL / JUNE 2020 / VOL 160 No 6
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~RPSMandy Barker Voyage
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‘We are finding new ways of telling stories’
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THIS ISSUE
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Six outstanding photographers share their experience of lockdown; the dual career of Magnum’s Moises Saman; and the creative journey of two Distinctions successes
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LIFE HAS CHANGED FOR EVERY one of us, with no clear answers about when – and whether – we can return to ‘normal’. Covid-19 could be here for the long haul and at every level – from the World Health Organization through national and devolved governments to our own homes – we are grappling with how to live with it as safely as possible. Image-makers from all walks of life are exploring new ways of telling stories in the era of the pandemic, adapting and enhancing their skills as they discover a whole new world closer to home. For this edition of The Journal, six photographers were asked to share their experiences of image-making during these strange times.
A woman receiving care in an intensive treatment unit (ITU), by Jonny Weeks
STAY CONNECTED
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Each responded with generosity, opening up to tell us how they have evolved personally so they can continue to tell stories. They include Jonny Weeks, one of the first photographers to document a UK intensive treatment unit for patients with Covid-19; The Times’ chief sports photographer Marc Aspland HonFRPS, who found himself back on the news beat; National Geographic photographer and conservationist Frans Lanting HonFRPS, who is rediscovering California; and Heather Angel HonFRPS, nature photographer and former president of the RPS, whose exploration of pollination and flower structures in her own garden is infused with hope. Covid-19 might dominate our lives and media coverage but beneath the radar humanity has other issues to resolve. Mandy Barker FRPS tells of joining a scientific expedition to an uninhabited island in the South Pacific – and discovering tons of plastic on its beach. A year on, we preview her series Lunasea, the startling results of her adventure. We hope you enjoy this issue, and that you continue to tell your own visual stories as we all find new ways to understand the world around us.
KATHLEEN MORGAN Editor
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Or contact the editor with your views rpsjournal@thinkpublishing.co.uk
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THE ROYAL PHOTOGRAPHIC SOCIETY RPS House, 337 Paintworks, Arnos Vale, Bristol BS4 3AR, UK www.rps.org frontofhouse@rps.org +44 (0)117 316 4450 Incorporated by Royal Charter Patron The Duchess of Cambridge
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Published on behalf of The Royal Photographic Society by Think Red Tree Business Suites 33 Dalmarnock Road, Glasgow G40 4LA thinkpublishing.co.uk EDITORIAL ENQUIRIES Editor Kathleen Morgan rpsjournal@thinkpublishing.co.uk 0141 375 0509
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Contributing editor Rachel Segal Hamilton Design Alistair McGown, John Pender Sub-editor Andrew Littlefield Editorial assistant Jennifer Constable Advertising sales Jamie Dawson jamie.dawson @thinkpublishing.co.uk 0203 771 7201 Group account director John Innes © 2020 The Royal Photographic Society. All rights reserved. Every reasonable endeavour has been made to find and contact the copyright owners of the works included in this newspaper. However, if you believe a copyright work has been included without your permission, please contact the publishers. Views of contributors and advertisers do not necessarily reflect the policies of The Royal Photographic Society or those of the publishers. All material correct at time of going to press.
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‘Football’, from the series Lunasea by Mandy Barker FRPS
Circulation 10,963 (Jan-Dec 2019) ABC ISSN: 1468-8670
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Cover Lakhbir Kaur, a sister at University Hospital, Coventry, by Jonny Weeks
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396 Images of childhood by Lewis Carroll
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380 How creative photography is still blooming under lockdown
BARKER MANDY FRPS; HEATHER ANGEL HONFRPS; LUTWIDGE CHARLES DODGSON / PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS
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President Dr Alan Hodgson ASIS HonFRPS Treasurer John Miskelly FRPS Chief Operating Officer Mike Taylor Director of Education and Public Affairs Dr Michael Pritchard FRPS
Contents, 1
CONTENTS
JUNE 2020
CONTRIBUTORS
EVERY MONTH 379 | BOOKS Titles this month include the haunting Silent Cities by Mat Hennek
364 | BIG PICTURE ‘Spring’ by Bex Daley
Jonny Weeks (PAGE 380)
A photographer, feature writer and picture editor, Weeks has worked for the Guardian newspaper since 2008. He covers news, sport, fashion and culture, dividing his time between Cornwall and London
367 | IN FOCUS A round-up of Society news and views, including details of a revamped Journal
420 | DISTINCTIONS We talk to two creative photographers whose work has earned them a Distinction
372 | 365 MONTHLY COMPETITION Some of the most popular entries on the theme of light and shadow
430 | EVENTS Online activities to fire the imagination and widen horizons
Heather Angel
YOULIVI NG L
(PAGE 380)
President of The Royal Photographic Society from 1984-1986, Angel is an awardwinning wildlife photographer with an academic background in zoology and marine biology
UR ILDIFIE i
OL.85 YOUIIUFE
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420 ‘Are you living your life?’ by Wendy G Davies LRPS
FEATURES WENDY G DAVIES LRPS; MOISES SAMAN
Gavin Bell (PAGE 410)
410 Moises Saman’s Best Shots
A former foreign correspondent for Reuters and the Times, Gavin Bell is now an awardwinning travel writer for the Telegraph and Wanderlust magazine
380 | COVID-19 Six photographers share their responses to living through the pandemic
402 | MANDY BARKER Explore the Lunasea of plastic pollution with this awardwinning RPS bursary recipient
396 | LEWIS CARROLL Diane Waggoner considers the great author’s controversial portrait photography
410 | BEST SHOTS Magnum photojournalist Moises Saman gives us the stories behind his key images VOL 160 / JUNE 2020 THE RPS JOURNAL / 363
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Spring By Bex Day
The UK lockdown has inspired artist Bex Day to create Seesaw, a series of self-portraits exploring the emotional ups and downs of life during the pandemic. This image, ‘Spring’, symbolises a yearning to return to nature. ‘People have been so dependent on screens in recent memory, but now that they are trapped in with their iPhones and computers, all they want to do is rebel and experience our environment,’ says Day on Instagram. ‘‘Spring’ represents this revived thirst we have to return to nature, but also nature’s rejuvenation in our absence.’ Visit bexday.com
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PAGE 370
CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE INSECT KIND
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DERRICK SANTINI'S PICTURES OF LILY
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MUD AND MOVEMENT IN COUNTY WEXFORD
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News, views, competitions and online exhibitions
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Hand sanitising in Goma, April 2020, by Arlette Bashizi
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Pandemic shifts power balance
The Democratic Republic of the Congo is given a voice by an award-winning photojournalist WHEN FINBARR O’Reilly was selected as the winner of the 11th Carmignac Photojournalism Award, his plan was to spend six months reporting from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). But everything changed for the Canadian-British photographer when the coronavirus pandemic took hold. Together with the jury
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of the international award, O’Reilly came up with a new, collaborative approach to the project that would instead see him curate stories by Congolese contributors. Titled Congo in Conversation, the results are published online in English and French. ‘From the outset I was interested in finding ways to include Congolese journalists in some way,’
Ebola outbreak in the town of Rutshuru, February 2020, by Finbarr O'Reilly 0
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says O’Reilly, who has spent 20 years covering Africa and the Middle East. ‘The main objective is to share powerful stories that people outside the DRC may not have known about, while also providing a platform for those interested in the country to engage with one another.’ O'Reilly adds that this version of the project reflects the direction in which photojournalism is increasingly headed, with local voices – such as Arlette Bashizi, Justin Makangara, Al-Hadji Kudra
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Maliro and Bernadette Vivuya – taking the lead. ‘So much storytelling from Africa is done by foreigners and brings with it a certain perspective,’ says O’Reilly. ‘Although I’m still an outsider curating the work of my Congolese colleagues, this project is about shifting the power dynamic around storytelling and putting it into the hands of the Congolese journalists for them to shape the narrative around their own country.’
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Visit congoinconversation. fondationcarmignac.com
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On the streets of Kinshasa, March 2020, by Justin Makangara
The Kituku market, Goma, April 2020, by Moses Sawasawa
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From the series Black Consciousness by Pamela Tulizo
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IN FOCUS
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New-look Journal in the works
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A fresh design and more pages are on the way WHEN YOUR COPY of The Journal lands on your doormat next month you will notice some big changes. The membership magazine – the world’s oldest continuously published photographic periodical – has been redesigned, with an extra 40 pages and a fresh new look. From the July issue The Journal will be published
bimonthly, with far more space available to showcase excellence in photography of every genre, from wildlife to documentary, and art to science. The print magazine will be complemented by two new monthly email newsletters containing member-only content produced by The Journal's editorial team.
Alan Hodgson ASIS HonFRPS, president of the RPS, says: ‘I am looking forward to hearing the new-format Journal thump through my letterbox. 'The extra pagination will allow us to delve deeper into a wider variety of topics and will add real value for our members.’ A recent member survey showed that while nine out
of 10 members read every issue of The Journal, a majority felt a magazine produced less frequently but with more pages would be preferable. The new format will allow the RPS to spend less on postage, helping the Society to continue to offer a wide range of events, exhibitions and services for members.
Portrait of a nation The Duchess of Cambridge invites the public to document lockdown A photography project launched by RPS Patron The Duchess of Cambridge and the National Portrait Gallery, London, encourages people to document their experiences of the pandemic. ‘Hold Still aims to capture a portrait of the nation, the spirit of the nation – what
everyone is going through at this time,’ said Her Royal Highness. ‘Photographs reflecting resilience, bravery, kindness – all those things that people are experiencing.’ The contest is open to all and the images must involve people. The deadline for submissions is 18 June 2020. One hundred shortlisted portraits will feature in a digital showcase and a selection will be exhibited later this year.
Jack Dodsley, 70, dances with a carer, by Tom Maddick/SWNS
Visit npg.org.uk/hold-still
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Alien encounters Up close and personal with a miniature ‘suburban safari’
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‘A speck of a creature becomes this colourful character when observed through magnification,’ says fine art photographer Daniel Kariko. After moving to North Carolina in 2011, Kariko became fascinated by
the ‘suburban safari’ all around him, and by his new anthropod housemates. ‘Over time I started depicting these creatures with classical art portrait tropes to infuse humour, history and layers of individuality,’ Kariko says. He hopes his latest book,
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Aliens Among Us: Extraordinary Portraits of Ordinary Bugs, will highlight the importance of biodiversity. ‘Far too often we consider the world from a strictly human-centered point of view. If our current situation reveals anything, it’s that we
cannot isolate ourselves from nature.’ Aliens Among Us: Extraordinary Portraits of Ordinary Bugs is published by WW Norton. For a 25% discount and free shipping, visit wwnorton.co.uk and add the code WN695 at checkout.
News, 3
IN FOCUS
ESSENTIALS
Lily the bull terrier BY DERRICK SANTINI ‘Lily is sadly no longer with me but for 17 years she was always by my side, and on all my shoots she was the most useful prop I have ever had. ‘On set she would disarm everyone, and chill with anyone who was a tad out of sorts. She got in all the shots too.
