OPS Weekly Newsletter 21 September 2025
- Our Take 5 competition is on 30 September so please start selecting your finest five images.
- Our first Exhibition of the season commences at Oxford Westgate Library Wednesday 1st October. Please hand in your mounted prints for the exhibition to OPS by Tuesday 30th September.
- Last week’s meeting Tues 16 Sept: Digital Projected Image Competition no. 1 with Colin Mill as judge
…and the winners were:
| First | Keith Worthington | Cheetah Stalker in Long Grass |
| Second | Dave Belcher | Red Arrows Hanna Break |
| Third | Dave McKay | Iberian Lynx |
| H. Commended | Dave Belcher | Curious Fox |
| H. Commended | Phil Warrington | Hare on the Move |
| H. Commended | Dave Belcher | Falling Rider |
| Commended | Pete Warrington | Light-ship Double Exposure Swansea |
| Commended | Phil Warrington | Sk8ting |
| Commended | Helen Stewart | Chapel Under the Stars |
| Commended | John Boteler | Birling Gap High Tide |
Congratulations to all.
- Next meeting 19.30, Tues 23 Sept: What Makes a Photographic Project with Philippa James
In partnership with PhotoOxford, we are delighted to welcome photographer Philippa James to OPS.
Philippa is an award-winning documentary and portrait photographer based in Oxford. Her acclaimed project 100 Women of Oxford, originally inspired by Photo Oxford’s theme of “Truth,” has been exhibited widely and published as a photobook.
Known for her honest, community focused storytelling, Philippa is a recipient of the Portrait of Humanity Award, the LensCulture Emerging Talent Award and has recently featured in the Taylor Wessing Portrait Prize at the National Portrait Gallery.
In this talk, Philippa will present work from 100 Women and explore the question; what makes a photographic project? She will share the full journey; how a simple idea developed into a major body of work, the challenges of photographing strangers, the creative obstacles she faced and the realities behind the scenes. Drawing from her recently completed MA, Philippa will offer insights into building trust with subjects, sustaining long-form work, and how photographic projects grow and change over time.
The session offers practical inspiration for anyone looking to begin a creative project and attendees will leave with a clearer understanding of how to develop their own photographic work – from finding an idea to shaping it into something meaningful.
- Upcoming meetings in September and October
- 30 Sept: Take 5 Competition
- 7 Oct: Projects, Zines and Photobooks with Stewart Wall
- 8 Oct at 10.00: Street Photography Workshop with Stewart Hall – please book your place on OPS website
- 14 Oct: Exploring Creative Perspectives: My Photographic Journey, Tim Simmons plus show and tell
- 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
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
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
Photo Oxford: Open Call Winners’ Exhibition
5 September-5 October 2025
Modern Art Oxford
30 Pembroke Street
Oxford
OX1 1BP
Photo Oxford, Oxford’s biennial photo festival, returns for its fifth edition in 2025. This year the theme for the festival will be Truth and we will explore what this huge word means within the context of photography.
What happens when photographers challenge their medium’s relationship to reality? What truths lie beneath the surface? Photo Oxford 2025 invites you to look closer and find your own truths in photography.
https://www.modernartoxford.org.uk/whats-on/photo-oxford-open-call-winners-exhibition
Message from Ania Ready: I’d like to warmly invite you to visit an exhibition currently on at the Soldiers of Oxfordshire Museum in Woodstock (I’m sure many will remember it from previous OPS exhibitions). The show, entitled Life Lines, is in the upstairs gallery and features strong photographic elements. It responds to the encounter between British soldier Arthur Tyler and Holocaust survivor Naomi Kaplan Warren during the liberation of Bergen-Belsen, and his role in helping her reconnect with family in the US. The permanent exhibition downstairs also includes material about the camp and the days of its liberation – a powerful but harrowing display.
https://www.sofo.org.uk/lifelines/
The exhibition is on until 5th October.
Developing Us: Photography, Family and Feeling Photography Exhibition
A daughter’s journey through her father’s photos — exploring loss, legacy, and emotional repair.
Old Museum Shop,
Oxford Town Hall,
St Aldate’s,
Oxford
OX1 1BX
29-30 Sept 8.30-18.00
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
This year’s Audubon Photography winners show off birds from more places than ever
The National Audubon Society has announced the winners of its 2025 Audubon Photography Awards competition.
https://www.dpreview.com/articles/9728144305/audubon-contest-2025-winners
There in black and white: the 2025 Mono photographic awards – in pictures
The winning entries in the 2025 Mono awards, showcasing the best black and white images chosen from more than 3,500 entries and covering the categories of people, places and animals
Photographer Joy Gregory on her new project, decades in the making: ‘A lot of people I worked with on it have died’
A new retrospective by the Black British artist plays with everything from the Victorians’ use of flowers to Eurocentric beauty standards – including one piece she started in 2003
Extraordinary photo of Icelandic volcano eruption wins landscape competition
The results of the fourth round of our prestigious International Amateur Photographer of the Year 2025 competition are in! wins the top place in the Landscape category with the image ‘New day, new land’, an extraordinary sunrise scene of fissures opening up during the eruption at Litli-Hrutur in Iceland. Meanwhile, Hary Hanmad came first place in the Young APOY competition. Here are the top 10 images uploaded to Photocrowd from Round Four, Landscapes, with comments by the AP team and our guest judge
RPS September Workshops
Here you will find workshops run by professional photographers and educators. We keep the participant numbers low to ensure individual attention and offer something for all skill levels and interests.
https://rps.org/news/bristol/2024/rps-upcoming-workshops/
