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Photo-Forum 12th September

with Freya Najade and Jenny Lewis

Tuesday 12th September 7.30-9.30pm - 74 Kingsland Road, London E2 8DL. Join the Facebook event HERE

Last month we heard from two photojournalists whose work, dictated by the news cycle, spans the globe. For September we’re bringing things closer to home, welcoming two photographers who have produced work both in and on one of London’s most well-known boroughs, Hackney.

Freya Najade is a photographer living and working in London. In 2009 she received an MA in Photojournalism and Documentary Photography from London College of Communication. Since then she has worked on a variety of personal long-term projects as well as commissions for clients including Google, Burberry, Deutsche Bahn and the Photographer's Gallery. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally and published in, inter alia, The Guardian, British Journal of Photography (BJP), The Times, Die Zeit, Süddeutsche Zeitung and the BBC. Her first monograph, Jazorina, was published by Kehrer Verlag and her second book, Along the Hackney Canal, by Hoxton Mini Press in 2016.

Jenny Lewis grew up in Little Clacton, Essex, but moved to Hackney over twenty years ago. She works primarily as an editorial photographer, but continues to pursue a range of personal work, much of this centres on her experience of living and working in East London. Alongside One Day Young, which captures mothers within the first 24 hours since having a baby, she has been photographing the network of creatives who live alongside her in the borough. Her latest book, Hackney Studios, was published by Hoxton Mini Press April 2017.

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Photo-Forum 8th August

with Peter Macdiarmid and Jack Taylor

Tuesday 8th August 7.30-9.30pm - 74 Kingsland Road, London E2 8DL. Join the Facebook event HERE

Photojournalism as a practice is rooted in a particular set of rules, but the ways in which those images are produced, distributed and consumed have seen tremendous change. As both technology and publishing strategies have evolved, more people than ever before are seeing and interacting with photographs of unfolding events from around the world, often in near real-time. Are we entering a new ‘golden age’ for photojournalism? Or does this apparent growth conceal a more complicated picture? The next Photo-Forum brings together two photojournalists – one a veteran of the industry, the other a rising star – to present a selection of their work and to reflect on how the industry has, and continues to change.

© Peter Macdiarmid

Peter Macdiarmid is a news, corporate and commercial photographer based near London. Born in Scotland in 1964, he began his career thirty years ago with local newspapers in south London. He later progressed to cover assignments all over the world for The Independent and The Daily Telegraph newspapers, and worked for Reuters before joining Getty Images as senior news photographer for ten years. Together with John Moore and Chris Hondros, he was a 2012 Pulitzer Prize Finalist for Breaking News Photography for coverage of the Arab Spring. He now works for London News Pictures.

© Jack Taylor

Jack Taylor is photojournalist based in London working primarily for Getty images. He covers news and features in both in the UK and abroad for Getty. His personal work ranges from stories on the make-shift migrant and refugee camp in Calais, known as the Jungle, to a community of Tibetan exiles living in Nepal. Other clients include Save the Children, Agence France Press and The Times newspaper. Last year he was awarded IB Times’ Photo Essay of the Year for his work on the Notting Hill Carnival.

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Photo-Forum 11th July

A Small Voice podcast with George Georgiou

Tuesday 11th July 7.30-10pm - 74 Kingsland Road, London E2 8DL. Join the Facebook event HERE

In a special Photo Forum collaboration with A Small Voice podcast, internationally acclaimed British photographer George Georgiou will be exploring the theme of ‘community’, presenting and talking about images from his previous book projects on Turkey (Fault Lines: Turkey/East/West) and London (Last Stop), and introducing his latest series from the USA: “In The company of Strangers: Americans Parade" before joining Ben Smith for a live conversation about his work and taking questions from the audience. Don’t miss this one!

A Small Voice is the free fortnightly podcast created by Ben Smith, featuring in-depth interviews with a diverse range of talented photographers, from established award-winning and internationally exhibited stars to young and emerging talents. Ben’s interviews are insightful conversations uncovering details about the photographer’s life, work and inspirations.  

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The Folio Social

Friday 23rd June, reviews 4-7pm followed by drinks until late. 

The Reliance Pub, 336 Old St, EC1V 9DR

Our first ‘Folio Social’ is a chance to gain feedback on your work and get to know fellow Photo-Forum audience members. You are invited to bring portfolios, projects or work in progress to share one to one with peers, to get and give constructive feedback and to share ideas. Reviews will rotate every 20 minutes and there will be a few past speakers on hand to give ‘expert’ opinions on your work. All are welcome, bring a lot of work, a little or just bring yourself.