‘These photographs of Lily and the lovely folk she met will feature in a charity book out soon, Pictures With Lily, named after the Who song, which always makes me think of her.’ Derrick Santini’s work is exhibited by HOFA Gallery. Visit thehouseof fineart.com
‘Lily Allen and Lily’, by Derrick Santini
Seeing beyond the pandemic
DERRICK SANTINI; ROGER TOWELL ARPS
Thames show inspires lockdown Londoners An outdoor exhibition featuring work by RPS members has found a new audience during the coronavirus pandemic. The exhibition, behind St Mary’s Church, Putney, presented images made as part of the Totally Thames Festival last September, including the sendoff for the Clipper Round the World Yacht Race, and the Great River Race. Among the featured photographers are Judy Hicks, Greg Lambert and Roger Towell ARPS, whose image ‘St Katharine Docks’ is pictured above. ‘Our exhibition was timed to coincide with the Oxford and Cambridge Boat Races but they were cancelled,’ says Hicks, London Region co-organiser. ‘Nonetheless many people are enjoying the pictures, which will remain in situ until the lockdown is truly relaxed. Pandemic permitting, an indoor variant of the exhibition will appear in Putney Library in September.’ This is one of a number of initiatives the London Region is running, including online meetings, book clubs, advisory days and a Flickr site, London Challenge. Visit rps.org/londonabout VOL 160 / JUNE 2020 / THE RPS JOURNAL / 371
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365 monthly competition winners Enjoy the most popular entries on the theme of light and shadow SKATEBOARDER SHADOW
By Lynda Morris LRPS I took this at Brighton Skatepark on a sunny day in July. It’s a big crop of the original which captured the
skateboarder, but with a distracting background. I managed to get the separation of feet, board and shadow with my Canon 6D 24-105mm lens at 1/4,000sec, 95mm, f/4, ISO 800.
ONWARD JOURNEY
By Andy Parker In Venice train station for the start of Carnival 2014, a vintage steam train was idling away on the tracks. I was fascinated by the light bouncing off the old carriages so I already had camera in hand, and as this
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guy suddenly popped his head out of the window I took a shot. The resulting combination of the character in the light, together with the lines and shapes of the carriage, made for a pleasant composition. I took the image with a Canon G15, f/4.5, 1/1000, ISO 100.
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IN FOCUS
SHOWER CURTAIN
By Aindreas Scholz ALAN HODGSON ASIS HonFRPS
Drawn to representations of horror, at a young age I discovered the power of photography to freeze moments physically as a 2D artefact, and virtually in the mind of the spectator. In ‘Shower curtain’, from the series Homesick, I document the aftermath of the Gulf War (1990-1991), capturing what survived of intimate, domestic dwelling spaces that still echo the devastating psychological aftermath of their destruction. I used a Canon EOS 5D with an EF24-105mm f/4L IS USM lens at 0.8 sec, f/22, focal length 24mm, ISO 400.
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ALAN HODGSON ASIS HonFRPS
ENTER NOW Inspired by these images? Then vote for your favourites and submit your photographs for the next monthly Society competition at rps-365.org
President, The Royal Photographic Society
VoiceBox Keep calm and camera on Despite the coronavirus disruption the work of the Society continues
AGAIN, I WANT TO THANK diversity. As announced in the Journal staff, members and volunteers last month you should also be receiving for their efforts in dealing with messages about the EGM to nominate the Covid-19 situation. From the staff a President Elect – more details at side I would especially like to recognise rps.org/egm-2020 those that have been furloughed to I also draw your attention to the allow us to best manage the impact. The article on page 369 in this issue on the fact that they have been furloughed is change in format and delivery of The no reflection on them or their hard Journal. In making these changes work, commitment and skill. we aim to provide a higher-quality I would like to point members to magazine with richer and more varied some of the web resources available content. VoiceBox will now be every on rps.org. There is a wide selection two months but I will continue to of online learning and communicate my although our gallery thoughts via President’s remains closed, there are News on rps.org. ‘I have been a number of pieces on the I should also like to enjoying the site about both the IPE welcome two new staff and past exhibitions. online talks members to the RPS I have been particularly family. Rebecca Lee and videos enjoying the online is taking on our from selected talks and videos communications role artists’ from selected artists. and Evan Dawson will From a volunteer join us at the end of perspective, although we July as our new CEO. have furloughed Kate, our volunteering More on that in a future edition. manager, we do aim to continue Finally, I have a thing about supporting volunteers through this photography for a social purpose and period. We are entering a time of great just now there are two great examples financial uncertainty and we are on rps.org. The Pink Lady® Food Photographer of the Year overall focusing our resources on incomegenerating activity so that we emerge in winner is exemplary (see page 377). And below is my attempt at an entry for the best possible shape for the future. Potato Photographer of the Year, where But I have to signal that we need to postpone some well-established events. all proceeds go to food bank charities. Each year we make a series of internationally recognised awards and ‘Potatoes in the style of Viscountess our volunteers and staff on the Awards Jocelyn’ by Alan Hodgson Committee are already in the process of deciding on the 2020 recipients. The current uncertainty means that we have cancelled the 2020 awards evening, but we will celebrate the recipients’ achievements in a forthcoming edition of The Journal. Taking note of the report on the previous election, Council is in the process of initiating an external governance review and is also working to produce an outline strategy on
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Motion pictures This former dancer is inspired by his performance background
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Name: Luis Alberto Rodriguez Age: 39 Base: Berlin High point: Winning the Prix du Public at Hyères Photography Festival in 2017 USP: Portraiture that emphasises the dynamism of the human body
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He has been dancing for as long as he can remember. ‘I grew up in the theatre, surrounded by movement,’ says Luis Alberto Rodriguez. ‘It was a vibrant backdrop to an already pretty colourful existence coming from a Caribbean family.’ Raised in New York, Rodriguez worked internationally as a dancer for 14 years before establishing a career as a photographer, winning the Prix du Public at Hyères
Photography Festival in 2017. Self-taught, he started taking pictures in between performances when he was touring. Now his first photobook, People of the Mud – a study of community in rural Ireland – has been published by Loose Joints. The project began when Rodriguez was invited by PhotoIreland to do a residency in County Wexford. The national sport of hurling provided an opportunity to consider ideas of belonging,
tradition and intimacy, and in turn led him to explore other aspects of the community’s heritage. Throughout his almost sculptural black-andwhite images there is an attention to movement and costume that shows how Rodriguez’s dance training has moulded his photographic eye. ‘What I did for many years on stage is what I am doing now behind the camera,’ he says. Visit loosejoints.biz
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From the series People of the Mud
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News, 5
Hood medallist turns 100 A pioneering educator who was awarded the RPS Hood Medal in 1976 will celebrate his 100th birthday on 26 June. After leaving the Territorial Army, Ron Smith taught in the UK’s first school photography department at the flagship comprehensive Holland Park School from 1958 to 1983. ‘He was a guiding light for me – I was dyslexic and struggled at school,’ says Peter Dazeley FRPS, who was taught by Smith in the 1960s. ‘The school darkroom facilities were outstanding and Ron was an exceptional teacher, even teaching us to photograph on glass plates.’ Now registered blind, Smith is also a member of the Disabled Photographers’ Society. ‘He continued to teach into his 90s,’ adds Dazeley. ‘He’s a wonderful role model.’
Distinctions successes Congratulations to these RPS members LRPS EXEMPTIONS FEBRUARY 2020 Eleanor Crook, Kent Omar Saleem, West Midlands Rachel Wilson, Lancashire LRPS EXEMPTIONS MAY 2020 Jennie Meadows, Middlesex Megan Carine, Somerset
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An appreciation of Honorary Fellow Sue Davies OBE, founder of the UK’s first public gallery for photography
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SUE DAVIES OBE HonFRPS, who died on 18 April aged 87 years after a short illness, was the founding director of London’s The Photographers’ Gallery, the first public space in the UK dedicated solely to photography. During her 20 years as the gallery’s director she established it as the go-to place for photography, particularly in its early years when the medium was largely ignored by the UK’s arts establishment. Its exhibitions were diverse – ranging from historical photography, the work of contemporary photographers and themed shows, often with an international perspective – and supported by an eclectic talks programme. Born in 1933, Susan Elizabeth Adey spent her childhood in Iran, New York and London. In 1954 she married John R T Davies (1927-2004), the jazz musician and sound restorer, and they had three children, Joanna, Stephanie and Jessica. Sue Davies was involved with 376
Sue Davies by Jane Bown
various magazines before working at the Artists Placement Group, London, then joining the ICA in 1968 as exhibitions secretary. At the ICA she met Bill Jay, who was using it as a venue for his Photo Study Centre. Davies worked on the Spectrum exhibition at the ICA in spring 1969. It was a landmark event for photography in Britain, examining the role of the medium and showcasing the work of such photographers as Tony Ray-Jones, Enzo Ragazzini and Dorothy Bohn. This activity awakened her passion for photography, and by 1970 she was planning a gallery dedicated to the
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medium. She remortgaged her home and gained the backing of such figures as Tom Hopkinson and Magnum photographer David Hurn HonFRPS. The Photographers’ Gallery opened on 14 January 1971, with ambitions to provide a central London showcase that would exhibit the best photography, create a centre for the sale of photographic prints, and offer a selection of photographic books, catalogues and magazines. It would also act
as an exchange house for exhibitions touring the continent, and initiate touring collections. The Photographers’ Gallery’s first exhibition was The Concerned Photographer, curated by Cornell Capa, followed by a show of Edward Weston’s photography, and thematic shows around industry, fashion and landscape. As Martin Parr HonFRPS recently commented: ‘To find a place that loved photography,
‘Sue Davies deserves the highest praise for raising the profile of photography in Britain’
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PAUL CARTER / THE PHOTOGRAPHERS’ GALLERY ARCHIVE
it was absolutely exhilarating to go in there’. Davies and her family initiated all the funding to found The Photographers’ Gallery at 8 Great Newport Street, leading to the support of the photography community. The premises provided 3,500sqft of space to exhibit images, and for photographers and the public to meet and listen to speakers. In 1980, the gallery expanded in to 5 Great Newport Street and the freehold was purchased. Davies was recognised by The Royal Photographic Society in 1982 with a Progress Medal and Honorary Fellowship, and in 1988 she was awarded an OBE. In 1991 Davies stepped down as director of the gallery. The British Journal of Photography (BJP) suggested the decision was, in part, based on the continual need to find funding to keep the gallery afloat. Even in 1972 Davies had said ‘we suffer from a chronic lack of money’, and this was always a challenge. The BJP’s assessment of her time at the gallery was fulsome: ‘Davies deserves the highest praise for what she has achieved in raising the profile of photography in Britain, not just via the walls of Great Newport Street, but by 20 years of example set to the many similarly successful funded galleries around the country.’ Davies remained involved in photography, as a visiting lecturer and curator. The roll call of those who took part in the gallery’s activities include curator Zelda Cheatle, who worked in the print room during the 1980s.
