RPS The Decisive Moment - Edition 21 - February 2021

THE DECISIVE MOMENT

Quarterly journal from the Documentary Group

February 2021 Edition 21 Photo: Fiona Willoughby ARPS

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Documentary Photographer of the Year 2021

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Winner of the December 2020 Bi-Monthly Competition

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From Our Chair

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The Documentary Group Team and Goals

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One of the Tribe: The documentary photography of Mik Critchlow

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Documentary FRPS Panel - Mark Phillips FRPS

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Documentary ARPS Panel - Fiona Willoughby ARPS

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Winner of the October 2020 Bi-Monthly Competition

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From the bookshelf: Larry Fink, On Composition and Improvisation

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Winner of the August 2020 Bi-Monthly Competition

100 Sofa to Shed - Ray Hobbs ARPS 120 The Documentary Group Online 122 RPS Documentary Events

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DPOTY 2021 p4

Mik Critchlow p12

Larry Fink, On Composition and Improvisation p82

Ray Hobbs ARPS, Sofa to Shed p100

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Have you a story that needs telling?

Is there a documentary project you want to share with the world?

Entering the Documentary Photographer of the Year 2021 could be your first step.

DPOTY is now bigger than ever and is open to everyone. A great opportunity to have your project judged by a professional international panel.

Winning and commended entries will be shown in an exhibition at Fujifilm House of Photography, London and be part of a UK Touring Exhibition. You will also have an opportunity to give a talk as part of the RPS Engagement series to showcase your work.

Our biennial Documentary Photographer of the Year competition will be running again this year. DPOTY2021 promises to be bigger and better than ever, with additional categories including Open and Student, as well as a Members Competition.

Our intent is to create an international open competition for photographers and image-makers, of all ages, focused on documentary and visual storytelling.

Submissions are encouraged from new, emerging and established photographers from anywhere, on any story or topic, from global issues to personal experiences.

The competition is looking for work that is technically excellent, impactful and offers a fresh perspective.

This is a unique opportunity to take part in a group exhibition in London and a UK touring exhibition, to present work to an international judging panel, and a worldwide audience through a complementary series of online talks and media.

We will be looking for project series of between 12 and 15 images with a title and project statement, to be submitted via an online process. Submissions will open on 6 May 2021 and close on 5 August 2021.

Our Competition categories include: Open

open to anyone, anywhere (fee £10 per project)

Student

for anyone enrolled in full-time or part-time photographic education (fee £5 per project)

Member

for all RPS members (free to members)

Discounts and concessions will also be available on request to encourage inclusivity.

from the series ‘Breadwinners’ by Lina Geoushy - DPOTY2019 Winner

Judging will be by an International Panel of Judges including (so far) Mimi Mollica (Photographer/Director Offspring Photo Meet), Roy Mehta (Photographer), Lekgetho Makola (Director Javett Art Centre, Pretoria), Bindi Vora (Photographer/ curator Autograph), Marie Sumalla (Le Monde, Paris), Tanvi Mishra (Caravan, India) and Rosy Santella (Internazionale, Rome).

Our prizes this year include the opportunity to be part of an exhibition at Fujifilm House of Photography, London, and a UK Touring Exhibition. The RPS Member winner will receive a Fujifilm camera X100V (courtesy of our sponsors Fujifilm).

The Student winner will have development support from leading photographer Simon Roberts HonFRPS. The Open winner prize is a bursary to create new work, with development support from the Martin Parr Foundation. In each category there will be two commended entries, each will be included in the exhibition as digital projections and will win one-year free membership of the RPS. All winners and those commended will also have opportunities to give Engagement Talks.

Watch out for our adverts in The RPS Journal and RPS Newsletter.

See our website more details rps.org/groups/documentary/dpoty-2021

Bi-Monthly Competition Winner

Winner of the December 2020 Bi-Monthly Competition The entries for the sixth bi-monthly competition of 2020 can be seen on the Documentary Group section of the RPS website: rps.org/groups/documentary/bi-monthly-competition.

The winning image was ‘Abbot’s blessing during COVID-19’

by Armando Jongejan FRPS Brother Thijs Ketelaars was chosen as the new Abbot at the Sint-Adelbert Abbey in Egmond-Binnen, the Netherlands. It was the first time in 36 years that an Abbot was chosen. This is the special moment of the blessing by Abbot Praeses Maksymilian Nawara. I have been documenting the Abbey since 1995 and this was a very special moment for the community and me.

Highly Commended Images The December 2020 competition had two highly commended images. ‘Clearing (50°15’03.6”N 8°29’00.3”E)’ by Aindreas Philip Scholz and ‘Crufts 2020 - Hounds & Terriers Day’ by Phillip Joyce FRPS.

Our popular bi-monthly single documentary image competition is open for all Documentary Group members to submit their best/favourite photos. The winner is selected shortly after the closing date by the Documentary Group Committee. All images will be put into a Documentary Group gallery on the RPS website and some selected for publication in The Decisive Moment.

Our bi-monthly competition has been put on hold after the February 2021 edition. We have made the decision to allocate more volunteering time and resources to work on DPOTY2021.

The winner of the February 2021 competition will be published in the next edition of The Decisive Moment and can be seen on the competition section of the website.

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Bi-Monthly Competition Winner

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From Our Chair Welcome to another Decisive Moment.

Under the Royal Charter, the RPS objectives are to educate members of the public by increasing their knowledge and understanding of Photography and in doing so to promote the highest standards of achievement in Photography in order to encourage public appreciation of Photography.

The Decisive Moment is an important part of our contribution to that, by publishing online, via Issuu, we regularly engage an audience well beyond our RPS Membership. Our successful Engagement Talks are free and routinely fully booked, so we have increased the places available. Our first talk this year, with Arteh Odjidja had over 130 attending. We have talks by Melanie Friend, John Walmsley and Alys Tomlinson available to book and filling up fast. Our re-branded Storytelling Workshops are also popular, so we have added more events up to June 2021. These workshops cover three key stages how to start and plan, how to build a series and field work, and finishing up with the edit and sequencing.

Our most important event this year is our biennial Documentary Photographer of the Year. It starts in earnest on 6 May, when entries open. This year we are making it more diverse and inclusive by adding Open and Student categories, to the existing RPS Members category. Our panel of judges includes well-known photographers, curators and picture editors; we have a truly world-class and diverse judging panel. We have also secured sponsorship from Fujifilm and will be offering a Fujifilm X100V to the winning RPS member. We have valuable prizes for the Student and Open categories focussed on supporting their development and careers. Fujifilm will also help host the Award Event and our first Exhibition at the House

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of Photography in London, before we head out in 2022 with a Touring UK Exhibition. Recognising the challenges of Covid-19, we have no limit on when the images could be taken. We are simply looking for excellent, engaging documentary and visual storytelling projects. We look forward to seeing your work.

After a year of on and off lockdowns and disruptions we can also hopefully look forward to more opportunities to work on our projects, to photograph and to meet up. Until then stay safe.

Mark A Phillips FRPS Chair, Documentary Group

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The Documentary Group Team Documentary Group Committee: Chair:

Mark A Phillips FRPS

doc@rps.org

Secretary: David Barnes LRPS docsecretary@rps.org Treasurer: Andrew Ripley doctreasurer@rps.org Members:

Harry Hall FRPS, Patricia Hilbert,

Chris Martinka, Valerie Mather ARPS

Dave Thorp

Sub-Group Organisers: East Midlands:

Volunteer Required

docem@rps.org

South East:

Jeff Owen ARPS

docse@rps.org

Northern:

Peter Dixon ARPS

docnorthern@rps.org

Southern:

Christopher Morris ARPS docsouthern@rps.org

Thames Valley:

Philip Joyce ARPS

doctv@rps.org

East Anglia:

Malcolm English ARPS

docea@rps.org

Yorkshire:

Carol Hudson LRPS

docyork@rps.org

Central (w/Contemporary): Steff Hutchinson ARPS

The Decisive Moment: Editor: Dave Thorp decisive@rps.org Sub-Editors:

Dr Graham Wilson, Lyn Newton LRPS

Editorial:

Gerry Phillipson LRPS, Ian Wright ARPS,

Ray Hobbs ARPS

And the rest of the team: Bi-Monthly Competition: Patricia Hilbert

dgcompetitions@rps.org

Social Media:

docweb@rps.org

Patricia Hilbert

Flickr: Volunteer Required

The Documentary Group Goals for 2021 Overall Objective To help support the RPS Strategic Plan and specifically increase the relevance of the RPS for Documentary Photography (especially for younger photographers) and engage wider audiences. We have decided to focus our goals under the three headings of promote, educate, and encourage:

Promote - the highest standards of achievement in photography These activities are focussed around showcasing and celebrating high quality photographic work and thinking, which is fundamental to the RPS’s purpose.

