OPS Weekly Newsletter 20 April 2025
- Annual Exhibition: The date of the exhibition has been brought forward to Weds 30 April. Please do hand in your mounted prints by Tuesday 29 April meeting. If you can help with the exhibition set up then please contact Dave Belcher. Note there is a print competition during the exhibition (13 May) so you will need to print two versions of your exhibition image if you enter your exhibition image into the competition.
- Last week’s meeting Tues 15 April: A Passage To India with Sandra Devaney and Linda Wride
Last year Sandra gave us a presentation of her trip to northern India. This time she was showing images from her visit to southern India. She went the state of Kerala which had the first democratically elected Communist government in the world (1957). Kerala has the best human development indicators in India – higher life expectancy, lower infant mortality, lower birth rate, lower death rate, higher literacy rate.
Sandra had gone with three aims in mind:
- Develop her portrait story telling
- Getting eye contact in her images
- How and when to use black and white
She went through her images chronologically, following the timeline of her visit. On the first day there was a visit to a bustling flower market with hundreds of stalls selling colourful garlands in oddly looking round containers. There were great shots of the sellers and their wares, different points of view, close ups of intricate hair decorations, rich reds and yellows – and the Charlie Waite ‘blue and yellow’ shots. The work the sellers were doing was hard but despite the toil everyone seemed happy with their work and welcoming.
Next day was a visit to the Chennakeshava Temple, Somanathapura in the neighbouring state of Karnataka. Sandra got shots of people at the temple to show its size, and there were some delightful shots of children running in the temple complex. She also shot some environmental portraits outside the temple.
Then it was back on the bus and having some impromptu road stops to get some shots. Sandra then showed her market porters photo essay. It captured the life of the bent and broken human pack mules. No shoes, back bent over, and very poorly paid. It did look a very laboured existence.
Next we were in the Bandipur National Park and Tiger Reserve. Sandra got a shot of a leopard staring into the lens of her camera and a tiger coming out of the water. On the way from the National Park there was a stop at a brick kiln. This is an unregulated industry, and workers are trapped in a cycle of debt and poverty. Conditions looked appalling.
Then it was off to the town of Ooty in Tamil Nadu. There was a festival going on and there was a very strange light as people walked back to their villages. Sandra showed images of the inside of a school and there was a local midwife giving advice to women in the back of the school. At the Ooty markets Sandra got some great environmental portrait shots, both colour and monochrome. For some reason women will always take off their head scarf if being photographed.
There was then a beautiful train journey up the Nilgiri mountain range and the following morning a very early trip on a bumpy road to the top of a hill to see the sun rising with cloud blanketing the valleys below. Then we were in tea plantation territory with acre after acre of manicured tea bushes. The women do the tea clipping, a highly skilled job and carry the large sacks of tea on their heads to the factory. The men appear to look after the kids.
Then we were back to Kerala and Fort Kochi with its bazaar, spice market, old warehouses, merchant houses, moody alleys, sunsets over the river and the distinctive Chinese fishing nets.
Sandra also showed shots of people working at the Dhobi Khana laundry which was built in 1720 to wash the clothes of European soldiers. We then were shown photos of the human powered coir factory. All the machinery is hand driven transforming the fibre from coconuts husks into ropes to be used for making carpets and matting.
After the break Linda gave her presentation which was organised by theme. Unsurprisingly the first theme was architecture. The Mysore Palace, which is a mix of Hindu, Islamic and Gothic styles, with photographs of lots of receding arches, repetitions of motifs and details of various parts. A Hindu Temple which was lots and lots of colour and symbolic decorations. Then a Jain Temple where everything was white and carved. The local vernacular architecture was also captured, blue walls, blue doors, if it stands still it gets painted – and sticking the Charlie Waites mantra – yellow and blue appeared.
Portraits were next: People liked to have their photographs taken and the group on the tour were encourage not to go round in groups as it would restrict contact with local people. Portraits in the flower markets with vendors stringing garlands, people in beautiful clothes, earrings, necklaces, saris. There was also a performance dance by two men and shots of them dressing up and putting on elaborate makes up.
Next was landscape: Shots of a eucalyptus forest, morning arriving from the top of a hill with a cloud inversion below. The tea plantation with the shape of the tea bushes echoing the shape of the cloud above. A series of shots of the tea plantation from different points of view and playing with various options of composition, and finding a lonely tree to have a point of focus. Kerala’s backwaters with a lake full of water hyacinths. The coast hot and humid, very lush, very green.
Street life: day to day business, shoes outside the doors as people take off their shoes when entering. A grannie on the phone who called Linda over. She was talking to her granddaughter who lives in Norwich and, as the grannie couldn’t speak English, she asked her granddaughter to tell Linda that she is invited in to have tea. School children on the street, people on the street, outside their homes, a circle of women looking at the camera which was very Steve McCurry-esque and mobile phones and shrines everywhere.
Animals and birds: cool cats and kittens, cockerels, pigeons in cages, a kingfisher, two birds on a stick, monkey in a tree, spotted deer and elephants
Not on the High Street: flower sellers, shots looking down, twirling garlands into a circle, everything in sacks, food to buy, lots of food to buy.
