TheIntroducing...RPSCentralContemporary / Documentary Group 2020-2022
1 Introduction The (UK) Central Region RPS Contemporary and Documentary (Combined) Special Interest Group was formed in the autumn of 2020. We meet monthly online to share our photography. Bringing two genres together means we have different experiences, approaches and passions. Our common link is that we often work in thematic projects to show the viewer insights into the world around them. A year and a half later, we wanted to share the collective we have become. This book introduces you to those of our members who chose to take part and some of the projects we have shared with each other in our monthly meetings. 2 Margaret Beardsmore LRPS 8 David Blower LRPS 14 Clive Haynes FRPS 20 Steff Hutchinson ARPS 26 Linda Marshall ARPS 32 Carol Olerud FRPS 38 Alastair Taylor ARPS 44 Andy Thorpe ARPS © The copyright of the photographs and text in this book belong to the author of the section of which they form part. If you are interested in joining our group, please email info@steffhutchinson.co.uk Front cover: Clive Haynes FRPS - The Convex View Back cover: Steff Hutchinson ARPS - Pinhole Leamington Spa
Margaret Beardsmore LRPS
VE Day at Rishworth Avenue - 8th May 2020 2020, the year of Covid. After months of hiding indoors, we were at last allowed outside but still had to socially distance unless we were in ‘bubbles’. Our street decided to have a socially distanced party to celebrate VE Day. We had music all day provided by the DJ son of our next door neighbour. As the wine and beer flowed, it was like watching a plug pulled out of a bottle of repressed emotions. Towards the end of the afternoon, I photographed everyone who took part. These five images are a reminder of a joyous day in a very grim year.
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I presented the following selection of my photographs to the RPS Central Documentary and Contemporary Group at various meetings in 2021.
Pg 13 These are statues that were photographed as part of the Art UK project to record public art in the West Midlands. The King Edward’s wall mounted statue was on a school building in Nuneaton.
Pg 9 These two photos were part of a brief from Art UK. They show The War Memorial in Coleshill and a plaque celebrating 60 years of Queen Victoria’s reign.
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Pg 10 These photos were taken on one of my many visits to Nice, Côte D’Azur, S. France.
The first photo shows The Tees Transporter in the background with a modern sculpture in the foreground. A new landscaped area, incorporating water fountains, on Broad Street, Birmingham, has been created in front of the Library.
8 David Blower LRPS
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The first photo shows a completed design for a CD cover; it was part of an assignment set by the British Academy of Photography. A headshot of Agatha was one of many that I took of her last year.
9 War Memorial, Coleshill Wall plaque, Atherstone
10 Musée Matisse, Nice Nice Harbour
Agatha, headshot
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CD cover design
12 Transporter with Modern Scuplture in foreground Birmingham reflections
13 Statue of King Edward VI, Nuneaton Miner statue, Bedworth
Subterranean Bath
Currently owned by the National Trust, Orford Ness was once a remote hush-hush world where advanced weapons and munitions were tested. Here, too, an early form of RADAR evolved. Perhaps most sinister of all was research for Britain’s first atomic bomb, ‘Blue Danube’, where much of it was housed in purpose-built bunkers. Now largely cleared, Orford Ness stands as an epitaph to the socalled ‘Cold War’.
Clive FRPS
Many of the gracious Georgian buildings of central Bath have lower ground floors. Where once servants and those ‘below stairs’ lived, modern-day residents and tenants either ignore or use these basements in a variety of ways. Where space allows, barbecues, patio furniture and larger plants reveal evidence of outdoor living. Frequently, inelegant stairways descend to these dark corners. Some areas are dingy and scattered with litter. This series illustrates different attitudes to these nether regions.
The Convex View Have you noticed how many convex mirrors are appearing at the roadside? Although many are smart and pristine, others of their kind suffer from ailments such as cloudy vision, irritatingly scratched lenses or less than perfect sight. The next time you see one of our cyclopean friends, give this modern-day eye of Polyphemus a wave of encouragement, its unstinting service will benefit you and others.
Scarecrows
I find scarecrows to be both singularly strange and oddly fascinating. In general, they fall into three categories. ‘Working’: those employed upon a farm. ‘Domestic & Decorative’: a gentrified and prettified version of ‘Working’, considered not to frighten animals and those of a nervous disposition. ‘Feral’: frequently characterised by quirky repairs and splints, they appear to have no particular function and to have strayed beyond their original meadow, market-garden or allotment.
Haynes
Behind the Altar Going ‘back-stage’, so to speak, entering vestries and small side-rooms of churches, not only gives insights into what can be referred to as the ‘theatre of religion’, where one finds sacred vessels and vestments alongside the trappings of festivals, but it also reveals the impoverished state of church fabric. Landscape with a Memory
Since the Group’s inception in the autumn of 2020, I’ve regularly contributed work. I always have projects on the go and my selection is from five of these.
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The Desolation of Orford Ness
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20 Steff Hutchinson ARPS
Pinhole Leamington Spa I received a Lerouge 66 pinhole camera as a present. Its first outings around Leamington’s riverside and canalside showed that guessing the exposure wasn’t too difficult, but there are always surprising outcomes to be had. Urban and Rural A pre-lockdown project, comparing the post-industrial landscape of Brandon Marsh with the everchanging cityscape of central Birmingham, via a series of diptychs.
As the group was set up during the Covid-19 pandemic, our discussions have centred more than once on how our photography has changed as a result of repeated lockdowns and restrictions. In my case, I have had more time to experiment.
