Day 1 – National Photography Symposium 2018

To summarise a symposium is a both a clarifying and difficult task; to provide honest insight into the words, perspectives and experiences shared, and the connections made – here, reflecting on the National Photography Symposium 2018 (NPS2018). With speakers and delegates from far and wide across the field of photography, and beyond, it was timely and interdisciplinary in focus – photography and its online and offline roles in, and changing relationships with, technology, science, environment and sustainability, education and the world of work, journalism, gender, health and wellbeing, agriculture and the rural, community action, the “B” word (dare I say Brexit) and more. Over the next week, I’ll be sharing reflections from the three-day event, where I invite you in to read, respond and ask questions…

Paul Herrmann (Director of Redeye Network), Day 1 of the National Photography Symposium 2018, 1 November 2018. Photography by Drew Forsyth.

The first day began with an introduction by Redeye Network’s Director, Paul Herrmann, to the legacy of the late (and greatly missed) Pete James, to whom the opening lecture was dedicated. Co-founder of GRAIN, researcher, curator and archivist, Pete was described by his peer as a kind, gentle and completely unpretentious person, known for his erudition, conversation and side-splitting laughter, and more so his “engine of knowledge”, connection to audiences and thus, his reputation in the field of photography in the UK. Most recently, encouraging artists, including Vanley Burke and Paul Hill (and others), to deposit their collections in public libraries and fundamental in establishing the Photographic Collections Network (PCN). Throughout the three-days of NPS2018, Pete remained in mind, where conversation often returned to his approach and work, as reflected in the memorial lecture given by Professor Elizabeth Edwards.

Setting the foundation for NPS2018, Elizabeth presented ‘Photographs and the Public Library: Back to the Future’ by mapping the symbiotic relationship of libraries to the history of photography through a sense of hopefulness and positive action. She began by highlighting the importance of the library in photography’s firmament through the emergence of “local collectionism” – specifically, the gathering of photographs in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Here, “Back to the Future” defined the inclusive and inscriptive nature of the past for the future – an inclusiveness (photographic inscription as historical record) and immediacy (providing alternative histories to mitigate the terms of how to collect).

Professor Elizabeth Edwards, Day 1 of the National Photography Symposium 2018, 1 November 2018. Photography by Drew Forsyth.

Once seen as the university of the everyman, the library provided civilised, liberal and civic identity through free access to reading, often becoming the cultural powerhouse of the town whilst strengthening civic pride. By “plotting historical mayhem” through photography, they became fundamental in the local and regional collected memory of civic action. More directly,  photography as record – inscriptions, infrastructures, landscape and experience, local and modern.  As such, the library and their collections of photography gave strong definition of place to define people or community – a topography of the past, firmly rooted in the local. This record of local conditions was also used to understand what was historically relevant at the time.

Professor Elizabeth Edwards, Day 1 of the National Photography Symposium 2018, 1 November 2018. Photography by Drew Forsyth.

As part of the latter, Elizabeth notes a “photographic bibliographic entanglement” – photography as objective knowledge networks in the library (in themselves reliant on networks), where the visual is an often unarticulated component. She acknowledged when engaging with photographs, it creates strong histories and local belonging linked to wider agendas of community history – “belonging to place” – alongside an optimistic view of what photography could deliver as part of collaborative practice through a process of social exchange, re-invigorated by contemporary communities.

As a visual and historical anthropologist, Elizabeth wants to listen to what people say and give voice, bringing into focus the importance of taking photographs out into new public spaces – “use the library as a site of free exhibition” – for local visual histories to become visible, relevant and dynamic to new audiences. Throughout her identification of collections of photographs clustered in the early 20th century, she consistently returned to the notion of hopefulness and “Back to the Future” as best explained in the mission statement of the on-going partnership project, Connecting Histories.

A few questions resonated from the opening lecture, including:

  • What is the relationship between museums, galleries and libraries?
  • How do the circumstances of both libraries and collecting differ today?
  • As citizens, how can we encourage libraries to collect and what should be collected?
  • For photographs “living in limbo”, where do they sit beyond disciplinary archives?
  • As archives, what do we mean by survey and nostalgia and are they related?