You are welcome to present your work in any format but we encourage the use of work prints rather than digital images if you are looking for help with sequencing or editing.

Let us know if you will be there by commenting with links to your work on the Facebook event

(Please note that due to a clash with other photography events we have changed the date from the 22nd to the 23rd June)

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Photo-Forum June 13th

Speakers: Kate Stanworth and Mark Aitken

In June, Photo-Forum will focus on the concept of home and identity; how we both imprint ourselves on the spaces we occupy and how those spaces, in turn, define us. Both currently working on projects around this subject, Kate Stanworth and Mark Aitken will be joining us for an evening of exploring our relationships with “home”: from personal experiences of homes under threat to the story of a group finding identity through community.

Join the event on Facebook

Kate Stanworth is a documentary and portrait photographer from London. Her work is concerned with how people negotiate issues such as poverty, migration, cultural identity and belonging while striving to retain their hopes, dreams and sense of autonomy. She has a degree in Fine Art from Norwich School of Art, and an MA in Art Theory from Goldsmiths. She worked as a Picture Editor for an International NGO before launching her own photography career working for magazines and newspapers in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Kate will be sharing work from the projects ‘All Year We Dream of February’ - which depicts a group of carnival dancers in Buenos Aires as they find identity and hope against the backdrop of domestic life in a working class neighbourhood – as well as her project ‘Somaliland Summer’ a portrait series about British Somalis as they spend a summer exploring their cultural heritage in their homeland.

©Kate Stanworth

Mark Aitken was born in New Zealand and raised in South Africa before coming to the UK to study art. Now a photographer and lecturer at Goldsmiths University and Central St Martins, Mark will be sharing work from his Arts Council England supported project ‘Sanctum Ephemeral'.

‘Sanctum Ephemeral' is a portrait series depicting residents living on Cressingham Gardens Housing Estate, Brixton. Lambeth Council has proposed the building of new public and private owned housing with Cressingham Gardens earmarked for demolition. As both an artist and resident, Mark has been engaged with the project since September 2015. Mark says “The photographs are an exploration of how home as a repository of memory defines identity. We define our homes. Our homes define us.”

The project will be exhibited within the estate itself and will be on show throughout June as a part of the London Festival of Architecture.

©Mark Aitken

Photo-Forum Folio Social 

Thursday 22nd June, 4pm onwards. The Reliance Pub, 336 Old St, EC1V 9DR

Share your work with the Photo-Forum audience at our first Folio Social. Bring your portfolio, project or work in progress for an informal evening of folio reviews and socialising. Past speakers and industry figures will be on hand to view work but the reviews are intended as peer to peer discussion, a chance to give and receive feedback and to share ideas. Feel free to join us with or without work to show.

The reviews sessions will take place from 4-7pm followed by drinks.

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Photo-Forum 9th May

Speakers: Benjamin Chesterton (Duckrabbit) and Eleanor Macnair

Storytelling lies at the heart of what many working photographers do, whether we’re telling our own stories or those of others. While new technologies have in many ways democratised their dissemination and consumption, it isn’t clear that this has resulted in greater public engagement with the stories beneath the images. In news and documentary circles the sheer volume of images in circulation has arguably further pushed some photojournalists to seek out gritty, visceral images that stand out among the crowd, but which in many cases leave important stories only half-told. And elsewhere, ordinary people beyond our community continue to feel that photography, film and art are not ‘for them’.

For our May talk, Photo-Forum welcomes two speakers working in strikingly different styles and mediums, but connected by their efforts to find more effective ways to tell stories and engage new audiences with their work. Together, they ask what is more important: the ‘truth’ of the image or the effect it has on those who see it?

Join the event on Facebook

Benjamin Chesterton is a former dishwasher, cook, teacher and BBC Radio documentary producer. In 2008 he co-founded the company duckrabit with a view to marrying his passion for telling peoples stories with his love of photography.  The company has evolved into making films and has worked on photography and film projects with MSF in the Congo, Oxfam in Zimbabwe, the HIV Aids Alliance in Uganda, and on BBC documentaries presented by photographers in Sweden, Papua New Guinea and Lebanon. Benjamin is currently working on a series of films about extremism.

