2026-03-12 EPS - Photo Projects 1 of 2 with Joe Houghton

So we've really enjoyed the last couple of sessions, Joe. So I'm really quite excited to see and hear about putting a project together, because I'm really convinced that they're a powerful way to handle our own intent and how we convey things to other people. And I think this has got a follow-up session in— is it just 2 weeks?

I'm not sure, to be honest. My memory is so busy, I haven't looked forward that far. But yes, I think we— I think from memory we did have a follow-up session, didn't we?

So it said 2nd April. 2nd April, right?

Yeah.

So those of us who are enthused can get some feedback and pointers then. So Joe, the floor is yours.

Fantastic, right? I've put a Notion page together with the notes for tonight, and there's quite a bit of material in there, so it should be a resource you can use. So if you have a look in the chat, if you've not got the chat open, there is a link in the chat, and if you click on that, it will bring the Notion page that I'm going to use up in your browser.

Did you write this, Joe, or was this AI?

A bit of both.

A bit of both.

So bookmark that, put it in your favorites or whatever if you want to come back to it. It will be a persistent web page. I shan't take it down or anything. But anyway, so there it is. And there's a QR code there if any of you are just on your phones tonight and you just want to snap it, that'll take you into the page as well. So is that working for everybody?

Yeah, thank you.

Fantastic. If for any reason it doesn't work and you do want a copy of that, I can also save it down as a PDF and send that to Muriel. So we can do it either way. Okay. Whenever you see a little right-hand facing arrow like the one next to Table of Contents there, that indicates that that will open up. So if you click on the arrow, you see that Table of Contents is opening up, and it's just giving you various things. And if you click on any of these links, that would take you down to, you know, the right place in the page. And that Table of Contents is also On the right-hand side, you see all those little horizontal lines. If you hover over those, you get into the table of contents, and that's another way of jumping up and down that page. Okay, and there's quite a bit of stuff that's behind kind of little— those little arrows on the page. So we'll kind of have a look as we go through. I wasn't really quite sure how to approach tonight, so I— because I mean, I know there's a lot of people in the Society who are very experienced with projects and stuff, But then there's new people to the society as well who may not be aware of this stuff and, and, you know, what a project is or whatever. So I'm gonna, you know, I'm coming from the assume no knowledge, but if you've got knowledge, then throw it in. Um, I'm just gonna facilitate a conversation tonight. I think, I think that's, that's, that's the best thing to do. And if there's more that you want, if you want to, to go into other you know, more details or whatever, we can either try that into tonight's session or in a follow-up session or whatever. I'm sure we can kind of figure that out as we go along. But I love photo projects. I think photo projects, as Muriel just said, are a different way of expressing yourself through this medium, this craft of photography that we all love. I've been doing— I mean, I've been doing photography since I was 7, and I'm 63 this year. But probably for the last 25 years where I've kind of been doing more serious photography, one thing particularly that I've done, and I talked about it, I have a talk on panels, and we'll mention panels tonight, but it's just one way of kind of getting into, you know, small projects. But whenever I go on a shoot, for instance, and I come back and I process the images from the day or whatever, I also put a panel together from the processed images, if you like. And it might be a triptych of, you know, 3, or it may be 10 or 15. It just depends what I feel like. It depends what might work. So that's one way. So, I mean, if we just scroll down a little bit, you know, what is a photo project here? A purposeful body of photographic work, right? Now, we've had the AI discussion on Monday. We're not going to go there tonight. All right, so photographic work, however you want to kind of, you know, conjure that up. Unified by a common theme, subject, or concept. So this isn't generally a single image. This is a series of images. Which have some kind of common theme, subject, or concept. The project develops a narrative, explores an idea in depth, or documents a subject systematically over time. So we've got this concept of flow, we've got this concept of more than just a single image. It can be a sequence shot, in the same, you know, few seconds, or it could be over a number of years. It could be in a single location, it could be all over the world, but maybe you're shooting on a particular theme and you're collecting stuff over time or whatever. So that those images then, as they are brought together— and intention is very important in photo projects. Sometimes you'll start a project with an idea and it morphs as you start to assemble a body of work because it's almost emergent. It's a bit like kind of, you know, I do kind of academic research and sometimes you know exactly what you're going for, but other times you just start and see what comes out. It's like sculptors talk about this, don't they? They start with a piece of rock or whatever and they see what emerges, you know, because it was always in the rock, but they just have to discover it. And I think sometimes photo projects are a bit the same way. You might start with an idea and you start shooting and it morphs into something slightly different as you start to build up. With my street photography— and we've got a little bit on that further below because it's my only significant big project, if you like— It took me about 18 months before I realized that I only shot people. And I hadn't realized that. I was shooting street, but I hadn't realized that for me, that was interactions of people on the street. I wasn't shooting the streets. I wasn't shooting the buildings. I was almost 100% of 99% of my street photography is of people. But it was somebody else who pointed that out to me. Sometimes you need other eyes on what you do, just like when you write, it's very difficult to catch the errors and the oddities in your own writing. You need somebody else to read what you've written to see it, don't you? Because you don't know that you can't spell that word, or you don't know that that grammar is odd, or whatever it is. Isabel's looking very Very, very guilty here. Yeah, it's not just me then. Each image should contribute to the overall vision whilst maintaining its own visual strength. And this is, this is something that particularly with panels I find absolutely fascinating. Sometimes I will have a set of images and I'm trying to create a panel from a set of images. And a panel, when it's created, becomes another image. Yeah, I was talking to Muriel earlier today, I think it was, and you said, Muriel, didn't you, that sometimes you put in kind of 3, you'll put in a triptych or whatever, and the judge complains or somebody complains because that's 3 images, if you like, and it's like you're not allowed to do that, you know, But a triptych is actually a single image as well as 3 separate images. Any panel, kind of, you're creating a meta image, or a, you know, from the set of images that you put in. So that's important. And sometimes your best individual image, you know, maybe you've got one outstanding image that you think, oh, that's the best image I've shot for years, or whatever, yeah, and that shouldn't be in the panel. because maybe it doesn't fit the panel, or maybe it would dominate the panel, and stuff like that. So I love the way that projects take me out of individual images and take me into a story, take me into a narrative, and I love storytelling. I love all kinds of different storytelling and stuff. But for me, that's one of the big things of project. I'm going to shut up for a minute. Right, there's the intro. Now, comments from the floor. Muriel, you talk to us about your triptyches and stuff. Is this making any sense at all, my rambling so far?

Well, it's making sense to me. But I'm thinking I don't use triptychs enough. Joel, I quite often cut a single image into a triptych instead of having 3 different ones. Yeah. So I'm thinking this is a way to get more in.

And you don't have to be limited to 3. Well, you do in a triptych, but you do. But yeah, you know, I mean, it could be—

I'm envisaging a little book or a zine with 3s and 2s now.

Yeah, yeah.

And I wouldn't have to select down quite as much.

No, no, you can, you can kind of let your imagination flow a bit more. And another thing that I love doing is I love changing the sizes as well. So sometimes I'll have one big image and 2 or 3 small images or 4 or 5 small or whatever around it and stuff like that. You can have hero images, you know, you don't have to be constrained. I mean, I know if you go for a distinction with the RPS, say, they give you templates and, you know, all the images are expected to be roughly the same size and, you know, there's 5 on the bottom and 5 on the top or, you know, 3, 4, 2 or whatever it is that they give you these hanging spaces. But you don't have to be constrained when you are putting projects together by any rules.