Tea story: women cutting the tea bushes, all done by hand, sorting out the tea by throwing it up in the air, inside the tea factory, tea being dried, tea in sacks
Keep moving: yellow and blue on a bicycle, feet and ankle bracelets, more bicycles, huge trucks all brightly painted ferrying goods, shots of train passengers looking at the camera from the window – all very Robert Frank (Trolley, New Orleans) – boats on the coast
All in a Day’s Work: brick factory, garland makers, tomato man, porter carries everything on his head – hard work – female tut-tut driver in Ooty, rice drying on the ground, coir factory, fishermen of Cochin with setting sun behind them, dhobi man.
And lots and lots more.
It was a spectacular evening where Sandra and Linda transported us into a different world full of colour, of hard work, of happy people going about their daily lives. Many thanks to them both for sharing such joyous images.
- Next meeting Tues 22 April 19.30: Paul Kilsby, PhD RCA – Unnatural Histories followed by members’ project reviews
Paul Kilsby is Senior Lecturer in Fine Art Theory, Oxford Brookes University. He will be showing his series of twelve images called Unnatural Histories which he exhibited recently as part of the Oxford Science+Ideas festival. This sequence of images explores the ways in which nature is represented in popular television series such as Blue Planet II and seeks to ask searching questions about authenticity and the ways we perceive the natural world. There will be time to discuss and share your thoughts as well as reflect on how the issues that arise relate to your photography.
In the second half of the evening Paul will lead three project review sessions of members’ work, offering insights and possible suggestions to consider in relation to bringing projects to successful conclusions. Sandra D, Pete W, Rob F will be showing their project ideas, and Adrian C and Willie are in reserve positions in case any of the others drop out.
- Upcoming meetings
29 April: The Little Print Show with Jonathan Vaines
This talk comes with artistic approach to photography, stepping out of the club mainstream. Along with individual images we see motivational benefits of working with Projects, Sets and Groups of images. Most of Jonathan’s images are created using “in camera” techniques and the focus of the evening is about “Thinking Inside The Box”. The talk is primarily a print talk but presented via PowerPoint with 60 prints to display in the evening.
6 May: Brian Worsley – portraits
An outdoor night time model led by Brian Worsley – weather permitting
13 May: Print Competition No. 3
Maximum of two colour and two monochrome. Our judge will be Kathy Chandler
20 May: Ten Best of the Year
Slide show of all our ten best of the year. Each member upload their ten best of the season and together with everyone else’s are shown in a slide show
27 May: Annual General Meeting
- Events photographic in and around Oxford
Microsculpture Exhibition: The insect photography of Levon Biss
The stunning high magnification insect portraits by British photographer Levon Biss were first shown in the Microsculpture exhibition in this Museum in 2016. Since then, the show has toured to 44 cities in 22 countries around the world.
Free – no booking required
Oxford University Museum of Natural History,
Parks Road,
Oxford, OX1 3PW
3 April 2025 – 4 January 2026
https://www.oumnh.ox.ac.uk/event/microsculpture?page-5255386=1
Travel Photographer of The Year Exhibition
Banbury Museum and Gallery
Spiceball Park Road
Banbury
Oxfordshire
OX16 2PQ
29th March 2025 – 6th July 2025
Price: Adult: £5.00
Child: £2.50 (Ages 5-18. Under 5’s are free)
Concession: £3.00 (Over 65’s, students, Mill Member and unwaged)
Art Fund Member: £2.50
Photo Oxford Workshops
Join us for an exciting series of alternative photography workshops in March and April to explore the art of cyanotypes, anthotypes, phytograms, botanicograms, chemigrams, caffenol film development, pinhole cameras, photography as performance, and psychogeography.
https://www.photooxford.org/workshops
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.
18 Oct 2024 – 11 May 2025
https://www.ashmolean.org/exhibition/ashmolean-now-bettina-von-zwehl
- General photographic interest
Do listen to this interview with Don McCullin
Sir Don McCullin: Music MattersMusic on the Front Line
Clive Myrie is in conversation with fellow journalists. He and Don share stories to reveal the power and significance of music when reporting from extreme conflict situations
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0029x7v
Witches and pooches: NYC Easter parade – in pictures
Decorated hats and costumes flood St Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City during the annual Easter Parade and Bonnet Festival
Bog standard? Tokyo’s spectacular public toilets – in pictures
Public toilets are rarely thought of fondly – that is unless you’re talking about those in Tokyo’s Shibuya district. Commissioned in 2019, creatives including renowned architects Shigeru Ban and the late Fumihiko Maki designed 17 beautiful, functional, meticulously clean public toilets, some of which featured in Wim Wenders’s 2023 film Perfect Days. Hong Kong-based photographer Ulana Switucha came across the toilets, each unique, while working on a project about Japanese architecture in 2023, and went back to photograph them the following year. “These structures are works of art,” she says. “They shine as beacons in their urban setting and demonstrate that public design can go beyond functionality to represent cultural and artistic value.”
Apes, toilets, conflicts and cowboys: Sony World Photography awards – in pictures
Artists on the moon, gods in the sea, and guns at the ready in America … here are photographs from the overall winners of this year’s professional competition
World Press Photo of the Year 2025 winners announced
Photographer Samar Abu Elouf wins prestigious award with moving image of injured boy, Mahmoud Ajjour