In a time of precarity and insecurity, where socio-political, economic and cultural conditions are changing every single day, we are often unsure as to what is fake or truth, creating a constant questioning and feeling of flux. Photography has the capacity to be the tool to document, translate and define this moment and as Elizabeth has stated, to influence and develop “a future for all”. Although, the legacy and resonance of NPS2018 is difficult to track and quantify, one thing is clear: without provocation, there is no action; without action, no legacy for a developing future. Go home and find community relevant photography that would help to build a bigger picture of where we all live (or once lived), and get involved with your local library – as I have today. This blog post was written from my local authority library in Stafford, where I’ll be returning throughout this week to share further reflections from NPS2018.

Dr. Rachel Marsden
(Guest writer for Redeye Network)

Power plays and the RPS Collection

Documentary maker Callum Barton recorded interviews at the 2016 NPS and has recently published the audio documentary Drawn by Light, his account of the southbound transfer of the Royal Photographic Society collection. Here he gives us a personal account of the background to the documentary.

Photography is sewn firmly into the fabric of power. For proof of this, you need only consider three recent images: Nilüfer Demir’s photograph of Alan Kurdi; Jonathan Bachman’s photograph of Baton Rouge protester Ieshia Evans; and Jeff Mitchell’s shot of refugees queueing at the Slovenia-Croatia border (the logic of which was notoriously inverted by UKIP). These photographs are not just intrinsically powerful. In each instance, their existence has directly conditioned the ever-shifting dynamics of real-world power.

As I write this, I’m flicking through Pam Roberts’ compendium of the Royal Photographic Society Collection from 2000. Page 69 features Don McCullin’s portrait of a mother and child fleeing civil war in East Pakistan (1971). On page 107, a four year old Prince Arthur (third son of Victoria and Albert) is dressed in full military attire, in an Albumen print made by Roger Fenton (1854). And on page 229, there’s an early example of pornography: an anonymous, hand coloured stereo daguerreotype (c.1855).

Taken together, these photos have a combined age of 371 years. But they remain eerily germane to power dynamics that still shape the present moment: war, displacement, celebrity, sexual objectification. And you might even say that at certain points in history, each of these photos played their own particular roles in conditioning or perpetuating such dynamics.
In the compendium, Roberts writes that the invention of photography:

‘…redefined previous perceptions of space and time and created a new vision with which to see the world, a third eye.’

I would go one further and say that this ‘third eye’ opened up to the human experience an entirely new power-play. And I would argue that the RPS Collection – a vast, 200-year inventory of several hundred corresponding photo archives – is as much a record of power as it is of anything else.

This is why I was initially drawn to the story of the Collection’s centralising transfer from Bradford to South Kensington. I was interested in the administrative history of the Collection itself because it’s such a strange and almost paradoxical history. The archives emerged out of late-19th century, high society London; then, at the start of the 21st century, they were brought under public ownership and democratised by a fledgeling regional museum. And this year they were transferred back into a high-culture setting befitting of their roots – the hallowed backrooms of the V&A.

The key justification for this move is that the V&A will enhance ease of access to the Collection for academics and the general public. Only about two percent of the Collection was digitised before the move, and physical access in Bradford was by limited appointment only. To its credit, the V&A has already opened up access to the archives at the point of physical use (even walk-in requests can be accommodated) and it is steadily digitising the entire catalogue in real time (a huge and invaluable undertaking). But this only tells half the story.

In Drawn by Light (my documentary on the transfer), I explore the access justification in detail, and show how it actually masks wider issues at play. For one thing, the justification is perversely underpinned by a stark disparity of curatorial resources between the V&A and the museum in Bradford (recently rebranded the National Science and Media Museum). For another, the justification ignores quite how centralised access to cultural assets has become in the UK.

And this all reflects a big problem with cultural funding across the country: namely, that the bulk of both public and private sponsorship is narrowly trained on distinct pockets of inner London. Access in the arts has never been a straightforward thing, and improved access at the point of use is no guarantor of more democratic access nationally.

