Thursday 16th March
I puzzled over what to do for my Chair’s evening, but when Glyn said it was ok to be a bit self-indulgent, I decided to revisit a major project I had led. Partly as this gave me the opportunity to look through many photographs from some years back which I thought told a good story in images, and partly this project had been one of the main reasons I had come back to photography. I hoped others would find the story all these images told – the story of how the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games were celebrated in West Sussex – would be of interest to others, so thank you for all the kind comments after that it was. I’d hesitated to describe the images as a piece of photo documentary as we’d had a fascinating discussion at the Print Group on Tuesday inspired by Janey Devine’s RPS Documentary Meeting about definitions of documentary and street and pictorial, so I was particularity pleased to be assured by Janey the pictures did fit the documentary bill!
The images were by a number of different photographers, not just mine, and included others working on the project elements and professional photographers I’d commissioned. I got my first digital camera in 2008, two years into the project which had launched on ‘Hand Over Day’ when the UK became the Olympic Nation at the close of the Beijing Games, and although it was tricky to take photographs when managing events, I could see some good progress in my output over the four years. I’ve included a few of the my images from the presentation below.
It’s the Print Panel Competition next week – which I confess has rather caught me unawares. I hope we will have plenty of entries – for new members unsure of what it entails, you can find directions on the Competition Rules Section of the website or summarised in the Members’ Handbook which is also on the website and that you had a hard copy of at the beginning of the season.
Collecting a piece of the Paralympic Flame for Horsham
Blue Touch Paper Carnival visit the Isle of Wight
Schools waiting for the Olympic Torch Bearers in Oaklands Park
The Four Paralympic Flames come together at Stoke Mandeville before the Torch Relay to the Olympic Stadium
A performance of The Seed at Nymans Gardens