The Royal Photographic Society latest updates May 2020

For anyone with an interest in photography please check out the Charity dedicated to education and promotion of the highest standards please look at The Royal Photographic Society (RPS) 

The RPS which has a community of 11,000 members worldwide is like many other charities coping with the effects of the COVID19 Coronavirus pandemic and has a number of interesting online talks, workshops coming up and many of these are free with the option to make a voluntary donation. All the RPS events are open to any members of the public. 

I have been a member of the RPS since 2003 and am now regional organiser for the South Wales Region. You can find out more about our region here

The next free online interview organised by the RPS Distinctions Team is between Peter Hayes FRPS, Chair of the RPS Distinctions Committee and Professional Travel Photographer David Noton FRPS. More details and to register a place can be made here This is the fourth talk in a series. The previous talks are now available on the Royal Photographic Society YouTube Channel. Go here to access the RPS YouTube site. 

If anyone wants to become a member please visit the RPS Membership Page to find out more.

Upcoming interviews with Creative Professionals

Look out for my upcoming interview series with arts professionals in the field of performing arts, design, photography.

How are people coping in these fields in the current COVID 10 Coronavirus Pandemic when many venues, galleries are closed and gatherings of people are either limited in attendance or closed completely.

My first post coming soon will be with Sabrina Karlsson a music teacher and performing musician and songwriter based in Karlskrona, Sweden and her daughter Nessi who lives in South Wales.

Nessi is a creative in the world of modelling, fashion abstract and surrealist art. Nessi works on projects with other creative professionals including photographers.

Both Sabrina and Nessi are originally from Germany so we discussed language learning writing and creativity in different cultures in our conversation. We also discussed how the Coronavirus pandemic is impacting family contact across countries since a lot of frontiers are currently closed and everyone is taking up with online contact using online Apps.

South Wales Region Royal Photographic Society

In November 2017, I was elected as Secretary of the South Wales Region of the Royal Photographic Society. The Royal Photographic Society exists to educate members of the public by increasing their knowledge and understanding of Photography and in doing so to promote tge highest standards of achievement of Photography in order to encourage public appreciation of Photography. The Royal Photographic Society exists to promote photography and image-making and to support photographers in realising their potential, irrespective of tgeir level of knowledge, equipment or skills. It has an international membership. The Society also acts as a public advocate for photography and photographers. The Royal Photographic Society is an educational charity promoting both the art and science of photography. It is a membership organisation but, as a charity, undertakes a significant number of activities for the public benefit. Membership is open to all, irrespective of experience or knowledge. No qualifications are required to join, simply a passion and love for photography or images, its technologies and applications. Find out more here If you wish to become a member you can do so here If you are interested to educate yourself further and pursue one of tge Internationally recognised distinctions then you can find out more here In South Wales we have a number of events coming up in 2018 - check out our regional page by clicking the Regions and Chapters link on the website.

20/20 Vision Publishing

As many of you will know, I am registered self employed as a small business. One of my activities is to publish books. I have ISBNs available to publish books under the banner 20/20 Vision Publishing. If you are interested in having your work published - poetry, prose, art, photography - please get in touch by email rhysjones@ntlworld.com to discuss.

On The Road in Wales 2015

Two Swedish musician friends, Lolita Ray and Jan Albert Carlsson are heading to Wales between September 23 and September 29 2015. I recorded and filmed them on June 4 in Stockholm. You can check out the recordings on the attached links.

https://youtu.be/T8qRuTZ18gE
https://youtu.be/K3SHN2Bbv64
https://youtu.be/cp_7qbPs7JM

They will be playing concerts in Swansea, Uplands and in Laugharne. Watch this space for more details.

On the Road in Wales

I haven't posted for a while as I have been otherwise occupied and sometimes a break is what is needed . I thought it was a good opportunity to start in 2014 by mentioning that I have produced a photobook of a tour of Wales made by Izzy Young and Maria Lindstrom. The link below allows previews in full screen and gives some background on Izzy and Maria. If you want to know more let me know after you have viewed...