Beyond tackling some of the institutional rhetoric that accompanied the transfer, the documentary also sheds light on the underlying forces that shaped events. The quirks of centralised trustee governance are laid bare when the documentary asks why there was no consultation on the transfer in the first place. And I also explore how institutional decision-making was coloured by the centralising pull of austerity.

But in a sense, the documentary should ultimately stand as an appraisal of how we lost a national museum for photography. The southbound transfer of the RPS collection marks the spiritual endpoint of such an institution. Only last month, Martin Parr publicly bemoaned the under appreciation of photography by the British art world, and indeed by the British state. Established institutions like the V&A are only belatedly getting wise to the power and worth of photography. I suppose it should come as no surprise that the archives of the RPS Collection have now been ushered back into the traditional annals of cultural power.

You can listen to Drawn by Light at www.drawnbylightpodcast.org 

Details of the latest plans of the V&A Museum for the forthcoming Photography Centre can be found here.

The story of Fotografiska – a new photography museum

Fotografiska photo by Giuseppe Milo via Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/giuseppemilo/

Fotografiska; photo: Giuseppe Milo via Flickr

Fotografiska in Stockholm, Sweden, is one of Europe’s great photographic successes, and a new kind of museum, opened in 2010. Pauline Benthede, Fotografiska’s Exhibitions Manager, tells Redeye’s Paul Herrmann the story behind the organisation.

Paul Herrmann (PH): What do you think are the key ideas about Fotografiska that encouraged people to support it – Fotografiska’s best or most inventive qualities?
Pauline Benthede (PB): Our best quality is that we aim to be a venue for all people – photography enthusiasts, amateurs, art lovers, and everyone in between. ”Photography is the technology to capture life. We provide and support life worth capturing.” Fotografiska is a meeting place for all kind of photography and visual culture – fashion, documentary photography, video art, examples of how photography can raise awareness on different social and political issues, and much more. This approach has been with us from the very beginning and is part of our DNA. We work as much on making our guests feel welcome no matter who they are, as we do on our exhibitions. And I believe our guests and supporters can feel this from the moment they step inside our venue. We also have many different kinds of exhibitions running simultaneously, with different genres. So if you arrive at Fotografiska to see, for example, a big exhibition on fashion photography, you might also experience an exhibition on a young, emerging video artist. That’s a balance we always aim for, so our guests can experience something unexpected that might deepen their interest even more and open up for new thoughts.

PH: What were the tipping points along the development process when you really felt there had been some progress?
PB: We have been completely independent from the very beginning, and up to the grand opening in 2010, we were also a very small team. Therefore I would say there was no real tipping point, but rather a steady process from the very idea of a meeting place for photography, to where Fotografiska is today. Through this process, we have been honoured to have many supporters who have believed in Fotografiska from the beginning. With this said, we are in a constant development, always aiming towards getting better on all areas, so the progress is never ending.

PH: Can you explain how the museum was, and is now, financed?
PB: We are completely private, which means we have no tax money income or other governmental funding to rely on. Our main revenue is the entrance fee.

PH: What do you think the photography centre or museum of the future will look like?
PB: I believe Fotografiska is in the frontline of a new kind of art experience, where it is not only about the exhibitions, but also about the atmosphere, the food, and being a meeting place. The exhibitions are our core activity, but many of the comments we receive from our guests also include the restaurant, the museum shop, and even how great our bathrooms are. An exhibition on a great photographer can certainly be fantastic, but if the access was bad, the information you received wasn’t great, or the meal you had afterwards left you disappointed, that will certainly lower your overall experience.

PH: Have you got any thoughts on how the growing number of archives and collections in photography might best be managed? Do you have your own collections?
PB: We have our own collection. It is partly based on donations from artists we have worked with, but also art works that Fotografiska has bought for the collection. Having been open for nearly six years only, the collection is of course still smaller than others, but increasingly growing.

PH: How are state photographic collections managed in Sweden?
PB: There are huge collections at the government organisations with national responsibility for collecting and preserving photography, however it is not too often that these collections are made available to the public.

