READING PHOTOGRAPHS

TENBY AND DISTRICT CAMERA CLUB

The chairman Roy Packer gave a very warm welcome to the guest speaker for the 12^th December club meeting. Mr Rob Mitchell, no stranger to the club, Rob was here in April 2012 judging the clubs landscapes/seascapes competition.

Rob Mitchell lives and works in Swansea, lecturing at Swansea Metropolitan University a position he has held since 1984. He also runs his own photographic business ‘Penumbraphotos.com’. Tonight was not about judging but about ‘Reading Photographs’. How we read to get more from them, and leaving ourselves with more questions than answers.

Rob opened his talk with the following statement “To enhance your appreciation of photography, it is necessary to development the skills to make careful visual analysis”. He explained that the general vocabulary used in photography is divided into three topics, descriptive, visual and composition. Using these topics the talk expanded into describing photographs with a list of sub titles such as abstract, content, expressive and geometric shapes, Rob explained some of these sub titles with an image and asked members what they could see, what is it, what made you think that? The visual elements, again was explained with sub titles ranging from focus, natural or artificial lighting, shape, repetition and space. Once again an image was shown for members to comment on, with Rob asking “If you could touch the surface of the photograph – how would it feel”. The last topic was composition of the photograph, the angle point where you take the picture from, the background, balance and central focus; again using an image the arrangements or structure of the photograph was explained.

To conclude this very interesting talk on ‘Reading photographs’ Rob finished his talk with these words “Explore your own personal interpretations and that there is no one correct answer when interpreting a work of art”.