Eleanor Macnair lives and works in London. She began her career working in fashion advertising in New York before working at Michael Hoppen Gallery, the National Portrait Gallery, Media Space and White Cube, amongst others. She began the project ‘Photographs Rendered in Play-Doh’ on a whim in August 2013. The project bridges the art and photography world with non-specialist audiences. A book of the project was published in October 2014, and it was first exhibited at Atlas Gallery (London) in October 2015, followed by exhibitions at Kleinschmidt Fine Photographs (Germany) and Kopeikin Gallery (USA) in Spring 2016. A display of new works drawn from the gallery’s collection opens at the National Portrait Gallery from 15 May.

Other news

Stuart Freedman, one of last month’s speakers, has now launched his Kickstarter campaign for his new book The Englishman and the Eel, some of which was shown during his talk at Photo-Forum for the first time. Please do check out the campaign and consider supporting it.

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Photo-Forum 11th April

Speakers - Luke Archer, Stuart Freedman and Martin Usborne

The photo book, a tangible object in an overwhelmingly digital industry, is the ultimate goal for many photographers. But for a long time barriers of expertise, equipment and money put this beyond reach. Now, new technologies, trends and business models are changing this, giving individual photographers ever-greater control over how our work is presented and published, whether in partnership with an established press, as part of a collective, or independently.

On 11th April Photo-Forum brings together three photographers to share their work and personal perspectives on the world of photography publishing.

Join the event on Facebook Here

Luke Archer is editor of Loupe, a free photography magazine launched in May 2016. Loupe is now published tryannualy (try and publish it as many times a year as you can). With no theme, each issue instead aims to celebrate the diversity of the medium. Loupe is unique in its ethos as an approachable publication, and the team review and respond to all submissions and always offer feedback when asked. Luke believes that zine publishing can also be a great way for photographers to get their project in print, widely seen and at comparatively low cost compared to book publishing. He feels the resurgence in physical publishing and analog photography is a reaction to the intensive digitisation of our lives, believing publishing will only start to make large shifts digitally when younger, digital native generations reach the work place.

Stuart Freedman is a photographer and writer based between London and New Delhi and is a member of Panos Pictures. In 2015 Dewi Lewis published his first book, The Palaces of Memories – Tales from the Indian Coffee House. Designed by Stuart Smith, the book was a finalist for POYi’s Photobook of the Year 2016 and featured in The American Photography Annual. The work was funded by a successful Kickstarter campaign, and in April he will launch another campaign to fund a second companion volume about London (also published by Dewi Lewis and designed by Stuart Smith), entitled The Englishman and the Eel. Photo-Forum will be the first public viewing of this work.

©Stuart Freedman

Martin Usborne, born 1973, lives in London where he works as a photographer, writer and publisher. He has a keen interest in animals, particularly dogs, and his photographic work captures the often painful divide between humans and other creatures. He has published five books and his images have been shown throughout the world in galleries and magazines. He also founded and runs Hoxton Mini Press and will be speaking about both his photographic and publishing endeavours.

World Photography Organisation have kindly donated four pairs of tickets for the upcoming 2017 Sony World Photography Awards exhibition, to be won in the raffle.

From World Photography Organisation: 

Sony World Photography Awards & Martin Parr - 2017 Exhibition. Somerset House, London. 21 April - 7 May, 2017 Bringing to London a complete celebration of photography, this exhibition will showcase a variety of genres from Architecture, Daily life, Documentary, Landscape, Portraiture, Sports, Street Photography, Wildlife and many more.  It will also present a unique selection of images, books and film from legendary photographer Martin Parr. Friends of Photo-Forum can also get 20% off tickets to the show by using the code FORUM20 at checkout.

We’re also planning a Photo-Forum social visit to the exhibition on Sunday 7th May. We’ll send out a separate email with further details soon, so watch this space.

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Photo-Forum 14th March

There's no question that starting out in photography can be tough. From learning to navigate the industry to building a client base and sometimes even having to find your feetin a new city. For our next talk we host two photographers in the early stages of their careers. Both recent graduates of The University of West England, Alex Ingram and Ameena Rojee are already receiving well-warranted praise for their work which they will be sharing along with personal experiences of starting out in our industry.

Join the Facebook event HERE

Alex Ingram is a freelance photographer currently living and working in London, and a recent graduate of Bristol UWE. Since moving to London in November, Alex has worked for a variety of clients including Magnum Photos, The BJP, VICE, The Brit Academy, Air BnB, The TrainLine, Battersea Power Station & Ministry of Sound. His work has been exhibited at numerous locations across the UK, and earlier this year, he released his second self published book, ‘David’s House’.