Yeah.

Rules only apply when, when there's somebody imposing them. But photography is a craft, and creativity is something that shouldn't be constrained necessarily. So, you know, give yourself permission, I suppose, to not follow the rules, if you like. And that can sometimes lead to really interesting things. Is anybody working on projects that, that do that?

Well, I'm, I'm not working on a project, Joe, but I, I, I kind of, um, when, when I saw your, uh, I saw this title Photo Projects, and I saw this principle that each image should contribute to overall vision whilst maintaining, uh, its own visual strength, um, that principle actually applies whether you're making a triptych.

Yeah.

an LRPS panel, an AV.

An AV, yeah, or a book.

The principle applies to the totality of all of these things.

It does.

And I, you know, I've particularly been drawn towards the AV end because it adds another dimension, which is sound, where not only do you have to have the images contributing to the overall vision, you have to have a melody or music to match the mood that you're trying to create. So for me, it covers—

David's frozen for me. Is he frozen for you? Yeah, yeah, yeah. He just got to covers and then that was it. Oh, there you are, you're back, David.

You're back. Did you catch anything what I was saying?

We got to covers and then you stopped. Got to what?

I didn't say that.

Covers.

We got the music, the importance of the music.

No, no, what I was saying was that this, this project in my mind covers the totality of these things from, you know, a triptych all the way through to AV. And in the middle you've got LRPS panels and you've got everything else in between. But this principle that each image should contribute to the overall vision is very, very important. And what I was trying to say in the AV world there's another dimension is introduced there, which is audio, where you try to get the melody or the tune to provoke, to be associated with the theme of the imagery. So I think it's a very important topic. I think it does matter. And the principle applies whether it's 2 pictures, 3 pictures, or 100 pictures in the overall spectrum. So I'm sold on the idea.

Yeah, it doesn't mean that you don't have to be picky and you still don't have to maintain a standard or, you know, whether that's your own standard or you're trying to make an external standard or whatever, but it gives you a much greater flexibility to express.

I think it also depends on whether they see your project as a photographic entity or as something broader.

Yeah.

And if it's something broader, your vision is affected by the context. So I'll take an example. If you're doing a project about a football team, yeah, you might want to have pictures of all the people in the team to make that complete, although it doesn't really make a difference to your vision of presenting that football team. The football team will expect to see it.

That's right. Yeah, you missed Eddie out. Yeah, that's right.

Well, I think, I think it's, it's fair enough saying that if you're going to say I'm producing a photographic entity. But in many cases, the interesting thing about projects is doing them in an environment where a lot of people are involved.

Yeah.

And they will have expectations.

Yes. Yeah. And that's it. There's not necessarily any rules. You're winging it a lot of the time, aren't you? You're figuring this out as you go along, which is why they are so interesting because it's a journey. Like a story is a journey and it's an unfolding journey. And it takes— projects generally take you to places you didn't know you were going to go.

And I think there's a fine point though, Joe. There's a very fine point where Well, let's say, I imagine we're talking to photographers here, and our primary focus is in the photography. But increasingly, you come across a bunch of people who are trying to promote a social message, or a social engineering message, or a social awareness message, whether it's on depravity or poverty or whatever, where their message is very powerful, but the photographs are crap.

Yes.

So, so what they tend to do is they, they have a very powerful social message, but they tried to amplify it by putting in pretty poor photographs. Where in our world, well, my world, I would rather concentrate on putting together quality images that portray a message. You get my point? There's a fine— there's a fine balance when you put these projects together as to which side of that equation you're on.

Yeah, and where you want to focus your attention. I mean, a poet might focus more on the words and then use the imagery, if you like, to just illustrate the words and be less worried about the imagery as long as it's connected to the words. Whereas we would probably start with the photographs and then find words that supported them or music that supported, you know, the images and stuff, isn't it? But Yeah, this—

we are the meetup group, are doing a project and an exhibition at the EPS.

Yeah.

And my problem is I don't know what topic I want to get to do in my project.

Yeah.

And I'm really stuck with that. Last year it just happened that somebody said, oh, but you've just taken a picture of stairs, why don't you do stairs? And I thought, yes, stairs. And, and I did stills, but this time, and I have a new camera, I'm stuck. I have no idea.

Because you've got so— I mean, you've got infinite possibilities. You almost need a list of 5 to pick from, don't you? You know, because then it would be easier, right? I've got to do one of these kind of thing. Um, it's— yeah, it's often that kind of— you're a child in a sweet shop. And you, you're paralyzed. You can't pick even one sweet because you could, you could have anything you wanted.

Yeah. Yeah, I, I had a thought, so maybe I should start with that thought and then something will come out of it that may have nothing to do with the original thought.

Yeah.

Well, the thing is, eggs, eggs, fried eggs, boiled eggs, Easter eggs. There you go.

Yeah, but start just whatever's in your head. Even if it's an unformed thing, just start.

Yes.

And what will happen is either that will clarify into, yes, this is, this is going to work, or something else will emerge that you didn't expect, and then follow that.

That's what I'm going to do.

When you get that little voice in your head saying, I like this, this is working, or something's happening here, and you feel it. It's like when you're writing, you kind of feel a story come to life or a character come to life or whatever. It's the same kind of thing. But you don't always know that is going to happen until you start to make it happen. You've got to go, you've got to—

Yeah, oh yes, yes, I agree. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I'm sure I'll find something.

Fabulous.

But that's actually, I think, quite an interesting point, Claudine, because I've written down a list of all my potential projects, and lots of them, I already have the images. So I'm not using the project to influence, And the other half I haven't properly started. So there is room for the project thought to influence what I take.

Yeah.

Yes, yes.

Another, another useful project vehicle, if you like, is to pick a project on something you've never done before. You know, so Muriel, go and shoot portraits or sport. You know, don't do that. Don't do the ICM kind of colorful, you know, choose something completely different and, and stretch yourself. Put yourself in.

Yes, sir.

Yeah, you're gonna wish you were— you're gonna wish you hadn't come soon, Muriel. Simon Sinek says you always start with the why. So I put the why photo projects matter. Lots of stuff in here. I mean, these, you know, they may or may not matter to you in your situation as you're thinking about a project, but there's lots of possible pluses to doing projects. Yeah, developing creative vision. Yeah, just discovering and refining your photography. So for years and years, I used to listen to Scott Kelby and, you know, he's— the online stuff that Scott's done for years. And one of the things that he constantly said was, you've got to find your photographic voice. And I had no idea what he meant. Yeah, because I was, you know, still shooting everything that moved. if you like. I hadn't found a photographic voice. And then I suppose the first time I found a photographic voice was when I did the street photography project, and I kind of found myself moving into shooting, you know, high-contrast scenes and processing them in black and white, and they were all square crop and all the rest of it. And it turned into a kind of signature. that, you know, some people will now say, oh, that's one of Joe's kind of thing, you know. And I never— I didn't expect to get there, but I ended up there at some point. And I suddenly realized that I'd actually, you know, was expressing myself like that. And sometimes— and I mean, that will change over time as well. And you'll have different voices for different projects perhaps. But Discovery is a very, very powerful word, isn't it? In any creative endeavor, you're not expert when you start doing something. You may never get to be expert at whatever you're doing, but I think if we enjoy it, if it takes us— if it gives us a sense of satisfaction and a sense of that we are developing in some way, That's, to me, that's why I do photography. Because like, I'm constantly learning new stuff. And I love that. I love the fact that, you know, I will read an article or I will go out and shoot with somebody or get a new bit of kit or whatever. And it's like, oh my goodness, I'd never thought about this. Like, you know, oh wow, this is great, you know. Does that resonate with anybody else? John?

