What another fascinating session we enjoyed this month with a variety of topics and styles.
Tessa Mills’ suggestion about how one can bring together various strands and thoughts into a unified whole was well represented by facets from some of her ongoing themes. The theme of ‘bringing together’ continued with Paul Mann’s ‘365 Revisited’, Alex Isaacs’ selective arrangements of ‘Pairs’ and Nigel Reader’s personal view of the monumental changes to the urban landscape of central Birmingham over recent years.
Coalescing of strands from a long established project, Bob Oakley’s gritty black and white photo-realism approach to ‘Life on the Edge’, featured coastal communities from around the UK.
The urban landscape formed the backdrop for two very different approaches. Through many scenes rich in pictorial chiaroscuro, Dr. Charles Ashton celebrated the endless fascination that London holds for the street photographer. In contrast, Anne Burrows transported us to Croatian sunshine, where amongst the friendly intimacy of alleyways, thousands of quite vertiginous steps present challenges for all but the most agile.
We enjoyed historical references too. Derek Skinner pondered the value of monumental sculptures in the grand English landscape garden. Stewart Bourne’s hallmark insight and empathy was this time focussed upon a group of Roman era reenactors in Droitwich. Stewart also contributed a short AV upon the theme.
We warmly welcomed John Hoath’s return to our sessions. John is making an ‘artist’s book’ about his childhood and youth and he shared an excerpt from the work in progress.
Through a series of eerie ‘tintypes’ Clive Haynes revealed encounters with ‘otherness’.
October’s two ‘outside sources’ both celebrated the joy of light and a sense of optimism through photography. Here are the links…..
Benjamin Briones Grandi – 'Memories'
All members’ work from our session can be seen in our Viewpoint e-book for this month. Click on the image below or this link: Viewpoint and choose the October edition. The same link provides access to many previous issues of ‘Viewpoint’ - a fascinating treasure-trove waiting for you to explore!