Educate - members of the public by increasing their knowledge and understanding of photography As an educational charity, it is important we continue to develop the range and reach of our educational work. We want to help photographers develop their practice, and also educate nonphotographers about what is current in documentary photography.

Encourage - the public appreciation of photography We want to engage with more people, including those who are not photographers, to appreciate the value of documentary photography so that it is enjoyed by as many people as possible.

Mik Critchlow

One of the Tribe The documentary photography of Mik Critchlow Ian Wright ARPS Mik Critchlow is a British Social Documentary Photographer based in the North East of England. He began a long-term photography project documenting his home town of Ashington, Northumberland. The son of a miner, he has worked in the community with a deep-rooted empathy for the townsfolk, documenting the area and it’s people during a period of social and environmental change.

His work is held in public and private collections and has been exhibited and published widely including: Side Gallery, Amber-Side Collection, Brunel University, Durham Art Gallery, Arts Council England, Northern Arts, The British Journal of Photography, and Creative Camera.

He recently published Coal Town, his long term project about Ashington, his home town. Coal Town, is published by Bluecoat Press. In November 2020 he gave a talk as part of the RPS Documentary Group’s Engagement series. For this feature he was interviewed by Ian Wright ARPS. Mik’s work can be found here: www.mikcritchlow.com 12

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I first met Mik Critchlow when I booked him to speak at the Lincolnshire Photographic Association’s annual Day of Photography in March 2018. He came to stay with us for the weekend. Fortunately for me, it turned into two weekends because the “Beast from the East” dumped impassable snowfalls on the Lincolnshire Wolds on the Saturday evening, leading to the postponement of the Sunday event and its re-arrangement six weeks later. So Mik and I had a lot of time to talk photography.

Mik is a rarity. He has documented his hometown of Ashington, Northumberland since 1977 and, as ‘one of the tribe’ (a phrase he often uses), with deep roots in the area it has given him unique access and opportunity to photograph the community.

Mik’s photography is exceptional in its depth and range, its integrity and sensitivity, consistency of style and technique. Like its author, it speaks softly and communicates much, simply by showing us the reality. His work illustrates the significance of narrative and purpose, and the historical importance of building a body of work over time. Not for profit, but because it matters.

I’ve seen him giving presentations to audiences and, within moments, there is an immediate warmth and emotional connection to Mik and his images. The stories he attaches to each group of images resonate with the rich humanitarian tradition of documentary photography Mik so knowledgeably embraces. His work is deeply political, but he doesn’t hit you over the head with it, more often simply stating ‘that’s the way it was’.

Born in 1955, Mik does not romanticise working class life in the mining area he grew up in. Life was tough and insecure, money often short, living conditions unimaginable to anyone under 45 today. Mining was hard physical work, dangerous and hazardous, coal dust a killer, ‘white finger’ a common consequence of the constant use of hand-held machinery.

My own upbringing in an east coast dock and railway town near a major fishing port, witnessed many of the unattractive realities of these communities; the frequent ‘fallings-out’, the central role of alcohol, the mayhem of Saturday night brawls, the sharp gender divides shocking to today’s sensibilities, the frequency of youthful pregnancies. But there was community and a life lived in common, shared values and beliefs, generation following generation.

Mik says the miners ‘all loved their work. What they loved was the camaraderie and the craik. There was such a sense of belonging they’d go to work then go to the club in the evening together and there’d be the same level of camaraderie in social life as what they had in their work. It was shared existence, everybody had nothing, they all had nothing, yet it was rich in humanity’.

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In my view, Mik deserves to stand alongside James Ravilious and his record of a North Devon rural community, as an important and significant chronicler of English community life. What James Beacham wrote in his Guardian obituary of Ravilious (October 1999), could equally be said of Mik Critchlow.

‘Time after time a Ravilious photograph brings out some aspect of our common humanity. His pictures resonate with integrity and spiritual power, conveying, just like a great painting, so much more than the subject they ostensibly portray. Ravilious’s own modesty, both of character and life-style, allowed him to be an ordinary member of the society in which he was living and working; in turn, his presence as a photographer was accepted by his subjects as part of everyday life.’

The Ashington images cover a period of dramatic upheaval for the workforce of industrial Britain, one of transformative social, economic, global, and technological change. Change, which time has confirmed, has not been for the better for those ordinary people he lived, and lives, among and for whom he has such a deep understanding and affection.

In the process of over 40 years of photography, he has compiled an archive of over 50,000 negatives. His work has been exhibited and published widely, and Coal Town, a wonderful selection of 200 immaculately reproduced images primarily from the 1970s and 1980s, was published as a large format hardback by Bluecoat in 2019. Hopefully, there are many more publications to come from this body of work, all the more remarkable because he has never made a full time living from his photography.

More recently, between 2015 and 2018, Mik was commissioned by the Creative People and Places Programme, bait, to photograph in East Ashington, the area where Mik has always lived. A softback limited edition catalogue was published in 2018, simply called Hirst – the local name for the area.

The backdrop and context for Mik’s photography is of Ashington as a microcosm of the emergence of a post-industrial society and the shift from a manufacturing to a service economy. The resulting inequalities and social and regional divisions have been laid bare during the COVID-19 crisis. In his evocative introduction to Coal Town, Derek Smith summarises the consequences: ‘Ashington has lost its sense of being. It hasn’t a purpose anymore.

Coalmining has gone and it’s never going to come back, that was the whole reason for its existence’ Mik says that he is an accidental photographer. Leaving home in 1970, aged 15, he returned with an ambition to become a graphic designer, and specifically to design album covers. A photographic module on the course he started at the local college was to change his life.

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A 35mm camera planted in his hand, he began to photograph what he knew, what was at hand and what was close to his heart. In 1978 Mik’s artist’s statement for grant funding at the college became a reality which has lasted for the rest of his life. ‘I see my work within the context of a long-term plan, documenting the area in which I was born, educated and now live during periods of social change’.

Derek Smith recalls having the privilege of seeing Mik at work.

‘Unobtrusive, at ease in establishing a rapport with his subjects, respectfully close with his wide-angle lens, it seemed people warmed to him and trusted him. It was the 1979 Durham Miners’ Gala – Arthur Scargill revealed that huge quantities of coking coal was being secretly imported by the government, in his hand a secret pit closure hit list. Perhaps the beginning of the end for coal we thought, and we weren’t far wrong.

Mik’s gentle approach and respect for people meant you knew he would never exploit anyone, and the practice has barely changed across 40 years of photography.’

Andrea Hawkin’s introduction to Hirst, reflects the warmth and respect Mik universally attracts: ‘His intimate knowledge, love for the people and place made him the ideal artist for a commission to work in the area. His photographer’s eye is unflinching, unsentimental, and full of respect for the people he says are “often seen in the corner of your eye but disregarded”. He wandered the streets for 18 months talking to people and documenting a world marginalised or invisible to those living beyond Hirst’s parameters. His aim was to make visible their friendships, resilience and humanity, the photographs made possible by the openness of people willing to share their life experiences.’

If Mik was thrown into photography unexpectedly, his early images from 1977 to 1980 clearly show his natural eye, and in this period, he quickly acquired other influences and encouragement. The Ashington Group of pitmen painters – naïve, paintings of the mundane and the everyday – showed Mik that the ordinary could be interesting. A Cartier-Bresson exhibition made a deep impression. He began a long, and continuing association with the Side Gallery in Newcastle in 1980, receiving support and encouragement from mentors Murray Martin, Chris Killip and Graham Smith. It was to be seven years until he had his first exhibition at the Side Gallery but in that time, he built up an extensive body of work, including commissions from Northern Arts to photograph, for example, the Durham Miners Gala.

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He speaks a good deal about photography and memory. His images are ‘acts of remembrance’. If people and places and social existence are not recorded, they are forgotten. Mik admits to being a different person with a camera in his hand; trust is the key: ‘I’m a very shy person, and photography has helped me. I put my head above the parapet, just to have a look, to see what’s going on. It’s different when I’ve got a camera and it’s a passport into other people’s lives. As long as they don’t think you’re doing something untoward or sinister.

You’ve got to build up trust.’

In my article on Larry Fink in this issue of the Decisive Moment, I quoted Gerry Badger on the concept of “thereness”. While very different to Fink’s subjects and style, Mik shares this ability to take the viewer to the time and place when the image was frozen; the sense that we are looking at the world directly, we can feel the atmosphere in the working men’s clubs, smell the beer, hear the excitement of the boys playing football in the street where the Charlton brothers were born, overhear the ladies gossiping in the hairdressers and feel the freezing water on the Boxing Day dip.

