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CHAPTER EXHIBITION
The RPS Benelux Chapter PHOTO FESTIVAL PELT
Chapter
Exhibition
Our own annual Exhibition at Photo festival Pelt, with work from many of our Benelux Chapter members in the ‘Zinnezaal’ of Cultural Center Palethe
A small team met in Pelt to organise,
arrange and hang our photos. Didier Verriest, Jeroen Dorrestein, Trevor & Nurit Simpson and Carol Olerud travelled in three cars (social distancing!) and crossed into Belgium (International Travel!) on Friday 4th June 2021 where we met with the Pelt Photo Festival Committee. They showed us our location and we set up work.
The 30 member’s photos were prepared and laid out around the area on the ground floor of Cultural Center Palethe.We have information
boards and we also brought our RPS Benelux Chapter Flag to help highlight our exhibition.
We measured out the lines and set the heights and spaced out of all our photos. This always takes much longer than you think! The printing of all our 30 photos was sponsored by www.supercolor.be which is fantastic, they all look great.
People at Work is the result of our 2020 Summer Challenge.
Address and opening times Cultural Center Palethe
Jeugdlaan 2 3910 Pelt
Until 30th September 2021
Every working day 09.00 – 16.30 h and during activities in the cultural center. Extra Sunday openings on 6 June, 4 July, 1 August, 5 September, 14.00 – 17.00 h.
© Carol Olerud ARPS
Alessia Peviani LRPS
Beekeepers
André Bergmans
From left to right | Firebrigade | On the roof
Armando Jongejan FRPS
From left to right | Ironing - Shanghai | Grinder - Xi’an | Sewing - Luoyang - China
Carol Olerud ARPS
From top to bottom | Drummer | Street repairmen | Barmen
Didier Verriest ARPS
From top to bottom | Carl Mertens (Solingen) | Frank Huyghe (Oostende)
Fernanda Cotelessa
Office Cubicle
Gerry Phillipson LRPS
Top from left to right | Riot Police - Toulouse | Waiter - Venice | below | Carbody worker - Gourdon
Jan Ros ARPS
From top to bottom | Miller | Blacksmith
Jeroen Dorrestein LRPS
From left to right | Tram Driver | Mechanic
Katherine Maguire ARPS
From top to bottom | Bridge cooling seen with damaged retinas | Cleaning in progress
Nicole Will
From left to right | Ready for a New Day| Almost Ready for a New Day
Sue Goldberg LRPS
From top to bottom | Concentration | Ready for your order
Ton van der Laan LRPS
From top to bottom | Heen en weer | Op de steigers
Trevor Simpson
From top to bottom | Fisherman | Street workers
The RPS Benelux Chapter DISTICTIONS
A successful A-panel
In our eJournal volume 19 – Summer 2020,
we wrote about the work of Katherine. In February 2020 Katherine won the BI-monthly competition, with her photos ’damaged retinas’, organised by the RPS Documentary Group. At that time she was working towards her A-panel which is all about her sight with damaged retinas.
At this moment we can say Katherine was very successful with her documentary panel. We want to celebrate this success with an article about her body of work!
Statement of Intent
Shallow depth of field is one of many effects that a photographer can use, but for me it is the way I experience the world.
My vision has been permanently blurred by a rare disease called Presumed Ocular Histoplasmosis Syndrome. This has caused scars on my retinas to form and has resulted in loss of vision.
In this series the viewer is given a glimpse into my restricted world with damaged retinas, each image is a split between a ‘normal’, expected vision and mine, which is missing the depth that makes everyone else’s world complete and safe.
This is my view of Amsterdam.
103 Words
Pages 43 - 53 | © Katherine Maguire ARPS
© Katherine Maguire ARPS - Associateship presentation plan
Damaged Retinas
I was awarded my ARPS on the 9th of June 2021 with my documentary panel, which is intended to show the viewer an insight into how the damage to my retinas has affected my vision. It has just been over 10 years since I obtained my licentiateship and there have been a number of false starts along the way to my ARPS, before I found the right subject to develop into a successful panel.