Yeah, yeah, that's, that's what I like to do. Like, I've gone through like landscapes, night stuff, astro stuff, and now I'm sort of leaning more into doing portraits and people.

Yeah, so yeah, and in a year's time you might, you might be bored and be doing something different.

Yeah.

It doesn't matter, does it? You know, I mean, this, it's wide church photography, isn't it? There's so many different genres, and there's so many different things that you can shoot.

So I always, I always like to find, like, like you were saying, finding ways to challenge yourself. So something you'd never think of shooting, and then just say, right, I'm gonna try and do this to see if I can do it. And then takes you right out of your comfort zone. And I find that you learn from that experience. pushing yourself to something new rather than being stagnant doing the same old thing day in, day out.

Because it's very easy just to get into a rut and stay in that comfort zone of, oh yeah, I know how to shoot this stuff, so I'm just going to keep doing that stuff. But then you're stuck.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay. So, lots of stuff here. Anything jumping out from this list to anybody particularly? You can all see what's on screen.

I like the, um, experiment with constraints one. Yeah, that, that can be a lot of fun. Um, I, I told you the other day, Joe, I, I spent some time with Peter Turnley in, in Paris, and you've got one, one camera, one lens.

One lens, just take a 50mm or a 35mm.

And that's it. And none of that, no camera bag and no, what lens should I use? You got you know, and it's, it's tremendous because it really takes you into a different world. Because for a start, if you've got a wide lens, to get good portraits you've got to get very close to people, which you wouldn't normally do if you didn't have. And, um, I find that it's just a nice personal challenge. It's like going out and tying one hand up your back and just see, see, see what you can produce. It's good fun.

Yeah, I've— years and years ago I pretty much stopped using zoom lenses. I decided I was just going to focus on primes, no pun intended. And since I moved from Nikon to Fuji, which I primarily did for weight, I mean, now I've assembled a set of Fuji lenses and most of them are, you know, less than 2 or 3 inches long. I've got one the big 400, 1-400, you know, telephoto. I rarely take it out. I, I go— my, my standard pack now is, is a 50mm prime and a 27mm pancake lens, and one of those is in my pocket and the other one's on the camera, and that's it. And most of the time I don't even swap the lenses during the day.

Hmm.

I'll just shoot what's on the camera. And, and I, I do— I find it, it's freeing Because you, you're training your eye to see in 35mm or in 50mm or whatever it is, where if you've got that zoom, you're kind of constantly looking for 18-200mm and everything in between. And it's, it's more difficult almost to do that. This, this pre-visualization that, you know, Cartier-Bresson used to talk about a lot is, is you've got to train your mind to see what your camera sees. And you pick things up better if you can start to do that. Somebody else, pick something else from the list. What's grabbing you on that list? Or what's new? What haven't you thought about before?

I like the intentionality one because I, I don't think I'm very good at single images, so I go out and take pictures of the same thing over and over again. So I'm going to Crookenhoff for the probably 8th time, and I will take pictures of tulips and hyacinths and roses again.

Yeah.

And I don't really care, actually. Don't give a monkey's. And that to me— and I also got the Cow and Sheep Show every year, take pictures of cows and sheep. And again, not my problem. And it's the business about intentionality. And then looking at last year's and going, right, right, why? And you can see the— I don't know if you can't see the progression, but I can see the progression.

Yeah.

And it gives me joy to go back to these things over and over again.

Yeah, I went out to the Paddy's Day parade, uh, in, in the village, um, last year. And I went out and I said, I'm not going to shoot anybody in the parade. I'm only going to shoot the onlookers.

All right.

Yeah, nobody in the parade, because years and years, you know, for years and years I've just shot the parade.

Yeah.

And it's like, yeah, okay, I've got parade shots. So, so I just focused away from the parade and I was looking at the lady standing in her doorway as the parade went past and stuff like that. And, uh, I got some super images that day that I was really happy with, you know, which were very different from the ones that I'd got previously. And I took a 135mm lens as well. It was a very different lens to the one I normally shot because I knew that I probably wouldn't be getting close enough to all the subjects because you were limited and stuff. So I took a longer lens that gave me a bit more reach. But yeah. Yeah, intentionality is important, definitely.

Yeah.

Yeah, experimenting with constraints, a single lens, just limiting yourself to one location. It was Charlie Waite did a lovely project over a number of years and he shot one lane. And it was the view. The lane was a leading line into the scene, down into the village. And he shot this one lane, but he shot it every season, you know. So, so he got it in the snow, and he got it in the summer, and he got it in the autumn. And it was, it was lovely. And it took him— I think it took him 5 years because he couldn't get the right shot each season in one year. you know, he had to go back time and time and time again, something like that. And eventually he ended up with 4 images that he was happy with, which were the seasonal images and stuff like that. But, and it was exactly, and he, you know, he actually apparently marked on the ground where his tripod had to go and just kept going back to that same spot and stuff like that, which I thought was really interesting. Oh yeah, discover your local area, explore and find beauty in familiar surroundings. Yeah, um, leave a link.

One of the things I was just going to suggest, one of the things that— and I'm not taking many photographs just now due to my arm, but what I really enjoy is watching the judging sessions where you see other people's work. And it gives you inspiration for what to do. 'Cause I think it was earlier this week, there was one image from Bowfiddle Rock up in the north of Scotland. And I've captured that myself before, but from a completely different angle. So I get inspiration from seeing other, and not to repeat theirs or copy them in any shape or form, but to try and do, give you inspiration to do your own view on something.

Yeah.

Yeah, I was out with Stephanie, um, what's her last name? ICM lady. Stephanie Johnson. Um, she was over in Dublin a few years back and we went out shooting for the day. And I was just amazed because we were standing, you know, 4 feet apart shooting the same things. And her stuff and my stuff were nothing Nothing like it. I mean, okay, you know, she's a good photographer, she knows what she's doing. I just kind of play at pointing my camera at things, but she just came up with, even though we were standing looking the same street, you know, pretty much pointing our cameras at the same things and stuff, completely different images. Yeah, learning from other people is brilliant, isn't it? Particularly when you are on a shoot, on a photo walk or something, and then comparing Comparing the inner, the inner voice. You know, you stand next to somebody and you look at what they've just shot and discuss with them and say, well, where— what were you shooting? What were you looking at? What, what caused you to put those things in the frame and decide on that shutter speed and whatever? And that, that grows us all, I think, as photographers, doesn't it? You gotta, gotta be out with other people. And yeah, learn from them. Yeah, I mean, the Streets of Dublin is, is a, is a, as I say, this is probably my biggest project. I'll just kind of show you a little bit of it, um, and I eventually put it together in a little book, um, but the, if you click on the link and you just scroll down, you've, you've got more of the stuff here, and, and I, I ended up with 200 or 300 images, and I kind of grouped them then. I kind of went through them all and found themes. And again, these were emergent themes. I hadn't actually gone out shooting windows, you know, or shooting portraits as a conscious theme, if you like, but they emerged out of the mass, if you like, of different things. Now, archways was one That I did, I was kind of conscious that I love archways. As a storyteller, there's something magic about archways, isn't there? Archways, doorways, they're that portal between here and there. There's something magic, you know, it's the wardrobe into Narnia. Or The Secret Garden, the gate into The Secret Garden, or whatever. The door is a massively archetypal kind of storytelling device. And I think, you know, from a photography perspective, it's a frame as well. And it's so powerful. So I love archways. That one is one of my favorite archway shots. The reason for that is, and I mean, if you ever go to this spot in Dublin, there's this lovely kind of quite intricate arch shape. You've got lovely leading lines, but this wall is black shiny tile. It's quite unusual. You don't normally get black tile, but in Dublin, this wall is black, shiny tile, and the light that comes off it is just amazing. It bounces the light really well, but it's an interesting light and stuff like that. And then, you know, just that day, there was this triangle, you know, this guy looking like he's about to murder somebody, and he looks like he's thinking he's going to be murdered. And, you know, it's— I just love the dynamic. And then the guy in the tram at the back. just kind of watching the whole thing and seeing me taking the shot and stuff like that. But yeah, I mean, they're stories in their own right, aren't they? Archways, and particularly in a city. And I mean, I'm sure Edinburgh is no different. That would make a lovely project. You know, I bet, I bet you can all think of any number of lovely archways and doorways and things, um, that you could go and shoot in, in Edinburgh. And once you've— once you'd go out with that in your head, you will find more that are on streets that you've walked for 20 years that you've never seen because you weren't sensitized to them. Yeah, but you go out thinking doorways, or you go out thinking, you know, a topic, and suddenly you start to see it where, where you've never seen it before. Does that make any sense to anybody?

