Pat Holmes: LRPS the EASY WAY (or was it?)
Back in February, I posted the first of, what I hoped would become, a semi-regular feature for the website where club members could contribute an article or story on any photography related topic. Dave Hollows contributed the first feature, and Pat Holmes has been kind enough to contribute the second.Unfortunately due to general lack of interest in the website this will probably be the last one, but thank you both for making the effort for this and humouring me :)
LRPS the EASY WAY (or was it?)
After many years as a happy snapper with varying degrees of satisfaction I decided that a City and Guilds course in photography might be beneficial so enrolled at Arden College, Manchester for the Part I course. Bear in mind that this was the mid-90s and the C&G course debarred the use of both digital photography and computer generated images, facts that, having access to neither and wishing only to gain experience in black and white darkroom work, did not disturb me in the least.
About twenty four of us turned up on the first night; this was something of a shock as there were only eight enlargers available for our use but as the weeks wore on it became apparent that there was a hardcore of only half-a-dozen students, of whom I was one and I quickly realised the advantage of developing my film at home so that I could spend college time making full use of the enlargers – we hard core quickly established our personal favourite work-stations and considered it something of an imposition when, on occasion, we had to share. And so, gradually, from lectures, set tasks and through swapping what information we had acquired elsewhere, we made progress in a very pleasant atmosphere of camaraderie.
At about this time there was an article in Amateur Photographer about the Bromoil Circle’s exhibition in Little Germany, Bradford. The work featured had captured my imagination so I rang for further information and was fortunate not merely to be invited to the opening of the exhibition, with wine and refreshments, but also received a warm invitation to attend the next meeting of the Yorkshire Monochrome Group. There I found an enthusiastic group of monochrome workers whose production ranged far and wide, and from whom I learnt a lot. This gave access to several workshops with eminent photographers, further advancing my knowledge if not my production, and on occasion I discovered that I was even able to teach my college tutors!
Part I called for the submission of two folios, one consisting of commercially produced colour prints on the theme of preparing a brochure advertising Manchester to the world at large, the other being a folio of our own work showing appropriate use of depth of field, close up, wide angle etc, and for both of these I gained a credit.
Part II was scheduled to take at least two years, but in the event a radical change in the syllabus at the end of our second year meant that we had to complete within the second year. This entailed the production of five folios, selected from about seventeen themes, all required to include ten or twelve photographs which could be either black and white or colour prints or slides. These must be a coherent panel and show good use of all varied camera and printing skills, and were marked on both creativity and technical competence, my strength lying more on the latter than on the former. Most of the folios also had to include a statement of intention, how we hoped to achieve that intention, why we changed our minds etc, etc, etc, (i.e. an awful lot of paperwork) and a statement of how each of the photographs was taken and processed, plus our own evaluation of them. I have to admit that my editing skills were not a strong point at first, probably still aren’t, and I found I really had to be bloody-minded to get my selection down to the required number. My chosen themes were Victorian Railway Architecture which I thoroughly enjoyed researching, and found it quite amusing having to go for a training session in health and safety before being allowed to use my camera at Piccadilly railway station, The Woodland Landscape of Alderley Edge – another delight both to photograph and to research, and the occasion of my discovering that the better half was no use as a tripod bearer usually being half a mile in front of me or somewhere far behind when needed – and for both of these I worked in monochrome. Portraits were submitted as colour slides and I ventured to break the rules here by using digital thumbnails of each portrait to head the relevant descriptive passages – very daring and called for some explaining. Next came Tourist Tat, submitted as colour prints, commercially produced, and for the fifth I opted for Close-ups,a table top selection submitted as cross processed slides, and chosen simply because time was running short and there was virtually no written work required. The titles here are my own; I forget now what the stated themes really were. The marking of all modules was moderated by external C&G examiners.
Getting finished in time was something of a rush, plus concerns that quality of output would inevitably be affected, but at the end of the three years we had the satisfaction of looking back on a lot of shared fun, outings with the daytime mixed media course students, all 16 going on 8 years of age, the frustration of discovering that the said students had contaminated the various chemicals or “adjusted” the solutions etc – well we had to blame someone – and the realisation that we had, in fact, learnt a lot. The cost of the course rocketed after our first year, but fortunately a scheme was instituted by the government which enabled us to apply for grants and which, to our amazement, we were granted. The icing on the cake was the gaining of five distinctions and an LRPS on the back of that. Since then, of course, C&G requirements have changed radically and while my own enthusiasm has not diminished I fear I taken a few slides down that slippery slope of ignoring some of what I’ve learnt, plus I’ve all but abandoned my beloved darkroom, spending my time coming to terms with the digital revolution.
Pat Holmes 05.02.07
posted by Craig @ 7:21 pm
Comments: 1