Izzy Young and Maria Lindstrom - On the Road in Wales by Rhys Jones | Make Your Own Book

Crossing the Bar : The Photographer and the Poet : a collaboration

I've just returned from the Isle of Wight. Whilst there, I visited Dimbola Lodge at Freshwater, the former home of Julia Margaret Cameron (1815 - 1879) , the Victorian photographer. It is now a photography museum and stages exhibitions and events. Julia Margaret Cameron took on the challenges of handling large cameras and dangerous chemicals at a time when photography was known as 'The Black Art'. Ignoring conventions, she experimented with composition and focus. Today she is credited with creating the first photographic close-up portraits. Amongst the many portraits she took was of a neighbour in Freshwater, the poet Alfred Tennyson. One of his most famous poems was written on the ferry between Lymington and Yarmouth called 'Crossing the Bar'. The ferry service still runs and is one of three in operation - the others being Southampton to East Cowes : the route we used this time and Portsmouth to Fishbourne.

A past collaboration between a photographer and a poet and a whole community of visitors to the studio to visit a photographer who is seen now as one of the most pioneering of her time, ignoring established conventions socially in her life and pushing the boundaries in technology available.

Crossing the Bar by Alfred Tennyson  (1809 – 1892)

Sunset and evening star,
  And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
  When I put out to sea,

But such a tide as moving seems asleep,
    Too full for sound and foam,
When that which drew from out the boundless deep
    Turns again home.

Twilight and evening bell,
And after that the dark!
And may there be no sadness of farewell,
    When I embark;

For tho' from out our bourne of Time and Place
    The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face
    When I have crost the bar.

First Flash Fiction

 

I went to a writing workshop at No 5 Cwmdonkin Drive, the birthplace of Dylan Thomas on 27 October 1914. It will be his 100th birthday next year and parties are already planned in Swansea and afar to celebrate. The house has a special atmosphere and has been carefully restored to how it would have been when the Thomas family were the occupants in the 1920s.

 

The workshop was part of the Pili Pala Festival literature and music festival held in the Uplands over the last two days to raise money for a charity dealing with drug rehabilitation and alcohol abuse. As part of the workshop, we were given a black and white photograph and asked to apply what we had learnt and write a Flash Fiction. Here's my attempt :

 

The Car

 

The last flames were extinguished on the shell of the burnt out Ford Escort. "Lucky it didn't go over the cliff edge" said one of the two attending police officers. "Log book says registered in 1976. Drug dealers I'd say - don't think Mrs Hyacinth Fogarty would have been at the wheel" The officer took a close look at the twisted metal and pronounced "Insurance write-off, one for the knackers yard...there's stuff in the boot though, Harry." The four hands started sifting through an old Kia-Ora orange squash box full of photographs found underneath a beige duffel coat and an Marks and Spencer navy blue wool fisherman's sweater with a toggle missing. "Movie stars - I love these old black and white images". Harry picked up a faded and slightly soggy white card and read  "Edward Browning - a lifetime achievement award in film cinematography - presented by the British Film Institute 28 November 1980...I didn't expect to find that...wonder how it got here ?" 

Exhibition Walcot Mortuary Chapel Bath July 8-14 2013

Once again in 2013, I will be exhibiting some of my photographs with our group of artists : Rose Davies, Melanie Ezra, Kara Seaman, Owen Martin and our guest artist from Bath, Jeni Wood. We are known as Commensalis, which derives from a Medieval Latin word meaning working together in an informal way towards a common goal or end. The location of our exhibition will once again be in Walcot Mortuary Chapel, Bath. The chapel is owned by Bath City Council and rented out for use by artists for visual and performance art events. This year we have decided to raise some funding from a crowdfunding source Sponsume.com and to date we have reached 50% of our target of £750. It isn't easy for artists to obtain official funding in the current economic climate and we are very appreciative of the support from our generous backers. If you would be kind enough to support us, please go here to vist our donation site on Sponsume.com. We are really appreciative of all support we receive!

Anniversaries

On a very wet (and snowy) day on 25 April 1981, Christina and I got married. We hadn't rushed into it by any means - we met while we were both students in London back in 1976 (the year of the hot summer and drought). We had a ground floor flat in Southfields, London SW18 right opposite a listed art deco building and a paint factory run by a company called Ault and Wibourg. The flat had one bedroom, a living room and a room at the back which we made into a kitchen. As there was no inside toilet and bathroom, we were lucky enough to get a home improvement grant from the Greater London Council to put in a bathroom in the middle of the flat. We lived there until 1987. We didn't spend a bomb on wedding photographs - a friend of mine was just starting out as a photographer so we asked him to take some colour and black and white. A lot of people remarked how much like my grandfather I looked - once a Jones always a Jones so the saying goes!