More than 30 years ago, I was diagnosed with having scars close to the macular on my retinas, but the cause of them was never discovered. This resulted in my vision being slightly blurred, which had a limited impact on my life. It was not until 8 years ago that I had the next major problem with my vision. A large black spot appeared, which was caused by a CNV (an abnormal blood vessel) forming on the retina of my left eye. The doctors then diagnosed Presumed Ocular Histoplasmosis Syndrome (a rare disease of the retina), my retinas were found to have white histo spots, from which CNVs can form. This blood vessel caused more damage to my left eye’s retina and its macular resulting in a degeneration in my vision, more blurriness, a large blind spot as well as the loss of some my peripheral vision. The damaged retina resulted in the early onset of cataracts two years later and after cataract surgery at age 51, the loss of my reading vision. My blurred vision (which should not be confused with myopia) cannot be corrected by glasses. I need to regularly test my vision as there is a small risk that new CNVs will form again resulting in more vision loss. Now due this blurred vision, I am no longer able to drive a car. Whilst I can still read the road signs, it takes me longer to do so and thus my reaction time is reduced and makes driving dangerous. I can use public transport but I need to be close to signs to read them in order to take the correct bus/tram/train. Due to having some of my peripheral vision missing, it makes riding a bike difficult as I can miss other bikes/ people approaching from my left-hand side until it is too late and is an accident waiting to happen. I have lost count of number of near misses I have had just by walking around Amsterdam. So, I have not used my bike since I got my diagnosis in 2013. My large blind spot means that I sometimes have problems determining depth, some 3D objects merge with their backgrounds and appear 2D from a distance, especially if the object is on my lefthand side. It is no longer possible for me to use manual focus on the camera so, in order to get sharp images I need to use lenses that have an auto focus option. I have never really thought of myself having a disability, this is just how I see the world and have learnt to live with it.
Both the decision to share this with everyone and how to show how I see the world has not been easy. Working on this project has also helped distract me from another illness that I am currently learning to live with. It has taken almost 3 years to develop how to show my vision problems and without the help of the Benelux study group, to get advice from and to bounce ideas off, it would not have been possible for me to obtain my ARPS. The split view idea came out of one of those sessions.
Producing the digital images
All images were taken using a lens with fixed focal length of 50 mm. Each image is created from two images taken between 30 second to 2 minutes apart, the first at f/2.2 with a focal distance of 5m and the second at f/10 with the lens focused via autofocus, selecting via the viewfinder where the camera should focus. Each image is then halved and left half of the first image is combined with the right half of the second to create a new image. One half is then moved slightly to ensure that there is a misalignment between the two. The image is then cropped to remove any dead space. The divider is added as an extra layer and placed on top of the joint, the width is calculated to be 1cm when printed on a A4 print.
Printing the images
I was unable to create mounts myself because of I have problems working with my hands. Therefore, the mounts were produced by a commercial company, but they could not produce mounts with cut-outs separated by 1cm. Thus, I could no longer print straight from the combined image on A4 paper, as it would result in the loss some of the image behind the mount. In order to have the prints mounted correctly, I would need to print on A3 paper, so I created a Photoshop template with two frames the size of mount cut-outs separated by 2cm. This meant that I had re-spilt the combined image back into its original two halves. Creating a new image from the template and inserting the appropriate half into each frame. The new recombined image is then ready to be printed on A3 paper.
Creating the presentation layout.
The presentation of the images did not really fit in the standard layout of 3 by 5. My layout had the blurred half being on the outside and working in towards the centre. This worked fine for columns 1, 2, 4 and 5 but not for column 3, there would always be a mismatch, so I tried with having images with a horizontal split In column 3, but it still left me with mismatch with the central image, blurred against blurred or sharp against sharp. It was during a discussion with the study group that I considered having the central image totally blurred. The horizontal split images were still not working and it was after one zoom meeting, resulting in comments about some of images having colour problems, that I decided to shoot new images for my panel.
From this session I produced 13 new images, I had then a panel 13 images and I arranged them in the standard 3 by 5 layout but with images 3 and 13 missing. When I looked at this layout, it hit me, that I could solve me problem by having the central image by itself, with no images below and above it. So, I moved away from the standard layout and came up with the layout that you see in my panel today, 6 on the top, 3 in the middle and 6 on the bottom.