‘It was a time so heady with excitement and discovery. There was dynamism and adventure’ ‘It was a time so heady with excitement and discovery,’ she says. ‘There was energy and dynamism, adventure and challenge – a buzzing epicentre of photography. ‘Sue persuaded me to open my own gallery, and remained supportive through the good times and the bad.’ Magnum photographer Chris Steele-Perkins HonFRPS says: ‘Sue was responsible for encouraging young photographers, as well as bringing the work of greats like O Winston Link, André Kertész and William Klein to a British audience. For my generation The Photographers’ Gallery was like a clubhouse, and I
Sue Davies and Tom Hopkinson in 1971
owe lasting friendships and important contacts to Sue.’ Brett Rogers OBE, current director of The Photographers’ Gallery, says: ‘Sue’s vision for the gallery was rooted in a spirit of collaboration. She gathered a group of like-minded people to work with her to ensure The Photographers’ Gallery was first and foremost a place for photographers to exhibit, share, meet and sell their work. ‘Equally Sue wanted to offer an environment to inspire, educate and inform audiences about the pivotal role photography plays in our lives and communities.’ Michael Pritchard FRPS and Zelda Cheatle
A real treasure We remember the tireless work of an Honorary Life Member
SYLVIA JONES, treasurer for the RPS North West Region for almost 20 years, died in hospital after a short illness on 22 April, at the age of 87. I first met Sylvia in 2004 when I joined the North West Region committee. At that time Sylvia was the treasurer for the region. In 2006 I was appointed the regional organiser for the North West and she was my treasurer from 2006 until 2016. Soft spoken, with immense patience, Sylvia was a polite, punctual, efficient and proactive member of the committee. She hardly ever missed a meeting and was always the first to arrive at the venue, ready at reception to receive members with a smile and collect their tickets for the event. In 2011 Sylvia was the recipient of the RPS Members’ Award, which is given to an ordinary member who, in the opinion of the Council, has shown extraordinary support for the Society over a sustained period. This award carries with it Honorary Life Membership of the Society. Sylvia was a trained bookkeeper and, as such, was an efficient treasurer who made sure that account reports were accurate. Although she had been a member of the RPS since 1975, Sylvia never applied for any Distinctions despite my attempts to inspire her. Her response used to be: ‘I take pictures for my pleasure; I don’t take pictures for Distinctions’. Sylvia resigned from the North West Region committee in 2016. In her retirement she enjoyed painting and gardening. During the ten years we worked together I got to know her well as a friend, and she kept in touch with me until a fortnight before her passing. Sylvia will be missed by her relatives and friends, and by many within the RPS and beyond. Professor Afzal Ansary ASIS FRPS VOL 160 / JUNE 2020 / THE RPS JOURNAL / 377
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Obituaries, 1
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WHAT TO SEE THIS MONTH ONLINE
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KACPER KOWALSKI: A DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVE atlasgallery.com UNTIL 27 JUNE
A trained pilot, this
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Award-winning Polish photographer shoots abstract aerial images of his homeland, while flying a paraglider or a gyrocopter 150m above the ground. Formally beautiful, Kowalski’s pictures have a meditative feel much needed in these times.
‘Toxic beauty’ by Kacper Kowalski, from the Side Effects project
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WAKE UP TOGETHER openeye.org.uk
This VR tour
3 revisits a dual
ON EARTH: IMAGING, TECHNOLOGY AND THE NATURAL WORLD foam.org UNTIL 2 SEPTEMBER
In a series of
2 video tours,
exhibition curator Hinde Haest takes viewers on a tour of some of the works on show which shine a light on our shifting relationship with nature. There are also video interviews with the artists made during the lockdown.
+
DISCOVER
378 / THE RPS JOURNAL
2018 exhibition by Ren Hang and Robin Hammond. Hang, who died aged 29, is known for his nudes, which were controversial in his native China. Hammond’s Where Love is Illegal highlights discrimination faced by LGBTI people.
PICTURING LOCKDOWN historicengland.org.uk For one week
4 from 29 April,
Historic England invited members of the public and a selection of commissioned artists, including Vic Odden Award winner Chloe Dewe Mathews and IPE 159 Silver awardee Polly Braden, to record their experiences of lockdown.
William Henry Fox Talbot Catalogue talbot.bodleian.ox.ac.uk // AmberSide Collection amber-online.com/collections // The Apollo Archive flickr.com/photos/projectapolloarchive // The Wellcome Collection wellcomecollection.org/works // Library of Congress loc.gov/pictures / JUNE 2020 / VOL 160
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INSIDE HELMUT NEWTON 100 facebook.com/newlandshouse.gallery
The first exhibition in this new Petworth-based
5 gallery space, which only opened on 6 March,
is now online. The digital version of the show presents fashion, still life and landscape images by a giant of 20th-century photography, plus interviews with Mary McCartney and Juergen Teller.
KOWALSKI; KACPER THE HELMUT NEWTON ESTATE; DOROTHEA LANGE / THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS; ROBIN HAMMOND; LUCAS FOGLIA / MICHAEL HOPPEN GALLERY
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Books
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AL DI LÀ DELL’ACQUA Massimiliano Camellini ARPS GRETA’S BOOKS (£40)
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For four years Massimiliano Camellini turned his lens on the interiors of international cargo boats. Travelling over long distances, these vessels become temporary villages for crews that live and work onboard. Focusing on domestic details such as windows and exercise bikes, Camellini’s black and white images explore how these confined yet constantly moving spaces can be made to feel like home.
PRODUCTION
PHOTOGRAPHS BY PAUL MPAGI SEPUYA Paul Mpagi Sepuya APERTURE (£30)
‘Stockholm 02 2013’ by Mat Hennek CLIENT
A dystopian reality The Covid-19 pandemic gives this title extra resonance SILENT CITIES Mat Hennek
STEIDL (£45)
Once upon a time we dreamed about cities without people. We bemoaned the overcrowded tourist hot spots. We read dystopian fiction in which nature runs wild after civilisation has been wiped out. Then, in March this year, we got a taste of this for real as cities around the world began to enforce lockdowns in an effort to protect their citizens from Covid-19. German-born photographer Mat Hennek’s series was shot long before all this, but inevitably takes on a powerful new resonance in the reality we now inhabit. His pictures are essentially portraits of cities the world over, from Rome to Los Angeles, emptied out of human presence, with the exception of the odd glimpse of commuters in Osaka or a cyclist in Tokyo.
Fittingly for the concept, Hennek offers little in the way of context – no introduction or essays, and brief captions limited to places and dates. This emphasises the raw visual pleasure to be had in simply absorbing these views, rich in detail, with their lush colours and keen attention to the delicate transience of light. The book is also a masterclass in sequencing. Images flow beautifully from one to the next, linked by some common element – a particular tone, an architectural line, or simply a mood that you sense but can’t quite pin down. More than this, the images make us reflect on what a city is for, or consider what aspects of a city without people we might want to preserve – the scent of clean air, or the sound of birdsong, perhaps. Silent Cities helps us to think about what we would miss about never again finding ourselves anonymous in a crowd, swept up in a cacophony of human voices.
Published to accompany a major exhibition by Paul Mpagi Sepuya at the Contemporary Art Museum St Louis, this is the first publication to bring the American artist’s practice to a wider audience. With his friends as sitters, he uses layering, mirrors and collage to deconstruct traditional approaches to studio portraiture, publishing the results in his own artists’ books. FLOWER ART Azuma Makoto
THAMES & HUDSON (£39.95)
This is the most comprehensive collection to date by the Japanese botanical artist whose work featured in the February 2020 issue of The Journal. Makoto has sent his fantastical floral arrangements into wrestling rings, under oceans and into the stratosphere. Breathtakingly spectacular, these pictures offer a witty, wildly original take on the relationship between humans and nature. VOL 160 / JUNE 2020 / THE RPS JOURNAL / 379
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This is how Jonny Weeks describes his approach to documenting a Covid-19 intensive treatment unit. He and five other photographers tell us how the pandemic has changed the way they see the world
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Roger Townsend, a clinical lead in ITU at University Hospital Coventry, by Jonny Weeks 380
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WEEKSJONNY / THE GUARDIAN / EYEVINE
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‘HONEST. INQUISITIVE. SENSITIVE. RESPECTFUL’
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Jonny Weeks
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Nurses in ITU attend to their patient ABOVE RIGHT
A medic prepares to enter ITU (all medical staff have their names written onto their fronts and backs to ensure they can be identified) RIGHT
Ranveer Singh Chaven, a biomedical scientist 382
I was born in Walsgrave Hospital, Coventry on 15 August 1982. Thirty-seven years later I felt compelled to return there, to what is now University Hospital, to document how the NHS was fighting the most extraordinary health crisis of our time: Covid-19. At that stage (in early April) I don’t think any other photographer in the country had published photos from inside the Covid-19 wards of a hospital. It seemed really odd to me that we knew so little of what was happening in our hospitals at such a critical time. I was thinking to myself: who are the nurses, doctors, cleaners, clerks, porters, researchers and consultants in the UK on whom so many lives depend right now, and what are their stories? I called my local hospitals and explained my desire to create a respectful and personal feature on the NHS’s response to the
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Covid-19 crisis. In particular I told them I wanted to share the stories of individuals within the NHS so people could better understand their contributions. University Hospital in Coventry was receptive from the outset – I think they trusted me because, as a local person, they felt I’d do justice to the story and the local community. They didn’t place curbs on my ability to report accurately; I was given wideranging access to every level of the hospital and to dozens of members of staff. Having started my career in journalism as a sports reporter in 2004 and taught myself photography while working in New Zealand, I’d joined The Guardian newspaper in 2008. I’ve worked as a picture editor, reporter and photographer for various desks over the years, but I’d never worked on a story like this one. I felt a burden of responsibility to do justice to the people involved, and to my profession. I wanted to ensure
‘I felt a burden of responsibility to do justice to the people involved,and to my profession‘ my images were honest and inquisitive, but sensitive and respectful. I had almost five days at the hospital which sounds like a long time but much of that was consumed with making plans, establishing trust, learning the best way to shoot the subject and, of course, donning and doffing PPE everywhere I went. I often had to work in tight, awkward and unexpected conditions. In the intensive treatment unit (ITU), for instance, I had to wear the same level of PPE as the medics – gloves, face masks, goggles and so on – which inhibited my ability to compose each shot.
WEEKSJONNY / THE GUARDIAN / EYEVINE
Photojournalist, The Guardian
The NHS staff were overwhelmingly positive about my presence and wanted to share their stories, so there was never a point I felt like I was unwelcome or causing a hindrance. I was particularly struck by their warmth and sense of humour, which shone through even in dark times. In the upper wards I spoke to a few patients and although they were clearly ill, they were receptive to the idea of being photographed. We made clear that identities would be withheld, where requested, and I hope they knew I wasn’t there to pry, I was there to report. There was, however, one time I felt very uncomfortable about my role as a photojournalist, when I came across a patient wearing a breathing apparatus which encased his head. He was awake – one of the few who was – and I felt a deep sense of shock and awkwardness as I walked past his bed. But I reminded myself I was there for
a good reason and that images from within ITU needed to be seen by the wider public. The reaction from the public to the piece has shown me that people value the insight journalism can provide. I’ve received dozens of kind messages. I hope other journalists and photographers will gain access in the coming weeks so that together we can shine a light on different aspects of the crisis and hold those with responsibility to account. I also hope that by documenting life inside a hospital my work might provide some comfort to families whose loved ones are being treated, because they can now see the level of care provided by the NHS – it’s extraordinary. The NHS staff are kind, brave, dutiful and caring. Now, when I’m clapping on Thursday evenings, I have a much greater appreciation for their work. Visit jonnyweeks.co.uk VOL 160 / JUNE 2020 THE RPS JOURNAL / 383
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The Cheltenham Festival, three days before lockdown
Marc Aspland HonFRPS Chief sports photographer, The Times Although the Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced lockdown measures for the UK on 23 March it seems a lifetime ago for this sports photographer. Days have felt like years. Effectively ending my diary of covering sport in springtime – ranging from the Grand National at Aintree to the Boat Race and a staple diet of Premier League and Champions League football as we edge closer to their dramatic season-ending conclusions – resulted in an unwelcome break. As chief sports photographer for the Times I was very much looking forward to 2020 – Wimbledon Championships, Euro 2020, the Ryder Cup in Wisconsin USA and the 0 VOL 160 / JUNE 2020 THE RPS JOURNAL / 385
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Jay Clancy, a professional football freestyler, using the car park at Stevenage FC to practise his skills ABOVE
A weekly meeting of families who sing ‘Mamma Mia’ outside on Marquis Lane, Harpenden ABOVE RIGHT
Two boys play in the shadow of Tottenham Hotspur Stadium RIGHT
Retired Brigadier David Montgomerie tees off at the newly reopened Royal St George’s Golf Club, in Sandwich, Kent 386
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‘I have welcomed being a valued member of the news-gathering team during this national crisis‘ politics, features, fashion, business news and, of course, my beloved sport. In my 30-odd years as a photographer for the Times I have honed my techniques and creativity. I’ve always felt incredibly fortunate – lucky actually – that ‘seeing’ creative pictures has come rather naturally and this does not change whether it’s a news or sports story.
