Lancaster Photographic Society: Talk

[Pookeyhead]

Tomorrow....

Drop in if you're nearby.

 

[viewfromthenorth]

I'm doing a talk there myself in February, they clearly have good taste!

 

[Pookeyhead]

Absolutely

 

[sirch]

Damn, I'm busy tomorrow evening or I would have come along.

Hope it goes well.

 

[viewfromthenorth]

Actually I noticed that Martin Birchall is speaking there soon. I did a night school course with him a few years ago at Runshaw, lovely bloke and a brilliant press photographer as well.

 

[mickledore]

the more i ve been getting into photography the more i think about going to a camera club but i wondered what they do. is it all just comparing who has the biggest lens or is it tips and themes . do you have to show your work for critique?

Don't do it. Old men.. old rules... old photography. Avoid. Unless your photography obeys all the old, traditional rules it will be slated by OAPs who simply don't understand it. They'll be gear obsessed people who's idea of talking about photography is talking about equipment and how to use it, not photography. The competitions will always be won by the same kind of photography, so if you want to win, you do what they do.

It would be kinder to yourself if you located the part of your brain that is responsible for creativity, and lobotomised it yourself with cordless drill.

 

[viewfromthenorth]

David and myself are making a two pronged assault to try and provoke change!

In fairness, not all camera clubs are created equal. Some are very open minded and progressive, others are as described above.

 

[Pookeyhead]

fudge said: ↑
the more i ve been getting into photography the more i think about going to a camera club but i wondered what they do. is it all just comparing who has the biggest lens or is it tips and themes . do you have to show your work for critique?
Pookeyhead said: ↑
Don't do it. Old men.. old rules... old photography. Avoid. Unless your photography obeys all the old, traditional rules it will be slated by OAPs who simply don't understand it. They'll be gear obsessed people who's idea of talking about photography is talking about equipment and how to use it, not photography. The competitions will always be won by the same kind of photography, so if you want to win, you do what they do.

It would be kinder to yourself if you located the part of your brain that is responsible for creativity, and lobotomised it yourself with cordless drill.

Bring them down from within

I'm not sure how they'll take what I've got to say.. but I'll report back.

I was invited. I did not instigate this. It would have never crossed my mind to talk to a Photographic society, simply because THEY are often not interested in what I, or people like me have to say. The fact that they invited me seems to suggest that this is not the case with this particular society. I'm quite looking forward to it actually. I just hope I don't get the usual Emporer's New Clothes reaction, or it could turn ugly. It's always a risk talking to a Photographic Society, but I'm happy to talk to anyone about photography, anywhere, any time so long as they're prepared to open up their minds a bit.

In all fairness, I've been speaking to Reg at Lancaster quite a bit, and it seems quite a broad church. And in all fairness, I've also said in other threads, that Photographic societies and Camera Clubs are not necessarily the same thing. The RPS is a Photographic society: They're a bit fussy and prescriptive, but they're not totally against new ideas. camera clubs are generally as I described though... old men talking about cameras - or at least the ones I've been to are.

 

[Pookeyhead]

Well... they were a nice bunch, and quite open to new things on the whole. One wobbly moment when I showed them some work from a recent graduate that re-appropriates 70s softcore porn in order to make a feminist statement about how we accept female nudity but not male nudity by creating doemstic looking studio sets, which raised some eyebrows and made one person almost leave (apparently she was a feminist and found it offensive.. LOL, not sure she knew what a feminist is). Other than that, they enjoyed the talk, and so did I. Lots of questions, and not one of them about what settings I used. Lots of questions about how ideas are formed, and how to "see", so on the whole, a good bunch.