Mik’s shooting style is certainly part of this. He likes to get in close, using two-andquarter medium format – or a 5:4 – commonly in portrait format, and often using a shallow depth of field. Only ‘one of the tribe’ could have made these images, the camera effectively invisible. It’s astounding that Mik only took a single shot of a subject – film was precious and expensive.

He shows us the universal in the particular and he reminds us that, ‘in photography, the smallest thing can be a great subject. The little human detail can become a leitmotif’ (Henri Cartier-Bresson).

And his photography gives meaning and support to Dorothea Lange’s well-known comment: ‘While there is perhaps a province in which the photograph can tell us nothing more than what we see with our own eyes, there is another in which it proves to us how little our eyes permit us to see.’

I’m very grateful to Mik for allowing me to include a selection of his Coal Town photographs here. Many were made when simply walking around in his daily life as the ordinary aspects of existence unfolded before him or having a pint at one of the 26 social clubs that existed in the town in the early 1980s. Or following up happen-chance conversations or encounters leading to excursions into the local hairdressers or to visit the staff as the local cinema closes down. Other images are the result of dogged persistence. Getting permission from the National Coal Board to photograph in Ashington Colliery as it closed down in 1988 was only possible because of the help of Ian Lavery, a highly respected union official.

Annual events like the Durham Miners Gala or Miners Picnic were of interest to him as were community events – whippet racing, the Boxing Day dip at Newbiggin, Wednesday Bingo. He photographs family and neighbours, tipsy first footing on 26

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New Year’s morning, shopkeepers in the town, the sea coalers, and their ramshackle camp.

His shots of the street layout of the town and the panoramas of colliery, power station and town are charged with atmosphere and give such a visceral sense of place; his portraits come alive, models of focus and lighting and the relationship between photographer and subject – remember, he took just one shot! He is alert to humour and the incongruence of juxtapositions. His detail shots, for example, the pile of discarded miners’ kit and clothing in the pit closing down images, are masterpieces of symbolism.

Above all, the effortless grasp of composition and the judgement of timing produces imagery which illustrates the power that documentary photography at its best can have in this image-saturated world. At their most profound, photographs can become part of our collective memory – photographs are ‘information about the past, in the present, and are saved for the future’. The difference between the millions of disposable and inconsequential images made each day in the digital universe and the carefully crafted images of a Mik Critchlow, is that such documentary photography has – or should have – consequences: ‘The best documentary photography is neither pure art nor pure fact. It is both. It evokes memories, elicits stories, and stimulates ideas. It says, stop, damn it, and witness what I have witnessed’ (David Friend, quoted in Michelle Bogre, Documentary Photography Re-considered).

The “Documentary Impulse” has a number of definitions. I prefer Robert Coles in Doing Documentary Work: ‘Rooted it childhood, an eagerness to catch hold of, to catch sight of, to survey and inspect, to learn and then convey to others what the eyes have taken in, this restless insistence upon taking the measure of things, figuring them out … so that others may become fellow witnesses – therein lies the documentary impulse’.

Spending time with Mik’s photographs over the last month – and listening to a recent zoom presentation, reminded me a comment by Sebastiao Salgado: ‘When you spend time on a project, you learn to understand your subjects.

There comes a time when it is not you who is taking the pictures. Something special happens between the photographer and the people he is photographing. He realises that they are giving the pictures to him.’

I commend Mik’s photography to you; it is an exemplary body of work and a collection destined to be an important historical record. Any aspiring documentary photographer or lover of photography would be wise to have Coal Town on their shelves.

Ian Wright ARPS - iangwright@hotmail.com 27

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FRPS Panel - Mark Phillips FRPS

Mark Phillips FRPS

‘Embargoed’ Havana and ‘bustling’ New York, both dense urban spaces, but worlds apart. Space for sports and recreation are confined, competing with the demands of city life.

In Havana, the few Áreas Deportivas Urbanas are little more than reclaimed derelict sites. Often hidden away, they are confined by decaying walls or metal fencing, with basic equipment and concrete ‘pitches’ roughly marked out in paint. By 32

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contrast, New York City has thousands of well-maintained and well-equipped courts, fenced off for safety and security.

They are places to compete, or to exercise, to socialise or just escape; providing a refuge and insulation from the daily urban pressures.

Superficially, they may seem a world apart, but in essence, they are the same.

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Simon R Leach FRPS - Chair of the Royal Photographic Society Distinctions, Documentary Genre The step-up for Fellowship; it is one of those things that is on the one hand so difficult to articulate, but on the other, so recognisable when you see it. With this successful submission from Mark Phillips I wish to focus on that element that makes a Fellowship, the ‘distinctive body of work’.

The subject, recreational facilities in New York and Havana, difference and similarity, all in one body of work. We could discuss comparisons and oppositions within the work at length, one of the first things that I read from the images being the importance of that escape from the rest of life. The escape from a routine that is provided by recreational activity and yet at once the feeling of confinement in these spaces with high concrete walls and mesh fencing.

The ‘distinctive body of work’ as listed within the RPS distinctions criteria is perhaps best described as a combination, or amalgamation, of a number of factors within the photographers decision making process. The ‘cohesion’ with which the work holds together, the artistic, creative or ‘individual vision’ within the work, and the affinity with the subject the ‘understanding’ author can communicate. These factors are criteria in their own right and will be assessed on their own merit.

But the way I can best disseminate the ‘distinctive’ nature of a work is to look at the ways in which a photographer manipulates and combines these factors of their work, generating interaction between them. We might recognise this as a greater hold on our attention, a clearer communication or a more distinctive aesthetic, perhaps dependent on the photographer or their specialism.

In Mark’s body of work there was no overtly clear delineation between the two locations in the presentation of the work, as might easily have been assumed that there would be. In places one can make a guess at the location, but in others it is certainly ambiguous. Such decisions add to the individuality of a piece. The work creates and allows cohesion to flow through the use of colour, light and shadow. This is very effective in maintaining the viewers’ attention, directing the gaze to concentrate on the narrative. This level of consideration, intent and cohesion within this body of work is where the photographer has not only demonstrated an individual vision, but also a distinctive approach. The connections between the particular images used are thought through in great detail. The shadow of a ball amongst a group of participants…the ball itself frozen in flight, with just the shadows of the participants. Blocks of strong colour and strong dynamic lines creating interest and further holding the viewers’ attention. The compositions used have all been carefully considered, right down to the final, red, full stop.

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As photographers it is impossible to create an image without making a decision, even if it is as basic as which direction do I point the camera.

I know there are texts on removing your influence from the photograph, but is the only way to stop imposing any influence on your photography not to take photographs? So some may argue this is a stylised documentary, perhaps even too contrived. However, it is in that individuality of vision with which we are presented, where a personal voice has space to come through. It is not about whether you “like” a body of work or not, certainly at distinctions, we never assess on whether something is liked. It is about whether it communicates in a clear voice the intent of the author and whether that distinctive individual vision is demonstrated in doing so.

In this work Mark has crafted and selected images to explore honestly and with purpose his chosen narrative. His development of understanding around his subject as well as consideration of how it will be effective as a body of work, have created that distinctive portfolio.

That step-up to Fellowship.

Mark’s panel is featured on the RPS website as one of the example FRPS submissions. rps.org/qualifications/frps/example-fellowship-panels

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Mark Phillips FRPS - interviewed by Gerry Phillipson LRPS What led you to want to document spaces for sports? How did the idea originate?

This project started as a secondary one. I was working in Havana on another project about repair and sustainability. But it was only possible to photograph this between 10am and 4pm, and usually indoors when the workshops were open. It also took me well away from the typical tourists’ spots. As I was walking around, I noticed these small makeshift sports areas and they intrigued me. Who had made them?

Who used them? I thought this might be something interesting to explore before the repair workshops opened and after they closed, when the light was still good.

So, I started tracking them down. It often required word of mouth enquiries or searching street by street, as many are hidden behind walls and gates. Over several visits, the work expanded. I got to know some of the locals and photographed them several times. I’d take photographs back and hand them out. I then met people from the charity that had created the spaces and did some work with them, and things grew from there. Then, a few years later, I had the opportunity to photograph in New York and decided to compare and contrast the cities. I’m still planning to do more, in other locations, when Covid restrictions lift.

Can you say something about your experience of working in these locations?

Initially, a lot of time was spent just talking to people, building trust. I also took along an instant camera and gave away photos, as a ‘thank you’. There was little hostility in Havana. People were quite welcoming. These are not tourist areas. I eventually met the charity that had created these sports areas, BarrioHabana, and through Pavel (the charity leader) gained access to many events, including a local football tournament, where I took images for them and some of the team coaches for the charity to use. None of these are in this panel but they are part of the body of work. I’m still in contact with the charity and hope to go back one day and see their progress. They have now expanded into creating urban gardens. (That may be another project!)