I am not used to the sharp elbows employed by zealous news hounds, as I discovered when I was asked to cover the arrival at Stansted Airport of Romanians who are to be employed as fruit pickers, but I am a fast learner and have discovered my elbows are just as sharp. Adapting and embracing the new demands of being a news photographer has sharpened my desire to place a picture in my newspaper. This new situation has also made me think differently. Considering how news stories will develop and being one step ahead of the game has enabled me to create galleries and projects which otherwise would not have happened.
ASPLAND MARCHonFRPS
CLIENT TOP
0 Olympics in Japan – all now on hold, with Royal Ascot going ahead behind closed doors. My last sporting event was covering The Cheltenham Festival, which 251,684 racegoers attended just days before the lockdown. Since the lockdown I have been reassigned to the main picture desk to become a news photographer for the Times and the Sunday Times. This initially came as a shock, but latterly I have welcomed being a valued member of the newsgathering team during this difficult national crisis. It feels somewhat that I have suddenly and rather unexpectedly come full circle in my career at The Times, as I started as a young eager freelancer in the late 1980s covering hard news,
Covid-19, 4
At the start of the lockdown, for our weekly online Unseen Gallery, we showed images of the sports which were still going ahead at that time. Then we produced a retrospective gallery of a Champions League match which happened exactly a year ago. There was also an Unseen Special entitled ‘When football stood still’, for which we gathered a huge gallery of the many beautiful and poignant statues at our football grounds around the country. On my new press card are the words ‘key worker’, but actually I am just a photographer trying to produce images which tell a story – as I have always done. Visit @marc.aspland on Instagram VOL 160 / JUNE 2020 THE RPS JOURNAL / 387
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Nature photographer and conservationist Life before the Covid-19 pandemic? Hectic. Travel. Airports. Time zones. Deadlines. The lockdown forced me to slow down and look more closely at the world close to home. I’m lucky to live along the coast in California in a rural place. At home I’m surrounded 388
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by nature and that has been a blessing. I found time to photograph things I have wanted to document for years, but never had enough time for. A male wild turkey displaying on our meadow; a newt crossing a country road; a buckeye tree in early spring; and a creek running with clear water after a last winter rain.
I’ve become more observant, and have found myself drawn towards a contemplative view of nature as part of my private response to the global crisis. My hopes for the future? A global ban on the illegal trade in pangolins, bats and other wildlife that triggered this pandemic. Visit lanting.com
LANTING FRANS HonFRPS / LANTING.COM
Frans Lanting HonFRPS
MAIN IMAGE
Rough-skinned newt on road, Monterey Bay, California, USA TOP RIGHT
Evening light on sea cliffs, Davenport, California, USA MIDDLE RIGHT
Old-growth redwood trees, Big Basin Redwoods State Park, California, USA RIGHT
Wild turkey male displaying, Monterey Bay, California, USA
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Wildlife photographer and former RPS president Before the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic I lived a peripatetic life as a freelance wildlife photographer, working from the poles to the tropics for five decades. After many years of travelling I decided to spend 2020 focusing on established gardens in the south-east of England in search of pollinators, since my current book in progress covers how to attract pollinators to private gardens – in every season. With our combined ages reaching 162, my husband and I opted to self-isolate before the 390
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government announcement. Having downsized in 2017, within months a pond was built with many emergent aquatic plants. Gradually we added bulbs, perennials and shrubs. As gardens closed my only option was to increase the diversity of plants to lure more pollinators into our own garden. Knowing the best online nurseries I ordered plants that would flower this year, increasing our stock of Chinese plants to 14. Postal delays resulting from the pandemic meant 24-hour deliveries took five to eight days. Fortunately most of the limp plants came back to life.
My outdoor technique at home is the same as when taking pollinators abroad. Working on the hoof is essential, using a 105mm macro lens and a twin-macro flash set-up. As an insect moves around flowers the shooting angle is constantly adjusted and the lens refocused. April 2020 turned out to be the sunniest on record; perfect for pollinators to actively forage throughout the day. For four decades a gardener’s brick bothy was my studio, with studio flash lighting and fibre optics. Now I use an orangery with wraparound lighting. On sunny days, direct sunlight is softened using a
ANGEL HonFRPS; HEATHER PORTRAIT BY NATALIE JOHNSON
Heather Angel HonFRPS
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framework of plumber’s white plastic piping with white nylon silk stretched over it. Studio flash was replaced with a range of LED lights, from flexible panels to a telescopic 1cm diameter spotlight – all available online. For me, lockdown has provided a great opportunity to concentrate on experimenting with new lighting for macro subjects and getting to grips with video clips of pollinators without any distractions. My main target for 2020 is to complete my pollinators book.
MAIN IMAGE
Focus stack of a hoop-petticoat daffodil showing stamens shedding pollen ABOVE
A bee-fly sucking nectar from a grape hyacinth RIGHT
Visit heatherangelphotography. co.uk
The central bullseye pattern in a tulip flower
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Chris Packham
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Springwatch presenter, conservationist and nature photographer
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BELOW
Wood anemone RIGHT
Male fern OPPOSITE, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT
Springwatch is live at 8pm on BBC Two until 12 June. Visit chrispackham.co.uk
‘We are not disconnected from nature and if we don’t treat it with respect, we leave ourselves vulnerable‘
PACKHAM CHRIS
CLIENT
Male fern Bluebell Snake’s head fritillary Wood anemone
This is always a busy time of year – I’d normally have been prefilming for [the BBC series] Springwatch. I’d have been travelling around the country and maybe even overseas. I shall be doing Springwatch from home in the New Forest this year, which is going to be different and challenging but I am looking forward to it. We have plenty of wildlife around the house. [Life under lockdown] is like being a teenager again. I’ve never had this much consecutive time in one place during the spring to engage with wildlife. I’ve seen changes taking place in a matter of days – flowers blooming, blossom coming and going, birds singing and stopping. And, of course, it’s allowed me to take photographs. I thought I’d set myself a little project to photograph all the spring
flowers that come up in the garden – ours is a wildlife garden. I’m just waiting for a couple more species to reach their peak now. It will be a document of spring. I bought a mirrorless camera and had it converted to infrared. There’s something odd about it – sometimes it can look more like X-rays than photographs. I want to continue with that, and to move from plants on to insects. A lot of people are clamouring to get back to normal, but I don’t want to go back to the normal we had. I want a new normal – a healthier normal in terms of the environment and our species. If there’s one horrible, harsh lesson from this crisis, it is that we are not disconnected from nature and if we don’t treat it with respect, we leave ourselves vulnerable.
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Alice Kenny
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I work in the medical illustration department at the University Hospitals Bristol and Weston NHS Foundation Trust (UHBW). We are a busy department, with eight members of staff including seven photographers and one videographer. We have recently launched a video service for clinical and non-clinical work. Our department has remained open [during the pandemic] but a lot of the clinical areas and services we support have reduced clinics. In light of national advice, where we can, we now have members of the team working from home and we try and keep the staff coming into the department to a minimum. We also ensure we are wearing the correct PPE when photographing patients. I have struggled to use the camera while wearing a face mask, goggles and a visor. During Covid-19 we still photograph ward and vulnerable patients, but we
KENNY ALICE
Senior clinical photographer
‘I have struggled to use the camera while wearing a face mask‘ also now support and manage patients taking their own images at home. In some areas patients send in images so they can receive support from a consultant. We are in the process of producing a short video to help patients take better clinical photographs on their own devices to send in. We have also noticed a big increase in demand for videos relating to Covid-19. So far these videos are aimed at staff or patients and either pass on information or provide training. This has given the clinical photographers the chance to learn new skills in shooting and editing videos. As a department, the pandemic has at least given us the chance to catch up on all our paperwork. We are updating our departmental policy, consent forms and
patient information leaflets. We are also working towards a clinical audit by the Institute of Medical Illustrators and are hoping to achieve the Quality Assurance Level 2. I look forward to a return to some kind of normality and optimism for the future. I hope we can continue seeing
patients, providing them with a positive patient experience and giving our clinicians the bestquality clinical photographs to support the patients’ care. I am also hoping that a vaccination for Covid-19 will be found, and that we can all be safe.
TOP
Epidermal Nevus ABOVE
Cyst on the upper small intestine of a seven-week-old baby
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THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS Haunting photographs by the author Lewis Carroll embody conflicting definitions of childhood, writes curator Diane Waggoner
I
N 1856, CHARLES LUTWIDGE Dodgson, a 24-year-old mathematics don at Christ Church, Oxford, adopted the pen name Lewis Carroll. At the time, he was establishing his place in the adult world and discovering an abiding fascination with children and with childhood. Though it was almost ten years before he would publish his great work of children’s literature, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, and achieve fame under his pseudonym, 1856 was a pivotal year for him for another reason: he began making photographs. The young medium of photography – introduced to the world in 1839 – was
then opening up uncharted possibilities for representation and becoming established as a new form of picturemaking. Intrigued by the process, Dodgson quickly mastered the technology and soon found his forte in photographing children. He embarked on a decades-long journey in which the photograph would take on several resonant meanings for him – as artistic picture, social vessel and memorial archive, and as a means to explore the idea of childhood. This engagement with childhood occurred at a critical historical juncture in the 19th century when the concept itself was in transition, cementing its modern iteration as a life stage with characteristics distinct from adulthood.
‘The beggar-child’, Dodgson’s photograph of Alice Liddell made in 1858, is now one of the most recognisable Victorian images of a child (facing page). Combining Dodgson’s talent for composition and the young Alice’s skill in posing, this picture was proudly shown by Dodgson to his large circle of acquaintances at Oxford and beyond, and he made several prints of it. In the most exquisite extant prints, purplish-brown hues lushly capture the contrast between the grainy textures of the stone wall and the smoothness of Alice’s flesh and rags, though the contours of the dress are washed out. The thick, tattered cloth is arranged on Alice’s body so that her right shoulder is bare, and, on her left 0 VOL 160 / JUNE 2020 THE RPS JOURNAL / 397
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Lewis Carroll/Alice, 1
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‘Lorina and Alice Liddell in Chinese dress’, 1859 or 1860
shoulder, the sleeve falls down. The neckline plunges to reveal her left nipple. The bold, fearless expression on Alice’s face demands attention, and her penetrating gaze can be read as responding to the presence of the camera and of Dodgson in front of her. The look on her face registers her exchange with her friend, Mr Dodgson: she seems acutely conscious of being looked at and being photographed by him. The daughter of the dean of Christ Church, Alice Liddell would serve as Dodgson’s muse for the writing of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. By the time he made ‘The beggar-child’ in the late 1850s, Dodgson had already spent many hours entertaining Alice and her sisters, Lorina and Edith, with stories, games and puzzles. Included among these hours was the activity of 398
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photographing them. To create each picture, Dodgson had to make arrangements with the Liddells’ parents for time with them, bringing all the apparatus of the camera and the challenging wet-collodion glass-plate negative process over to the Deanery garden, where he posed the girls and made the exposures. To play a beggar child, Alice had to actively participate, donning the ripped clothes and responding to Mr Dodgson’s direction to stand in a particular place. She was a willing collaborator, enduring the tedium of holding the pose during an exposure time lasting several seconds. Dodgson, for his part, must have elicited Alice’s playful behaviour and guided her pose to make her childish pretending apparent through her body, so that he could capture it on the glass negative.
