OPS Weekly Newsletter 12 October 2025
- Our first print competition is a week away so please start printing your entries. Maximum of two colour and two monochrome prints.
- Don’t forget to visit our exhibition in the Westgate Library. Simon has pulled together a slide show on some of the images which is on the website. If you haven’t sent Simon your digital version of your entries please do.
- Last week’s meeting Tues 7 October: Projects, Zines and Photobooks with Stewart Wall
Before the Stewart began his talk, we welcomed seven guests: Karan, Russell, Gail, Mark, Margaret, Amna and Josephine (apologies if I got people’s name wrong).
Stewart gave a short-potted history of his engagement with photography. He was a staff photographer on the Essex Chronicle from 1978 to 1986. He then moved on to the Evening Gazette for a year, then became a freelance photographer for three years working for the Daily Express, the Sun and the Sunday Times.
While at the Essex Chronicle he covered a talk by Enoch Powell and managed to catch the moment Powell lifted his right arm in a Hitler salute pose. Unlike Elon Musk the salute was unlikely to have been intentional, however, it was a good capture and featured in the paper.
He then moved on to commercial photography, portraits, weddings etc. It was at this time he joined the RPS and its ‘Contemporary Photography Group’. Not knowing what it was he phoned Daniel Meadows to ask him what Contemporary Photography was. Daniel said to visit him and he’ll talk about it. While with Daniel he realised that the bus Daniel had travelled round Britain as a mobile studio/darkroom was the same bus Stewart had travelled to and from school as a child.
During the conversation Daniel asked Stewart what sort of ‘private work’ he did. Stewart said didn’t do ‘private work’ and this started him thinking of ways he could do work that wasn’t for someone else. He came up with the idea of collaborative photo books and followed this up.
He then did a degree (BA) and a masters (MA) in photography and began doing collaborative projects making photobooks and ‘zines’. Once on this track he started developing his own style, or as Daniel Meadows would say his ‘private work’.
One of his first projects with the RPS in 2017 was a photobook titled NHS65. As the title suggests this was to make the 65th year of the NHS. He didn’t set a deadline which meant that the book took 18 months to complete. All his subsequent projects were deadline led.
He then did a photobook on a stone mason who passed his house each workday. Stewart discovered that the mason, Colin Wood, was the son and a grandson of previous masons who worked at the same workshops using the same methods and tools over three generations. The photo book earned Stewart a RPS distinction and an exhibition. See here.
His most successful photobook was about Park Hills ‘Streets in the Sky’ which was a urban development ‘built and opened in 1961 as social housing to supply a workforce for industry. It is now being redeveloped to home creatives, designers and students and is fast becoming the most desired postcodes in Sheffield. Stewart ran FutureHeritage Photobook workshops at Park Hill in 2015 and then again in 2020.’
So what is a ‘photobook’. According to Matt Johnson of the RPS it is not the same as a photo album and ‘sequencing’ of the images is important.
It has to have:
A concept – a central idea that holds it together
A narrative – a story, mood or exploration that flows through the book
A sequence – the rhythm and order that gives the images meaning
Stewart showed numerous photobooks and ‘zines’ that he had been involved in and the next day ran a photo workshop which in true OPS style began and ended as a Wetherspoons pub!
A very stimulating evening and an instructive way to get all those images languishing on your hard drive into the light.
- Next meeting 19.30, Tues 14 October: Exploring Creative Perspectives: My Photographic Journey, Tim Simmons plus show and tell
Tonight we welcome Tim Simmons as he presents a selection of his images. A member of OPS for over 25 years, Tim will be sharing photographs taken during and since the pandemic. His work spans a range of photographic interests, including landscapes, flowers, macro, multiple exposures, and intentional camera movement (ICM). This talk offers a personal and creative look at how his photography has developed in recent years.
In the second half of the evening there will be a ‘show and tell’ when members share with us some of their recent images. Bring your images on a USB stick if you wish to take part.