Yeah, I've, I've got this book, Joe, uh, here.

And, um, you know, the common—

what I liked about the book, when you look at your archways, you say archways are like the windows into a city's soul, but But when you look at your portrait section, for example, in the same book, the quote that stuck with me is, and it's the same with the archways in a sense, but the portrait quote was, it's one thing to make a picture of what a person looks like, it's another thing to make a portrait of who they are. And I think that that's been a guiding light for me. You know, you take a picture of anybody, but if you can look into their eyes and see the soul of a person, just like you saw the soul of these archways, Yeah. You get a much more meaningful picture.

Yeah, yeah. But it's so difficult to do, isn't it? Yeah, I mean, like, you might get one of those every few years if you're lucky, kind of thing.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

But you've got to keep trying. I mean, you know, I mean, these are not particularly brilliant portraits by any means, but I enjoyed taking them, and I, and I connected with people, and I had some lovely conversations. And practice the craft, you know.

And the camera, when you get close to people, the camera becomes a means of communication.

Definitely, definitely. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I mean, some of these, some of these I had absolutely fascinating conversations with, some of these. And some of them, you know, like, I mean, that fortune seeker lady there, I mean, She wasn't ever so happy that I think I'd taken a picture, and, you know, there was no interaction really on that one. But a lot of these other ones, I had great chats with them. This guy Freddie, he's a chef, and I met him on the street, and I said, you've got to let me take your picture. I said, I'm doing some street photography, can I take your picture? And he said, yeah, yeah, sure, yeah. I said, you should be in Game of Thrones. He said, I am. He said, I'm an extra. Yeah. And when I'm not chefing, yeah, I go and wield a battle axe and kind of, you know.

I hope he wears a hairnet in the kitchen.

But I mean, you can just imagine him, can't you, stripped down with a battle axe, you know, or whatever, running across a field. And that's what he does. He's a film extra. And he's in Vikings and he's in Game of Thrones and all these other things.

and stuff.

I mean, just wonderful. I just kind of spotted him on the street and I've got to take your picture kind of thing. So yeah, wonderful. Absolutely wonderful. So yeah, I mean, that's just my little project. But it turned into a book and that turned into my first kind of Zoom talk and launched, you know, quite a lot of work that I've done over the last 5 or 6 years on Zoom and online training and all the rest of it. You never know where a project will take you, you know. And I was interviewed for various photo podcasts and magazines and things like that and whatever. And putting your work together, but then putting it out there is very important. And it's not an easy, necessarily an easy thing to do, to put your work out there. There is a challenge to showing your work because there's, I think, I mean, for those of you that have done projects, correct me if I'm wrong, does anybody not suffer from imposter syndrome? You never think your stuff is good enough. Amanda, you're laughing here.

I always think that.

Yeah.

And yeah, it's like, well, like Claudine and maybe other people here, we're looking at doing another project. And because we did one, I think, was it last year or the year before that you advised? Was it last year, Claudine? I'm losing track of time.

We started the year before that.

You did the year before.

Yeah.

Losing track of time. I've had a busy workday. And, um, That was great and that was an inspiration. So we're working on another one.

Fabulous.

But you reminded me because I went back into photography in 2019, '20, and then COVID happened. And I didn't think of it as a project. I just, I don't know what I thought of it, but it's like focused on 2 friends who've got an allotment. And actually looking back at it now, I'm like, well, actually that was a project. And I made a little book out of that through Kew. It was just, All very organic, all very raw. I didn't have any connection with anyone at the time. I was getting back into photography after many, many years. And actually looking back, I thought, oh my God, you know, I could probably change the quality of some of the images now. They're awfully noisy, but—

But it doesn't matter, does it? And, you know, nobody will care that those photos were noisy. They'll be looking at that and thinking, this is, this is a snapshot of time when the world was changing, and you documented these 2 and their allotment, their, their, the stability of their life around a little plot of land and all those wonderful things. And that's the story, isn't it?

It was. And, and it lent itself, I suppose, because it was COVID, COVID time as well. And I don't know, it's just different times. And being outdoors.

Yeah.

You had to be outdoors at the time. But then since then, it was good to join up with Claudine and company to really switch your head into other projects. And then I went into street, did street stuff, and then did the one on Chasing the Winter Sun. And then from that, just listening to you tonight about how something can be a long project, and I'm realizing that's almost like what I'm aiming for, what we're aiming for, Claudia and me and others in the Automat EPS, is another project. And I'm realizing actually that's probably part of that original project, you know. I'm just evolving, evolving from that, looking at other layers in the street. And so, yeah.

And sometimes, I mean, what you— you know, now we've all got kind of, you know, Lightroom or whatever our digital asset management system is that, you know, we've got our you know, collection of photos going back 5 years, 10 years, 20 years, whatever. It's sometimes quite interesting to just go back and just scan and see whether there's anything that is a thread. Yeah. Over a number of years, because they're probably—

Good point.

Probably things that you shoot, it might be the river or trees or, you know, the moon, or— but there's probably things that you've shot regularly over time. It might be your village or street or, you know, something like that. And again, then that is a possibility because you can mine the archive now and kind of start to tell that story over 10 years or 20 years. And it doesn't matter that the photos are a little bit ropey maybe, or whatever. And I know I'm going against what David was saying earlier on a little bit there, but the story is almost more important than the quality of the images, if you like.

That was the thing, is that it's— I'm not looking for perfection. I'm looking more for the feel.

Yeah.

How it makes people feel. I think that was what I was looking for. That said, it's amazing seeing perfect pictures that people produce.

But perfect pictures can be sterile as well, can't they? And if you look at a lot of the greats, and I mean further down the page, I mean, we won't go through it all tonight, but there are a lot of links to some fantastic photo projects. So I would encourage everybody to invest a little bit of time tomorrow or, you know, over the next few days and just explore some of the links. Because there's some fantastic stuff linked further down from here that I hope will allow you to discover perhaps photographers that you don't know as well. Because I had great fun putting this together earlier on today, and I sent it off to Muriel before the kind of lunchtime or whatever, just to get a reality check that it was kind of— that it was okay, and she gave me the nod.

not.

