Next month’s Camera Club will be on Thursday 7th June, 6.30, and once again it’s time for the open theme, where you are encouraged to show one body of work that is self-initiated.
If there’s any projects you’ve been working on that haven’t slotted into one of the theme’s, now is the time to show the world!
As before, the whole evening will be given over to the presentation of work.
The next Camera Club will be on Thursday 3rd May, at 6.30pm.
The brief this month is “Evidence”. This could be interpreted as a trace of something having occurred, a found remnant or sign of an event. It could be documentation of changing faces, places or usages, or perhaps proof in a more conventional way, whether criminal, scientific or even fictitious! It’s very open so please interpret in your own style.
As usual, create a single stand-alone image or a series of photographs, (in colour or black & white) to be presented in printed format.
Inspiration might include: Christian Boltanski, Claire Strand, Fischli and Weiss, Henry Bond, Weegee, Sophie Calle, The FBI, Library of Congress, The FSA.
The next Camera Club will be on Thursday 5th April, at 6.30pm.
The brief this month is “Music”. You could look at a live music experience (the event itself, behind the scenes, the aftermath?), document a more personal musical obsession, the music business as a multimillion pound whole, or perhaps try to capture a piece of music in a series of representational or abstract photographs. As always it is totally up to you!
Create a single stand-alone image or a series of photographs, (in colour or black & white) to be presented in printed format.
Inspiration might include: David Bailey, Anton Corbijn, Annie Leibovitz, Harry Papadopoulos, John Hopkins, Tom Sheehan, Nick Pickles, Patti Smith, Michael Stipe
The next ‘Camera Club’ will be on Thursday 1st March, at 6.30.
The brief this month is “Community”. We’re all part of a community of some sort, surrounded by other communities or perhaps try to avoid being stereotyped as being from one particular community. Use this to portray something about you and yours or to explore others. It could be social, work, family or online - perhaps considering the relationships between them, or focussing on the people, places and expectations of a particular society and the resulting integration or isolation.
As usual, create a single stand-alone image or a series of photographs, (in colour or black & white) to be presented in printed format.
Inspiration might include: Alex Soth, Boris Mikhailov, Chris Killip, Zwelethu Mthethwa, Garry Winogrand, Josef Koudelka, Malick Sidibé, Martin Parr, Robert Frank, Larry Clark, Nan Goldin, Pieter Hugo, Peter Hujar, Robert Mapplethorpe etc etc.
Speaker was: Somewhere to Disappear: A documentary film about Alec Soth, screened as it’s Scottish Premier!
The next ‘Camera Club’ will be on Thursday 2nd February, at 6.30 - afraid that’s only 2 weeks away so get thinking and shooting!
The brief this month is the “Romantic Camera”. This is the title of the exhibition currently on at the new photography gallery in the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, which I am delighted to say we will be getting a behind-the-scenes tour of by the curator, Duncan Forbes.
Therefore, the evening will begin at the Portrait Gallery, please meet there (not at Stills!) for 6.30pm PROMPT. If you require directions, click here.
You can take inspiration directly from the exhibition, perhaps considering a historical romanticism with the medium, emphasising the craft, process and romance, or perhaps interpret the theme more literally - it is February after all and Valentines day is just round the corner!
As usual, create a single stand-alone image or a series of photographs, (in colour or black & white) to be presented in printed format.
Feel free to visit the exhibition prior to the tour for inspiration (and to come to the tour fully prepared with questions).
The next ‘Camera Club’ will be on Thursday 12th January, at 6.30 (NOTE: This is not the 1st Thursday of the month).
The brief this month is to photograph ‘Home’.
You could look at the location - whether that be the country, town or the house.
Or focus on the people that make you feel at home.
Or perhaps you’re not at home and want to portray something that reminds you of it, or somewhere you have found a ‘home away from home’.
As usual, create a single stand-alone image or a series of photographs, (in colour or black & white) to be presented in printed format.
Inspiration might include: Todd Hido, Larry Sultan, Sally Mann, Eugene Richards, Richard Billingham, Alex Soth, Walker Evans, Josef Sudek, Josef Koudelka
Speaker was: Giulietta Verdon-Roe
It’s our 2nd Birthday!
This month is an open theme where you are encouraged to show a body of photographic work that is self-initiated, with the whole evening given over to the presentation of work.
It will be on Thursday 01 December, at 6.30pm and we might be persuaded to partake in an early Christmas drink afterwards.
We are also looking for submissions for the annual Democratic Camera Club book, so if you’d like to be included, please email resource@stills.org with up to 2 images (25cm on the longest side, at 300dpi) before Sunday 20 November.