My grandparents were married in the St Mary's district of Southampton in June 1914. Thomas Richard Jones was born in Aberystwyth in 1886. He was a Welsh speaker and only learnt English when he joined the merchant navy and moved to Southampton where he met my grandmother, Agnes Gertrude Wilson who came from a large family (many of whom were in domestic service). They actually lived in Bevois Street, Southampton where many families who had members serving as crew lost on RMS Titanic were living. It must have been a worrying time to be serving at sea just after that disaster and just before the outbreak of the 1914-18 war. My grandfather served on the Atlantic convoys during World War 2 in 1940-43 and that also must have been a difficult time for the family with the constant threat of torpedo from German submarines and warships like the infamous Bismarck.

Moving Images

I've started a new travel blog in response to many messages and suggestions from friends. You can go to it from here - Moving Images - let me know what you think!

Muntadas - Conceptual and Multimedia Art

Interesting exhibition running called Entre / Between : the work of Antoni Muntadas at the Jeu de Paume in Paris. Link here to the Jeu de Paume website where you can buy tickets if interested to make a visit. Website also contains a short film.

Material in English

Antoni Muntadas, internationally renowned Spanish artist, is one of the earliest practitioners of conceptual art and multimedia art. Muntadas used performance, video, installations, photography, multimedia, books, Internet and public art to address key social and political issues of our time. His incisive works address concepts such as the relationship between public and private, information flows related to the media landscape, the dynamics of official architecture and other social issues. Through them, Muntadas highlights the visible and invisible systems of power in a society dominated by mass media, consumerism and technology.

Since his early works in the 1970s - which involved underlying meaning - until his ongoing series 'On Translation', which raises the question directly of cultural interpretation, through his manifesto of 1981 which he asks the audience to ask the question "What are we watching?" Muntadas has created a vast body of work which develops a discourse on power systems, visible and invisible, in a society dominated by shows the mass media, consumerism and the constant progress of technology.

Communication

 

Image : Rhossili Bay, Gower, South Wales

 

I think I'm quite old fashioned when it comes to communication. I prefer to use the phone, send a mail...not sure about social media....it's nice to keep in touch with some people I don't often see but I'm afraid the constant stream of news from 700 people plus adverts just goes over my head a lot of the time.

I once created an art piece where I designed and wrote a series of postcards to the late French philosopher Jacques Derrida. He himself never read any of them but a lot of other people read them when they wee exhibited. There was a certain irony as he himself made a comment about a postcard being addressed to one person but having the possibility to be seen by anyone...the sender has no way of knowing if the addressee has ever seen it...so it is with modern communication unless of course there is a reply. Interesting subject area......

Letter from Ansel Adams

Image : Glamorgan Heritage Coast

 

I have an interesting book of letters written by and sent to the American photographer, Ansel Adams. In one of them he mentions that we talk a lot about what we do and who we meet but he says that we very rarely talk about whether we are happy. Here's one of his more famous letters where he considers the meanings of art, friendship and love.

Letter from Ansel Adams to Cedric Wright, June 10, 1937:

"Dear Cedric,

A strange thing happened to me today. I saw a big thundercloud move down over Half Dome, and it was so big and clear and brilliant that it made me see many things that were drifting around inside of me; things that relate to those who are loved and those who are real friends.

For the first time I know what love is; what friends are; and what art should be.

Love is a seeking for a way of life; the way that cannot be followed alone; the resonance of all spiritual and physical things. Children are not only of flesh and blood — children may be ideas, thoughts, emotions. The person of the one who is loved is a form composed of a myriad mirrors reflecting and illuminating the powers and thoughts and the emotions that are within you, and flashing another kind of light from within. No words or deeds may encompass it.

Friendship is another form of love — more passive perhaps, but full of the transmitting and acceptances of things like thunderclouds and grass and the clean granite of reality.

Art is both love and friendship and understanding: the desire to give. It is not charity, which is the giving of things. It is more than kindness, which is the giving of self. It is both the taking and giving of beauty, the turning out to the light of the inner folds of the awareness of the spirit. It is a recreation on another plane of the realities of the world; the tragic and wonderful realities of earth and men, and of all the interrelations of these.