Dodgson intended to make an artistic portrait that tapped into Victorian visual conventions, particularly a legacy of “fancy pictures” rooted in the 18th century that picturesquely represented urchins in beggar rags. He first referred to this photograph as ‘The beggar-child’, but sometime later he titled it ‘The beggar-maid’, referring to Alfred Tennyson’s 1842 poem, which recounted the story of King Cophetua, who happens upon a young beggar woman and marries her. In the late 1850s, picturing a genre or literary subject was just emerging as a pursuit of British photographers with artistic ambitions, who were eager to explore the nascent medium’s pictorial capabilities. However, Dodgson did not work with models, as contemporaries such as Oscar Gustave Rejlander or Henry Peach Robinson did.
Lewis Carroll/Alice, 2 Self-portrait circa 1857
In addition to his “fancy picture”, Dodgson was making a portrait of a little girl with whom he had a friendship and to whom he told stories. In Alice Liddell, Dodgson had found a radiant model that the camera loved. His portraits of her are among the earliest examples of a serial photographic exploration of a person and a sustained interaction between photographer and subject. In December 1865, Dodgson published Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. As one of the most significant among a new wave of books written in the 19th century for and about children that helped transform our modern understanding of childhood, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and its later sequel, Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There, emphasised play and amusement over the pedagogical intent that had dominated
‘Dodgson’s portraits of Alice Liddell are among the earliest examples of a serial photographic exploration of a person’ an 18th-century lineage of didactic children’s books. The two Alice books became a guiding force in the growing genre of children’s literature. Crucially, the books originated in the stories that Dodgson told extemporaneously to entertain Alice and her siblings: Dodgson’s friendship with these particular children, the work of fiction that it inspired, and the photographs he made of them participated in a significant shift in the way adults perceived and treated children.
For Dodgson, stories and photography became closely allied: several literary scholars have highlighted the photographic resonances in the Alice books, but Dodgson also used storytelling to entertain his potential photographic subjects. However, despite the recognition of his prestige as a towering figure within the genre of 19th-century children’s literature and its reshaping of the concept of childhood within the emerging conditions of modernity, Dodgson’s persistent engagement with childhood in the visual arena through photography has been less fully examined. My book [Lewis Carroll’s Photography and Modern Childhood] asserts that Dodgson’s photographs of children equaled the status of his children’s books. His pictures served as a vehicle for the emotional and 0 VOL 160 / JUNE 2020 THE RPS JOURNAL / 399
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0 imaginative appeal of specific children and childhood as a concept to him, and, in turn, contributed to fashioning that very idea of Victorian childhood – itself defined upon an ascendant Anglo-Saxon Christian middle class as the dominant norm – for adult Victorians. Alice, as a little girl playing dress-up, is meant to be recognisable as a child in ‘The beggar-child’ photograph – that is, pictured as embodying the transient stage of childhood, a depiction possible only once childhood was understood as a phase of life, not only separate from adulthood but also, critically, with its own characteristics. This is one of Dodgson’s signature achievements in
his photography, which has largely gone unrecognised because it has been so thoroughly naturalised: he sought and found an appropriate visual form that established how a white middle-class child (both girl and boy) – as that entity was coming to be understood in the 19th century – should act and how she or he should look photographically to appear to be a child. What he accomplished was not the inevitable result of the mimetic abilities of photography to capture children as they really are, but was instead just as much a historical construction as a painted or drawn representation. Dodgson’s photographs did not simply reveal what children are like; rather, his
pictures – generated by bringing together his experiential interaction with individual children and the aesthetics of photography – created a compelling model that established how a photograph could communicate childlikeness to himself and to his contemporaries. Yet the understanding of what constitutes childhood could be vexingly complex. The most common title used now for this photograph is Dodgson’s later version, ‘The beggarmaid’. The literary reference to the story of King Cophetua suggests that Alice is playing at a story about sexual attraction and love that, in her state of immaturity as it was understood in dominant Victorian
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Lewis Carroll/Alice, 3 ‘Irene MacDonald, Flora Rankin, and Mary MacDonald’, 1863
culture, she was not supposed to fully comprehend. Dodgson’s earlier title, ‘The beggar-child’, had placed the picture more firmly within a sphere of assumed innocence. By moving back and forth between the descriptive and literary titles, Dodgson envisaged Alice as both child and future maid, a tellingly slippery movement, speaking to the changeable qualities of what comprised a child. Though childhood and adulthood were understood as distinct from one another, the boundaries between the two were not always firm or clearly delineated. Because our concept of the divide between childhood and adulthood traces a direct line from the Victorian world, this shifty notion has often led to contradictory 20th- and 21stcentury interpretations of Dodgson’s photographs, focusing on his motivations in photographing children. Were his actions a straightforward expression of a Victorian cult of the innocent child, as some suggest, or
‘Present-day viewers may find Dodgson’s photographs to be difficult or alienating’ were they, as others think, somehow suspect, potentially suffused with eroticism and desire for a being that is supposed to exist outside those emotions? These are questions that arise for any scholar discussing Dodgson’s photographs of children. Present-day viewers may find Dodgson’s photographs to be difficult or alienating, given our heightened awareness concerning abuse against children and the inequities of power. My primary purpose, however, is to see them through a historical lens and recover the cultural work they performed in the latter half of the 19th century. [My book] investigates how Dodgson’s photographs of white, middle-class Victorian children were
the material visualisation of two combined forces: one, Dodgson’s erudite understanding of aesthetics and an extensive practice of making photographs over time, and two, his powerful emotional investment in individual children coupled with his creative investment in the concept of childhood. This exceptional, inventive endeavour by Dodgson took place at a moment in the mid-19th century when both the meaning of photography and the meaning of childhood were elastic. This is an excerpt from Lewis Carroll’s Photography and Modern Childhood by Diane Waggoner, published by Princeton University Press and reprinted by permission. Waggoner is curator of 19th-century photographs at the National Gallery of Art, Washington VOL 160 / JUNE 2020 THE RPS JOURNAL / 401
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THE VOYAGER A year after joining an expedition to expose the perils of plastic pollution in the South Pacific, Mandy Barker FRPS unveils her startling new work
WORDS: KATHLEEN MORGAN
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‘McDonald’s Happy Meal toy’ from the Lunasea series
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‘Soldier’ from the Lunasea series BELOW
‘Selection 9 moons (fishing buoys)’ from the Lunasea series
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YEAR AGO, ON WORLD Oceans Day, a 12-strong team including scientists, conservationists, journalists and a photographer arrived on an uninhabited South Pacific island to begin a two-week research and clean-up expedition. Henderson Island, a UK territory with Unesco World Heritage status, is 5,000km from the nearest inhabited landmass. The team should have been greeted with a breathtaking vista of Henderson, part of the Pitcairn Island chain and among the best remaining examples of an elevated coral atoll ecosystem. Instead, they encountered the grim reality that had brought them there in the first place – a 2.5km stretch of
beach choked with an estimated 18 tonnes of plastic pollution that has gathered over decades. With some 27 new items of plastic being washed up on every metre of beach per day (according to a study by the University of Tasmania and the RSPB conducted in 2017), the scientific investigations focused on the impact on Henderson Island, as well as the surrounding coral reefs and seabed sandy habitats. Also part of the team was Mandy Barker FRPS, renowned internationally for her work with marine plastic debris. Her 2019 book Altered Ocean, and accompanying exhibition at the RPS Gallery in Bristol, illuminated the issue of plastic pollution in the world’s seas with mesmerising images of colourful items – footballs, flowers, Disney characters, bags – washed up on
‘Barker illuminated the issue of plastic pollution in the world’s seas with mesmerising images of colourful items’ beaches across the globe. Public awareness of the issue might have increased since Barker began documenting marine plastic pollution a decade ago, but the trip to Henderson Island was a stark reminder of just how much needs to be done. Blogging about her experience on her website, Barker describes the challenges the expedition team encountered getting to Henderson. ‘Adverse weather conditions, and the inability to land 0
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‘Moons with eclipsed objects – packaging tape and toy horse’ from the Lunasea series
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on the island’s East Beach by RIB (rigid-hulled inflatable boat), posed a significant problem. It was necessary to cut a path through jungle, from the north side of the island, and to travel to East Beach over the plateaux each day on foot, covering more than 100km – including climbing 300ft coral cliffs at either side. It is no wonder Henderson is known as the “inaccessible” island.’ The result of the expedition is Barker’s series Lunasea (‘luna’ is Latin for moon). ‘To me, the coral landscape of Henderson resembles the surface of the moon disturbed by hundreds of plastic fishing buoys scattered like planets in a marine solar system,’ she explains. ‘In my work, the recovered buoys represent new “moons” in a blurred orbit of moving plastic and coral dust – a unique Lunasea.
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‘Recovered plastic objects eclipse the buoys – shadows of a plastic boot, a bottle or a toy, obscure the light in the same way they have contaminated Henderson. Changing shadows represent the movement of tides, plastic that has travelled more than 5,000km from the nearest major landmass. Images of the fishing buoys are projected on to the objects that eclipsed them, highlighting each piece of plastic that has already infiltrated Henderson. ‘The viewer finds it difficult to tell whether the subjects are plastic or coral. In the same way, plastic has the ability to mimic natural habitats and food, threatening the endemic species of Henderson. It is sheer lunacy to expect that plastic will stop entering the sea unless critical action is taken.’ While there is no quick fix to the problem of plastic pollution, which begins on our doorstep and ends in the remotest corners of the earth, Barker hopes her work will expose it to a wider audience. Mandy Barker FRPS will unveil her series Lunasea on 8 June, World Oceans Day, at mandy-barker.com
ABOVE
Lunasea sketchbook RIGHT
‘Plastic tree’ from the Lunasea series
PROFILE MANDY BARKER FRPS Barker’s awardwinning work with marine scientists raises awareness of plastic pollution in the world’s oceans. She was awarded The Royal Photographic Society Environmental Bursary in association with The Photographic Angle in 2012. Her book, Altered Ocean, was published in 2019, with an accompanying exhibition at RPS House. In June the same year, she took part in the Henderson Island expedition.
