Our first meeting of the new year was an opportunity to catch up on members' latest work and look ahead to an exciting exhibition in March.
Sarah Wilkie shared stunning images from a road trip in California, her first one prompting an immediate debate. See it below.
Fran Black presented a powerful set of pictures from a journey in Iraq, reflecting on the post war experience of the country.
We then saw a collection of portraits from the session Robert Vaas ran in his home studio last November which demonstrated the impact of lighting styles really well.
[Images above by Sarah Wilkie]
[Images above by Fran Black]
Fran and Robert also updated us on the plan for on our new exhibition at The Questors Theatre opening March 13th to April 9th. The group is interested in themes that can tie our work together so, as our exhibition is running concurrently with the play My Fair Lady a story of class, identity and personal growth, we landed on the theme of Transformation. Having not exhibited last year it's a great opportunity for the group to show our work locally and generate interest with new members.
Frankie McAllister shared a selection of beautiful handmade work as well as the Silence and Light trilogy from the FIKA collective.
Sean McDonnell presented a book dummy of his ongoing Permacrisis project.
Next month's topic will be Sideways, the theme for the spring edition of fLIP magazine so we're looking forward to having images to submit as well as show at our meeting.
Triptych tribute
The topic of our October meeting was a celebration of Ray Higginbottom, a much loved member of the group who passed away earlier this year
Triptychs were one of the many projects that Ray inspired us with, so our challenge was to respond to it in our own ways. Brigitte Flock had created a variety of interpretations, including atmospheric pieces from Rome. Jonny Baker's storytelling approach had a cinematic mood. Fran Black explored the format with distinctive pieces across landscape, portrait, urban and abstract. The total eclipse series from Robert Vaas was a perfect example of sequence. Sean McDonnell combined images from his lockdown project with newer work.
[Images above by Fran Black]
[Images above by Brigitte Flock]
[Images above by Sean McDonnell]
All in all a lovely testimony to Ray's memory.
One colour
We were treated to an inspiring range of interpretations of the topic for our August meeting of Use One Colour.
[Image above by Robert Vaas]
[Leaves reflected in Fewa Lake, Pokhara, Nepal by Sarah Wilkie]
[David Sheldrick Elephant Orphanage, Nairobi, Kenya by Sarah Wilkie]
[Images above by Fran Black]
[Images above by Dorota Boisot]
[Image above by Sean McDonnell]
[Images above by Chris Bellinger]
Angelika Berndt also took us through her recent solo exhibition People & Cultures, Encounters in Africa, at the Pfalzmuseum in Forchheim, Germany. She is also showing her work as part of the BEAT festival and invited us to see her work there.
We also shared details of exhibitions in London worth attending:
Graciela Iturbide at The Photographers' Gallery
Tim Hetherington at the Imperial War Museum
Peter Kennard at the Whitechapel Gallery
Roger Mayne at the Courtauld
Robin Segulem updated us on upcoming LIP events:
fLIP 58 Found/As Found Launch Event - August 19th
LIP Book Fair 2024 - November 23rd
We also discussed the other LIP satellite groups and opportunities to attend the specialist ones.
Next month's topic features films that members of the Group have made.
Portrait challenge
A very simple challenge we have done a few times now is to randomly assign pairs in the group. Then each pair have to take phots of one another to bring back to the group. This time round there were 5 pairs and people brought results to show at the July meeting. Below is one photo from each but lots more were shown. We await one pair to show their results next month which we'll add here. The meeting was rich as other photos were also shown, a zine of mannequins in Iraq, another photo book and Fabrizio brought along photos from his recent exhibition.
Fran by Mel
Mel by Fran
Frankie by Jonny
Jonny by Frankie
Chris by Robert
Robert by Chris
Sean by Sarah
Sarah by Sean
Arun by Angelika
Angelika by Arun
Journeys
June's meeting was an opportunity to see a variety of new work from our members.