Alex spent his childhood growing up in the UK’s smallest city, St Davids, situated on the most South Westerly tip of Wales and with a population of just 1891. Growing up in such a remote location shaped him into the person he is today, but whilst at University, Alex felt himself becoming more and more distant with the place that for many years he called home. Alex will be speaking about his project, ‘David’s House’, which explores his relationship with St David’s and his understanding of home, as well as the obstacles that come with self funding and publishing your work.

©Alex Ingram

Ameena Rojee is a London-based artist and graduate of the University of the West of England, currently working for a photographic publication. She says  "I am greatly intrigued by people, culture and the land that we live on, because I come from a very mixed background - half-Spanish and half-Mauritian, and I was born in and grew up in South London! Because of this I experienced an incredible amalgamation of cultures and worlds as a child, and still now as an adult. It greatly influences me and my work today. My style is an engaged one; as a photographer I participate as well as observe, and I love to take part in new experiences and get fully involved. In addition to my work being very much a mixed bag (a bit of documentary, a bit of conceptual, a bit of portraiture...) I also like to dip into the writing and curating side of things. I run of the land & us, an online magazine sharing work from the new, the established and the up-and-coming on the land and the people that live on it."

©Ameena Rojee

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Photo-Forum 14th February

Artists and musicians have always been inspired by love and heartbreak, and photographers are no exception. This year, February’s Photo-Forum falls on Valentines day, and so we’ve invited Briony Campbell and Natasha Caruana to speak about their projects inspired by relationships, intimacy and love. We look forward to seeing you on February 14th!

Join the Facebook event HERE

Briony Campbell is a freelance photographer and filmmaker recognised for her intimate and engaging storytelling. In 2009, she graduated from London College of Communication's Masters in Documentary Photography. The same year, her project ‘The Dad Project’ illuminated her relationship with her dying father, and became a formative chapter for her both personally and professionally. The project was exhibited, published and awarded internationally. She's currently mentoring terminally ill people to tell their own stories through video in an AHRC funded participatory project.

Motivated by trying to understand her own confused relationship with the African countries that she'd experienced, Briony began exploring Britain’s contemporary relationship with Africa through the stories of mixed-nationality couples. She has been documenting British-African couples living in various African countries for five years, and will be giving us an early preview of her multimedia project 'Love in Translation’.

©Briony Campbell

Natasha Caruana is a photographic artist living and working in London. She has an MA in Photography from the Royal College of Art, London and is a Senior Lecturer of Photography at the University for the Creative Arts, Farnham. In 2014, Caruana was named as the winner of the prestigious BMW Artist in Residence Award at Musée Nicéphore Niépce, France. The award led to solo shows at Les Rencontres d’Arles and Paris Photo, and the monograph Coup de Foudre.

Caruana’s art practice is grounded in research concerned with narratives of love, betrayal and fantasy. Significant to all Caruana’s work is the questioning of how today’s technology is impacting relationships. Her series Married Man documents love and life of the everyday and her later work Fairytale for Sale explores the strange ritual of newlyweds blocking out their faces in online adverts. Her work is created drawing from archives, the Internet and personal narratives.

Her work was nominated for the 2014 Foam Paul Huf Award, shortlisted and the Deutsche Bank Pyramid prize in 2008 and for the National Magazine Awards in 2007. Caruana has been named as the one to watch in the Royal Photographic Society Journal and selected by the Humble Arts Foundation as one of 18 leading female art photographers currently working in the UK.

©Natasha Caruana

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Photo-Forum 10th January

Photo-Forum kicks off 2017 with a topic sure to dominate British politics this year: Brexit. We’ll be joined by Peter Dench and Muir Vidler, together with STERN’s picture editor Dagmar Seeland, to discuss the Brexit story they were commissioned to shoot around the June referendum.

Join the Facebook event and help spread the word - EVENT

Peter Dench

Being commissioned to shoot for magazines has been the heartbeat of my career and STERN magazine has been pumping me with commissions from the very beginning. My first was published on the 19th September 1999, a feature about the final resting place of Diana Princess of Wales. Subsequent commissions have included major reports on ethnicity in London, love in the UK, British public schools and the decline of Italy. The STERN team understand my photography and I understand the commitment and high standards they expect. On assignment, I’ve had to dress as a schoolboy, wear a Spiderman costume, and on one occasion, wear nothing at all. The thrill of being commissioned by STERN, delivering the brief and seeing it in print, remains equal with the first drink of the day.