So, so yeah, I was feeling okay to come tonight.

And I'll ask a question about the legality. I've, um, one of my thoughts was taking pictures of people. If I'm not for this particular project and the exhibition, but not making money out of it, then you're fine.

Do I—

the UK, you don't need, you don't need permission if they're on a public— if they're in a public place. Now, if you're shooting them on private property, then there may be rules.

Yeah, but if I'm not making money, if I put them in an exhibition, you're fine, and I don't make money out of it.

No, that's artistic use.

That's okay. Yeah, but if I was going to sell the picture, that is different.

Yeah. Now, selling it— if, if you're going to use the picture as, as kind of overt marketing, um, assets, you know, put it on a billboard to sell hairspray or whatever it is, then you need model releases and you need that kind of stuff. But if it's, if it's part of an artistic book, say, yes, you don't need, you don't.

Okay.

Well, that's useful.

Yeah.

That's useful because it's one of my thoughts. But if—

If the intent is commercial, basically you need a release.

Yes. Okay.

If it's not, if the intent, if the intent isn't commercial, if it's primarily artistic, you don't need a release.

Okay. But that's good to know. Thank you.

Yeah, go. Can I just follow up on that point that you're making? So in a book like yours, is that artistic? Is that commercial? Because you're selling it. Yeah, no, it's not considered to be, um, commercial. Um, right, that's artistic use because it's a photography book.

That's really useful.

Yeah, it's a photography book, you know. So yeah. Okay, great. That's quite a broad, broad brush then, isn't it, if it's a photography book?

Yeah.

Yeah, no, but if, um, Joe, but just on that point, the, the fortune teller who is probably sticking pins in you at the moment, uh, she wasn't happy that you took the photograph, I think you said. I mean, isn't there the threat of some comeback? Although you say it's artistic, if she was to pick up that book on Amazon and see her picture in there, what protection have you got against any comeback from her?

I don't know. I've never had any comeback.

And what I'm just curious— I'm just curious.

Well, what I've— what I always did— I mean, I'm not shooting street now, I haven't done for a year or so— but what I always did whenever I made eye contact with anybody that I took a picture of was I always went up to them afterwards and I said, I hope you don't mind, I've just taken a picture of you. I'm shooting street photography. Would you like to have a look? Yeah, nobody ever asked me to delete the picture because I was always transparent, I was always upfront, and I didn't skulk away as if I'd done something wrong.

Yeah.

So now, in that particular case, I don't think I got to talk to her because something happened that got in the way of me going up to her, you know, because it was in quite a crowded market area and stuff like that. Maybe she turned right back around inside or whatever it was. It was just a snapshot, so I didn't actually get to speak to her. Um, don't know what I'd do. I'd probably reissue the book without the photo in it, you know, just take it out or something like that. I, I wouldn't— I wouldn't kind of— I wouldn't want to cause anybody unhappiness, if you like, by having a photo out there.

No, I get that.

It's a difficult one though when you're, you know, you're trying to pursue your art and as you say you sell it as an artistic product, but you never know in this strange world we live in.

You don't, you don't. And I suppose that's, that's just a little risk that you have to manage.

Yeah, I usually think if you, if you take a picture of somebody in the street and you smile and wave and get a thumbs up or whatever, and if they smile back to you, then you've got a general idea they're okay with it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Um, you know, most of the time, even when I get that bit of a frown or whatever, once you walk up to them and show them and stuff and they, they see that there's nothing nasty or whatever, You know, it's—I've never had a problem with it. So yeah.

No, I've never heard anyone do the same either. But she was a fortune teller, and she may have some magic cards that she's playing. Well, maybe she knows.

Maybe she knows my karma, and that's—that's it.

You know, she's got she's got a little voodoo doll, and she's sticking pins in it.

I've—I've just had a chat with my friend GPT. Oh yeah, it says, it says that, um, if you're in a public place, then you're fine. Yeah, which I think you were alluding to earlier, Joe. As long as you're not on private property, then yes, in the UK. Yeah, because you go over to Paris, you're not allowed to shoot the street technically. Yeah, it does vary from country to country, you're right. Yeah, so, um, so it's, it's quite interesting that there are very different rules, uh, in different parts of the world. So look, types of photo projects, and what I've done here is I've just highlighted up some well-known photo projects by different artists. So documentary, we've got Workers by Salgado there, and I've given you a link to each of these, so, you know, if you click on that, it takes you off to to the Salgado project and you can have a look at it and stuff like that. Okay. So there are a good number of these. Robert Frank, Eugene Smith. So I mean, you know, these are all greats, if you like. And if you've not— if you're not aware of all these, and I wasn't aware of all these, there's some nice browsing to be done. Here. So documentary are kind of, you know, the people, places, and events, very often a point in time, because anything that we shoot is a point in time. And like Amanda's, you know, friends in the allotment stuff, you know, 5 years later, 10 years later, that's gone. They're not on the allotment anymore, or the allotment's been replaced by a— Block of flats or or whatever it is, and now that's a social piece. And you look back at that, and you look at what they were wearing, and you look at the cars parked in the street behind them and everything. And so so fast it becomes the past, doesn't it? You know, it's our life. We can remember it's only twenty years ago. It's only thirty years ago. Like, but our kids look at that and say, "You know, God, that's ancient history." Yeah, it's it's. it's scary stuff how fast the present becomes the past and our work becomes part of that record. And that's why we need to do projects, because if we don't, there is no record. And that's important, I think, that these records exist as well, isn't it? So that's documentary. Conceptual or thematic, Okay, so just taking an idea, an abstract idea, or a concept. Isolation, connection, memory, time, you know, stuff like that. Symbolism and metaphor and stuff. So very much more abstract. And again, there's a couple of good ones there. Series. So photographing the same type of subject repeatedly. to reveal patterns and variations and stuff like that. All the pubs in your town, portraits of the people who share a profession, you know, shoot all the lawyers in your town or all the shopkeepers in your town. A friend of mine, Shay, travels the west of Ireland and he rocks up in a village and he shoots all the shopkeepers. Yeah, there's dead shopkeepers all around the west of Ireland now, but no, I don't mean that. He shoots the shopkeeper and he normally shoots them in the door of their shop. And he's produced some phenomenal work, and, you know, had exhibitions and things like that. So series are wonderful. The Betjers, these are fascinating. They were a couple who shot, and they shot industrial structures. And it's an amazing body of work if you've never come across the Betjer. Um, water towers. Yeah, yeah, water towers and, and kind of mill structures and, uh, and furnaces and all kinds of things. Yeah. And then Ed Ruscha as well, Sunset Boulevard. Um, so that's an interesting one. And then we've got diaristic and personal projects. Um, and there's a, there's a little video there of one by Sophie Calle. Yeah, and she put this kind of conceptual thing together around, you know, this being left by a partner and with a note ending in take care of yourself. And she gave that to 107 different women and asked them to interpret it and kind of took photos around that. So again, really interesting.

That was fabulous. I saw that and I read it. was absolutely mind-blowing. Loved it.

