Home»On working towards a Royal Photographic Society associate distinction.
Over my many years as a photographer I always intended that I would apply for Associate of the Royal Photographic Society but never got round to it. With the arrival of the Covid-19 pandemic I decided that, with time on my hands due to "keeping safe", this was my opportunity. After one unsuccessful submission and much further thought and research, I started again. First of all I needed a subject with which to assemble a body of work. I had for a long time been concerned about the derelict buildings to be found in Cawdor Quarry which no one else seemed concerned about. I also had a set of images of the sites taken over several years.
After looking at the images I wrote my Statement of Intent which is as follows. Needless to say, there were many revisions.
Whilst out walking, I often passed these two derelict sites, the larger one being a manufacturing complex which closed in 2009. Over the years, mindless vandalism has been rife. As a result, the buildings undoubtedly have internal structures that would be dangerous to enter and certainly could contain asbestos. These are just two reasons why there are no interior images. Parts of the adjoining land are also probably contaminated which would explain why nature’s regenerative process has been slow to establish a foothold. With equipment and protective clothing just dumped, both sites are eyesores. But they are just two examples of the many derelict and contaminated sites found across the country that no one is discussing and certainly no one is taking responsibility for. Consequently, I have completed this body of work to illustrate that in the current ecologically focused times, this is an important subject that deserves a voice.
I then began to reprocess the RAW files and choose the fifteen images I wished to use. Finally, I had to produce a panel showing all fifteen images arranged in a balanced and pleasing manner. This panel is referred to as being important and effectively, the so called sixteenth image. As it is a pdf file and not a jpg, this image is not shown.
All of the images were taken with a Leica M9P rangefinder camera and a 35 mm f/2 non-aspheric Summicron lens, processed using Capture One and Adobe Photoshop CC.
I am pleased to say that today, the 25th of November 2021, I became an Associate of the Royal Photographic Society. https://rps.org/
