A SUCCESSFUL F-PANEL

from RPS-Benelux Chapter eJounal - Volume 25 - Winter 2021

by Royal Photographic Society

PHOTOGRAPHING IN TIMES OF CORONA

The RPS Benelux Chapter DISTINCTIONS

“Stress energy travels inwards, and needs to come out”. J.H. Psychotherapist

“Stress energy travels inwards, and needs to come out”.

J.H. Psychotherapist

Making these images has helped me to positively re-evaluate the trauma of ending my teaching career due to stress. My final day, walking through the building where I had loved working, was overwhelmingly sad. Memories of the silence, loneliness, and emptiness still remain.

A few years later, I enjoyed working at Hannahs - a charity for disadvantaged young people. It was positive and full of high spirits: but the buildings were closed and sold. I felt compelled to photograph it soon after. I worked respectfully, often in semi-darkness, as if in mourning. Hannah (and her iconic ducks) had left home: the tap was turned off and her spirit gone. Counselling had attempted to uncover my stress, like opening the layers of an onion, but I found it difficult to verbalise my feelings. While exploring Hannahs I realised that the images I was making were revealing those layers. Each successive, deeper, layer - corridors, rooms, offices, games, artefacts and personal belongings - seemed to mirror my emotions. My panel arrangement represents that “onion”. From the outer edges to the centre my troubles become more profound.

Surprisingly, Hannah’s sad departure helped to heal my trauma. Using photography to convey my anxieties through visual metaphors has encouraged me to work mindfully, valuing every moment, and to use silence and time positively. I now appreciate that the process of photographing, and later releasing inner stress while editing and creating intimate prints, can be more therapeutic than using words.

255 Words

Fellowship presentation plan - during the assessment, the name and membership number are not visible (anonymized)

Hannah’s was a charity set up to provide help for young people with special needs. A short drive from my home, I loved to visit and volunteer there. I ran photography courses, I helped to document the way of life, and I enjoyed art, music, drama, good food and fun.

When it closed and the building was sold without much warning I was distraught, almost bereft, and felt drawn to photograph what was left behind before the old building was emptied. I started immediately after closure, and returned on many occasions. I was trespassing, and had to work thoughtfully, quietly and unnoticed by security staff. Photography was not easy in semi-darkness, and without a tripod. A mirrorless camera, with very effective shakereduction, helped immensely.

As I worked, the photographs I was making began to remind me of the days shortly before I ended my teaching career a few years earlier, due to stress. After a while, each individual image appeared to echo the thoughts which I had at that time. I then decided to continue the project, with a view to making prints. Gradually, the individual images became visual metaphors for my thoughts, and I began to see more with each visit.

I have led many photography courses, and soon I began to wonder if I could use this project for a course on using photography as therapy. I realised that making the images, and printing them was far more useful for my stress than the stress-counselling sessions had been.

I have been an Associate of the RPS for thirty years, and a member of the Contemporary Group since its early days, and had often wondered whether to apply for a Fellowship. I wasn’t sure whether this project was a suitable one for a Contemporary submission. After approaching Tessa Mills FRPS and Armando Jongejan FRPS - two members of the Contemporary assessment panel - for initial advice on whether it was worth applying, I was surprised by, and extremely grateful for, their kind words of encouragement. As a result I had the confidence to go ahead with the panel.

After many months of more photographing, selecting from over 400 images, making test prints, arranging and re-arranging the layout, my panel began to take shape. What had started as a very personal and intimate project was becoming a body of work which I hoped would meet the criteria for a Fellowship, and be subject to the close scrutiny of virtual strangers. Would they understand my explanation, would they appreciate the layout, will my most intimate thoughts be conveyed through images clearly enough for them to understand my thinking, will my statement of intent work well with the images, and, most of all, is the work distinctive? All of these doubts ran through my mind.

Finally I booked two Zoom 1:1 advisory sessions with Richard Brayshaw FRPS, a panel member. The first meeting was very positive. I was advised to change a couple of images, to revise the layout slightly and to clarify one point in my statement. I made those changes, and at the second session was told that, apart from rewriting one phrase in my statement, I should go ahead and make the prints and mount them, and send in my application. The 1:1 sessions were extremely helpful, and I would strongly encourage anyone thinking of applying for a distinction to take advantage of them. The only slight issue is, of course, that print quality cannot be assessed on screen, and I was made aware of this.

I used to enjoy teaching darkroom printing, and in these digital times, I am still a very particular and careful printer. It took three months of painstaking work, involving many test prints, before I was happy with the quality, but in the process of making each print I felt my stress being released. Much earlier I had decided to make quite small prints to emphasise the intimacy of my work, I printed them on a paper that emulates a darkroom print, and mounted them in large pure white mounts, again to emphasise the intimacy and to encourage viewers to look closely. When I felt I could do no more in terms of quality and presentation I knew I had finished the panel and it was ready for submission.

The whole project took over two years. Has it helped me? Yes, in many ways. My photography has moved to another level: I now look at potential images in a much more considered and mindful way; I have slowed down much of my image making; I now ask myself: why am I making this photograph? I also have a more considered and quiet approach to working on a project. The most important aspect is that, for me, photography has been much more effective at helping my stress than counselling was.