Dorota Boisot took us on a train journey through Poland and Sean McDonnell on a road trip through the American Deep South.
Jonny Baker showed portraits of actors from the Synergy Theatre Project and images from their production Smithereens at Brixton House Theatre.
[Both images above by Dorota Boisot]
[Both images above by Jonny Baker]
We also had a chance to look at some striking printed work.
The Royal Photographic Society has just published a monograph of Ray Higginbottom's rich creativity.
Fran Black introduced us to another of her fine books, this time on Uzbekistan.
We then discussed the theme for this year's annual LIP show, Subjective : Objective. It provoked a good discussion and was nominated as a topic for one of our future meetings. We also reviewed topic ideas for the rest of the year and the group will decide on those at the next meeting. A number of members are busy with the People challenge to be presented then too.
Lip Balm Woods
Silk Road Splendours
This is the last week of group member Fran Black's exhibition in Brentford - Silk Road Splendours of Uzbekistan - it's in Mother Rugger.
People
[Claudio Carvalhaes by Jonny Baker]
We spent May's meeting sharing photos of people. This inevitably led to a discussion of what makes a portrait as opposed to a photograph of a person. I'm not sure we concluded much but this has inspired another group photo challenge where people have been randomly paired to take photographs of one another and bring back results to the group in a couple of months.
[Vagabond Girl by Chris Bellinger]
It was amazing to see the range of styles of photographs of people and contexts in which they were taken.
[Photograph by Angelika Berndt]
In print: zines and books
The topic for this month's meeting was Zines and Book Publishing and the group shared a range of work and a stimulating conversation about the stories behind them followed.
Brigitte Flock brought what felt like a library of her self published books across a range of topics, including one using Hahnemühle paper which we were all taken by. Joining us for the first time Fran Black shared a powerful collection of photographs from her time as a teacher at a school in south London. We were taken on a tour of Japan by Carolyn Fallek with a rich collection of images. Sean McDonnell brought some of his street work from before his lockdown series.
Here's a lost of the range of printers we'd used - thanks for Brigitte for noting them!
We then discussed ideas for the topic for next month's meeting, Portraits.
Of monsters and machines
For our March meeting the group shared a diverse selection of recent work all, in their own way, celebrating this month's theme, Spring.
Richard Baker showed a collection of photos taken over three evenings following a serendipitous view at a distance of the demolition works at Ealing Studios, where he saw the shadows of two excavators “as monsters fighting”. He returned with a camera and while it was not possible to reproduce the original image he was able to build a relationship with the team to take a variety of images that captured the energy and atmosphere of the night-time works.
Jonny Baker immersed us in the depths of a lost rainforest in Scotland and the heights of Snowdonia.
We were taken to Mexico courtesy of Sarah Wilikie's photographs from her recent trip and the vibrancy of colours was a tonic for the soul.
Back in London Sean McDonnell showed some dusk and night pictures from the West End.
Robert Vaas then shared a powerful image he had created promoting a performance at Questors Theatre plus the video promo that accompanies it.
[All images above by Richard Baker]
[A lost rainforest on the isle of Seil, Scotland by Jonny Baker]
[From the Snowdon Horseshoe by Jonny Baker]
[Centro Historico, Oaxaca by Sarah Wilkie]
[Fallen bougainvillea, Oaxaca by Sarah Wilkie]
[Rarámuri woman at sunset, Copper Canyon by Sarah Wilkie]
[Both images above by Sean McDonnell]
[Find Me by Robert Vaas]
In conclusion we discussed recent shows we'd been to and Richard shared a guide he'd found at the Serpentine
The Deutsche Börse has just opened at the Photographers' Gallery so the group discussed a trip there as the last time we visited was 2020 before the pandemic. It would also be an opportunity to see both Frankie MacAllister's and Arun Misra's books which are now on sale there.
We concluded by thinking about the topic for next month's meeting, Zines and Book Publishing.