PH: How can we balance decreasing funding with growing collections and archives? How can we increase the public interest in collections?
PB: Being completely independent, our collection is not depending on external funding.
We believe that the interest in photography in general, not only collections but also in exhibitions, is to speak to a larger audience. Photography is a worldwide used medium, an everyday tool for people to interact, share, and save moments. It’s closer than any other art form, and part of our daily lives. Therefore, in order to bring awareness on what photography is and can be, the history of the medium and its future, we need to speak to everyone. Not only to the academic or the professional, but to everyone who is part of our society and visual culture.

NPS videos

Here are some videos of interviews at the last National Photography Symposium in 2014 at the Library of Birmingham. They give a snapshot of the kinds of topics discussed. They were filmed and edited by Katrina Houghton.

Francis Hodgson discusses the purpose of the Symposium:

Denise Swanson reflects on the Symposium, and the value of standards in photography:

Photographer Simon Roberts talks about building a career in photography:

Writer Richard West reflects on portfolio reviews in photography – are they useful and do they give value for money?

Jason DaPonte explains his innovative archive linking project, Mining The Archive:

Christian Payne discussed old and new business models:

Glocal in the work of C Y Frankel

A guest post by Camilla Brown, a speakers at this year’s Symposium.

CY_Frankel_1

This image is taken from a series titled Careful by a recent MA Photography graduate from Middlesex University, where I work. I first came across C Y Frankel’s work at BA level when he was working on his series My Brent Cross made around the 1970s shopping centre in North West London. When he was studying, the university photography department had recently relocated to the Grove Building in Hendon. Frankel was living at home locally whilst studying. This more recent work, Careful, broadens out from earlier themes but still has its roots both metaphorically and geographically in the same area of London.

As it happened I started working at Middlesex University at about the point they relocated to Hendon in part as the photography department moved quite literally to the end of my street. Working freelance as a mother of young children my work was becoming increasingly local in nature. Frankel’s work therefore had a very particular resonance for me as he captured and played back to me the area I knew so well. It is an odd area and an odd image, a suburban area not deprived yet equally not regenerating at the pace of so many other parts of London. There is the continual ebb and flow of new communities to the place and yet it is also home to a distinct and entrenched demographic who have for generations called it their own. This image is a particularly quiet work and captures a typical home. It has been caught at a moment where a mist hangs eerily around the house. It is a place that is at once ubiquitous and yet also unique and for residents it is instantly recognisable in Frankel’s work.

It is so local that I was keen in conversations with Frankel to see how he could widen out its appeal. How could something so specific become more universal? Of course countless personal photography projects make this leap: Larry Sultan’s Pictures from home; Richard Billingham’s Rays a laugh to name but two. But at a nascent stage it can be hard to work out which students can do it. In part my role at Middlesex is to help with the students’ professional development, which leads me to often repeat that making the work is only the tip of the iceberg. Often the real graft is getting the work out there and showing it to people. There are many ways to try to do this which require a big expense, or one could suggest investment, of time and money. But of course that is where living in the Web 2.0 age offers us all new horizons and possibilities – the virtual network.

Frankel submitted this series to a Lensculture Emerging Talent 2015, at which point I was not involved in any way with their work. Through his work’s merit he was one of the award winners for that category which gave the work some online exposure and meant it was also exhibited. For him the best outcome was the online portfolio feedback session with an internationally connected photography specialist. Dialogue and feedback on projects and work is often the thing most photographers want. Submitting work to a black void with no response leaves them with so many unanswered questions. Virtual platforms seem a new way to offer that global perspective, and Lensculture is a website keen to nurture and develop an online community for photographers.

The Lensculture platform has not transformed life for Frankel still working to find his way as a photographer but it has answered one specific question – could the local work he made have a global reach and appeal? could he embrace the glocal? Resoundingly so, and for me that is the curatorial question that can only be answered by having your work seen in amongst your international peers’. As a curator it is partly by looking at a lot of work that you can assess where someone’s practice sits. Some fly others flounder. Frankel flew on this platform with a sincere, questioning and quiet documentary series. As is often the case – it is not the work that shouts the loudest that has the greatest impact but the understated and the considered, perhaps the work that is ultimately more Careful.