New York was a little different. I was told by a local about West 4th Street as ‘the place’ to go. Known locally as ‘the cage’, it consists of a street basketball court and three handball courts - all fenced in. I was probably the only tourist or visitor inside ‘the cage’. It was initially hostile, as some people thought I must be an undercover cop. So, to start with, there was no camera, just talking to people, showing them some of the work from Cuba, and explaining what I wanted to do. Over several days, going back to the same places, I built up enough trust to be allowed to photograph pretty much unimpeded. (Apart from one area that was ‘off limits’!) I have many images from the ‘cage’ that I could not include, but it is a fascinating place. Another location was in Coney Island, again this was recommended by the 56

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locals. Like many of these urban sports areas, your background is irrelevant, its simply about the place, the sport, the friendships.

What was your personal reaction to being in these spaces? What general impression of them do you want to convey in your photographs?

Over 70% of the global population now live in urban environments. These seem to be getting denser as commercial demands encroach on what little open space there is. I originally just wanted to give a sense of the space, as places to escape the urban jungle. I have coached sport on and off for years, so I understand the importance and some of the culture in these spaces. They have an energy and can become a strong social hub. What I love is the energy and freedom they provide, despite being small, walled or fenced in.

I wanted to take images that conveyed something about the place and the people, but not necessarily be ‘sports’ shots. So, I deliberately omitted the ball in some images, I was more interested in the person, or the movement, or their expression.

Did these locations present you with any technical challenges?

I use fairly minimal equipment, two Fuji XPro-2 bodies with prime lenses (equivalent to 24mm and 40mm). This is a bonus in situations like this. There’s often limited room and few places to stand, which limits potential viewpoints and camera angles, but after spending time and being accepted I could pretty much stand where I wanted, even on a court sometimes (though at my own risk). This was important the close-ups are made by being close. Most of the images are simply cropped (at most) with minimal processing. I like to think of this as working in digital, but in the spirit of film.

These are stark, basically equipped areas that might seem inhospitable for a visitor. Did you consider showing work in black and white?

No. There is so much colour in these places, and they are fun too. While they are all very graphic images they would lose something if they were produced in monochrome.

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FRPS Panel - Mark Philips FRPS

Which photograph from your panel gives you most satisfaction? Is it for you the most successful image?

It is hard to pick a personal favourite as they are all part of a wider story. The one picture that has been the most successful in its own right is image 15. This was shortlisted in Sony World Photography Awards a couple of years ago and exhibited in Rotterdam, Trieste and part of an award event in Siena.

Which photograph in the panel did you find the most difficult to achieve?

They all had different challenges but technically perhaps the simplest was the most difficult - image 3.

I’d been to the location in Coney Island several times before. It is between an ugly Trump housing estate and the boardwalk. So, I had an idea of what I wanted and knew it was best to go late in the afternoon. It was taken handheld using manual focus. I wanted the ball to be super sharp and in focus, and the people (shadows) all in the right place. And have enough light in the late afternoon to keep the ball sharp. So, I used zone focussing and just kept at it for around 10 minutes. I think it took about 20 or so attempts over maybe ten minutes … as I didn’t have long before the light went.

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FRPS Panel - Mark Phillips FRPS

Have you a “one that got away,” a photo that didn’t make it into your panel?

If so, why didn’t you select it?

Yes, loads. Probably my favourite that didn’t make it is a basketball shot in Chinatown, NY. The main reason it didn’t make it is aesthetic; the colour tones are different and were not consistent with the vibrancy of the rest of the panel. It is also is a bit too literal, a bit too obvious, whereas the other images in the panel have some degree of ambiguity. So it didn’t make the cut on two counts …. colour balance and ‘ambiguity’. In my view, consistency is important as a way of engaging the viewer.

If you could rework the panel what changes would you now make?

For the Fellowship, I would not significantly change it. I played with lots of different options using small prints on a large (A0) magnetic white board, so that I can live with a sequence for a while. There is a deliberate flow that plays with sequences of shadow and highlights, colours, motifs and graphic shapes, which aims to create a link between the images. They are also mixed up by location; I deliberately wanted to move from image to image and for it not always to be certain which was Havana and which was New York. Some are obvious, some not. This is important to align with the statement of intent and the idea behind the project.

Have you any thoughts of producing a photo book documenting your subject?

Not for this project. Not yet, anyway. Four of the images have recently appeared in a book for the Urban Photo Exhibition in Trieste. Some also won a Remarkable Artwork Award at Siena International Photo Awards (2020). If I get to do more work on the project in other cities, then I might look to produce a book showing 5-6 different locations. I’ve already done some research at the MPF library looking at ‘sports’ based work for ideas on this.

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ARPS Panel - Fiona Willoughby ARPS

Fiona Willoughby ARPS Appleby Horse Fair I have always been captivated by gypsies and their culture. During the last 5 years I have worked on a personal project building up a body of work on the gypsies annual gathering at Appleby Horse Fair. Starting tentatively and building an affinity allowed me to capture some more honest photographs at Appleby Horse Fair.

I began wanting my panel to record the “old guard” gypsies in their travelling wagons pulled by coloured horses, and their horse trading at the fair. But as I learned more and gained understanding of the people, I felt it important to capture the younger generation too; their “rite” to attend the fair.

I explored their connection to their culture, their close knit community, their pride and their arrogance – I have found that all generations have a strong bond to the horse and many preserve the Romany characteristic of being free spirits.

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Simon R Leach FRPS - Chair of the Royal Photographic Society Distinctions, Documentary Genre If you have been around documentary photography for any length of time you will, no doubt, have heard photographers talk about understanding a project, taking time to explore, to build up knowledge, and enhance their personal understanding.

It is this element that I want to focus on for Fiona Willoughby’s project “Appleby Horse Fair”. It demonstrates, very clearly, how important these elements are to consider when conceptualising a potential project.

This body of work was created over a number of years. The decision to take on a narrative around an annual event is a challenge in itself; ensuring that you can maintain motivation and passion in your subject, not just a vague interest, over a period of years. You must be prepared for the potential frustration of not simply being able to head out and add a few more photographs. Fiona has not let these potential issues phase her. In addition, she has demonstrated an ability to photograph, and process, in a way that creates and maintains the cohesion which holds the work together and gives it the consistency of an individual vision.

The result is an immersion in the subject that comes through in the work. By taking a similar approach appropriate to your own subjects, gaining an understanding of the issues and beliefs involved, potentially developing relationships, will all benefit the effectiveness of your photography. In her statement, Fiona alludes to the time she invested in not being too pushy and allowing an affinity to build between herself and her subjects. This allowed her to understand the subjects, and helped her to create “honest photographs”.

Giving yourself time, as a photographer, allows for the organic growth of the initial creative concept. We are all aware of what happens through the process of creating a body of work; you start with one specific idea, but that can expand, shift and develop as your understanding grows. You may discover an equally compelling side story, that better lends itself to exploration through photographic work. In turn, your level of understanding can be demonstrated, and the communication to your viewer can also develop positively. When starting a documentary project, I feel it is important to ask who it is for, and what do I want them to take away? It is okay, though, to accept that the answers may evolve through the process of creating the work.

At the RPS, we talk a lot about the communication to the viewer. While there is nothing wrong with a project that only means something very distinct to you personally, understand that limitation, and recognise that it will probably not have the same meaning or interest for others you show your work to.

The work that Fiona has created in “Appleby Horse Fair”, through that extended immersion, can clearly communicate with a viewer. It does explore the characters and characteristics of both the traditional and contemporary gypsies, providing a narrative of these two sides as well as presenting their mutual passion and connection to their Romany culture and the iconic horses.

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ARPS Panel - Fiona Willoughby ARPS

Fiona Willoughby ARPS - interviewed by Gerry Phillipson LRPS What first attracted you to the lives and culture of gypsies and how did you discover Appleby?

My first memory of gypsies was probably when I was 6 years old. As a child, I remember being driven between my home and Dunkeld (in Scotland) where there was often a gypsy caravan parked beside the road. We were scared to look, just in case, we caught the eye of the gypsy but it was always exciting and compulsive.

In my 20s, I was living in Gloucestershire and Oxfordshire, where my husband worked with horses. The area had a lot of gypsies and their Cob type horses, usually black and white or Piebald (tricolour), that had started to become fashionable with the hunting set. Consequently, he and his boss were buying these coloured horses from the gypsies, training them to go hunting, and then selling them on.

We used to go to the gypsy fairs, and they would also buy traditional wagons, do them up, and sell them on.