- Upcoming meetings/events in October and November
- 18 Oct at 11.00: OPS meet up – Matriculation Day in Oxford
- 21 Oct: Print Competition no. 1. Judge Kevin Day
- 28 Oct: On These Magic Shores, Tamsyn Warde
- 4 Nov: WORKSHOP – Painting with Light with Kieran Hunt
- 6 Nov at 17.00: Shuttles, Steam and Soot – Daniel Meadows at the Westgate Library. £5.00
- 9 Nov: MEET UP – Remembrance Day in Oxford
- 11 Nov: After MAX: The Hidden Gems in Adobe’s Latest Release with Glyn Dewis
- 18 Nov: Wildlife from -15°C to +40°C + SHOW & TELL Painting with Light with Dave McKay
- 25 Nov: Canon Partner Event + Take a Moment with Eddie Keogh
You can see the programme up to the end of the year here and download it: https://oxfordphotosociety.co.uk/programme-download/
- Photographic events in and around Oxford
Bikes, Boats and Bridges; photographs by Wendy Stone at the Paper Boat Café
This series of darkroom photographs was created for the Paper Boat Café, on Folly Bridge in Oxford. The images celebrate nearby places as well as other boats, bridges and crossings that carry us over and along the River Thames.
The Thames is as important to Oxford as the iconic stone facades, walls and arches that attract visitors. The river predates our many generations of history. It shapes the city and, despite our best efforts, occasionally reasserts its ancient course.
The Paper Boat Café is located at a key point in the city’s history. It was the toll-house when Folly Bridge was built, replacing the wide shallow fording point and wooden bridges that carried people, goods and animals across the Thames until 1827.
The photographs will be on display until November 11 2025
https://stoneandco.bigcartel.com/
Photo Oxford
Photo Oxford opens in a month’s time and we are delighted to announce the full programme for the Opening Day, 25 October.
See details below:
https://mailchi.mp/photooxford/zsu8u7h122-12867158?e=591e9fec01
A Photographic Life ‘Live’ 2025!
Oxford Brookes University
Sunday 26th October
A new episode of the A Photographic Life podcast has been posted every Wednesday by Grant Scott without fail since 13th June 2018 and now we would like to invite all of our listeners and readers to a special day of all new photography related conversation, discussion and chat! We hope it will be an opportunity to meet fellow photographic travellers, share opinions, ideas and make new friends. All the conversations will be recorded so if you are unable to attend no problem, you will be able to catch up on these at a later date wherever you get your podcasts.
The event will take place at Oxford Brookes University, Oxford on Sunday 26th October 2025 in the NHBB Building on the Headington Campus. Admission is free but registration is required https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/a-photographic-live-live-2025-tickets-1693780716719?aff=oddtdtcreator
Artist Aliki Braine In Conversation – a Photo Oxford event
Explore Dutch and Flemish still-life painting through dialogue with contemporary photography.
Ashmolean Museum
Sat 25th October 2-3pm £20
https://www.ashmolean.org/event/artist-aliki-braine-in-conversation
Camera and Photography family drop in History of Science Museum
Discover the history of photography in this drop-in family event at the History of Science Museum.
1-3pm/Free/Wed 29th Oct
History of Science Museum
Old Ashmolean Building
Broad Street Oxford
- General photographic interest
Think you’re too old to start a big project? Nothing local to photograph? You’re wrong!
It’s easy to fall into mental traps with photography – fears that you’ve left it too late to make your name with a photo project, or you live in a really boring place where there is nothing to shoot.
The Pure Street Photography Awards 2025 celebrate candid moments around the world
The winners of the Pure Street Photography Awards 2025 have been announced. David Campany, Creative Director at the International Center of Photography, New York, and Dimpy Bhalotia, founder of Pure Street Photography, award-winning photographer and Creative Director, co-judged this year’s contest. The contest organizers said this year was special, explaining it was “a celebration of truth, timing, and the human eye in an age of fast production and artificial imagery.”
https://www.dpreview.com/articles/8946019624/pure-street-photography-awards-2025
‘Somerset saved my sanity’: Don McCullin at 90 – in pictures
Don McCullin spent decades photographing war and carnage across the globe – then he retrained his lens on the Somerset countryside. As he turns 90, a new book celebrates his gorgeous still lifes and landscapes
Fill the frame, use the light: Andrew Chapman’s favourite photographs
Fill the Frame is a new book that celebrates the career of the Australian photographer Andrew Chapman and his documentation of family, the bush, city streets, politics and music in Australia over the last five decades
Monroe, Bardot … and a naughty elephant: iconic portraits – in pictures
From an eye-opening shot of David Byrne to footballers from a bygone era, a new exhibition focuses on portraits taken before the digital age
Chris Steele-Perkins obituary
Magnum photographer whose most striking work captured the challenges of life in Britain’s inner cities in the 1970s
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2025/oct/07/chris-steele-perkins-obituary
