The Ethiopians.

In the West the only images we seem to see of Ethiopia relate to famine and war. The Ethiopians may be poor peopleeconomically, but they have a history and culture that is complex and unique. The Ethiopian Orthodox Church is the predominant religion, but across the country, Christians, Muslims and holders of older african beliefs live peacefully side by side.

My images portray Ethiopians carrying out their everyday activities such as worshipping, studying, working, and enjoying themselves. My intention with this panel is to show Ethiopians not as victims but in a positive light, as the proud people with a rich cultural heritage that they are.

ARPS Panel The Dark Side.

This panel represents the imagery of vivid dreams and nightmares.

The individual images portray the fleeting impressions of the dark side of our imaginations, the images are both strangely alluring and repellent.

It uses my original photographs, to create composite images, as part of the cohesion of the panel I have used a narrow set of component images, I have used the minimum of computer generated components, where I have most have been rendered with my own photographic textures.

My intention is to take digital imaging, beyond photographs digitally enhanced for effect, to produce images that explore the very thin line between photography and art.

This Panel of images has gained me a bit of a reputation as a dark character within the club, I would like to promise the members that after eighteen months of creating images of dreams and nightmares I might be cured, but nothing is for sure.

As I have said this is eighteen months of work, I started by attending a RPS workshop taking my DPAGB panel and a few other images fishing for a direction to work in.

The advisors selected a few and suggested I might have the start of a theme to develop.

From there it was straightforward, I had to produce fifteen images that fitted the theme and worked together to make a panel.

As you can see I do use photography as the base components of my images but the composition and feel of each image is created in photoshop. In most cases I will work from one element of a picture and design the final image around it, usually going out to take pictures to complete the image.

Then I spend a disgusting amount of time in photoshop putting the final image together.

I tried a small number of my images out at club competitions and with a few magazines to gauge the reaction to them, with a number of successes I felt that I was not taking the images to far away from photography.

I attended a RPS assessment day to understand how the panels are judged and get a feel for how scrutinised the images would be, the images are looked at very close up, so print quality and in my case digital techniques have to be spot on, they expect excellent quality.

Finally I attended another workshop with my finished panel and a few extra possible images to get a fresh opinion, this proved a valuable experience and I made one final change to my panel.

All that was left was to fresh mount the images and wait for the day.

The rest is all now history with my panel being assessed in the afternoon receiving enthusiastic remarks from all of the assessors and getting a unanimous vote.

This leaves me looking forward to working toward a FRPS with what I hope will be a lighter theme.

I would like to thank all the members of OPS, who supported me on the day and offered valuable advise and opinions on my panel.

ARPS - in recent years I have tried to move away from the 'pictorialism' and often stylised approach of camera club photography, which somehow felt stale and predictable.

I thought back to some of Elliot Erwitt's pictures that had initially prompted my interest in photography and more recently the work of Martin Parr. I purchased a 19mm lens for my Pentax MX and started to explore a new direction by photographing people and places.

The panel I successfully submitted for my Associateship of the RPS (again the middle of three award levels) was titled "The Lives of Older People". My supporting statement explained how I had sought to portray moments in the lives of older people by showing ordinary people, in ordinary situations; the sort of thing seen across the United Kingdom every day of the week.

I photographed people shopping, catching buses, sitting, talking, walking dogs or simply looking at life around them. I wanted the images to capture brief moments that would reflect the hopes, uncertainties and often mundane nature of lives, that perhaps, looked back rather than forward.

This approach typically requires pictures that are more harmonious and less dependant upon the high impact of individual images, so the panel as a whole conveys the message. I certainly find this approach more enjoyable and look forward to working on a panel for my Fellowship.

“For me photography is the mirror of internal feelings. I have chosen still life photography as the medium because it can express different emotions and deliver visual sensations to convey these emotions; it allows me to play with light and colour palettes to create atmosphere and mood: making pictures rather than taking them.

The images in this panel were collected over a 2 year period. Each image represents the mood and emotions that I felt at the time: joy and sadness, calm and passion, sentimentality and sensitivity which are general characteristics of the Russian soul.”

I would like to thank all the members of OPS and especially Shelagh Roberts who offered valuable advise and opinions on my panel.