When we went to live in Afghanistan in early 1990, my interest grew. The gypsies there are wonderfully colourful and forbidding! I took some photographs of them, and hope one day to go back and photograph more.

I knew about Appleby from my time in Gloucestershire when we went to the Stow Fair. Then, living on the border of England and Scotland, it was a local event, so I have been going to Appleby for maybe twenty years, but only documenting it for five of them.

Can you tell us something about how you developed an affinity with the people and over what period of time? Was this only done at Appleby Horse Fair?

I am interested in people and their cultures, and trained in photography in the 1990s, so I’m happy and confident to approach people to chat and take their photographs. I do also have horses, and follow national hunt racing.

I feel I am a sensitive photographer. Having worked in some difficult regions, such as Afghanistan and Angola, both during and post conflict, I trust that I can quickly judge whether people are open to being photographed or would prefer to be left alone!

Many of the gypsies I know are proud of their heritage (and are a little bit vain).

They take great efforts to decorate their caravans and paint their horse drawn wagons and are, therefore, happy to have them photographed. I choose more traditional folk as subjects, and stay away from the “rougher” types who have difficulty keeping the peace. I don’t get involved in that but might well take a few shots for the record and walk away – it is not what I am looking to communicate.

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ARPS Panel - Fiona Willoughby ARPS

Camera in hand, were there times when you were regarded with suspicion?

Did you ever experience antagonism?

Yes, I guess I do get looks. Romany people have a certain strong stare that communicates a “get lost” message, so I don’t approach them! I just smile, acknowledge their wishes, and move on.

Some of the subjects, for example the assembled horses or individual shire horse shots might work well in black and white. Did you consider showing monochrome work?

I agree some of the images would look good in black and white, but I like colour images - bit of a magpie really! Certain shots, like the horse trading, would be good in black and white. My panel was colour, though, so for continuity and following feedback during an advisory day, I didn’t mix the panel.

Which photograph from your panel gives you most satisfaction? Is it for you the most successful image?

That’s difficult, but I love the man leading the horses through the meadow of buttercups. It is peaceful, and conveys a gentle side of the travellers and the care they take of their horses, which I was aiming to show in my panel.

I also love the boy with his motorbike, he’s full of attitude and the envy of every other boy round him.

Of course, the girl giving me the ‘Vs” too; she had attitude. I’d taken a few shots of her, but then she’d had enough - so indicated it with a sign!

Which photograph in the panel did you find the most difficult to achieve?

The image of the man in a T-shirt, leading up the horses, was risky. They don’t have a great deal of control over the horses which are moving fast. Many are young and easily spooked by the crowds, and there are horses coming from the opposite direction at speed. There are no rules, and there’s no-one controlling the “flashing” of the horses. Even if there was, I’m not convinced they would be listened to. It’s called the Flashing Road, where they show off their horses for sale; this is their road, it’s not for photographers!

So my point is, if you’re brave enough to get into the middle of the road for a shot, you have to have someone watching your back.

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ARPS Panel - Fiona Willoughby ARPS

One that got away?

This photo didn’t make it into the panel. I already had an overview shot of the horses in the river, with the crowds looking on. It is something that is often photographed, and it was felt that going to the caravan and wagon area, with people doing other activities, was a more unusual view.

If you could rework the panel what changes would you now make?

I think I would have put in some more intimate images, from the evening perhaps, when the gypsies are cooking on the fires or chatting round the wagons.

Clearly you will develop this project further – can you say something about how you’ll do this? What would you most want the viewer to take away from your photographs?

I’d like to be getting closer, more detailed, more intimate shots.

I want the viewer to feel the gypsies affinity for the horse; to be inspired to go to a gypsy fair; to see for themselves that they are not all bad - many are kind country folk and tell great stories. They are like every sector of society with good and bad members.

Have you any thoughts of producing a photo book documenting the Appleby Horse Fair, or the lives of gypsies more generally?

It has been suggested that I do a book documenting the fair; this was my intention.

Another photographer had been doing one each year for 25 years and gave up two years ago. My friend Mala suggested that I take over, but last year Covid stopped the fair, and I don’t know if it will happen in 2021 yet, but it is something I am keen to do. I am also just starting the MA in photography at Falmouth University, and have thought that I would broaden my gypsy/Romany project to other countries – maybe revisiting Afghanistan, and studying Joseph Koudelka’s gypsies project.

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Bi-Monthly Competition Winner

Winner of the October 2020 Bi-Monthly Competition The entries for the fifth bi-monthly competition of 2020 can be seen on the Documentary Group section of the RPS website: rps.org/groups/documentary/bi-monthly-competition.

The winning image was ‘John, 10 days post op’

by Angus Stewart ARPS In January 2020 John was told that he needed to have open heart surgery to repair a leaking valve - however due to lockdown restrictions in March the operation was postponed.

The NHS were amazing, ringing him every two weeks to check on his condition and remind him that he had not been forgotten.

With a lull in infection rates during the summer he was called to the John Radcliffe Hospital for surgery, during the operation it was discovered that he had two valves that needed repair, not one, making the operation longer and more complex than expected. One week post surgery he was released and came to stay with us for a few moths to recuperate - this picture was taken on his third day with us. He was still very tired we managed three or four images and called it a day. John loves this picture and has even given a copy to his surgeon, as he likes to say ‘having a sick note from the doctor doesn’t get you out of modelling’.

Highly Commended Images The October 2020 competition had two highly commended images. ‘Hide and Seek’ by Eric J. Smith and ‘Damaged Sight’

by Katherine Maguire LRPS.

Our popular bi-monthly single documentary image competition is open for all Documentary Group members to submit their best/favourite photos. The winner is selected shortly after the closing date by the Documentary Group Committee. All images will be put into a Documentary Group gallery on the RPS website and some selected for publication in The Decisive Moment.

Our bi-monthly competition has been put on hold after the February 2021 edition. We have made the decision to allocate more volunteering time and resources to work on DPOTY2021.

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Larry Fink - On Composition and Improvisation

From the Bookshelf: Ian Wright ARPS Without accompanying images, a photographic book review may be informative to a point – but the essence is missing. I’m therefore very grateful to Larry Fink for giving permission to include a selection of his images and to use direct quotations from On Composition and Improvisation (Aperture, 2014). This review has turned into a broader introduction to Larry Fink’s photographic work – a career stretching almost 60 years.

I suspect he is not as well known in the UK as he deserves to be – he was not in the RPS Documentary Group list of resources and books until I recently added references – and I hope this overview helps to correct that. He is an interesting, idiosyncratic, and engaging character – a teacher and thinker, a driven, emotional, and complicated individual, ‘pathologically curious’, an idealist who ‘once had hope but now has fortitude’. His brutal honesty about his own conflictions and contradictions is as clear as his undoubted talent, (evident even as an untutored 18 year-old) and his arresting, magnetic, images. The irony of the ultimate ‘outsider’ receiving photographic awards, and celebrity status, is not lost on the photographer himself.

Widely acclaimed in the twenty-first century, his photography divides opinion but I’m inclined to share one forthright reviewer’s opinion: ‘if you can’t appreciate Larry Fink’s photography, it would be best for all concerned if you sold your photography equipment and took up playing the piano ... The foundational mindset, the nugget of artistic spark, the compassion for all humanity, required to understand the true purpose of all this infernal shutter clicking is missing from your soul’.

I’ve tried to structure this article as a resource but mostly to let the photographer speak directly to the reader – the images are the essential starting point. Some biographical background provides context and selected extracts of Larry Fink’s text in On Composition and Improvisation give a flavour of his thought processes.

Finally, some snippets from the most revealing interview I can find. Of course, this short article cannot do full justice to his body of work or his philosophy, but hopefully something will catch the reader’s attention to provoke further interest.

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Larry Fink, On Composition and Improvisation

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George Plimpton and Devotees 1999

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‘I think that my most successful pictures encapsulate a story in a single image that works on many levels. I like to tell a story as it’s being told, as it’s being lived. I look for different psychological elements and try to weave them together. The story unfolds as a question. Because if you complete the story and complete the circle within the square, then the picture is already stagnant.’

Gerry Badger (in The Pleasure of Good Photographs) asserts his belief that documentary is at the core of the photographic medium and ‘the source of its greatest potency’. He goes on to argue that ‘thereness’ is at the heart of the pleasure of good photographs: ‘The sense of a subject’s reality, a heightened sense of it’s physicality, etched sharply into the image. It is a sense that we are looking at the world directly… Such a feeling, such artlessness, when present in the photograph, can conceal the greatest photographic art… Those photographs that conjure up a compelling desire to touch the subject, to know the photographed person, display thereness. Thereness is a quality that has everything to do with reality and little to do with art, yet it is the essence of the art of photography’.