So there's just a little YouTube video about that whole project on there that you can watch. And then Here Is New York was after the 9/11 attacks. And I think there were 50,000 images in that project, you know, because again, that was a massive, obviously, you know, big, big thing. Collaborative projects, shooting with other people? Okay, um, Steichen curated The Family of Man, 503 photos by 273 photographers, a collaborative portrait of humanity. It was one of the big early collaborative photo projects, really, really interesting, that one. Um, and then there's some experimental ones here, Stieglitz, Clouds, Yeah. Man Ray, if you've never come across Man Ray, he used this technique called photograms, putting objects directly onto light-sensitive paper. And there's a whole series of these, what he called rayographs, that's interesting to look at. Muriel, you'd enjoy those if you've not come across that stuff. Yeah, it's interesting. And then multiple cameras to capture sequential photographs of animals and humans in motion, the Muybridge. Again, a really, really interesting set of images and sets of images there. And then not forgetting David's favourite, some AV projects as well. This is quite a famous AV It's technically a film, like, but it kind of incorporates all the things that you would typically see in AV. And if you go to YouTube, there's— the whole film's out in 9 blocks, if you like. So you can get to those there and have a look at that. And it's been a kind of an inspirational AV piece. Are you aware of that one, David?

No, I'm just, I've just taken a photograph of it actually. I'll look it up.

Well, you've got the YouTube, it's all the links there in the, in the notes.

No, no, sure. I just, I don't want to be rude. I'm paying attention here. I will look at it later. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Well, that's what I'm hoping. I'm hoping this, this page becomes a resource that you can go off and jump to these different things and go off and look at them and stuff. Um, if everybody turns their cameras off, I'll know that you're doing that already, but yeah. Hopefully not, hopefully not. Um, for Claudine, some, some photo project ideas. Yeah, see whether anything, anything rings your bell here, Claudine. Okay, so obviously—

I do have an idea.

Yeah, obviously the 365 project, you know, take a photo every day.

Yeah, that's supposed to be really good.

Yeah, it's hard as well.

Apparently, yes.

But even if you tried it just for a month, you know.

That's a good idea. Yeah, yeah. While you were talking, I thought I must do the project that I had the idea of.

I mean, one that I wish I'd done but I didn't, and it's too late now, is kind of, you know, if you have a new grandchild or a, you know, a child, yeah, that you take a shot of them on their birthday every day. every year.

Yeah.

Um, in the same kind of pose, or, you know, or whatever. And, and then over 20, 30 years, you, you build up this amazing sequence of them. Um, and there's been many variants of that, you know. I've, I've seen lovely ones where, um, you know, there's, there's been the child and the father, or the child and the mother, or the, the 3 of them. And then there's more— there's 2 children and the mother and stuff like that. And, you know, it builds, and then, you know, one of the, one of the parents dies or whatever, and now there's only one left, and then the last one goes. And, you know, very, very evocative. But, you know, that sequence is, is shot over 40, 50 years, maybe something like that. Um, incredibly powerful.

Totally, totally unrelated, Joe. I have a friend who took his son, kids, grandkids, and took them to Lapland to see Santa, and over ten years, when the kids had written the letters to Santa, he had—the father had collected all these letters. And when they went to Lapland, Santa was sitting there with all the letters over the last ten years. The kids were—the kids were completely blown away by this.

Fantastic thing to do.

How wonderful!

Yeah. Yeah. But I mean, even that, you know, collecting the letters and taking a picture of them at Christmas.

Yeah. Yeah.

Now there's a lovely photo book, isn't it?

Yeah.

The childhood, you know, years or whatever, stuff like that. A day in the life. I mean, this is such a simple one to do. Yeah. A day in the life of your workplace, your favourite charity, the dog's home, you know, whatever it is, and follow the local baker for the day or, you know, whatever. So many different things you can do with a day in the life. You know, there's no reason not to do projects other than your own inertia. That is cruel. Absolutely, absolutely, yeah. And you see, what we need to do is we need to set up a competition or a project. It doesn't have to be a competition, but even an evening where everybody has to bring the fruits of their project in 3 months' time or in 6 months' time.

Yeah. Oh, that would be good. We could do that because we are doing a project like Amanda and David and, you know, quite a few of us. I bought that project since last year.

Yeah, but if we put, if we put a date in the diary in 3 months or in 6 months, then people know, right, I've got to bring something that night, you know.

Yeah, it has to be after September. Yeah, for us, or October. Yeah, October. Yeah, super.

Well, if we did it in November, November 11th is my birthday. I could come and, I could come and come.

Oh, there you are! Come do Edinburgh for your birthday! Wow, birthday and project!

Deal done.

What a prospect! That's it, you've said it.

There's no deadline, there's no impetus, is there? You know, you very often, you just— it's— you just— actually, yeah, I'll get around to that kind of thing. But if you know that you've got to show something, um, colour studies— now I'm not going near that one, okay? I'm colourblind, I'm not going near colour studies, okay? I'll leave that one to people who can see colour properly. Local landmarks, yeah, show your area in a new light. Could be historic, but street art's a great one because that's so transient, yeah, you know, and capturing street art perhaps over a period of time or all the street art in a particular area can be quite interesting as well because, you know, that street art is created by a set of artists, and capturing those artists' work can be, can be really interesting. Series of portraits, okay. Um, abstract stuff, textures, forms, you know. Go and shoot shadows for the day. Go and shoot triangles, um, or something like that. And then his— that's the one I mentioned with Charlie Waite. He did one of those, the Four Seasons. Yeah, obviously street photography, we've seen that. Architectural details. So again, I mean, I did that as part of my kind of street thing with the arches, but I did a little portrait, a little project a couple of years ago, Georgian doorways in Dublin. There are thousands and thousands of beautiful Georgian doorways in Dublin with this half-diameter kind of window at the top over the door, and typically a little bit of a portico around the door and stuff like that. So that makes— that made a lovely little series of different doorways and stuff like that. But yeah, I mean, you mentioned staircases, didn't you, Claudine? Staircases are great. There's lots of story in a staircase as well. And then yeah, things like a family tradition. That's a nice one. Because again, family traditions don't last forever. You know, at some point the kids have gone or, you know, you move house or whatever and that family tradition has gone, hasn't it? Or whatever, a hobby. Personal journey. A lot of people, a lot of people do that. I mean, too many of my friends have documented their cancer journey.

Yeah, you know, things like that.

Now it's very personal, but it can be a cathartic thing. It can be a, you know, a healing thing. It can be a way of them making sense of what they're going through, that kind of stuff. So there's lots of possibilities here.

Yeah.

Choose a project that excites you in some way. Select something that you're generally interested in because passion will get you through. Because if it's a longer-term project, you know, there will be fits and starts and the— but you've got to maintain a momentum. There's almost sometimes a discipline to a project. I don't know about this one. Sometimes I do try and set clear parameters, sometimes I don't. Sometimes I just let the project emerge. I'll start and see what comes. Just like sometimes when I'm doing a bit of writing, you know, I'll start with a general idea And it takes— I've probably written 3 or 4 pages before I actually figure out where I'm actually going with this. It's like going for that walk in the woods, isn't it? You know, you follow the initial path, but then you just kind of see where it takes you, kind of thing. And I love that. I love that serendipity. I think serendipity in projects is a wonderful, wonderful way of exploring. unknowns, you know, that you didn't know you were going to encounter. So that's rather lovely. I think this is important. Share your progress. Show your work to other people.

Yeah.

