Two blogs for the price of one this week you lucky people, so bear with..
What a marvellous evening it was too, entertained as we were by two of our most experienced members. And what a contrast in styles!
First up was Brian who went over in detail what he had to go through to achieve the Licentiate distinction of the Royal Photographic Society (LRPS).
What set Brian on his journey was the comment of a speaker at an RPS meeting in London in 2020 who said “in my view you probably all have a set of images for the LRPS already on your hard drive.”
For the LRPS, what you need to demonstrate is that it’s you who is in control of taking the pictures, not your camera. You need to show that you fully understand the controls of your camera and how to use them effectively.
The task is to choose a portfolio of 10 of your images and present them as a panel that forms a cohesive whole. So great care has to be taken in selecting images that have a consistency as regards size, mounting, aspect ratio etc., and that the colour and shape of the elements in the composition of each image provides an overall balance in your chosen layout. The layout is up to you; Brian chose two rows of five images.
As the main aim of applying for the Licentiateship is to demonstrate your competence as a photographer, you need to choose examples that display that. They must be technically perfect, but your choice does not need to fit into a theme. A thematic element becomes a requirement if you try for the Associateship and Fellowship distinctions.
You are not left on your own in putting the panel together. First you get a ‘one-to-one’ review of your initial attempt at a panel and are asked to include up to 5 spare images. The review is usually online. After this discussion with the reviewer, you will be given a summary of the review.
After this you get an ‘advisory session’. Ten LRPS candidates attend this session which is conducted by two RPS advisors. It’s a great chance to see the work of others and receive guidance on the kind of panel that is successful. You will be given written feedback on each image allowing you to consider any necessary tweaks.
Up until this point, Brian used small 5 x 7 prints before making the final full-sized ones. He chose not to print these himself but have them made by someone experienced in preparing RPS panels who could advise him further on any technical issues with the image files. Since Brian took his LRPS in March, I believe the RPS have dropped the requirement for a panel of prints, the trouble and expense of printing being a considerable disincentive for applicants.
At the final assessment, your work is considered by five assessors. They go through a two-stage voting process before announcing their verdict. If you pass, your name is read out. If fail, you are not identified, and the reasons are given. Imagine Brian’s relief and delight to hear his name read out!
Having passed this milestone, Brian feels a lot more confident in his own skills and ability to make choices in his photography. This of course leaves him to decide whether to go for the next tier of distinction, the ARPS. This requires a panel of 15 images and a text of 350 words.
As mentioned in the second presentation of the evening by Paul, who was awarded an ARPS in 1973 (sic!), the fancy certificate you are presented with remains the property of the RPS. If you resign your membership of the RPS, which he did at the time of the Covid pandemic, you are expected to return the certificate and can no longer use the letters after your name. However, Brian did explain the many aspects of membership that have enriched his enjoyment of his hobby.
Here is Brian’s panel together with the layout he chose for his panel. As you look at it, bear in mind what I’ve said above and try to figure out what features of the layout led to it being a successful one. No titles given as none are required in the submission.
Well done Brian and congratulations – your ‘A’ should be a doddle!
In the second half of the evening, Paul had brought in an impressive number of his black and white darkroom prints and gave us a running commentary as he put them up on the easel. They were all ‘street photography’ taken of people he came across in his favourite London haunts – places like Bethnal Green, Brick Lane and around the Mile End Road.
Paul has taken pictures like these for decades. Always using quite elderly medium format film cameras and immaculately printed by him in his darkroom, without a pixel in sight. His favourite film is Ilford Delta 100 a fine grain film giving excellent tonal gradations. He doesn’t use an exposure meter as experience tells him roughly what exposure to use – Delta 100 is very forgiving anyway.
The locations he prefers are well-decorated with graffiti and wall art of various descriptions. Many of his subjects too are well-decorated and fit well into this habitat as his photos clearly show. I asked him if he asks his subjects not to smile and he said he asks them to show ‘attitude’, as if they are not displaying enough of that already! He will ask them to loosen up and relax if they look a bit self-conscious and may ask them to move about and suggest more natural poses.
He will normally look for an interesting piece of wall art first to act as a backdrop and then wait until somebody interesting turns up to ask. In this part of London rich in characters this often happens within about 10 minutes.
Most of those he asks are quite happy to be photographed by him. I could never find the bottle to do this kind of photography and am curious to know how he manages to be so successful at it. A number reasons I think.
We are all advised that we must ‘know our subject’ to take successful photos of it. By chatting to them, Paul gets to know them on a personal level, and they get to know him. He has an unassuming charm in his bedside manner that I’m sure puts people at their ease immediately. Perhaps they think he is a bit of a crank wandering around the back streets of London with an old bellows camera and doesn’t look at all threatening or exploitative. But Paul is no crank – he knows exactly what he is doing and knows exactly how to get what he wants. The truth is, he is part of the scene in these locations and how can you get to know your subjects more intimately than that?
Paul has a large collection of photos of this kind stretching back around half a century. His subjects show a unique Britishness in their eccentricity, and I love them. They illustrate a subculture of London life that few are aware of. I think it is an important historical archive of people and places that may slowly vanish with gentrification of these locations and will become more and more valuable with time. In my opinion his is an important body of photographic work that needs to be preserved and more widely appreciated.
Here are just a few examples of the many pictures he showed us:
Thank you both for a brilliant evening!
0 Comments