This central concept is at the heart of the documentary impulse and is the key to understanding the power of Larry Fink’s photography. What was said of Henri Cartier-Bresson – one of the influences Fink acknowledges – could also be said of Fink himself: ‘His recognition that untouched reality was already tractable enough, that the world was most intoxicating when served straight up’ (Richard Lacayo, Time, October 1987).

Fink’s photography epitomises the documentary approach. He gives us a central tenet: ‘Many photographers photograph so they can make a picture. They’re attracted by the structural nature of the image and the kind of hunt involved in picture-making. But for me, photography has always been a tool rather than an end in itself, a way of attempting to understand what it means to feel kinship with another – what … could be called empathy’.

As Paul Hill has eloquently put it: ‘Photography is about communicating ideas as well as information. The camera … makes a superb tool for exploring, observing, and representing both the external world and internal reactions to it. There are two areas of consciousness – the world of the imagination and the real world – and photography has the ability to combine the two’.

Image-making is a language of communication, freezing time, revealing realities hidden from the passing eye by framing these moments cut from a larger context, reducing the chaos of our experience, heightening our awareness. Or as Larry Fink puts it: ‘Time stopped deftly in a magnetic moment lives on and on… Pictures … remain fixed in the moment they were seized; their reading is as always ambiguous, subject to the changing perceptions and intuitions bred by delusion and experience’.

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In On Composition and Improvisation, we have the benefit of a veteran (born 1941), and very active photographer and educator today, self-consciously reflecting on a lifetime of image-making. An observer of the human condition, powerfully underlining the autobiographical nature of documentary photography and the complexities and dilemmas of the process.

This high production-value, 123-page paperback book, has nearly 80 superbly reproduced and distinctive monochrome images from across his body of work, the earliest from 1958, the latest 2012, with selections from most of his published books (see below). The images are accompanied by short pieces of text in which he distils his experience, aspirations, and philosophy.

This is not a ‘how-to’ book in a technical sense, but it has something more important, the drip-drip of wisdom. Photography seen primarily as a tool to understanding; the definition and importance of empathy; photography’s ability to layer – offering multiple perceptions, bringing together incongruencies; the value of acquiring the building blocks of composition and familiarity with cultural references (such as his references to Caravaggio and Goya among others) which create templates in the mind; the concepts of an image having energy and atmosphere as charged space; the crucial role of small details and the here and there of a photographer’s positioning and viewpoint; the significance of chance and improvisation – responding to what is alive before you; the advice don’t get caught up in the perfect; an enlightening definition of an authentic voice; the influence of life outside the frame of a photographer’s images; and a recognition of the limits of photography. Some of these are expended in the Fink on Fink quotations that accompany this article.

‘Photography, it’s been said beautifully by Stephen Shore, is an analytical art. It’s not like painting or writing or music. In painting, you start with a blank canvas, with nothing, and you do what you want to it. Photography, in contrast, starts with everything. Your palette is all things, so you have to reduce it to your thing. What is it in the miasma of all the things in front of you that moves you to photograph, to monumentalize, as the case may be? Or to trivialize?

Photography is an act of selection. Click. The piercing nanosecond.

The intervention.’

In interview with Adriana Teresa (January 2011), he was asked what does everything that you have photographed mean to you today? He answered: ‘That I live with passion and that I care. The moment that we have is the only moment we will ever have, insofar as it is fleeting. Every breath counts. So does every moment and perception. It’s a way to be alive. I am involved with the idea of reaching deeply into the pulsing matter of what it means to be alive and being vulnerable and seeing if I can cast an emotional legacy about being human.’

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The book doesn’t have a logical layout or neat headings and his language is often lyrical and romantic and rarely completely transparent – he resists the simplification of what is complex. In interview, his style is to give short cryptic responses. He can speak in riddles. Yet he can be direct and elegant in his brevity: ‘In the field of boxing, you have unbelievable purity of intention and innocence, and unbelievable greed, evil and belligerence, all sitting in the same stew pot. It’s a spicy stew. I like spicy stew’ I approached this book as I always do – as if I were having an open-minded dialogue with its author – combined with a virtual visit to a gallery of his images. There’s much to be gained if you give it the time and attention it deserves and follow up other sources of information and his publications. When circumstances allow me to resume my project on Rural Life in the Lincolnshire Wolds, Larry Fink will be whispering in my ear.

For me, his images fulfil his impossible goal ‘ to take a two-dimensional picture and make it something that a viewer enters and doesn’t want to leave. So that once they enter the universe of the picture, they become immersed in what it was like to be in this space and time, right then and right there’. But he recognises the limits, because photographs need a receptive audience and the majority of people ‘don’t experience pictures that way. We’re talking with the highest of ideals and hopes and ambitions and romance. Most folks are just trying to do their job and pick their kids up from school on time. Or they’re having fun and living their lives.

They’re not immersing themselves in our pictures’.

So, why do we photograph? For commercial gain, the pursuit of prizes, badges, certificates, reputation? Or something inherently valuable – understanding, awareness, wisdom?

Some background (much in his own words). The core of Larry Fink’s images are observations on social culture – centrally, the city-based cultural elite and working class, rural life but also photo essays on boxing, loggers, the ‘Beat’ generation and the New York jazz scene.

Fink began his photographic career in the 1960s in New York as a young photojournalist working for several years for the ‘sophisticated women’s’ magazines and photographing in the streets of the city. Already, as an 18 year old, he had taken some remarkable images of the Beatnik community of Greenwich Village, only published in 2014. In the notes for the book which established his reputation, Social Graces (published 1984), he tells us that he was ‘hungry for immediate social change’ and (as a self-identified ‘Marxist from Brooklyn’) he viewed his participation as a ‘covert attempt to saturate the media with a deeper humanism’.

Disillusioned with the mediocrity of commercial work, he gave up taking photographs for a year, started teaching photography (which he has done ever since) and played jazz for a living. In 1974 he began to photograph society benefits in New York, ‘fuelled by curiosity and rage against the privileged class’.

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‘Some people mistake my work for satire… But I don’t agree. The pictures are taken in the spirit of finding myself in the other or finding the other in myself. They are taken in the spirit of empathy… for me, photography has always been a tool rather than an end in itself, a way of attempting to understand what it means to feel kinship with another – what, I think, could be called empathy…’

After six years of making ‘Black Tie’ photographs, he moved to an abandoned farm in Martins Creek, Pennsylvania, down its own two-mile road up a hill through a valley. The newcomer from the city found himself in the middle of some old-time problems: wind and weather, erosion, flood, right-of-way. Every two weeks or so, he would get dressed up in a tuxedo and drive off to the city to photograph another benefit. At the same time, he was getting to know the people of Martins Creek, and ‘feeling less like a voyeur, more like a neighbour’.

In 1979, Fink had a solo exhibition of images from these two settings – the upper crust socialites at prestigious events in Manhattan and the working-class rural community in Pennsylvania. In 1984 this was published in book form as Social Graces with a second, revised large format edition in 1999. The New York Times reviewer wrote that the photos explored social class by comparing ‘two radically divergent worlds while accomplishing one of the things that straight photography does best: providing excruciatingly intimate glimpses of real people and their alltoo-fallibly-human lives’.

Fink’s body of published work has continued to widen over the 40 years since his Social Graces exhibition and in On Composition there are images from each of Fink’s body of documentary work in book form. Interestingly, many of the books are collections of Fink’s photography made years earlier.

Major publications include Boxing (1997); Runway (1999), a behind the scenes look at the world of fashion and couture; A Night at the Met (2009); The Vanities (2011), Vanity Fair parties 2000 to 2009; The Beats (2014), photographs taken in 1958 by the eighteen-year-old Fink, of members of the “Beatnik” Community as they travelled from Greenwich Village to Mexico and Houston.

Somewhere There’s Music (2006) collects Fink’s mostly unpublished black-andwhite jazz photographs from the 1950s to the late 1970s. In these photos Fink captures the cool heights of the Beat era and jazz legends like John Coltrane.

Kindred Spirits (2014) photographs the Horvath family and farm; Fish and Wine (1997) is a booklet to accompany a 1997 exhibition; Opening the Sky includes images from a 1980 project photographing the logging community of the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State (2015).

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In conversation with Larry, I asked if he could give me a couple of quotes or advice to aspiring photographers and gave him a couple of prompts, for example, what did he mean by his comment that photography for photography’s sake would do you no good? I should have known better. True to form I got a couple of classic “Finkisms”: ‘Life it seems is a never-ending stream of improbable events. If we don’t improvise within it, it overtakes us. Besides becoming static we become irrelevant, rendered to be dust and hair balls on the side of the road. It’s hard to pick up a camera if you are a hair ball. We are all blowing in the wind’.