And I think in any artistic endeavor, we're fearful of showing our work because it's not good enough. And it's never good enough. But it's always good enough. Yeah. You know, and I think being brave enough to show your work and it requires a bravery to show people your work because They may not like it. And then you're gutted. Yeah. You know, what do you mean you don't like it? Yeah. Yeah. Oh, that's lovely. Yeah. Oh, you know, that's just so cutting, isn't it? Yeah. Oh, that's lovely. Yeah.

Or that's interesting.

Yes, that's another one, isn't it?

Oh, that's nice.

That's nice.

That's the worst one. Nice.

What's that? Yeah. Oh dear. Yes, we've all had those experiences, haven't we? And don't aim for perfection. Yeah. Focus on completing the project rather than making it all perfect.

Yeah.

Perfect, you know, is the enemy of completion, isn't it? It's, you know, sometimes good enough is good enough. I've learned this writing books. But a book can never be finished. At some point, you've got to say, okay, it's done. It's good enough, it's done. I can continue to tweak this, forever. But I need to draw a line and say it's done. And yes, next week I will think of something that I should have put into that book, okay? But that'll go into the next one. Yeah. At some point you've got to let it go. You've got to— you've just got to let it go. Because if you don't let it go, it doesn't free up the space for the next project, for the next thing. And sometimes that project may be another photographic project, but sometimes it may not be. Sometimes you need to free your space up for the next thing to come into your life, whether, you know, and it might be taking up a new hobby, it might be a new interest, it might be another photographic project, it might be something completely different that you don't even know is coming yet. But you've got to You've got to make those spaces to do that. I'm going to jump to the bottom, okay, because I know we're kind of starting to run out of time. How can EPS members showcase their projects within EPS? Now, David, this one comes from Claude. This one comes straight from Claude, okay? Because I thought, oh my God. Let me ask him for an answer. I've been in EPS now for probably about 5 years, I think, and I couldn't answer all of this. So I said to— I went into Claude and I said, right, Edinburgh Photographic Society, okay, how can EPS members showcase their projects within the EPS? That's what I put into Claude, and this is what it came up with. So this is all obviously available to the AIs. It went off and did a bit of research on Edinburgh Photographic Society, He probably hit the website and, you know, other things. And it came up with all of this stuff. So the members exhibition, 2 members exhibitions each year, okay? And there's even stuff about them. And look, it even picked up kind of stuff, you know, Dave Reid stuff, Derek Robertson stuff, Karen stuff, Deborah stuff. Now, I presume that those are actually real. Well, one would have to check. I presume that these are not hallucinations. I mean, Dave Reid, I know we've got Dave Reid, and he does—

he did do canoeing, and Derek Robertson definitely did infrared.

I did do Edinburgh in infrared, right? Yeah.

Wow. So, and there were definitely penguins one year. Definitely.

So those are somewhere in the public domain associated with EPS then, so that's fine. Monthly competitions also ask for project-based thinking or allow project-based thinking, okay, typically judged as individual images, but, you know, maybe you could test those individual images from a longer body of work, you know, or whatever. Maybe we need some, maybe we need one or two you know, panel or bigger kind of project competitions, or, or not even necessarily scored competitions, but critique nights or something like that, or just sharing?

Well, one of the ways is to join the Meetup group.

Yes.

And then you can be part of the exhibition that's going to take place in September.

Yeah, absolutely.

It's just putting your name on it and joining the, the project.

Yeah, she's nothing.

I mean, it's just there's no money involved. If people are interested, you haven't got long now because we need to have final numbers in the next couple of weeks.

You're gonna get a flood after tonight, Claudine.

Well, there's only 23 people, and most of whom are actually involved. Yeah, no, I think— but I'm serious. I mean, if people are interested, why not?

I mean, you just use, you know, And it's a wonderfully supportive group because, I mean, I've done a few sessions with you and it's great.

Yes. Yeah, it's great. Great fun.

I think the— sorry. Sorry.

I think the final call was made at the weekend. Was it? For numbers, Claudine. Yeah. Sorry to pour cold water over you.

I apologize.

Yeah, no, that's okay.

I put my foot in it. All right.

No, no, no, that's okay. It's okay, it's, it's just as it evolved.

So, you know, what we could— but in principle, you know, what we could do is for Jo's 11th of November visit, yeah, we could have a little set of projects as an exhibition.

There's nothing in the exhibition diary for November, so that would be something to put on the wall.

Yes, well, there's 2 things here. I mean, I think the first thing that this has come off an AI grab, it's pretty accurate. I mean, we can talk about whether these panels were there or not, but if you actually look at what you've been able to capture, it's pretty accurate. It goes everywhere from show and tell all the way to our songs. But bringing it back into EPS, I think there's a couple of things we could do. One is that I think it was mentioned in the survey Isabel ran the other night there, that we could create an outlet for members to not just do a show and tell, but give them a slot every time we meet just to give 10 minutes on their body of work and just to show a compendium of, of their, of their work, a body of work, if you like, a project, or just show their capability. And in a way, it's one thing we could do. The other thing we could do is that, and I contemplated it on the digital before, is that We limit the portrayal of the results from the digital to Edinburgh Photographic Society building. We don't take it outside the building. We, I mean, we, we collate fantastic images and we could try and, and have them portrayed in shopping malls or in galleries or—

Hospitals.

Different, I mean, it's different media. You see trucks now with massive screens on the side that go to cattle shows and truck shows that you— there's other ways that we could actually take the stuff out there. But if people don't come to us on Great King Street, then there's nothing to stop us putting a companion and file together and having it beamed, um, elsewhere. So there's, there's other things we could do within EPS of that ilk.

Empty shops.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, like St. James Centre. I look at St. James Centre and there are big walls there And, um, they actually say if you've got something to show, you know, bring it along. We could put stuff and offer it to them.

We don't need to make money out of it.

We could make money, but you don't need to make money out of it. But you could actually make a file and give it to them to run. Yeah.

Good idea.

One thing that reminds me of when I was doing the street project, I got involved with 2 or 3 schools. A friend of mine's a schoolteacher, and she saw some of the images, and she said, would you come in and give a talk to the kids? So I came in, I gave a talk to the kids, and I printed out some of the images, and we just spread them out on the table. Yeah. And what we ended up doing that day was, yeah, she said, Right, everybody pick an image and go and sit at your desk, okay, and write a story. I'll give you half an hour, write a story based on the image. Yeah, and it turned into a little exhibition because, so we put the images up on the wall in the sports hall and then put the stories that the images had created, if you like, that, you know, had been sparked by the images. And So then we kind of did some little templates with, you know, the image printed at the top of an A4 page and then a blank space for a poem or for a story. And we did that in 2 or 3 more schools, and we even did it with the Dublin School of Music. And they had composition classes for music, and they had pieces of music written based on some of the images. Absolutely wonderful, you know, to see where these things can go. Um, and I never in my wildest dreams ever expected anything like that to happen, but it was, it was super.

Could I just go back to what you were saying, David? You know, you're on about putting something up in a shopping mall or something outside the EPS. Me myself, I've been doing photography for years, and I only found out about the EPS last year, you know what I mean? So any young photographer coming into photography might not know about the EPS. So if you could put like something, images up and let people see it, and then that might bring more people in.

Well, to your point, John, I mean, I've been a— I've been an advocate of getting greater utilisation of iPhone imagery and AI imagery, as you may have heard. But when you wrap this up with trying to rejuvenate EPS and get a younger membership, Then what you might want to be doing in that sphere is not putting out our traditional stuff. It's putting out stuff that— not birds on sticks or mountain landscapes. What you might be doing is putting out stuff that's a bit more, let's say, funkier, that may appeal to a younger generation. And then A, you get the awareness, and B, you get the attraction to bring people. So I think more could be done in that area.