Camilla Brown trained as an art historian completing her BA at Leeds University she then studied for her MA at the Courtauld Institute of Art. She is a curator, writer and lecturer on contemporary art, specialising in photography. For ten years she was Senior curator at The Photographers’ Gallery, London previous to which she was Exhibitions Curator at Tate Liverpool. She is on the Board of Directors at Quad.

Since 2012 she has held an academic post as Senior Lecturer in Creative Industries at Middlesex University, and in 2015 was appointed Visiting Fellow in Photography at the University of Derby. She regularly gives talks at universities, museums and galleries. She writes for artists’ monographs and history of photography books, and is also writes submission reviews for Lensculture. In 2016 she will publish a chapter titled ‘A curators perspective’ for a forthcoming book Photography and research: the idea, the process and the project, a Practical Guide for Photographers to be published by Focal Press.

Examples of her work appear on her website.

Click here for further information on C Y Frankel.

Camilla will be speaking at this year’s symposium about her own work over the past 8 months with Lensculture. She will explore what such online platforms offer photographers and curators and what the challenges are of presenting work in this context.

Find out more and book your place on the Format website.

Image at the top by C Y Frankel

2016 Programme

girl-lr-ajw

Now in its seventh edition, NPS 2016 is organised this year in partnership with FORMAT International Photography Festival off year and QUAD. It explores three main themes: new online photographic communities that are revolutionising learning and showing of work; the challenges of making – and forgetting – visual history in an age when everything is recorded. And it also explores the recently announced transfer of the National Photography Collection from the National Media Museum in Bradford to London’s V&A Museum.

To book your ticket for the National Photography Symposium (20th – 22nd April) please click HERE.

Tweet: #NPS16

TIMETABLE

WEDNESDAY 20th APRIL

18:00 Doors and registration open

18:30 to 19:30: Opening Keynote Address by Hester Keijser: On clouds, islands and diversity in the digital biosphere – a call for climate change in online photographic communities.

The two main themes of the symposium explore issues raised by the networked technologies that many photographers find themselves using on a daily basis. The talks and panel discussions will elaborate how we take part in and shape the digital culture that has evolved. The keynote by Hester Keijser will address risks and challenges facing us as we inhabit this digital biosphere. To what extent are we in control of our online presence and participation? What qualities need to be negotiated for peer to peer communities to thrive? How is the perceived need for narrative photography related to the rise of social media?

Hester is an independent curator and author specialising in contemporary photography. Currently she is advisor for the Mondriaan Foundation and is engaged as associate curator of the Noorderlicht Foundation in the Netherlands. Based in The Hague, she blogs as Mrs Deane, a name borrowed from a spiritualist medium.

THURSDAY 21st APRIL

9:30 Doors and registration open

Morning session – New Communities

Exploring the intersection between photography and digital culture, the photographic communities that are springing up, and the tools for learning and developing as a photographer that are emerging in consequence. How flexible and dynamic are online communities; does this also mean they are less permanent and does that matter? How effective are the new learning and development approaches that they foster? What is the role of traditional institutions and associations – how are they responding to changes and developments?

10:00 to 11:00: Presentations
Camilla Brown – LensCulture
Camilla will consider her work over the past 8 months with LensCulture (www.lensculture.com). She will explore and discuss what such online platforms offer photographers and curators and what the challenges are of presenting work in this context. What are the pros and cons of this new virtual frontier and how might we creatively respond in our glocal age?
Jonathan Shaw – Disruputive Media Learning Lab
Jonathan will introduce the pioneering work of his Disruptive Media Learning Lab which acts as an agent of change for new models for education, teaching and research, and other innovations in pedagogy, in the fields of photography and culture.
Followed by Brief Q&A

11:00 to 11:20 Break

11:20 to 12:05: Presentations
Karen Harvey, Creative Development Director of Shutter Hub:
In her work Karen explores new ways to reach out, to share, and to show talent to a hugely diverse and varied audience, without being confined by timescales, costs, or situation/location.
Scarlett Crawford – independent practitioner and educator. Scarlett will give an introduction to herself and her practice as an independent practitioner and educator. She will discuss whether the priorities for learning and development in photography have changed in the context of social and technological change in the last decade. She will discuss what she thinks we need to do to ensure that the widest range of people can access and benefit from learning opportunities including increasing representation, integration and cross cultural exchange, and an overall change of the industrial education system.
Tim Gander, commercial photographer and a moderator for the EPUK (Editorial Photographers UK) email forum, will outline EPUK’s origins and purpose, highlighting its campaigning efforts and its evolution in a changing media world. He will also describe the benefits and challenges of running an email discussion group from the perspective of the moderator team, as well as the pros and cons of this model from its users’ point of view.