And ‘to improvise is to be surprised by being alive’. A reminder that we can be too analytical, too concerned with a need to explain, to resolve contradictions, to say ‘this is about that’.

Wikipedia has a full list of publications. For extensive online galleries of his work see: The International Center of Photography: www.icp.org Artnet: www.artnet.com www.larryfinkphotography.com Photobooks have become extremely collectable in the last few years and this has affected the availability and price of books in the UK, especially when books go out of print. I bought On Composition at publication in 2014 for around £16 – current asking price on Amazon is over £30 in the UK (although still $20 in the USA) and the hardback of Social Graces I bought for £32 has become collectable at around £120 for a new copy (£60 for a second-hand copy in the UK and over $300 in the USA).

Ian Wright ARPS - iangwright@hotmail.com ‘In photography, finding a voice starts with asking yourself, what is it that you’re driven to shoot? And then when you look at the end product of that drive, over a number of images, is there a way in which the structures and rhythms start to evolve into one kind of thinking or seeing? Photographers do not necessarily reach originality by competing with what’s being done at the moment.

Instead, they must somehow tap into their origin, something deeper in the soul.’

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Bi-Monthly Competition Winner

Winner of the August 2020 Bi-Monthly Competition

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Bi-Monthly Competition Winner

The entries for the fourth bi-monthly competition of 2020 can be seen on the Documentary Group section of the RPS website: rps.org/groups/documentary/bi-monthly-competition.

The winning image was ‘Rusty Relic’

by Paul Byrne ARPS Not too far from Rotorua, New Zealand, is an historic car yard which contains hundreds of post and pre-war cars and trucks.

They remain exactly where they were placed on arrival at the scrap heap. This image is one of a series called ‘Rusty Relics’ which I am working on.

Highly Commended Images The August 2020 competition had two highly commended images. ‘Born to be Wild’ by Lorainne Poole LRPS and ‘Pilgrim praying by the Ganges, Haridwar’ by David Pollard ARPS.

Our popular bi-monthly single documentary image competition is open for all Documentary Group members to submit their best/favourite photos. The winner is selected shortly after the closing date by the Documentary Group Committee. All images will be put into a Documentary Group gallery on the RPS website and some selected for publication in The Decisive Moment.

Our bi-monthly competition has been put on hold after the February 2021 edition. We have made the decision to allocate more volunteering time and resources to work on DPOTY2021.

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Sofa to Shed - Ray Hobbs ARPS

Sofa to Shed Ray Hobbs ARPS The abstraction of my Sofa to Shed project is a photographic enquiry into the lives and journeys of four men from their homes into the community of a Men’s Shed.

The subjects of my project, Sofa to Shed, all consented to be photographed and to articulate, on video, their journeys from isolation, loneliness, and depression, to a “shed”.

Research for this project revealed the extent of the hidden condition that many men live with. I was ill prepared for my emotional roller coaster journey and for what I was about to discover. Subsequently it became incumbent upon me to represent empathetically those men who courageously and generously agreed to participate in my project.

Decisively, the physical Men’s Shed has not been photographed; the colloquial term “shed” is used to describe a community of men who generally associate in a physical workspace or shed. Through research into the wider community, I frequently observed men in gatherings of two or more. It was this surveillance that implied the term shed could be applied to a park bench or peloton of male cyclists, or any location where men associated. For my project, a shed, or community space, does not necessarily need four walls, a roof, and a workbench.

Whenever I plan a project, I conduct extensive research through library books and internet searches, my personal book collection or specifically purchased literature.

I produce a proposal with visuals including a to-do list with timelines and frequently a storyboard. I visualise scenarios with my subjects and consider what lighting and camera equipment will be most appropriate. I also advance-plan a printing schedule, exhibition venues and a detailed, costed, marketing plan for press releases and personal invitations – both by email and invitation cards.

For Sofa to Shed my research included the purchase of the print-to-order book The Men’s Shed Movement: The Company of Men by Professor Barry Golding.

Interestingly, although everyone in the Welsh Sheds was aware of it, no-one had a copy. This 433-page book details the establishment of sheds in Australia in 2008.

The book represents the only clear and precise compendium of sheds worldwide with detailed information on particular countries including the UK and Republic of Ireland.

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Sofa to Shed - Ray Hobbs ARPS

Whenever I met Glen he always seemed so disengaged with the world, with life.

Just staring into nothingness.

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Sofa to Shed - Ray Hobbs ARPS

Glen spends all of his days sitting at the window, commenting to himself about the neighbours.

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Sofa to Shed - Ray Hobbs ARPS

However, despite all my extensive preparation and planning, I am well aware that much of the preparation could prove to be redundant as the project unfolds and circumstances change, but this planning is of immeasurable significance to me to prepare for the project, to get my mind and energy focused and to be aware of possible failures and alternate scenarios. I plan to succeed.

The Sofa to Shed project is an excellent example of a proposal veering totally off course during the initial stages of the project commencement. My preliminary considerations were to portray the companionship and camaraderie engendered in the sheds by producing environmental portraits and team participation project activities. However, it soon became clear that all of the men had very personal and emotional journeys taking them from isolation and loneliness into the community of a shed. I reconsidered a narrative of articulating the stories of individual men and their journeys into a friendly, non-judgemental, participatory environment where life stories, problems and journeys can be shared over a workbench and a cup of tea.

My project consists of a series of environmental portraits of each of my subjects on their sofas and in their home settings, signifying the commencement of a journey from their sofa to a shed providing a community, and a refuge. The men were all remarkably candid and open about personal difficulties in their lives that had been overcome or reduced by involvement in sheds and the ability to articulate their personal stories to like-minded men. Without exception, all the men I approached agreed to filmed interviews, which took place on their sofas.

To a large extent this project took on its own direction. As the stories of the individual men unfolded it became clear that I was in uncharted waters regarding interpretation and the presentation of their harrowing stories. I have learnt a lot about me and my photography and a possible direction for my documentary career.

As I was still recovering from a recent heart attack and experiencing bouts of extreme fatigue, I decided to keep my project capture area within a reasonable travelling distance of 60 miles, which could include the town of Carmarthen and the city of Cardiff.

All four of the collaborative participants had a comparable, but very distinctive story to disclose. An unanticipated and somewhat overwhelming outcome of the powerful and personal interviews has been the effect on me. Also, the impression of an intense deep feeling of connection between some of my interviewees and me as a “confidant”, for which I was not qualified or prepared for.

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Sofa to Shed - Ray Hobbs ARPS

Glen surrounds himself with memories if his family, with children’s toys for rarely seen kids. In the family group shots, Glen can be seen as a very happy and smiling man; he doesn’t smile anymore.

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Sofa to Shed - Ray Hobbs ARPS

Glen has a disability scooter, which is trapped and hidden away, a metaphor for his life?

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Sofa to Shed - Ray Hobbs ARPS

Richard has a well-equipped workshop, which is the envy of many men; but this doesn’t compensate for his loneliness.

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Sofa to Shed - Ray Hobbs ARPS

Richard is adept at creating highly complex musical instrument such as a Dulcimer.

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Sofa to Shed - Ray Hobbs ARPS

Amongst the wood dust and shavings in his workshop is this photo of his grandchildren.

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Sofa to Shed - Ray Hobbs ARPS

During our interview, Richard sang to me.

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Sofa to Shed - Ray Hobbs ARPS

Robert is a great, friendly and affable character, but suffers terribly from depression.

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Sofa to Shed - Ray Hobbs ARPS

His life seems very hard and uncompromising. He still smokes even though he has the lung disease COPD. The new rolled-up carpet has been sitting there for months waiting for him to do something. Adjacent to the new carpet is an unused rowing machine.

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Sofa to Shed - Ray Hobbs ARPS

Mission control. Scattered around his house, Robert has several pieces of gym equipment. In his bedroom there is a jogging machine performing the role of a trouser press.

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Sofa to Shed - Ray Hobbs ARPS

Included in his collection of gym equipment is this stationary cycle. Robert has membership of a local gym, which he has never used.

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Sofa to Shed - Ray Hobbs ARPS

Stephen has the luxury of a leather sofa in his workshop.

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Sofa to Shed - Ray Hobbs ARPS

Due to his sight loss, Stephen can only work with larger pieces of wood. His condition has created a chasm between him and that which gives him so much joy and fulfilment.

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Sofa to Shed - Ray Hobbs ARPS

Stephen said that this is the only plane that he can use, because he can feel its orientation and it fits well into the palm of his hand. Anything larger he has no control over.

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Sofa to Shed - Ray Hobbs ARPS

Just like every man in his shed, Stephen has all those ‘come in useful items’, even if he never uses them.

