Royal Photographic Society - South East Region - Events

A Day of Pictorial Photography

A joint meeting of the RPS South East Region and the RPS Pictorial Group

Bewl Water Conference Centre

Sunday 16th February 2003 saw over sixty members of the RPS South East Region and RPS Pictorial Group gather at the Bewl Water Conference Centre for ‘A Day of Pictorial Photography’. We were privileged to have presentations from some of the county’s leading exponents of the craft, Derek Reay ARPS, Chairman of the RPS Pictorial Group, Terry King FRPS, Chairman of the RPS Historical Group, and Holly Bund FRPS, a portraitist with many years experience in a variety of photographic fields.

Also joining us was the Society’s President, John Page Hon. FRPS, who in addition to enjoying the day’s presentations presented a number of recent successful Licentiateship candidates with their certificates. Our congratulations go to Brian Beaney LRPS, Kumudini Chandraratna LRPS, Peter Corbett LRPS, Stephen Duncan LRPS, Elizabeth Maxwell LRPS, Philip Pegden LRPS, Roger Tapner LRPS, Ian Taylor LRPS, Mr D West LRPS.

To open the day, Terry King showed a selection of prints made using historic, or alternative, processes. This was combined with a brief description of the process to put it into context. The images ranged from abstracts to detailed studies that demonstrated just what could be achieved with some very simple chemicals, many of which can be found in kitchens today. To illustrate the point, Terry recalled that having forgotten to take all the necessary chemicals with him to a lecture, he hastily found a substitute in a can of Diet-Pepsi purchased from a nearby vending machine.

Holly Bund then presented a number of prints in the style that recently secured her Fellowship of the Society. Her prints of children, mainly produced using the Platinum-Palladium process, had a timeless mood that was likened to the work of Julia Margaret Cameron. However, their simplicity and beauty belied the work that went into their creation. Often starting from colour slide photographs, Holly described the preparation of the large ‘format’ negative that is needed to create the final image, each stage governed by a feel for an image which, at that point, exists only in her mind. Particularly interesting was the comparison between some of the Platinum-Palladium prints with colour images from the same original negative that showed how much the mood and impression conveyed by a photograph is dictated by the processing and creativity of the photographer.

In the afternoon, Derek Reay presented images from the Pictorial Group’s 2002 Print Exhibition. Derek then presided over a lively debate of what pictorial photography is. Several members of the audience were fearless enough to show some of their work to fuel the debate. Derek then presented images from the Tyng Collection of pictorial photographs. This collection has been amassed by the Pictorial Group over some seventy years that chronicles the changes of what has constituted a pictorial photograph over this period. As well as allowing us to see some marvellous images, the collection served to illustrate that the various opinions of what ‘pictorial’ means, were all equally valid!

All-in-all, it was a fascinating day that had something for everyone from the dyed-in-the-wool traditional darkroom photographer to the digital worker. More importantly, it illustrated how the two approaches can complement each other and produce stunning images.

The Royal Photographic Society

South East Region