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MOMENTS IN TIME The Magnum photojournalist Moises Saman made this picture after surviving a helicopter crash. He shares memories of a career spent in the shadow of conflict WORDS: GAVIN BELL IMAGES: MOISES SAMAN / MAGNUM
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HE TWO IMAGES COULD not offer a starker contrast. One dramatically portrays injured survivors and those killed when an Iraqi helicopter had crashed while being evacuated from a war zone, and the diffused light and composition suggest a Renaissance painting. In the other, a svelte young woman in a fashionable robe is draped languorously on a velvet bed cover, her long auburn hair tumbling to the floor. The pictures have nothing in common you might say, different genres entirely, and obviously taken by different photographers. You would be wrong. Both are the work of multi-awardwinning Magnum photographer Moises Saman, who has branched into fashion for Vogue and other glossy magazines after spending two decades documenting conflicts in the Middle East and Latin America for the likes of the New York Times, Newsweek and TIME magazine. It begs the obvious question – why? – so I put it to Saman in a phone call to Jordan, where he is currently living to be with his Iraqi wife, who is on assignment there for a UN agency. His new direction
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is part of a wish to evolve and challenge himself as a photographer, he says. ‘There hasn’t been a conscious shift or departure to the fashion world. It’s work that has been offered to me and that I’ve done to the best of my ability. I like the idea of working beyond documentary photography – if anything it is quite refreshing to put yourself out of your depth sometimes. ‘Any platform that I have to be myself and to express myself as a photographer is welcome. I’ve also been working on a documentary film about a mass shooting at a Maryland newspaper in 2018, the worst attack on the press in the US, and it’s something I’m enjoying. Any opportunity to expand my vision and to challenge myself is welcome.’ War and fashion may have little in common, but the Spanish-American photographer says his years of experience as a photojournalist have given him an edge in his new line of work. ‘As a documentary photographer you work through your instincts, you adapt to situations and the type of light you have to work with,’ he says. ‘In fashion the ability to work on location and to adapt to situations, to be authentic, is 0
BAGHDAD, IRAQ, 2004 ABOVE
‘The dignity of someone putting on a suit to go to work in the middle of a war zone, that’s what you see in this picture. I applaud this resilience. I’ve had a lot of feedback
from people that have seen this photograph and they have related to the man and been fascinated by his motivation and his drive to continue with any sense of normality.’
SINJAR MOUNTAINS, IRAQ, 2014 PREVIOUS PAGES
‘This was taken in a helicopter evacuating dead and wounded from a rescue helicopter full of Yazidi refugees that had crashed on Mount Sinjar. I escaped the crash with only minor injuries, but I
don’t remember taking this picture. The injured man on the cardboard is lying on two dead people. I’m told there’s something about the light and composition that people think is quite painterly.’
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BROOKLYN, NEW YORK, 2018 LEFT
‘On this shoot the story was about the clothes the model was wearing but I was more fascinated by her hair, and I was trying to find
a way to position her in a way that would create a picture that was interesting. I chose that mostly for aesthetic reasons.’
BASRA, IRAQ, 2008 BELOW
‘I’m fascinated by landscapes and it’s something I try to focus on a lot in conflicts because I see a direct relation with what war does not just to people, but to infrastructure and the land too.
This one of rubbish burning in Basra is an example of a way to use landscape as part of the story, and for it to be another character in the story of what it’s like to live through a war.’
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ZAWIYAH, LIBYA, 2011 RIGHT
‘What’s interesting about this picture, beyond the way it works aesthetically, is the fact that it was all a staged event put together by Gaddafi supporters for foreign journalists visiting this Libyan town. It was basically all fake, everything was staged, including fireworks in the background. It spoke about the theatrical quality that these situations share sometimes. It was one of those moments that worked visually but also had a telling back story.’ 414
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BAGHDAD, IRAQ, 2004
SAMARRA, IRAQ, 2018
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‘This is one of Saddam Hussein’s Arabian horses that had been looted from his palaces, and this man was trying to tame it in a back alley. It’s one of these moments that to me are more interesting and
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telling perhaps than typical front-line pictures. It shows the resilience of people, and daily lives in the context of conflict and war. It speaks in a more metaphorical way about war.’
‘The portrait is an old one of a boy who died during the sanctions in the 1980s and is buried next to a new generation that continues to die in Iraq. It speaks to me about the cyclical nature of
these long wars, and how in places like Iraq and Afghanistan that have experienced decades and generations of war, there is yet another generation experiencing the same things.’
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something fashion clients respond to. The ability to go beyond the work you do in studios where you control the light, to work in a more narrative way rather than just aesthetic, is an advantage. ‘I enjoy the collaborative process that a lot of this fashion work involves and it helps me to understand an industry, and an approach to photography, I didn’t understand before.’ At least fashion is less hazardous than a day job that has landed him in Baghdad’s notorious Abu Ghraib prison, and on a blacklist banning him from a country he can’t name due to legal proceedings. From wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to gang warfare and mass migrations in El Salvador, and murderous civil conflict in Northern Ireland, what drives him and what is he trying to achieve? ‘I would like my photographs to be a vehicle for people to connect with and care about things happening far away, and to understand the kind of hardships that others are enduring in the world we
live in,’ says Saman. ‘The kind of pictures that I take, the ones that really speak to me, are the ones that convey an emotion and something that people can relate to. ‘It doesn’t matter if you’ve been to the Middle East or not, if you’ve been in a refugee camp or not, what’s important is that there’s an element in the picture or an ambiguity that somehow connects something that’s common, that’s human. I know that’s very difficult to achieve and I’m not successful all the time, but that’s what I like to do. That’s the purpose and the motivation.’ Saman’s images are striking, sometimes desperately sad, and they all tell part of a story, but he insists they are not enough in themselves to convey true pictures of complex conflicts. ‘I don’t think it’s possible to understand conflicts in single pictures or a few pages in a magazine. In a book you have more space to tell a layered story that is complicated and not as clear as you might think. 0
BAGHDAD, IRAQ, 2003 ABOVE
‘This was one of the first pictures I took in Baghdad in the early days of the war, of a boy with a hunting rifle running through the British Cemetery in a sandstorm. There’s
something quite majestic about this boy and the palm trees and a sense of foreboding, of expectation, of fear of the unknown, that this picture speaks of.’
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BAGHDAD, IRAQ, 2003 ABOVE
‘These are Iraqi secret police and soldiers looking for a US pilot thought to have parachuted into the Tigris river after being shot down. It was the first days of the war when the foreign press was strictly controlled and wasn’t allowed
to see any realities, and this was the moment when it all broke down because it happened across from the hotel where we were all staying. It was the first time we witnessed something we could report on.’
MOSUL, IRAQ, 2018 RIGHT, TOP
‘This is a painting I found in a house in Mosul that had been completely destroyed by air strikes. It’s a very Garden of Edentype painting that evokes paradise, 418
and Iraq was supposed to have been this Garden of Eden that has now been decimated by war. To me it was a metaphor about the ravages of war.’
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‘For years photography was my only focus and my only purpose in life was to work and produce, to be who I wanted to be at the time’ 0 ‘In narratives about who are the victims, who are the perpetrators, those roles shift quite often, and those are the kind of ambiguities that to me really speak about the truth of war and conflict that sometimes get lost in the news cycles. One picture in a magazine definitely does not tell the whole story.’ Which is why he has been returning to Iraq almost continuously since 2002, and is planning a book bringing together this huge body of work. ‘I want to stress that to get to the real truth of some of these conflicts is usually a futile exercise because it lies in grey areas. That is something I find as a photojournalist difficult to convey, particularly when I’m working on assignments where you only have a certain number of pictures to tell a story. ‘That’s why I find it necessary to go back and perhaps spend years working
on one story like Iraq to feel that I have something to say. I would say Iraq defines my life as a photographer and the path that I have taken.’ Now this journey has taken a more personal direction, with Saman’s Iraqi wife and half-Iraqi daughter making him less inclined to risk ending up in prisons, or crashing helicopters. ‘Having my own family now, it’s very difficult for me to find a way to justify putting myself in these situations. For years photography was my only focus and my only purpose in life was to work and produce, to be who I wanted to be at the time, and that’s changed a bit now.’ So a few more fashion shoots may be on the cards, along with the magnum opus on Iraq as a testament to his life’s work. Visit pro.magnumphotos.com
FALLUJAH, IRAQ, 2018 RIGHT
‘This is a quieter image that reflects my approach. It is more metaphorical, and perhaps more ambiguous, and forces viewers to decipher a bit and play with their imagination. This picture is quite sinister. I found these chairs in an ISIS prison in Iraq in a former school where they were trying people who had been arrested and were immediately executing them. We found a lot of them buried outside.’
PROFILE MOISES SAMAN Born in Lima, Peru, Moises Saman spent most of his childhood in Barcelona, Spain, before moving to the USA to study at California State University. There he became interested in becoming a photographer, influenced by the coverage of conflict in the Balkans. Saman has won multiple awards for his work and has had many editorial commissions, including TIME magazine’s Person of the Year 2018, featuring among others the photojournalist Shahidul Alam HonFRPS. Saman became a member of Magnum Photos in 2014.
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CREATIVE ISOLATION Two photographers share a timely interest in images of distance and emptiness INTERVIEWS: JENNIFER CONSTABLE
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Distinctions, 1
START YOUR JOURNEY What are RPS Distinctions? Distinctions offer a fantastic opportunity for photographers to improve their own skills and develop an understanding of photography by applying for one of the three levels available
Licentiate (LRPS) Applicants must show photographic competence in approach and techniques
Associate (ARPS) Requires a body of work of a high standard and a written statement of intent
Fellowship (FRPS) Requires a body of work of distinguished ability and excellence, and a written statement of intent
WENDY G DAVIES
LRPS When did you begin taking photographs and why? I began taking photos at around seven or eight years old. My first camera was a 1950s Kodak Brownie 127 that had belonged to my mother when she was a child. It took rolls of black and white film with only eight exposures, so every shot was precious. I’ll never forget the anticipation and excitement of looking at the photos when they came back from the lab. I moved on to a Kodak 110 Instamatic with flash cubes, followed by a series of 35mm point-and-shoot compacts, and eventually bought my first digital compact in 1998. Ten years ago I bought my first DSLR and gradually switched from using auto or P mode to fully manual mode by trial and lots of error. Although I never stopped taking family photos when my kids were growing up, I was never particularly passionate about photography – I don’t think I had the time to be. When my daughter started her GCSE photography course in 2016, however, I enjoyed helping her with various creative home projects including long-exposure light trails, steel wool spinning and light painting. The following year I upgraded my DSLR and joined my local camera club. LEFT
‘The Coach & Horses’
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How does photography fit into your everyday life? I’m fortunate to live a short train ride away from London and – before lockdown – I’d go up on the train once or twice a week with my camera. I’ve also been lucky enough to have visited Lisbon, New York and Venice in the last year, all fantastic places for street photography. The current situation with the Covid-19 pandemic has been a challenge for me, as for many. As a person with a pre-existing health condition, rheumatoid arthritis, I’m in strict isolation until at least July 2020. Unable to get out on the streets I’ve been documenting my family’s life in lockdown through a series of images taken solely inside the house and garden. I’ve enjoyed doing something different, and it’s helped me think creatively and preserve my sanity. 0
What draws you to street photography? I’ve tried my hand at many different photographic genres, but I’m naturally curious and 422
love to people watch. I thrive on the unpredictability of street life, and for me there’s nothing better than walking the streets and not knowing what’s around the corner. Like many street photographers my hit rate is low, so most days I’ll go home with a selection of okay but pretty uninspiring images on my memory card. But once in a while I’ll get a shot that I’m really proud of.
‘Unflappable’
How did you develop as a photographer to achieve your LRPS? The main thing I had to master was how to assemble a portfolio of prints so that the so-called 11th image was as strong as possible. During the process I was also pleased to discover I definitely have a “style” of photography, something I’d always dismissed
‘I’ve been documenting my family’s life in lockdown through a series of images taken solely inside the house and garden’
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ABOVE
before. Preparing a portfolio of prints and then hearing such positive comments about my work at the advisory day bolstered my confidence hugely. This has enabled me to trust my gut feeling and I’m allowing myself to take more risks as a photographer. What challenges did you encounter while creating your submission? When I started thinking about how to attempt my LRPS I tried to shoe-horn prints from as many genres as possible into the portfolio. I quickly discovered it really wasn’t working for me and I needed to be authentic to my own style of photography. From then, I decided to choose the images that represented me best as a photographer, and that made a connection with the viewer, showed creativity and fitted the criteria for a successful submission. I was always mindful of the three basic LRPS tenets of camera work and technical quality, “seeing” and communication.