Speakers will be: None (full evening crit)
The next ‘Camera Club’ will be on Thursday 3rd November, at 6.30pm
The brief this month is ‘Photography and Prose’. This could be photographs that directly reference prose, illustrating a passage or line from a book, a prosaic series of photographs, or perhaps a short written piece on a photograph. As always with Camera Club please interpret the theme in your own inimitable style.
As usual, create a single stand-alone image or a series of photographs, (in colour or black & white) to be presented in printed format.
Inspiration might include: Unphotographable, Duane Michals, Alex Soth, Victor Burgin, Barbara Kruger, Cindy Sherman, Brassai
Speaker was: David Grinly
The next ‘Camera Club’ will be on Thursday 6th October, at 6.30pm
The brief this month is ‘Family and Friends’. Taking a personal approach, consider how the brief can be translated into work that can be understood by a wider audience without becoming formulaic. How you choose to represent ‘family and friends’ may say a lot about your subjects, but also your relationship to them. See the examples below for differing methods of interpretation; historical, contemporary, staged, candid, intimate…
As usual, create a single stand-alone image or a series of photographs, (in colour or black & white) to be presented in printed format.
Inspiration might include: Sally Mann, Doug Dubois, Verena Jaekel, Mo Kearsley, Richard Billingham, Nan Goldin, Araki, Leibowitz and Sontag
Speaker was: David Williams
The next ‘Camera Club’ will be on Thursday 1st September, at 6.30pm
The brief this month is ‘Conflict’, inspired by, but not necessarily to be about the recent riots. The theme can be interpreted in whatever way you feel appropriate, and can reflect as broad or personal a conflict as you like; internal, personal, family, community, national or international, and focussing on current actions or past traces and commemorations.
As usual, create a single stand-alone image or a series of photographs, (in colour or black & white) to be presented in printed format.
Inspiration might include: James Nachtwey, Richard Billingham, Paul Graham, Robert Capa, Zoriah, Richard Misrach, Francesca Woodman
Speaker was: Norman McBeath
The next ‘Camera Club’ will be on Thursday 11th August, at 6.30
(NOTE: This is not the 1st Thursday as usual - though please come along on the 4th for the opening of our exhibition, Stephen Sutcliffe, Runaway, Success).
The brief this month is ‘Street Photography’. Street photography includes any photograph made in a public place and can therefore be very free and non-uniform in nature. It can be in an urban settings and many such pictures include people, but to paraphrase the In-public manifesto: Street photography is…”the ability to see the unusual in the everyday and to capture the moment. The pictures should remind us that, if we let it, over-familiarity can make us blind to what’s really going on in the world around us.”
As usual, create a single stand-alone image or a series of photographs, (in colour or black & white) to be presented in printed format.
Inspiration might include: Robert Frank, Walker Evans, Garry Winogrand, Joel Meyerowitz, Weegee, Lee Friedlander, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Nick Turpin, Bruce Gilden, Martin Parr, Stephen McLaren, Vivian Meyer, Diane Arbus, Philip Lorca-di-Corcia, more artists can be found on the in-public website
Speaker was: Stephen McLaren (http://www.stephenmclaren.co.uk/)
“It demands that you… have a heightened sensitivity for composition and for colours, and that you be a true poet. This last is essential.” - Wassily Kandinsky
The next ‘Camera Club’ is Thursday 7th July, at 6.30 and the brief is to present photographic images that are abstract. A handy reference defines this as:
‘not representing the subject in a literal way’, and ‘communicating primarily through form and colour …. rather than detail’
Can abstract photographs convey more than surface beauty and work together to convey a deeper meaning?
As usual, create a single stand-alone image or a series of photographs, (in colour or black & white) to be presented in printed format.
Inspiration might include: Gary Fabian Miller, Wolfgang Tillmans, Louisa Lambri, Man Ray, Lewis Baltz, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, Manuel Alvarez Bravo,
Next month’s Camera Club will be on Thursday 2nd June, 6.30, and once again it’s time for the open theme, where you are encouraged to show one body of work that is self-initiated.
I know you’ve all been secretly working away on masterpieces that don’t fit our theme’s, so now is the time to bring them out!
As before, the whole evening will be given over to the presentation of work.
Speakers will be: None (full evening crit)
The next ‘Camera Club’ is Thursday 5th May, at 6.30 and the brief is to engage and interpret ‘Science’ in a photographic manner. We want to leave it quite open, so you could use science as visual inspiration, use a particular scientific technique, or explore the scientific fundamentals of photography.
As usual, create a single stand-alone image or a series of photographs, (in colour or black & white) to be presented in printed format.
Inspiration might include: Edwuard Muybridge, Calum Colvin, Paul & Prosper Henry, Claudia Terstappen, Andrew Davidhazy, Anna Atkins, Susan Derges, Michael J Marchall, Subhankar Banerjee, Daro Montag, Man Ray,
Speaker was: Calum Colvin