©Peter Dench

Muir Vidler 

I started working as a cruise ship photographer in 1998, after a year I moved to London where I studied Photojournalism at London College of Printing and got a job as staff photographer doing the club photos for the gay scene magazine QX. Since then I’ve worked for all kinds of magazines shooting a mix of reportage and portraits. My pictures have been shown at the National Portrait Gallery, Victoria & Albert Museum, Rove Gallery, Royal Academy of Arts in London, Colette in Paris, Mindy Solomon Gallery in Miami and the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, and published in the pages of The New York Times Magazine, Sunday Times Magazine, Vogue, Time, Vanity Fair, VICE, i.D. and STERN, to name a few.

©Muir Vidler

Dagmar Seeland is no stranger to the ironies of history. Born in East Germany, she studied Design and Communications in Berlin before escaping across the border from Hungary to what was then Yugoslavia in the summer of 1989 – in almost exactly the same spot where, 26 years later, the Hungarian government erected a new fence to deter the stream of refugees entering the European Union. 

Beginning her career in publishing and advertising in Munich and Hamburg, Seeland later moved to London where she was appointed Photo Editor at the London office of the German weekly magazine STERN. She has worked with some of the biggest names in the industry, while also discovering and nurturing a raft of new talent. She regularly reviews portfolios at photo festivals in the UK and across Europe, and also runs K&R Media – an agency that acts as a correspondents’ office and picture desk for a wide range of German and Swiss media clients.

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Photo-Forum End of Year Show and Christmas Party

theprintspace, 74 Kingsland Rd, E2 8DL . December 15th - 19:30-Late

Join us on December 15th as Photo-Forum celebrates another outstanding year of talks with our annual Christmas party and End of Year Show. Not only will we be featuring an exhibition of images from our recent speakers, we also invite you to submit your own work for a chance to exhibit alongside our Photo-Forum alumni. Entries will also be in the running to win our Best in Show prize.

GUIDELINES FOR SUBMISSIONS

Both a print and a digital submission are required, submit both and you will automatically be part of the exhibition.

Submissions are open until 23:00, 30th November 2016.

One single image made or first published in the last 12 months may be entered.

As the exhibition is being held in theprintspace gallery, all prints are required to have been printed by theprintspace. You may deliver an existing theprintspace print or create a new one including ‘Photo-Forum Xmas Show’ in the order instructions at theprintspace website www.theprintspace.co.uk. If you are creating a new print, enter the 30% off discount code ‘PhotoForumXmas' when ordering. The code is valid for one print only and only for orders marked “Photo-Forum Xmas Show”. Select ‘Collect in Studio’ as delivery method and we will collect.

Prints can be up to a maximum size of 16in (4800px) on the long edge including a white border. All images must have a border of at least one inch as prints will be hung using pins. This border should be included in the image file (use "canvas size" in the Photoshop Image menu). Please follow the printing guidelines on theprintspace website when ordering.

Judging for the Best in Show prize will be done from digital files. Email photoforumuk@gmail.com with a copy of the entered image: 1800px long edge, 72dpi jpg. Name the file FIRSTNAME_LASTNAME.jpg and include your name, website and an optional image caption of max 150 words.

By submitting your image you agree that Photo-Forum and theprintspace may use it for promotion of this exhibition and/or future Photo-Forum competitions and events across our web pages, blogs and social media accounts.

The exhibition will run from 15th to 22nd December. Prints will be stored at theprintspace for collection after the show and must be collected by 31st January.

Best in Show Prize:

Print credit of £100 from theprintspace.

A Pixelrights website pro subscription.

Lunch and folio review with a past Photo-Forum speaker.

A copy of ‘Great Britons of Photography Vol.1: The Dench Dozen, by Peter Dench and Hungry Eye

About the judges:

Annalee Mather is the outgoing magazine and features picture editor for The Independent. Annalee is currently a freelance picture editor taking on special projects.

Giles Duley is a documentary photographer and photojournalist who is well known for his work with respected charities highlighting lesser-known humanitarian issues.

Andrea Kurland is Editor in Chief of Huck magazine. Working closely with photographers, Andrea produces captivating work for each issue and champions photographers through the annual Documentary Photography Special issue.

