Rattling cages........

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It appears that my last post has rattled a few cages in the camera club world. Apparently some folks in certain clubs have had apoplectic fits even though I was making general comments and no particular club was mentioned. A case, I suppose of - if the lens cap fits... I probably need to emphasise that when I refer to camera clubs, I am inevitably referring to British clubs, as my experience in speaking to and undertaking masterclasses for photographic organisations and associations in other countries is of a vastly different order to that in the UK. The members of organisations in other countries are primarily interested in improving their photographic understanding  and skill in order to make relevant and significant images and bodies of work. As I outlined in my last post, most members of UK camera clubs seem only interested in collecting pointless competition trophies for single images in spurious and irrelevant 'categories' dreamt up by so-called and self-appointed 'judges'. I don't actually blame, at least initially, the members themselves, as I'm sure many joined a club in the hope that they might gain from the experience. However, the brainwashing and stifling of any notion of contemporary ideas by those who run the clubs and who's own knowledge is severely limited I find disturbing and many club members are consequently, very badly let down. 

'Cynara', a new book in production

As an educator as well as a photographer, I feel a duty and a responsibility to encourage and maintain as high a standard as I can with those that I come into contact with regarding photography. Anything less would be doing a disservice to photography and also to those for whom you may have some responsibility for advising or nurturing. This is why I feel compelled to speak out. No-one with any grain of conscience or sense of caring for photography or education, would seek to 'dumb down' what they impart to others as a way of disguising their own lack of knowledge. Yet sadly, this is exactly what goes on in the majority of British camera clubs. Their refusal to even acknowledge the contemporary world of photography but to try to cling on desperately, like the souls on the 'Raft of the Medusa' to ideas and notions that have long since sunk to the bottom. In my last post I said that their ideas were a generation or two out of date when I was fifteen nearly sixty years ago. It seems that I may have been underestimating this.

'Globe Artichoke No. 44' 2020, from 'Cynara'

Among my large collection of photography books I have 'British Journal of Photography' almanacs from over 100 years ago. They are full of stilted images with flowery and contrived titles and the expressions 'monochrome', pictorial' and 'composition' are littered throughout. I find it quite extraordinary that these outdated ideas still persist in the face of all the many places and opportunities there are to see, experience and understand the world of contemporary photography. An analogy might be like science being taught and judged by a group of flat-earthers and creationists, forcing their views on to individuals with the promise of tawdry prizes in the face of all the contemporary evidence to the contrary. Clearly intimidated by the depth and breadth of photographic knowledge of young educated photographers over their own shallow understanding, they seek to smother anything that they cannot comprehend. 

'Globe artichoke No. 15' 2020, from 'Cynara'

Camera club competitions, in addition to being totally irrelevant to any notion of contemporary photography are not devised to improve or educate, but to temporarily inflate the egos of the recipients and to facilitate the organisers and amateur 'judges' continued stifling and dumbing down of ideas in order to disguise their own lack of knowledge and understanding. As a photographer and educator I find this distasteful.