What’s next on your photographic journey? I’ve just developed my first photography website to showcase my work – wendygdavies.com – and I’ll continue to add to that and fine tune it. I’m hoping to publish my first book or zine in the near future. I’m finding that lockdown has its advantages for productivity. I’m a member of the StreetSnappers Collective, founded by inspirational street photographer Brian Lloyd Duckett, and I’ve just had an image featured in the StreetSnappers Collective book, The 2020 Collection. The collective has ambitious plans for the future and I’m delighted to be a part of it. Last year, I was lucky enough to have prints accepted for exhibitions at the prestigious London Salon of Photography (where I also won a gold medal), the Edinburgh International Photography Exhibition, and at the inaugural SheClicks exhibition.
I was also honoured to be shortlisted in the street section of the British Photography Awards and to be featured in the street round of the Amateur Photographer of the Year. Although awards and
appearances in exhibitions are a nice bonus, I’m happiest when I’m out there making the images rather than promoting them. I plan to do an Associate at some stage but for now I’m just enjoying myself.
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When did you begin taking photographs and why? I think of myself as a secondtime-around photographer. I bought a basic film camera shortly after starting my first job. In those days film was processed at home and prints made using the darkrooms at the local college. I mainly experimented in monochrome
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portraiture, usually coaxing family and friends to sit in front of the camera. I really like the idea of candid shots – capturing people when they’re relaxed and off guard. It gives you a truer likeness of who they are. I still have folders full of negatives and prints from those days. Then work and
‘I like capturing people when they’re relaxed and off guard’ family took over and the camera was put to one side, only coming out for high days and holidays. Even when
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0 I wasn’t as active as a photographer, I never lost that feeling you get when you see a good image. The changeover to digital technology and home processing has made returning to photography much easier. The whole shoot-to-print stage is so straightforward, and you can experiment with different styles and have the freedom to take more risks. There isn’t really a downside.
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How does photography fit into your everyday life? Photography is still a hobby and fits in around work. That means getting out with a camera most weekends and holidays to local events and places of interest. I’m fortunate to live in one of the most accessible and photogenic regions in the UK. I’m new to clubs and societies. Seeing the imagination and talent of local photographers has encouraged me to view things in a different way. How does your LRPS submission reflect your personal interests? My portfolio is a mix of local scenes, portraiture and shots taken on holiday. I’m fortunate to have a wife who’s happy to be photographed. I always try to create unusual compositions and prefer to see people as part of the bigger picture. Heritage centres such as Swanage Railway provide great opportunities for working in genres such as street, retro and portraiture. I love using historic buildings and structures as a backdrop – they’re packed full of shape, form and texture. Why did you photograph in black and white? My submission was always going to be in monochrome – there’s something special about the medium. It’s not just the tonal richness, the emphasis on detail or sense of drama. Good 426
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monochrome concentrates the viewer’s attention, which I think is hard to replicate with colour. I can go back to a monochrome image time and time again and always see something different. Monochrome also appeals to our sense of nostalgia – the images are timeless and never seem to fade. Converting to monochrome isn’t as hard as people think. I tend to go for what feels instinctively right and don’t spend too much time post-processing.
‘Monochrome appeals to our sense of nostalgia. The images are timeless’
What challenges did you encounter while creating your submission? My biggest challenge was seeing a set of images as a portfolio. I joined a Distinctions group which provided welcome advice and taught me to look outside each image. Picking 10 shots and then arranging them in a coherent group was not obvious. The penny dropped after an advisory day when I saw example submissions and received good advice from the assessors. I went home, swapped out some images and rearranged the portfolio.
What’s next on your photographic journey? Most of my photography comes with an extra-large slice of serendipity – right place, right time. I very much take what I see. I need to move on and start to develop an inner eye for an idea before I pick up the camera. I’m now taking more images as part of wider studies to try different artistic styles, techniques and storytelling. Then I can start thinking of my Associate – in monochrome of course.
Printing black and white is not without its challenges, however that’s just a matter of finding the right paper and printer settings to avoid the dreaded colour cast.
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‘Reflections this way and that’ ABOVE
‘Interlinked’
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_..z.1199
TAM 28-300 F3.5/6.3 Di VC box _____
£399 FLASH/ACCESSORIES USED 430EX MKI Mint- box ................ £99 470EX-A1 Mint- box ............... £249 SIGMA CAF USED 10-20 F4.5/5.6 DC................... £229 SS0EX--------"99 £199 12-24 F4.5/5.6 EX DG HSMll£449 580EXMKll _____ 580EX______ £149 500 F4.5 EX DG HSM M- box _____ _..z.1799 RS-BONremote ___ -i30 Angle finder C box ................. £149 OTHERCAF USED TAM 17-35 F2.8/4 Di box .....£199 VVWW-MIFSUDS-COM 500 F4 LIS USM MKll...........£5997 1.4x Extender MKlll. ............... £339
ART
500mm F4 EFLED AFS
D850 PRODUCTION
body box
CLIENT
NIKON DIGITALAF USED D850 body bo"-----"1997 D810 body bo,~--~1399 DB00bodybo,._ ___ £799 DB00bodybo,._ ___ £699 DS00 body Mint- box ..........£1099 D300 body bo,._ ___ £199 D7200body ____ £599 D7000body ____ £299
FUJI,
D3000 body ____ £139 MBD-100 grip (Dl00) box ......£49 MBD-80 grip (D80) .................... £49
NIKON FILM AF USED F4 body ______ f299 F801/F601 body each .............. £49 F55/F50 body each ................... £39 NIKON AF LENSESUSED 14-24 F2.8 AFS____ £997
MINOLTA/SONY,
16-35 F4 AFS VR box .............£799 16-85 F3.5/5.6 AFS DXVR ....£199 18-105 F3.5/5.6 VR DX AFS..£149 18-200 F3.5/5.6 AFS VR.........£299 24-70 F2.8 AFS box ................ £897 24-120 F4 AFS____ £599 28-105 F3.5/4.5 AFD ..............£149 35 Fl.8 DXAFS ____ £149 50 Fl .4 AFS G ____ £299
OLYMPUS,
50 F1.4 AFD Mint- box ..........£199 50 Fl .8 AFD box ___ --"99 55-200 F4/5.6 AFS DX .............. £99 55-300 F4.5/5.6 AFS VR.........£229 300 F2.8 AFSVRll .................. £3499 500 F4 EFL ED AFS .............. £7497 TC14EIIAF5 _____ £299 TCl 7EII AFS M- box ................ £249 TC20E______ £149
PANASONIC
Used Olymp
Used Panasonic
OMD-EM1 MKIIbody box
GX7body Silver
£997
BRON/CA, BRONICA645 USED ETRSibody ETRSbody 50 F2.8 PE 75 F2.8 PE 150 F3.5 E E14 ext tube ETRSiRFH
Angle finderVN ___ 5400HS flash-----" 3600HSD flash -----"49
£249 £149 £399 £199 99 49 99
Polaroid back bo Plain prism Speed grip E Tripod adapter E El winder
BRONICA6x6 USED SQAi 120 bac SQA 120 bac
CANON. MINOL~ CANON FD USED Al body £169 AE1P body black ..................... £169 T70 body 69 35-70 F4 69 50Fl.8 59 S0F 49 70-200 F4 79 25mm ext tube 29 2x extender B 49
49 99 99 39 99 £149 99
DIGITAL
USED
Used Penta. ~ body £299
~
MAM/YA,
SQAe prism box ...................... £149 Polaroid back 5 59 2x converter PS....................... £ 179 Lenshoods various ............. £20/50
HASSELBLAD6x6 USED A 12 chrome late ..................... £199 NPC Polaroid back ..................... £49 45 degree prism early .............. £99
NIKON. OLYMPUS PEN~
LIGHTMETERSUSED Minolta Auto meter IVF.........£249 MINOLTAAF USED 800Si body 69 7Xi body 69 Dynax3 body 29 7000i body 29 300Si body 29 500Si Super body ...................... £29 505Si Super body ...................... £29
TAMRON NAF USED 70-300 F4/5.6 VC..................... £199 70-300 F4/S.6 Di---~79 TOKINA NAF USED TOK 11-16 F2.8ATX Pro 11. .....£349 TOK 12-24 F4 ATX Pro ...........£299 FLASH/ ACCESSORIES USED DR-6 angle finder box ...........£169 MC-36A.......£79 MC-30A .........£39
KS
SONY A SERIESLENSESUSED 17-40 F4/5.6 G SM silver ......£699 18-70 F3.5/5.6 ____ ....89 75-300 F4.5/5.6 box ............... £129 OTHERMIN/SONY AF USED SIG 10-20 F4/5.6 EX DC box£199 SIG 70-300 F4/5.6 DG 05 .....£169 SIG 1.4x EX converter ............... £99 TAM 10-24 F3.5/4.5 Dill ........£239 TAM 16-300 F3.5/6.3 PZD....£329 Teleplus 1.4x conv ..................... £69
FUJI, HASSELBLAD,
WWW-MIFSUDS-COM
ETC.