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Photo-Forum 8th November

It’s the last Photo-Forum of 2016 before our traditional Christmas Party and End of Year Show festivities and we’ll certainly be wrapping up an incredible year of talks in style! 

Join us on November 8th as we host industry stalwarts and long-time friends of Photo-Forum, Brian Harris and Guy Smallman. Sharing work both old and new from their long and illustrious careers, with images covering current issues, evolving narratives and prominent figures at home and abroad as well as tales of bringing their work to print in two new photobooks, it promises to be a truly fascinating evening. Join the Facebook event and help spread the word - EVENT

Don’t forget to save the date on December 15th (A Thursday rather than our usual Tuesday so we can party sans regrets!) as Photo-Forum celebrates another outstanding year of talks with our annual Christmas party and End of Year Show. Details for the evening and more information on how you can be part of the show will be announced soon, so if you haven’t yet, subscribe to our newsletter here: Newsletter or Facebook events here: Facebook to be the first in the know!

Newspaper Photographer Brian Harris will be talking about his work starting at Fox Photos a Fleet Street Press Agency as a messenger in 1969 through to his time working on local newspapers in East London, freelance ‘shifting’ for the national press before joining the staff of The Times in the mid ’70’s….and then going onto The Independent when the paper started in 1986.

Brian will show some early work, material from The Times and photographs from his Indy days as well as current work on the WWI Battlefields of Northern Europe to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the beginning of the First World War-1914-2014. 

Brian will also be talking about his book ‘…and then the Prime Minister hit me…’ his beautifully produced autobiographical 320 page hard back book with over 30 written essays and  212 pages of mainly B&W photographs from his 47 years of travelling the world covering history as it happened it front of his lens. The book will be on sale on the night at a special event price.

©Brian Harris

Guy Smallman is a London based self-taught photo journalist who has worked all over the world since 1999. For the past 8 years he has regularly visited Afghanistan documenting social issues around its many provinces for NGOs and a wide spectrum of news outlets.

He has just published his first photo book (and exhibition of the same name) 'The Displaced' which shines a light on the plight of internally displaced children, many of whom he has watched grow up in the squalor of the camps since 2008. He will present images from that project as well as photo essays on other subjects he has covered in Afghanistan. Guy’s exhibition is on until November 2nd at Amnesty Human Rights Action Centre, New Inn Yard, London EC2A 3EA

©Guy Smallman

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Photo-Forum 11th October

This October Photo-Forum takes to the streets with Nick Turpin and Stephen Leslie. Each have taken their own path to photography and created their own spin on the street photography genre. Join us for an evening of truth and lies, tall tails and the absurdity of real life.

Spread the word and join the Facebook event HERE

Nick Turpin grew up in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire coming to London to study for a degree in Photography, Film and Video at The University of Westminster. At the age of twenty Nick left his degree course to become the youngest full-time photographer on a national broadsheet newspaper in the UK, spending seven years shooting news, features and portraits for The Independent. Nick is a self proclaimed ‘Street Photography Evangelist’ and has spread his belief in the importance of Street Photography as a distinct approach through books, exhibitions, workshops, TV, radio and lecturing.

In 2000 Nick founded the international collective in-public which has played a significant role in the modern resurgence of Street Photography as the most practiced photographic form it is today. Nick will be speaking about his ‘Through A Glass Darkly’ project and forthcoming book, his passion for candid public photography and it’s place at the heart of his personal and commercial projects.

©Nick Turpin

Stephen Leslie works as a screenwriter and film maker. He started his career directing and shooting documentaries for the BBC and Channel 4 and his short films have been screened at numerous film festivals around the world. For the past twenty years he has also been a street photographer, quietly amassing a huge archive of images. Four years ago he finally worked out how to turn these photographs into a book.

Stephen will be showing work from his archive and talking about how a street photographer who treats 'everything' as his subject matter goes about discovering a theme. Stephen's book, SPARKS, is an attempt to experiment with the boundaries of street photography. Drawing on his professional work as a writer, Stephen has taken literally Joel Sternfeld's idea of photographs being 'convincing lies' and then invented fictional contexts and narratives to accompany his images. His talk aims to be a combination of profound philosophical insight, wild exaggeration and a few decent jokes.  

©Stephen Leslie

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Photo-Forum 13th September

On September 13th Photo-Forum hosts Ed Sykes and Jillian Edelstein. Both photographers defy categorisation by producing award winning work in multiple genres, each will be speaking about their career trajectory and the benefits (and difficulties) of producing diverse work for varied clients.

