OPS Weekly Newsletter 19 January 2025
- Please send your “intimate ‘scapes” to Adrian C for selection. Adrian sent out an email last week
- Also please start selecting and printing your entries for our second print competition on 11 February. Let’s enjoy seeing your finest
- Last week’s meeting Tues 7 January: Round two of the Rosebowl Competition
And the result was:
1st with a score of 272: Oxford Photographic Society
2nd with a score of 270: Pinner Camera Club
3rd with a score of 264: Harpenden Photographic Society
4th with a score of 258: Northfields Camea Club
It was a high scoring competition and a very tight finish with Oxford and Pinner neck and neck before the appropriately titled ‘Bailey on the Charge’ photo by Dave Belcher pipped Pinner at the post.
Many thanks and congratulations to all whose images were selected.
- Next meeting Tues 21 January 19.30: Astro-photography with Gareth from Lonodn Camera Exchange
Gareth will take us through the ins and outs of astro-photography then there will be an opportunity for us to have a go, so bring camera, tripod, shutter release cable, and warm clothes
- Upcoming meetings in January 2025
Tuesday 28 January: Oxford based photojournalist Adrian Arbib will present some stories he has documented. Adrian has covered many protests in the UK. His photos of protesters, who faced often violent private security forces in muddy fields, high in the trees and even underground trying to protect a much loved beauty spot near Bath from a proposed by-pass, was documented in a book called Solsbury Hill – https://www.solsburyhill.org.uk/
Adrian’s website is: https://arbib.org/
Tuesday 4 February: I Also Fight Windmills – a literary photobook by Ania Ready
Former OPS member Ania is a Polish-British photographic artist and author based in Oxfordshire, UK. She works with photography, archives, and texts. In her work, she explores the human psyche, and how it can be affected by outside forces: societal, medical and political ones. Ready is interested in what it means to have an agency in how we look and respond to the world. She has a special interest in the topic of femininity, hysteria and madness. Ready creates images, collages, and also works with alternative, cameraless processes.
Tuesday 11 February: Print Competition no. 2
Our judge will be Chris Palmer
Tuesday 18 January: What Does Photography Mean to You? By Grant Scott
Grant is the founder of United Nations of Photography, and began working as a professional photographer in 2000 after working for fifteen years as an art director of photography books and magazines such as Elle, Tatler and Foto8. He was the editor of Professional Photographer magazine and founded Hungry Eye magazine. Grant now works as a freelance photographer, writer and documentary filmmaker. He is a Senior Lecturer and Subject Coordinator of Photography at Oxford Brookes University and the author of several published books on photography.
Tuesday 25 February: Three OPS members presentations by Michelle Peters, Rob Farrands and Helen Stewart
- Programme Secretary vacancy
We have a full and varied programme for you this season thanks to the hard work and excellent choices by Les. Unfortunately, due to unexpected changes in Les’s work commitments he cannot continue in the role and we need someone to step forward to start the planning and booking of speakers for next season’s programme. Please do contact me or any other committee member if you are interested in taking on the role.
- Events photographic in and around Oxford
OPS’s Winter Exhibition, the Westgate Library, Westgate Shopping Centre, Oxford
Many thanks to everyone who put their prints into the exhibition and to everyone who helped mount the images. The exhibition looks very good so please do go and visit and enjoy the variety of images on show. It runs to the end of January.
Camera Club: Why Are You Here?
A group of budding young photographers aged 12 – 17 have worked with artist, Elina Medley, to create and then curate their first exhibition, proudly showing at Magdalen Road Art Space @ Magdalen Road Studios
You can see the exhibition at Magdalen Road Art Space @ Magdalen Road Studios.
Join us for the Private View on 14 Feb at 5pm.
14 February – 20 February 2025
11am – 3pm
https://www.thenorthwall.com/whats-on/youthlab-camera-club-exhibition/
Bird Photographer of the Year Exhibition
An exhibition showcasing impactful and stunning images of birds taken from around the globe in 2024 is now open. Oxfordshire Museum, in Woodstock, is hosting the Bird Photographer of the Year exhibition until late February.
The Oxfordshire Museum
Fletcher’s House
Park Street
Woodstock
OX20 1SN
Saturday 11 Jan 2025, 10am-Sunday 23 Feb 2025, 5pm
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ce8n8yr28jdo
Bettina von Zwehl: The Flood
This exhibition will feature photographs by London-based artist, Bettina von Zwehl (b. 1971). Von Zwehl’s aim is to rekindle wonder and curiosity as critical tools for exploring new ideas and practices.
https://www.ashmolean.org/exhibition/ashmolean-now-bettina-von-zwehl
Don McCullin talks to Richard Ovenden
The Bodley Lecture and Award of the Bodley Medal: Life and Work
Thursday, 3 April 2025
6:00pm-7.00pm Sheldonian Theatre
£8 – £20
- General photographic interest
RPS Journal Extra
Welcome to Journal Extra, your monthly email with original content and unique material that complements features found in the RPS Journal.
Project workshops for 2025
Start 2025 with a fresh and inspiring photography project. The goal is to ignite your creativity, inspire innovation, and encourage experimentation in your image-making process. Photography projects offer a fantastic opportunity to refine your skills by focusing on a specific theme or genre. By dedicating time to a project, you can receive valuable feedback, discover new techniques, and elevate your craft.
The big picture: Michel Vanden Eeckhoudt’s languorous horse
The Belgian photographer’s 2012 image exemplifies his gift for connecting with animals on camera
Recent research into animal behaviour indicates that, contrary to the belief that horses only respond to stimuli in the moment, they have the ability to think ahead and plan their actions. The horse in this picture by Michel Vanden Eeckhoudt seems to have no urgent need for such strategic thinking. The mane of flaxen tresses, the loose ringlets of the tail, the languorous attitude, meadow flowers as far as the eye can see – Vanden Eeckhoudt’s horse seems to exist in a kind of pony club elysium, idly dreaming an afternoon away.
Seeing double: mirrors in art – in pictures
From Rubens to Juno Calypso to Yayoi Kusama , artists have long been drawn to mirrors’ reflective surfaces. More than 150 artworks have been collected in a new book, drawing together sculptures, paintings, installations, photographs and more. “Historically, a mirror in a painting was a lens into another world or visual space,” says the book’s author, artist Michael Petry. “They also allowed artists to show the viewer more than one view point at a time, suggesting the complexity of our world and our relationship to it.” Self-portraits, and increasingly selfies, are a recurring theme. “It is clear that as humans, we are amazingly interested in our own image. It could be mere vanity but also I think mirrors show us the passage of time etched on our faces.”