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Sofa to Shed - Ray Hobbs ARPS

The project included video recordings of three of the four men and an essay by Robert who described his ‘pit of despair’ and thoughts of suicide as he was unable to discuss his depression at work for fear of ‘discrimination’. Stephen described on video how the realisation of his impending blindness drove him to seriously contemplate ending his life. He acknowledged that speaking on video was the first time that he had articulated his consideration of suicide, during which interview he cried. He admitted that collaborating with me on Sofa to Shed had enabled him to reassess his life and be more positive about his future. Stephen has now gone onto establishing a bowls club for partially sighted people in Llanelli and is now running the Llanelli Men’s Shed.

Glen described his mental breakdown as a result of a catastrophic family break-up due to his life-long disability, and his wife’s alcoholism, with the resultant loss of his children. Glen admitted that even with the Shed membership he still feels lonely but has benefited greatly from it. He described how the men in the Shed provided comradeship and how this has sustained him and enabled him to cope with his depression.

Richard was 71 years old when I interviewed him. He described his work ethic and the rise and fall of his career and redundancy during the Thatcher era. He described in great detail his life in the jewellery quarter in Birmingham and the enjoyment he gained working in teams. Although Richard has a wonderful wife and house in the country, he admitted to feeling ‘lonely’. Richard revealed that his association with the Men’s Shed Cymru movement has greatly helped him to relive the camaraderie of his early working life in Birmingham and reduce his feelings of loneliness.

Sofa to Shed has been shown in a Cardiff gallery and was attended by representatives of the Older People’s Commissioner for Wales, Age Cymru, Men’s Sheds Cymru, Nia Griffith MP and many other interested organisations. An exhibition was also scheduled at the Senedd Cymru in support of the Men’s Health forum, but that and two other exhibitions were cancelled due to Covid-19 restrictions.

As part of my marketing campaign, I contacted the BBC who interviewed Stephen and me and produced this article: Sofa to Shed.

It was a privilege to tell the stories of these courageous men, but with that comes incredible responsibility to faithfully and respectfully represent their narratives.

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Sofa to Shed - Ray Hobbs ARPS

I created a contextual introduction to my Men’s Sheds Cymru exhibition. I produced a 6,000-word report on the Men’s Sheds movement, which included details of its origins in Australia and a copy of The Company of Men by Professor Barry Golding for reference, this describes the Men’s Shed Movement. I also included samples of workshop tools, an Artist’s Statement and a pair of Men’s Sheds mugs. I fabricated the report folder from old pieces of plywood, a cleat, an odd piece of string and an off cut of leather and some wadding to represent a sofa.

I included a wall mounted photograph of two mugs to convey the philosophy of Men’s Sheds by suggesting that it takes two to make a conversation and no matter if your mug is half full or half empty, or your colour; you are welcome.

In addition to the 16 A2 prints, I produced videos of the collaborative participants, which were only accessible with headphones to maintain a sense of discretion. I placed 40 incidental 5x4 photographs around the gallery, on shelves and pinned to the walls.

Member of Parliament, Nia Griffith opened my exhibition, which was attended by representatives of The Older People’s Commissioner for Wales, Age Cymru, MIND, participants and other interested relevant organisations, also friends, colleagues and family.

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The Documentary Group Online The documentary group has a presence on the following platforms, come and join in the conversation. We understand that not everyone has a social media profile or wants to create one.

That’s why all our profiles are public and can be viewed by everyone, no matter whether you have an account or not. This means you will be able to view all our posts and book on to ticketed events.

Checking our RPS page and searching for events is still a good way to keep informed with all that is happening in the Documentary group. If you have any questions you can always e-mail us – all our contact details are listed there.

Facebook Facebook Page - facebook.com/rpsdocumentary Our public Facebook page is new, but it already highlights the successful projects that entered our Documentary Photographer of the Year competition. You can also find albums for the Bi-monthly Competition winners and short texts from our Journal The Decisive Moment (DM) there – these updates are designed to be easy to read on a phone screen that also provides you with the link to the full articles.

Facebook Group - facebook.com/groups/RPSDVJ We also have a closed group Facebook page, exclusively for our members. If you want to join us there, you can share your pictures with us, ask for advice, and engage with our online community.

Instagram @rpsdoc Instagram is an image-based social media platform, so think of our profile as of an online gallery. If you follow us there, you can see pictures from our competition winners, DM contributors and members along with invitations to events and images from these occasions. Instagram is the place where we want to promote the work of our group and our members to the wider public and encourage them to follow and engage with our projects.

Flickr Royal Photographic Society - Documentary Group Documentary Group members run an active group on Flickr with plenty of images and the opportunity to discuss them with the group.

rps.org/documentary

Contact: docweb@rps.org

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Twitter @rpsdoc Our Twitter page is for short important updates such as events, exhibitions, call for entries or other announcements. If you do not have much time for scrolling on social media but still want to be in on the action, we recommend you to follow us there. We promise we’ll be short and concise.

Issuu Issuu.com - Documentary Group, Royal Photographic Society The Decisive Moment is published on the Issuu platform where you can read each edition online or download pdfs to read offline. Please follow the Documentary Group in Issuu and use the buttons to like and share your favourite editions or individual features - it really helps support the Documentary Group.

Website rps.org/documentary The Documentary Special Interest Group has a section on The Royal Photographic Society website. Here you can learn more about the group, hear about recent news and future events and access an increasing number of documentary photography resources. There are now nearly 100 recommend photobooks, nearly 20 reference books on approaches and issues in documentary and around 30 street-photo references/books, plus links to 24 online archives. All free and available to anyone.

RPS Documentary Events All upcoming RPS Documentary Events can be found on our events page.

Our upcoming Telling Stories with your Camera Workshop series: Starting Out - 10 April 2021 - 10:00 to 15:00 (BST / UK time) rps.org/events/groups/documentary/2021/april/storytelling-starting-out The Shoot - 8 May 2021 - 10:00 to 15:00 (BST / UK time) rps.org/events/groups/documentary/2021/may/storytelling-the-shoot Editing and Sequencing - 5 June 2021 - 10:00 to 15:00 (GMT / UK time) rps.org/events/groups/documentary/2021/june/storytelling-editingsequencing

Our Engagement Talk series: Melanie Friend - 25 March 2021 - 18:15-19:45 (GMT / UK time) rps.org/events/groups/documentary/2021/march/engagement-melaniefriend John Walmsley - 29 April 2021 - 18:15-19:45 (BST / UK time) rps.org/events/groups/documentary/2021/april/engagement-john-walmsley Alys Tomlinson and opening of DPOTY2021 - 6 May 2021 -18:00 - 19:30 (BST / UK time) rps.org/events/groups/documentary/2021/may/engagement-talk-alystomlinson-and-dpoty-opening Daniel Meadows - 13 May 2021 18:00 - 19:30 (BST / UK time) rps.org/events/groups/documentary/2021/may/engagement-talk-danielmeadows KC Nwakalor - 27 May 2021 18:15-19:45 (BST / UK time) rps.org/events/groups/documentary/2021/may/engagement-kc-nwakalor

rps.org - Documentary Events

Group Meetings: Group Zoom Meeting The RPS Documentary Group South East 21 March 2021 rps.org/events/groups/documentary/2021/march/group-zoom-meeting-therps-documentary-group-south-east Group Zoom Meeting The RPS Documentary Group South East 23 May 2021 rps.org/events/groups/documentary/2021/may/group-zoom-meeting-therps-documentary-group-south-east

Documentary photography as a practice spans a range of approaches, so makes precise definition difficult. Taken literally, all forms of photography can be described as documentary, in that they document someone, something or some place. As a working definition, the Documentary Group uses the following: “Documentary photography communicates a clear narrative through visual literacy. It can be applied to the photographic documentation of social, cultural, historical and political events.

Documentary photographers’ work always has an intent; whether that is to represent daily life, explore a specific subject, deepen our thinking, or influence our opinions.” rps.org/documentary

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Members form a dynamic and diverse group of photographers globally who share a common interest in documentary and street photography.

We welcome photographers of all skill levels and offer members a diverse programme of workshops, photoshoots, longer-term projects, a prestigious Documentary Photographer of the Year (DPOTY) competition, exhibitions, and a quarterly online journal ‘The Decisive Moment’.

Some longer-term collaborative projects are in the pipeline for the future. We have a active membership who participate in regional meetings, regular competitions and exchange ideas online through our social media groups.

Overseas members pay £5 per annum for Group membership rather than the £10 paid by UK based members.

The Documentary Group is always keen to expand its activities and relies on ideas and volunteer input from its members.

If you’re not a member come and join us.

Find us on the RPS website at: rps.org/documentary

Clearing (50°15’03.6”N 8°29’00.3”E) - Aindreas Philip Scholz

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