Join the Facebook event and spread the word.

Ed Sykes studied at Nottingham Trent and the London College of Printing before going on to produce features and portraits for national newspapers and magazines. His work has been recognised by The John Kobal Award and the AOP with his environment driven personal work attracting commercial clients including Channel 4, British Land and Ogilvy & Mather.  Ed will be showing images from his archive along with his current project 'The Witnesses’ which is based on events in 1977 in an area of Pembrokeshire that became known as The Broadhaven Triangle. Across the region people saw strange lights, UFOs and alien figures in the landscape. The project includes photography and archive material to recreate the paranormal narratives that so vividly captured the public's imagination 40 years ago.

©Ed Sykes

Jillian Edelstein began work as a press photographer in Johannesburg before attending the London College of Printing in 1985. Her portraits have appeared in many publications including The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, The Financial Times Magazine and Vanity Fair. She has received several awards including the Kodak UK Young Photographer of the Year, Photographers' Gallery Portrait Photographer of the Year Award 1990, the Visa d’Or at the International Festival of Photojournalism in Perpignan in 1997, the European Final Art Polaroid Award in 1999, the John Kobal Book Award 2003 and was included in The Taylor Wessing Portrait Award in 2014. Jillian will be sharing work from across her practice including her Affinities portrait project (creative collaborators) and recent work documenting the Refugees in Lesvos and Calais.

©Jillian Edelstein

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Photo-Forum Tuesday 9th August

Documenting the refugee crisis with Rob Pinney, Mary Turner and Clare Struthers Tuesday 9th August 7.30-10pm - 74 Kingsland Road, London E2 8DL. 

The ongoing refugee crisis has been extensively documented, producing a significant archive of often visceral and effecting work and a number of now-iconic images. But it also poses many challenges. How can we navigate the fine line between documentation and voyeurism? Is it appropriate to present the ‘refugee crisis’ as a single event when its various locations are in many ways quite distinct? How can we show the complexity of the situation instead of resorting to recurrent visual tropes and stereotypes? What responsibility does the photographer have for the sometimes damaging ways in which their images have subsequently been put to work? This edition of PhotoForum brings together three photographers with varied backgrounds, all of whom have produced bodies of work that speak to these ideas and issues. Rob Pinney and Mary Turner, both news and documentary photographers, will talk about their experiences with these ethical dilemmas and the ways in which it has shaped their own work. Clare Struthers, who co-facilitates the ongoing project ‘Welcome to Our Jungle’, will present a selection of work shot by those arguably best positioned to take on these challenges: the refugees themselves.

Join the Facebook event HERE

Rob Pinney is a documentary photographer and researcher based in London. He is a graduate of the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) and the Department of War Studies, King’s College London, and has written extensively about the relationship between photography and war. Rob has spent much of the last ten months working in the ‘Jungle’ camp in Calais. The use of photography to humanise seemingly distant crises is common, but presents a particular challenge in this context: while residents of the ‘Jungle’ are keen to disrupt prevailing media frames, many also harbour a deep suspicion of the camera. Some fear their photograph may endanger their families should news of their escape reach home; others worry that evidence of their presence in France may be used against them should they eventually claim asylum in Britain; and others still feel ashamed of the situation they now find themselves in and do not want it immortalised in any resulting pictures. His project takes on this challenge: it is an attempt to humanise our understanding of a complex crisis without identifying its victims, while also flagging up some of the inherent limitations of photography as a tool for social change.

©Rob Pinney

Mary Turner is a news and documentary photographer from the UK. Having begun work as a press photographer in London she began exploring the longer term effects on communities left behind when the news has moved on, spending months working and living with her subjects. Her work has been awarded by the Amnesty International Media Awards, Sony World Photography Awards, Magenta Flash Forward and many more.  Mary’s work has encompassed a long term project with the Dale Farm Travellers, ongoing since 2009, working behind the scenes on Nigel Farage’s UKIP campaign and looking extensively at the living conditions in Calais and Greece’s refugee camps.

©Mary Turner

Clare Struthers is a social documentary photographer and participatory photography practitioner. She is an International Photography MA graduate and has spent the last 8 years designing and running participatory projects worldwide with a wide range of marginalised communities, half of that time was spent as a Project Manager at the charity PhotoVoice.