Straight into…

12:05 to 12:45: PANEL DISCUSSION Chaired by Paul Herrmann
Including the morning participants and Hester Keijser

12:45 to 14:00: Lunch

Afternoon session – Making Visual History

Many photographers set out to record or document for posterity and history. In the past this has involved multiple selection and editing processes, with ultimately relatively few images stored long term. But now that no image need be deleted and almost everything is stored, how will our era be remembered visually – will it have a “defining” narrative, and if so what part do individuals have in shaping that narrative? There is an ethical dimension to this; does the perceived need for narrative affect the truth or fact of what is being remembered? Has “forgetting” become a conscious act of deletion, disposal or even hiding? We invite you to explore with a range of photographers and historians what it now means to photograph for history.

14:00 to 15:10: Presentations

 Joy Gregory – artist working with photography and related media
Here today… Over the last 10 years Joy’s interest has been captured by disappearances of intangible histories. She has used a range of photographic materialities to be record their existence. This seems ironic when one considers the fragility of the digital image, which is constantly threatened by the instability of our many storage devices (including the Internet) and the continuing advance of technology. Joy will be taking the issues at the centre of her more recent projects as a prism through which to reflect on the future of the photographic image in the 21st-century.

Alan Ward – artist and designer
The Gearing Archive Re-imagined. In 2013, while an artist in residence, Alan Ward bought some glass negatives on a whim from eBay. They had no provenance or documentation, though seemed to show a single extended family and its travels and activities. Over a three-year period of what he calls “forensic research and voyeuristic obsession” Alan worked out the locations shown, pieced together the story told by the images, and in doing so uncovered – re-imagined – the history of the Gearing family and the society in which they moved.

15:10 to 15:40 break

15:40 to 17:15: Panel session with the above speakers and:
Sarah Fisher, Director of Open Eye Gallery, Liverpool
Graham Harrison, Editor of Photo Histories, The Photographers’ History of Photography

Introduced and chaired by Kelley Wilder – Director, Photographic History Research Centre, De Montfort University.

FRIDAY 22nd APRIL

The National Collections Debate

Friday is given over to discussing future possibilities for the UK’s national photographic collections, and the role of institutions in supporting photography into the future. We are delighted to welcome speakers from key institutions, as well as photographers and researchers, with a view to generating new ideas and potential outcomes for the photographic community.

Confirmed speakers for the day:

Michael Terwey, Head of Collections & Exhibitions at the National Media Museum
Martin Barnes, Senior Curator, Photographs, Victoria and Albert Museum
Michael Pritchard, Director-General of The Royal Photographic Society
Colin Ford, first director of the National Museum of Photography, Film and Television
Anne McNeill, Director of Impressions Gallery, Bradford
Francis Hodgson, Professor in the Culture of Photography, University of Brighton
Jo Booth, artist and researcher
In addition Graham Harrison, Sarah Fisher and Paul Herrmann will take part.

10:00 to 11:30: The background to recent proposals and changes including: the history of the UK’s national photography museum; the decline in cultural sector funding; the location of cultural assets, and the dominance of London.

AUDIO RECORDINGS FROM THIS SESSION

Colin Ford (with intro from Paul Herrmann):

Michael Terwey

Michael Pritchard

Martin Barnes:

Q & A with Michael Terwey, Michael Pritchard, Martin Barnes and Paul Herrmann:

 

We are anticipating a lot of questions and comments at Friday’s debate and suggest that you send questions in advance. Please email any questions/comments to question@redeye.org.uk. Please include your full name; questions may be published. Please get your email questions/comments to us no later than 18:00 on Thursday 21st April. We will also be handing out slips should you wish to write your question during the symposium. These can be handed in to Redeye staff or volunteers up until 9:45 on Friday morning.