Ansel"

Sweden 2012

I have recently returned from Sweden. While I was there I went to the fantastic Photographic Museum Fotografiska situated around the waterfront with views over the old city (Gamla Stan) and the famous amusement park Grona Lund - closed at the time of my visit for the winter. One of the Swedish photographers that I really admire is Lennart Nilsson. I have seen his work exhibited in many locations - his exhibition A Child is Born was the first exhibit at the opening of Fotografiska in 2010. Really remarkable images of pre-life. Also remarkable are some of his earlier images at the very moment of birth and the vocal chords of an opera singer.

2LO Calling

90 years ago today, on 14 November 1922, The first official BBC radio broadcast was the evening news transmitted by London station 2LO from Marconi House studios on the Strand, Central London. The voice was that of the Programme Director Arthur Burrows.  '2LO' was the reference of the radio broadcasting license issued by the Post Office. The 1.5kW medium wave transmitter was built by the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company and situated at the top of Marconi House.

Radio is a very powerful medium associated of course with Dylan Thomas. One thinks of his broadcasts for this medium of his works and his play for voices 'Under Milk Wood' and it is hard to think of a voice more suited to this medium than that of Richard Burton, First Voice in the 1953 BBC radio production.

It was quite fitting to spend this evening at No 5 Cwmdonkin Drive, Dylan's birthplace, listening to local poet and writer, Emily Hinshelwood, read from her new poetry collection 'On Becoming a Fish' published by Seren. The book can be ordered online from Seren on this link. No 5 Cwmdonkin Drive is highly recommended for a visit if you are in Swansea. A number of other poets and artists were also present in Dylan's front room and we had a wide-ranging and interesting discussion about a number of topics which  makes one realise the value of collaboration in art, the power of words and the importance of allowing time for a listener to think and take in the real meaning of words. Hopefully some follow up visits and chats over coffee will happen soon in my studio. I always like to have visitors and an opportunity to make a cuppa! 

Diwali

This is how #India looks like from outer space on Diwali Night. Happy Diwali to entire world. Wish you brightness. Pic twitter.com/MindbIowingFac…

— Mindblowing Facts (@MindbIowingFact) November 12, 2012

Early frost

 

Driving home from Somerset yesterday, where we'd been to visit my mum who is in a Nursing Home near Somerton and Langport, I was conscious that the salt spreaders were out on some of the roads we passed along. A sign of early frost and the crisp mist in the air that often accompanies it on level ground. On the early part of our journey we drove along narrow lanes in East Somerset and then crossed the Somerset Levels. It reminded me of a visit we made to Brecon Beacons a few years ago at New Year where the bushes and undergrowth were frozen almost as if someone had walked past with a giant spray can of frost. It's a different quality to snow completely and the other feature of this type of weather is that the air also has the feeling of frostiness which you don't really get with snowfall. The photo is one I took of a hedgerow on the Beacons near the Visitor Centre which I may say made a very tasty cawl on the day we were there.



Left Bank Leeds ADVENTurous 2012

Long time no post. It's always very exciting to be selected for a Group Show in an open competition. I've got some work in a show organised by Engedi Arts and opening at a venue in Leeds called Left Bank Leeds.The organisers have interviewed me and the contents have gone into their event blog. The show opens on December 2nd - I'm getting work together now. The interview I did with Left Bank can be found here. I don't find it the easiest thing to explain all aspects of my work - sometimes there is no obvious connection between different pieces. I prefer to let the work speak for itself and I enjoy hearing other people's views. A photograph is a piece of our memory and it is always good to have our memories come to life. Memory though does not always equal Reality. For anyone with internet access, I'm also being interwied on the Radio Tircoed Arts Programme with Debbie Evans on Friday November 30th.

Commensalism

Definition


noun, plural: commensalisms


A form of symbiosis between two organisms of different species in which one of them benefits from the association whereas the other is largely unaffected or not significantly harmed or benefiting from the relationship.

I'm working with a group of other artists and we're exhibiting from July 9-15 2012 in Walcot Chapel, Walcot Street, Bath. We've called the exhibition 'Commensalis' and you can find out more details on our website www.commensalis.com