Since November 2015, Clare has been running the participatory photography project 'Welcome to Our Jungle' in the refugee camp in Calais, alongside fellow photographers Miguel Amortigui and Becky Matthews. On becoming increasingly frustrated with the negative and unbalanced rhetoric broadcast in the mainstream media surrounding the refugee crisis, she visited the camp as a volunteer back in September 2015, and was met by an overwhelming mistrust and frustration with photographers, handpainted signs everywhere saying "No Photos". The project was created as result, with the explicit aim to empower those involved.

The project has given the participants a sense of hope and renewed identity. When everything else - from their homes to, at times, their dignity - has been systematically stripped away from them. It has meant the world to them to have a means of expressing themselves and to know that their voices are being heard.

© Clare Struthers 

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Photo-Forum Tuesday 12th July

July’s Photo-Forum features talks from Giles Duley and Leslie Knott who will be sharing the stories behind their work documenting the lives of refugees. They will be discussing what it takes to build relationships in the field, the difficulty of doing so and the rewards that it can bring. Giles and Leslie have worked together on a number of projects and Leslie’s footage of Giles at work provides a window into this process which is so vital when creating images.

Join the Facebook event HERE

Giles Duley, Hon FRPS, worked as a successful fashion and music photographer for ten years. However, having become disillusioned with celebrity culture, he decided to abandon photography and left London to begin work as a full-time carer. It was in this role that he rediscovered his craft and its power to tell the stories of those without a voice. In 2000, he returned to photography, personally funding trips to document the work of NGOs and the stories of those affected by conflict across the world. In 2011, Duley lost both legs and his left arm after stepping on an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) in Afghanistan whilst photographing those caught up in the conflict. He was told he would never walk again and that his career was over. However, characteristically stubborn, Duley told his doctors “I’m still a photographer”, and returned to work less than 18 months later. Duley has since documented stories in Lebanon and Jordan, and went back to Afghanistan in October, 2012, to complete his original assignment. His return was the feature of the award-winning documentary, Walking Wounded: Return to the Frontline. His work has since been featured in numerous papers and magazines, and he has talked about his experiences on television, radio and at several international and national events. His TEDx talk was voted one of the top ten TED talks of 2012. Duley is a Trustee for the Italian NGO Emergency and ambassador for Sir Bobby Charlton’s landmine charity Find A Better Way. In 2013, he won the May Chidiac Award for Bravery in Journalism and the AIB Founders Award for Outstanding Achievement, and was made an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society.

Leslie Knott is an award-winning filmmaker and photographer who has focused most of her career documenting the lives of refugees. Her first film, Out of the Ashes, followed the extraordinary three-year journey of Afghanistan's cricket team from the refugee camps of Pakistan to the cricket world cup. In 2013, she was nominated for an Academy Award for Buzkashi Boys, a short feature shot on location in Afghanistan.  She has spent more than a decade working in Afghanistan, with many of her films focused on the lives of women, In 2011 she joined forces with Clementine Malpas to set up Tiger Nest Films. Their films are broadcast internationally, as well as for charities and UN agencies.

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Photo-Forum  Tuesday 14th June

Ansel Adams said “A good photograph is knowing where to stand”. For our next Photo-Forum talk we hear from Klaus Thymann and Simon Norfolk, photographers who have built their careers on knowing exactly where to stand to create images that are both beautiful and layered with meaning. Both will be speaking about their work communicating environmental issues and how they explore the ties between man and the land.

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Klaus Thymann will be speaking about his project ‘Kiruna’ and wider work to communicate environmental issues. Klaus founded Project Pressure in 2008 – a charity documenting the world’s vanishing glaciers in order to highlight the impact of climate change, inspiring action and participation. Project Pressure collaborates with some of the world’s leading artists, scientists and developers.

In his project ‘Kiruna’ Klaus is documenting the geographical changes taking place in Sweden’s most northern settlement, Kiruna, where for more than 100 years, iron ore has been extracted from the ground. This has led to the old town being completely relocated as it is at risk of collapse.

©Klaus Thymann

Simon Norfolk is a landscape photographer whose work over the last ten years has been themed around a probing and stretching of the meaning of the word 'battlefield' in all its forms. As such, he has photographed in some of the world's worst war-zones and refugee crises, but is equally at home photographing supercomputers used to design military systems or test launches of nuclear missiles.

Simon will be showing his Project Pressure supported, Sony World Photo Award winning, project ‘When I am Laid in Earth’ which depicts the melting away of the Lewis Glacier on Mt. Kenya.

©Simon Norfolk