Break

11:50 to 13:00: How might we move forward from this to create a stronger photography sector? Exploring both centralized and distributed case studies internationally and from different disciplines; the future for collections; mapping resources and joined-up thinking.

AUDIO RECORDINGS FROM THIS SESSION

Sarah Fisher and Francis Hodgson:

Panel session Friday – the above and Jo Booth, Graham Harrison with Paul Herrmann:

 

13:00 to 14:00 Lunch break

14:00 to 15:30: Break outs, idea generation and discussion sessions.

Break

16:00 to 16:30
Conclusions and next steps.

AUDIO RECORDING FROM THIS SESSION

Friday reports back and conclusion:

 

Alongside Friday’s Symposium sessions are the FORMAT International Portfolio Review all day at QUAD. FORMAT has carefully selected 25+ international experts in the field of photography, from around the world to be available for meetings. For the reviewer list and to book, visit the link here.

More speakers being confirmed weekly. Speakers may change.

Who should come?

This event is strongly recommended for anyone interested in photography and the future of the medium, whether photographers, curators, academics, students, writers, collectors or organisation staff.

Timings:

Weds 20 April 2016: 18:00 to 19:30
Thurs 21 April 2016: 10:00 to 17:30
Friday 22 April 2016: 10:00 to 16:30

Tickets

Prices are as follows:

Standard three day ticket: £45
Concession, low waged or student: £35 for three days
Redeye member or portfolio reviewee £25 for three days

To book your ticket for the National Photography Symposium (20th – 22nd April) please click HERE.

Photo credit: from the Gearing Archive: Girl c. 1936; from Alan Ward’s presentation on the discovery and re-imagining of a family history

Review: Betty Kajajian on starting a photography business

The National Photography Symposium 2014 organised by Redeye, in collaboration with Grain, consisted of three days of interesting panel discussions and talks. While the first day was dedicated to discussing the different routes into photography, and the second day to organisations and institutions, the third was solely dedicated to photographers and revolved around the topics of integrity, business models, pricing and licensing. As an MA Photography student at London College of Communication graduating this year, I was particularly interested in the last day’s talks, as a way to equip myself for life after art school and in planning for my own photography business.

Having that in mind, I was keen on hearing Stephen Mayes discuss new business models for photographers. He noted that in recent years there has been a shift in values from the photograph to the photographer, and stated that people nowadays are paying for integrity, values and credibility rather than just the person’s ability to take photographs. He urged the audience to create value for themselves, adding that failure is an essential part of a photographer’s practice and growth and should not be feared.

He also highlighted the practicality of the internet and online social media channels in measuring effectiveness of a photographer’s work and reach. His reasoning was that quantity (number of views and social media interactions) is a good metric system to see what quality to work on.

Fiona Rogers of Magnum Photos also stated the importance of the internet and social media in generating work and funding projects. She gave the project Postcards from America as an example of building a large online audience and subsequently turning that audience into paying customers.

After also hearing from Jonathan Shaw and Nathan Tromans on the same topic, Adrian West and Sophie Brown of Company of Mind took the stage and lead a thrilling active session on business model generation. They started by stating the importance of getting and keeping the right customers, providing them with what they need and building an advantage that would later convert the value being provided into income.  To get the idea across they divided us, the audience, into small groups of 5 to 6 people and asked us to come up with interesting business ideas. Each group then filled out a business model canvas thinking of all the different components that went into having a solid and functional business plan. It really hit home for me the importance of knowing who my customers are and to develop a relationship with them to have a successful business.

On top of all the fascinating talks, Michal Dybowski a Manchester based wedding photographer gave a pop-up session on pricing in photography, explaining his pricing model and stressing on the importance of holding monthly, quarterly and annual price and product evaluations to gauge the growth of his company and the changes that should be made to it.

All in all, the day was a complete success and I left the Symposium feeling content in my gained knowledge, and confident that I’d gained the right tools to start my own business.

Betty Kajajian is a photographer and MA student at London College of Communication