We had two speakers:
Brian Cooke summarised a six week course he'd recently completed on Street Photography. This was organised by the RPS and run by Simon Ellingworth. Brian thought it was very good. Each week had a lecture with discussion plus some home work for the following week. The course focused on six main things to remember when doing street photography: 1) the moment, a bit like Cartier Bresson's decisive moment, 2) Composition, shapes, lines, triangles etc, 3) Light, as always, 4) Studium and Punctum (see below), 5) the curiosity gap, or leaving something unsaid, 6) Narrative.
I think we can all relate to five of these six items, but item 4 got us talking about exactly what was meant. I've dug a little deeper and found the following which might add to Brian's description of the terms:
Studium, from Roland Barthes is a term that means the common banal meaning of the photographic image. In contrast, Punctum, is a term also used by Roland Barthes to indicate the aspect of a photograph that grabs our emotions or attention, and is felt to be uniquely personal by the individual viewer. Barthes wrote that the punctum triggers a shock or a prick to the viewer. It is the unintentional detail of the photograph from which we cannot turn away. For Barthes, punctum is distinct from Studium, the common or banal quality of the image.
So it seems that Studium is more about the factual material recorded of the photograph, whereas Punctum is more about the hidden meaning that each individual viewer sees in the photograph. Interesting. Maybe we'll explore this in future sessions.
Gerry gave us a most unusual, but nevertheless interesting talk - which avoided showing any images! Gerry has been looking closely at the scores given by our competition judges and tried to draw conclusions. Gerry showed his analysis on a number of spreadsheets, which ranked and ordered recently exhibited images by author and images and showed the variation in scores given by different judges. My take out from this is that it probably is worthwhile keeping a record of scores by author/image and judge. There are lessons to be learned that might inform the selection committee for external competitions - but it is not an exact science. One other point is that Gerry felt the scoring system for HPS internal competitions is out of line with other clubs (i.e. we have 1st, 2nd and 3rd, rather that scores) and it would be worth looking at again. Steve offered to follow up on this.
The second half of the evening had our portfolio session, which produced some interesting discussion. The images shown included a number of multiple exposure images influenced my the recently talk by Glenys Garnett, which were all very different. Also some landscape and an unusual panoramic shot of St. Albans cathedral by Gerry.
The next meeting will be on May 24th and will be the last of the current season. Hope to see you there.
Brian Cooke summarised a six week course he'd recently completed on Street Photography. This was organised by the RPS and run by Simon Ellingworth. Brian thought it was very good. Each week had a lecture with discussion plus some home work for the following week. The course focused on six main things to remember when doing street photography: 1) the moment, a bit like Cartier Bresson's decisive moment, 2) Composition, shapes, lines, triangles etc, 3) Light, as always, 4) Studium and Punctum (see below), 5) the curiosity gap, or leaving something unsaid, 6) Narrative.
I think we can all relate to five of these six items, but item 4 got us talking about exactly what was meant. I've dug a little deeper and found the following which might add to Brian's description of the terms:
Studium, from Roland Barthes is a term that means the common banal meaning of the photographic image. In contrast, Punctum, is a term also used by Roland Barthes to indicate the aspect of a photograph that grabs our emotions or attention, and is felt to be uniquely personal by the individual viewer. Barthes wrote that the punctum triggers a shock or a prick to the viewer. It is the unintentional detail of the photograph from which we cannot turn away. For Barthes, punctum is distinct from Studium, the common or banal quality of the image.
So it seems that Studium is more about the factual material recorded of the photograph, whereas Punctum is more about the hidden meaning that each individual viewer sees in the photograph. Interesting. Maybe we'll explore this in future sessions.
Gerry gave us a most unusual, but nevertheless interesting talk - which avoided showing any images! Gerry has been looking closely at the scores given by our competition judges and tried to draw conclusions. Gerry showed his analysis on a number of spreadsheets, which ranked and ordered recently exhibited images by author and images and showed the variation in scores given by different judges. My take out from this is that it probably is worthwhile keeping a record of scores by author/image and judge. There are lessons to be learned that might inform the selection committee for external competitions - but it is not an exact science. One other point is that Gerry felt the scoring system for HPS internal competitions is out of line with other clubs (i.e. we have 1st, 2nd and 3rd, rather that scores) and it would be worth looking at again. Steve offered to follow up on this.
The second half of the evening had our portfolio session, which produced some interesting discussion. The images shown included a number of multiple exposure images influenced my the recently talk by Glenys Garnett, which were all very different. Also some landscape and an unusual panoramic shot of St. Albans cathedral by Gerry.
The next meeting will be on May 24th and will be the last of the current season. Hope to see you there.