I agree with you.

Something with local schools and colleges.

Yeah, yeah.

Some of us, like myself, I don't show my pictures because I don't want to show my pictures for the judges. No, I'm not interested in the competitions. And I take pictures, sometimes they are way out, and the judge would go, oh my God, no, you get a 13. And, and, and so a lot of us don't show our pictures to other members.

A nice one that I did with Ross McKelvie, um, he invited me. He did, he did a few series of 10 at 10, um, 10 from 10. And basically he, he brought— he invited 10 photographers to show 10 images each and just talk for 1 minute about each image. And those made really interesting evenings.

Yeah, I agree.

I've seen something similar, or even 5, or even 5 from 5, you know. Yeah, yeah. But that— again, there's no pressure. It's just you're talking about your work, what you do, and you're just showing it and talking about why it means what it does to you and maybe how you did it or whatever.

And see, if we were more relaxed about that, then, you know, people like Claudine and others would be more willing, I think, to come along and show their body of work. And then you get a more representative collection of the members' work.

Yeah.

Otherwise, you can be fooled into looking at competition-compliant images, which is— which, you know, and that's, that's another whole subject because we're meant to be— no, we're meant to be artists, but, but the reality is you become conformists. in competition because they're making you do stuff, and if you step outside that, you're going to get a 12. And, um, it doesn't mean it's a bad picture, it's just non-conforming to what the judge is looking for. But I think, you know, in the wider public, going back to John's point, um, we've got a broader collection of work within the society that would have greater appeal to a wider, a wider forum.

And that would also probably encourage kind of new members who might feel a little bit challenged about going in for competitions because they see these experienced photographers with really high-quality work and all the rest of it. So yeah, getting away from that and providing forums for people to develop a body of work and show it and get positive kind of feedback on it.

It also helps people know that the EPS is actually there because like I spent years photographing and I didn't even know it existed, you know what I mean? Yeah. It wasn't until I started going to some of the groups with Claudine and Mark, and they would all tell me about the EPS. That was the only way I found out about it.

Oh yeah, good point. I'm scribbling notes down, Mira.

Food for thought. Yes, because you wanted some ideas, and these are very good ideas.

Can I jump back a little bit, Joe? Because we've got Neil McCubrey on, and you had the PhotoBook Group. Yeah. So I just wondered if Neil wanted to say anything about the group, or what the talk about projects prompts in his mind.

Yes, there we are, the PhotoBook Group. Yeah, Neil.

I agree with Pretty well everything you've said tonight.

Oh, wow.

Just on a personal note, I, as I've said in talks I've given, I, I find, um, going— but having a project to start with or a topic is the reverse of the way I like to work. I like to just take photographs and then find the projects out of them.

Yeah.

Which is what you've also mentioned as well. Yeah, the PhotoBook Group, we're hoping to get some excitement behind that, and some of the ideas that have come up in things like having surgeries where I'm thinking more like my experience of university tutorials where the group talk about the projects.

Yeah.

That's one idea I've mentioned to Claudine, and so Isabel and Muriel, that I think I'd like to have— I've forgotten his name now.

Nick.

Nick Pryor. who's very good on bookmaking to talk either to the main club or to the CD group as a way of expanding what the book group can do.

Yeah, we did in the RPS, we've done an 18-month project with Digital Imaging Group called Books and Zines, and it's been incredibly successful. We've had dozens and dozens of photographers come in, and we've had talks on zine creation. I've done some of them, and we've had other people coming in and doing them, in using Canva and Affinity, and, you know, lots of different ways of creating both online and printed material. We've had printers come in and talk about stuff We've had people from the paper companies come in and talk about it, and from ink, and, you know, all these other things. But the encouraging thing has been kind of like, get your images into some kind of an artifact.

Yes.

A book, a zine, a website, it doesn't matter. Just do it, you know, do something, if you like. And people have tried it, and they've learned so much. And then, you know, we've now got a little website where we're showcasing these these things, and people have, you know, shown printed books and had them printed and stuff like— it's just wonderful. Um, been so great to see.

Yeah, yeah, I, I love making books. I started doing it about 14 years ago, and it's so much more satisfying than single images.

Yes.

Yeah, it's an— you create a narrative, and yeah, that's so much better for my perspective than the single image. And I'm following comments made earlier, I got tired quite a few years ago with entering competitions. Yeah, because it was so restrictive and of my creativity and also of the, the rules applied.

Yeah, so, and you don't need that straitjacket. I mean, it's a very good discipline probably early on in any photographer's career to enter competitions and kind of— because it pushes you up, it pushes your technical standards. But at some point you get to a point where, yeah, oh no, I can do the technical stuff now. Yeah. And now I need to— now I need to spread my wings creatively.

Yeah, yeah, that's it. It's the— the competitions were great for teaching the craft. Yes. But once you've got the craft, then the creativity can start.

Yeah, yeah.

Could I just make an observation from a project from out of the CD group? So we had a team-based zine sort of competition. In fact, David was the judge, I seem to recall. But I think what was nice with that, and certainly as a newer member, was helpful because it actually gave us a topic that meant we had, in this case, 5 different members of the Society working together on it. Yeah, yeah, which is always fascinating to collaborate on something. You've got different viewpoints and different ways of seeing, which is really interesting to try and integrate that into a cohesive whole, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, so many good ideas.

Love it.

Oh my God. We are, and we're pretty much on time as well, Mira.

Well, 20:59, I think that must be a record.

And I mean, there's a couple of other things there, inspirational photographers and their projects. So I've given you just some links to some other stuff there that you may or may not have come across. And then there was a— there's a section there on other places to showcase your photo projects around the UK— galleries, festivals and events, competitions that you can enter, different other stuff around, you know, online communities and things. There's a lot of different places to put your work out there if you're, you know, interested in doing that. So I hope the Notion page is a resource for everybody. That's all I was trying to make it tonight.

Well, I think it's fantastic to have, and there are certainly photographers on there that I haven't seen before. So this has been excellent for me. I think we should all do the clapping thing, Joe.

Oh, lovely. Thank you.

Joe, could you remind us of the URL for that?

I'll put it in the chat again. Yeah, you— I put it because if you—

Still there.

Yeah, if you joined after it was put in, you won't see it. So there we are. Oh, I see it in the chat again now. So just bookmark that or favourite it on your URLs bar. It'll be a persistent web page.

Joe, what do you want us all to do for the next meeting, 2nd of April?

Yeah, put together a short project. Now, you know, however many images that involves. Okay, not expecting a full photo book from anybody or a a full website, but at least come with a series of images or a panel or something, and be prepared to show it and talk about it. Yeah, let's have a show and tell and celebrate everybody's work.

Okay.

And don't be shy. Yeah, if you're somebody that doesn't normally come to one of these things and show your stuff, come and show your stuff. Yeah. This is a friendly, safe space, and nobody's going to be shooting you down.

Could you rephrase that, Joe? I mean, you don't say that. Show your images.

Yes, that's right. Show your images.

Yeah.

Brilliant. Thank you very much, Joe, and I'll see you in 2 weeks.

Yeah. Super. Thank you.

Take it from there. Thank you.

Thank you. Great, Joe. Thanks, Paul.

Thank you.