£299
FUJI DIGITAL USED MINOLTA (SONYA MOUNT) AFUSED ~,69 X-Tl0 body black box ...........£179 18-70 F3.5/5.6 ____ 28 F2.8 ______ ..z.79 £169 1s-4s F3.S/S.6xc.................... £199 16-50 F3.5/5.6 XC.................... £149 28-75 F2.8 AfD ____ _..z.,49 18-55 F2.8/4 XF ....................... £399 28-80 F4/S.6____ .L79 18-135 F3.5/5.6 WR................ £499 28-85 F3.5/4.5 ____ MINOLTA/SONY DIGITALUSED 35-70 F3.5/4.S----~.39 35-105 F3.5/4.5---~99 Sony A9 body MKII 50 Fl.7 ______ ~,69 Mint bo,-----~4199 Sony A7R MKIV body 70-21 0 F4 Beer Can................... £69 Mint bo•"-----..z.2997 75-300 F4.5/5.6-----"79 Sony A 100 body ___ _x.79 100-300 F4.5/5.6 ___ --<99 RCl000S cord ____ ....19 Sony VG-C70AM-----"99 RCl000L cord ____ ....19 WWW-MIFSUDS-COM
SIGMA NAF USED 18-35 Fl.8 DC box .................. £499 70-200 F2.8 EX DG OS HSM bo,._ ___ ~649 150-600 FS/6.3 DG OS Contemporary box ..................... £649 150-600 FS/6.3 DG OS Sport bo,~----~997
MINOLTA MD USED X700 body 99 X300 body chrome ................... £79 X300s body black ...................... £79 50 Fl.7 49 50 F2 49 Auto ext tube set 49 NIKON MF USED F301 body 49 28 F2.8 99
Teleplus 2x conv ---~79 Kenko 1.4x Pro 300DG ..........£149
OLYMPUS4/3 USED E420 body _____ .L99 14-42 F3.5-5.6----.L•69 14-45 F3.5-5.6----.L•69 35 F3.5------~99 40-150 F4-5.6----~•69 70-300 F4-5.6 ____ £199 EX 25 extension tube ............... £99 FL 36R flash _____ f 129 OLYMPUSMICRO 4/3 USED OMD-EM1 MKII body box ....£997 OMD-EM1 body box .............. £449
PENTAX
14-42 F3.5/5.611---~99 30 F3.5 macro M- .................... £169 HLD-9 grip EM1 MKII Mintbo,._ _____ £179
PANASONICDIGITAL USED G3 body white ____ £149 GX7 body silver ....................... £299 14-42 F3.5/S.6----~99 14-45 F3.5/5.6 ____ £149 14-140 F4/5.8 ____ £349 20 Fl.7 ______ £179 25 Fl.4box _____ £379 25 Fl.7 box _____ £149 100-300 F4/5.6 box ................ £299
ETC. MEDIUM
Lenshood various ............... £20/50
MAMIYA 645 MF USED 210 F4 box £199 Teleplus 2x converter ............... £39 WLF (M6451000 ser) early ..£149 120 bac 99 120 inser 20 Ext tube each 29
MAMIYA RZ USED WLF Pro 120 RFH 180 F4.5 PENTAX6x7 USED 2x converter PENTAX645 MF USED 200 F4
PENTAXDIGITAL USED KS body ______ £299 K200 body _____ fl49 16-45 F4 bo._ ____ £199 18-55 F3.5/5.6 ____ .L,69 18-135 F3.5/5.6WR ................ £179 18-250 F3.5/6.3____ £199 35 F2.4 DA A~---~99 50Fl.4FA _____ fl99 SIGMA PENTAXAF USED 17-70 F2.8 DC HSM box .......£199 150-500 F_____ £499 MORE ON WEBSITE VVWW-MIFSUDS-COM
FORMAT £129 £129 £299 £199 £199
USED
2x converter ____ REFconverter
£169 £129
f!i!liJi!Jim) Hasselblad 503, 500CM etc
lIMI11li1!!Il!t
Fuji rangefinder ie GWandG5W
ACCESSORIES ETC. MANUAL FOCUS USED 50F1.4AI SOFl.SAIS 50 Fl.8 E AIS SOF2 Al
£199 £149 69 99
OLYMPUSOM USED OM-2N body chrome ............£299 OM-1 N body black ................. £299 OM-1 0 chrome body ................ £79 OM-20 body chrome ................ £59 24 F2.8 £179
35-70 F4 99 35-105 F3.5/4.5 box ............... £149 50 Fl.8 69 200F4 £199 7/14/25 ext tube each ............. £20 14/25 auto ext tube each .......£29 80-135 tube 99 Auto bellows box ................... £199
PENTAXAF USED MXZS0 body
39
SFXN body
39 PENTAXMF USED LX + FA1 prism box ................ £499 50 Fl.4 P £149 50 Fl.7 PK 69 50 F2 PKA 69 50F2 P 49 75-150 F4 PK 99 80-200 F4.5 69 Auto bellows box ................... £149
ITEM YOU REQUIRE NOT LISTED? EMAIL DETAILS OF WHAT YOU ARE LOOKING FOR AND WE WILL EMAIL YOU WHEN WE CAN HELP. Mail order used items sold on 1Oday approval. Return in 'as received' condition for refund if not satisfied (postage not included - mail order only). E&OE.
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VERSION REPRO OP
Find details of Society activities over the next three months SUBS
SPIRAL by Simon Ellingworth, whose on-demand RPS street photography beginner’s guide is now accessibleonline
ART PRODUCTION CLIENT
Bring the streets inside RPS on-demand workshops are available to watch online at your leisure FINE ART award-winning photographer Simon Ellingworth will be taking members on a virtual walk in his online street photography beginner’s guide, available through the new RPS on-demand workshops. 430
This video-based masterclass will teach viewers how to work faster, free from technical constraints, understand three different ways of shooting, how to take significantly fewer but dramatically better images, and how to become a more
/ THE RPS JOURNAL / JUNE 2020 / VOL 160
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confident street photographer. Ellingworth’s images have featured in this year’s International Photography Awards. He has also been
a finalist in the iPhone Photography Awards, the Mobile RPS.ORG/ WHATS-ON Photography FOR THE LATEST Awards and UPDATES the Professional Photographer of the Year awards.
GO TO
Wed 3 Jun, 10am-4.30pm Emma Delves-Broughton, emma@rps.org
WESTERN Suzanne Johnson LRPS western@rps.org
Western Region members monthly competition westerncompetitions@rps.org
Small is beautiful Sun 7 Jun, 10.30am Online macro photography talk by Robert Harvey ARPS
SPECIAL INTEREST GROUPS doc@rps.org
REGIONS Jonathan Vaines, 01234 360339
North London online meeting Mon 13 Jul, 7-9pm
eastanglia@rps.org
Judy Hicks, as above
Online website tour and feedback Sat 13 Jun, 9.30-11am
South West London online meeting Tue 14 Jul, 7-9pm
Jonathan Vaines, as above
Judy Hicks, as above
EAST ANGLIA
‘Midsummer eve’ by Celia Henderson, who will be leading virtual flower photography workshops for the South East Region on 20 June
Photoscratch online Thu 11 Jun, 6-9pm Mark A Phillips, as above
London Bookworms July online meeting Wed 15 Jul, 7.30-9pm
Jonathan Vaines, as above
Judy Hicks, as above
David Hicks, 07917 302747
South East London online meeting Tue 28 Jul, 7-9pm
londonro2@rps.org
David Hicks, as above
North London online meeting Mon 8 Jun, 7-9pm
South West London online meeting Tue 11 Aug, 7-9pm
Joining instructions/links will be sent out 24 hours before an online meeting. Judy Hicks, as above
Judy Hicks, as above
South West London online meeting Tue 9 Jun, 7-9pm
Judy Hicks, as above
LONDON Judy Hicks, 07768 923620
Judy Hicks, as above
#grounded2020photo Online two-day portraiture – Nigel Wilson
Richard Ellis landscape@rps.org
Creating fine-art monochrome images part 2: processing Mon 1 Jun, 8-9.15pm
LRPS advisory day online meeting Sat 13 Jun, 11am-2pm LondonDist1@rps.org
Judy Hicks as above
South East London online meeting Tue 25 Aug, 7-9pm
London Bookworms June online meeting Wed 17 Jun, 7.30-9pm
Judy Hicks as above
Judy Hicks, as above
Bruce Broughton-Tompkins LRPS
SOUTH EAST southeast@rps.org
ARPS advisory day online meeting Sat 20 Jun, 11am-2pm LondonDist1@rps.org
South East London online meeting
Photoshop through flowers for the creative photographer Sat 20 Jun, 10am start Roger Crocombe, southeast@rps.org
Thu 25 Jun, 10am-4.30pm Emma Delves-Broughton, emma@rps.org
Online macro photography – Nigel Wilson
Processing for monochrome: landscapes and architecture II Tue 2 Jun, Wed 3 Jun, Thu 4 Jun, Fri 5 Jun, 5-6.30pm
Mon 29 Jun, 10am-4.30pm Emma Delves-Broughton, emma@rps.org
Mark Reeves, 07968 616551, rps.landscape.events @gmail.com
Tue 30 Jun, 10am-4.30pm Emma Delves-Broughton, emma@rps.org
Online masters of photography – Nigel Wilson
SOCIETY ONLINE WORKSHOPS ONLINE CHAPTER EVENTS Online macro photography – Nigel Wilson
North London online meeting Mon 10 Aug, 7-9pm
London Bookworms August online meeting Wed 19 Aug, 6.30-9.30pm
Email the photo, photographer’s name and age, and a photo caption to competition@sharpshots photoclub.co.uk, or tag the photo on Instagram under
LANDSCAPE
Richard Ellis, as above
Online events discussion Sat 13 Jun, 12.30-2pm
Online abstract photography – Nigel Wilson
Grounded: kids and teens photography competition Closing date: Sat 20 Jun
DOCUMENTARY
Judy Hicks, as above
Tue 16 Jun, 10am-4.30pm Emma Delves-Broughton, emma@rps.org
Wed 17 Jun, 10am-4.30pm £75/£56 RPS members Emma Delves-Broughton, emma@rps.org
Mark A Phillips ARPS, 07792 134007
Tue 23 Jun, 7-9pm
Online masters of photography – Nigel Wilson
Fri 3 Jul, 10am-4.30pm Emma Delves-Broughton, emma@rps.org
Please be advised that while many of our online events get booked up quickly, new events are continually being added. You can check with individual Groups and Regions for the most up-to-date information.
On-demand digital workshop: beginners street photography Available online anytime £55/£42 RPS members Emma Delves-Broughton, emma@rps.org
BENELUX
On-demand digital workshop: macro and art – John Humphrey FRPS £55/£42 RPS members
Janet Haines ARPS
Emma Delves-Broughton, emma@rps.org
Benelux online study group Tue 2 Jun, Tue 16 Jun, Tue 30 Jun 7.30-9pm
Online masters of photography – Nigel Wilson
benelux@rps.org rps.org/chapters/benelux/events
Janet Haines ARPS, as above
VOL 160 / JUNE 2020 / THE RPS JOURNAL / 431
91RPSJUN20140.pgs 21.05.2020 13:21
Events, 1
EVENTS THE GUIDE
The collection, 1
THE COLLECTION VERSION SUBS
Rose Teanby ARPS celebrates the bicentenary of a pioneering woman photographer
ART
.,
PRODUCTION CLIENT
IN 1868 MRS William Clarke sat for her portrait at Miss Cumber’s studio in St Peter Port, Guernsey. Sarah Louisa Cumber rarely features in the history of photography, but she was a remarkable, quiet pioneer of the new art. Born in Guernsey on 10 June 1820, Cumber was the daughter of chemist Henry Cumber and his wife Mary. She became a school mistress until a mid-career change of direction to photography, her decision coinciding with the establishment of a course of instruction in photography at King’s College London in 1857. Photography at King’s College was introduced by renowned Photographic Society member Thomas Frederick Hardwich, author of A Manual of Photographic Chemistry (1855). Higher education was denied to most women until the 1870s but Professor Hardwich broke new ground by introducing ladies-only classes in April
1858. ‘Miss Cumber’ appears in the King’s College register in June 1858, signing up for a course of private tuition in photography at the age of 38.
IN THIS YEAR 1868 Alvin J Fellows, from Connecticut, USA, patents the spring-click tape measure on 14 July. The spring-click feature allows the user to lock the tape in position. The first volume of 2 Little Women by Louisa May Alcott is published in America on 1 October.
1
432 / THE RPS JOURNAL
VISIT
‘Portrait of Mrs William Clarke’ by Sarah Louisa Cumber
The “king of ragtime”,
3 Scott Joplin, composer
of ‘The Entertainer’ (right) and ‘The Maple Leaf Rag’, is born on 24 November. The first traffic lights 4 are installed outside the Palace of Westminster in London on 9 December. They are illuminated at night by red and green gas lamps.
The RPS Collection is at the V&A Photography Centre, London. Visit vam.ac.uk
Equipped with photographic knowledge and practical skill, Cumber returned to Guernsey, opening her studio in 1860.
Her own promotional newspaper advertisement emphasised she was a ‘pupil of Professor Hardwich, King’s College, London’. Cumber enjoyed commercial success for 22 years, until her death in 1882. The collection of portraits taken in her Pollet Street studio document the people of Victorian Guernsey, but also the lasting legacy of a groundbreaking photographic education for women.
Rose Teanby ARPS is a photographer and academic
RPS THE COLLECTION / V&A MUSEUM; ALAMY
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Breaking barriers
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