2025’s programme is under way!
8 January 2025
An advantage of on-line meetings is that The Society can call on speakers from outside our immediate area, such as was the case with Neil Scott FRPS who stared our 2025 programme on 7th January; Neil lives in Edinburgh. So we began 2025 with The ABC of Photography.
This was not the usual ABC but Neil’s aims for his images; to Amuse, Bemuse and Confuse. Adding another A – Anomaly – where items that would not normally be seen together are photographed in the same frame.
Being based in Edinburgh gives Neil access to the many, often unusual, acts that appear for the Fringe Festival and he uses pictures of some of them in his work, perhaps, especially the Amuse and Bemuse.
In his presentation “Minimalism my way” he explained that his set-ups are often of the simplest variety using household items, daylight and a piece of [usually] white paper placed in such a way as to create a seamless background.
After so basic definitions of Minimalism, Abstract and Surrealism, Neil showed a lot of his mages explaining how they were taken and whether they fitted in with some of his “series” of images:
Metalographs: pictures of metal objects, simply photographed but in such a way that they can be seen in way that works with a humourous title
The Red series: basically white on whit images but with one, bold, red item (a chilli, strawberry, tomato etc) that contrasts with the white elements
The White Series: White plates or other items on plain white backgrounds where the cleverly placed shadows work to show the details.
Neil was honest enough to show some of his pictures “that did not quite work” where his undoubted creativity did produce the results that he was expecting. It was quite refreshing that even an FRPS (a Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society – one of the highest accolades in photography) does not get it right all the time.
In her summing-up, The Society’s President, Helen Frost, said “how you get the ideas? For many that is the hardest part. White on white on white could be an absolute disaster if not handled so well”