Double exposure Experimentation with in-camera double-exposure, post-production in Lightroom, printing on canvas and other non-paper supports, and adding stitching, took these depictions of tree-bark from my daily lockdown walks into abstraction.
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Linda Marshall ARPS
Six months after moving, I have revisited this project and found myself sequencing this small selection very differently. It is interesting how the pictures seem to look back at me; I feel the impulse to begin photographing a set of our new home.
HOME After 20 years, we moved house and downsized in 2021. It was the longest I have lived anywhere. I believe it was my 25th home. Being an Air Force child and in a profession which also required moving around, I may have missed one or two. Memories of other homes have become vague and indistinct; this house deserved more. Clearing the clutter, added to following the deaths of our parents, was challenging. Days and days were spent in the attic sorting, rejecting, donating and selling; at times, we were both very stressed, wondering how to let go of objects our parents had cherished.
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Statement of Intent: 18 Days – a time of great sadness
Carol Olerud FRPS
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Talking about death is still very much a taboo. It’s emotional and if you haven’t been touched by the loss of someone close to you, it’s quite possibly frightening. My intention with this panel, surrounding the 18 days my father fought for his life in the Intensive Care unit at the hospital, is to try and break open a conversation. To remove the fear and get the idea out there that death is a part of life, the great circle of life.
Watching someone very dear to you struggle to live, get all the medical assistance available to him and then realise he is losing the battle is extremely difficult. I brought my camera in at every visit. We were limited to the amount of family members that were permitted to go in at a time, so we took it in turns. My sisters and I got very good at reading the instruments measuring his vital signs. There were many tubes with medicine and food being pushed into his body to help him. It was awful. Having these photos helps me deal with my grief and puts some perspective on it. It is now many years ago, gradually I have accepted that he is no longer with us. It has taken me some time to get this far, that I can share this body of work. I really feel it is important, especially in the times we have been in. Many families could not visit their loved ones and could not say their farewells. I can’t imagine how hard that was!
Maybe I can help others by sharing my own pain and sadness and get that conversation going. Death is peaceful in the end. A part of life. The end of life.
I achieved my Fellowship Distinction on 27th October 2021, it was a print submission. The following is my Statement of Intent, panel layout and five selected photos. I shared my panel with the group in a Zoom session, which I’m very happy to be part of. Living in The Netherlands means it’s difficult to actually go to any meetings otherwise. See: carololerud.com
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On another photographic expedition, with a focus on street photography, the award winning indoor market makes for an interesting opportunity to record the sights and sounds. This coincided with the height (or perhaps depth) of the Covid Pandemic so mask wearing was compulsory.
My main photographic interest is in Audio Visual production where I produce documentaries on a range of subjects. In Beyond the Wall, I tell the story of Her Majesty’s Prison Shrewsbury, The Dana as it is called. It closed in 2013 but remains open as a tourist attraction giving an interesting insight into the industrial nature of a Victorian prison. I am of the view that the stories from here, including the last man hanged, are probably best left “Beyond the Wall”. My photography illustrates the symmetry of this Thomas Telford designed icon, a building which leaves a real impression for a variety of reasons.
38 Alastair Taylor ARPS DPAGB/AV
Shrewsbury
On the same day, a protest group were active in the High Street, with the police and locals politely watching on or walking on by as the protesters were making their point about the “green credentials” of a well known banking group.
In a final hint at a future project, I have pictured Charles Darwin, famous son of Shrewsbury whose statue stands outside the library. How did this county town shape Darwin? Did his childhood here contribute to the making of a marvellous mind ?
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Andy Thorpe ARPS
This project was designed primarily to be presented as a book because it mainly shows a series of contrasting diptychs, eg the car’s speedometer placed opposite a speed limit sign from a UK motorway.
How do they sleep? A spectrum of mattress disposal options
Car Fire My commuting and leisure journeys by bicycle often yield an opportunity to take photos because it’s easy to stop to do so. This set resulted from passing the same place on successive days and capturing the changes in the scene. Initially just a photo of a wrecked car, the scene seemed to become a metaphor for the effects that cars are having on the environment, ie although there is some attempt to clean-up, the scars exist and there’s a question over environmental recovery.
This project provides a snapshot of how mattresses have been illegally disposed of in a small part of the West Midlands; many people who live elsewhere will probably recognise the examples included. The photobook includes a scoring scheme to rank the disposal methods chosen. This helps to sequence the book, which starts at bad and ends at worse. Examples of good behaviour have also been included in the project.
Classic...or just an old car?
Furloughed: 13 things not used during the first month of the COVID-19 lockdown
Hopefully to be finished soon are other projects involving graffiti, untaxed vehicles, duplicate warning signs and a second book about discarded mattresses. These projects will eventually (!) find their way to my website www.peopleplacesthingsphoto.com and probably photobooks.
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I have a wide range of photographic interests, but I’m mostly drawn to urban and environmental subjects. The four projects summarised here use the contemporary and documentary approaches to photography in order to highlight and comment on such issues.
I concluded that for a number of financial, societal, health, practical and environmental reasons my old Golf GTI 16v, considered by many to be the holy grail of hot-hatches, is in fact just an old car. The new owner might well also be discovering this.
The set is deliberately limited to 13 photos because being infected by the SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) virus can sadly prove to be very unlucky. Many people will have a similar list of items and of course the list is probably endless. Initially, the set wasn’t sequenced; the order now reflects what would have been the chronological use of the things over the course of a typical weekday. It starts with no longer having a reason to be awake at 6am. Was life best before March 23rd 2020?
45 Furloughed: 13 things not used during the first month of the COVID-19 lockdown
46 Classic...or just an old car?
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