Maidenhead Camera Club: ExhibitionThree

Norden Farm Centre for the Arts, Altwood Road, Maidenhead.

30th Aug - 18th Sept 2005

Work from the following people was displayed:

John Beard	Rod Bird	Ed Doughty	Maggie Evans
Paul Franklin	Ian Gilchrist	Glynn Grylls	Joe Humm
Bob Keene	Rod Morrod	Chris Pooley	Mark Russell
Bob Strutton

Exhibition producers : Rod and Pat Bird

A dozen club photographers were asked to contribute to this small exhibition marking Norden Farm’s fifth birthday, and were given the widest of briefs: “Landscape”.

The resulting collection was unselected - the photographers themselves chose their entries. Naturally there was a wide range of styles, but some trends were evident, for instance the ubiquity of the digital image. Apart from “Gallops, Lambourne”, a traditional darkroom photo, all the images on display were inkjet prints. About half were taken with a digital camera. Slides or negatives were scanned when making the rest.

Despite the opportunities for creative digital intervention, almost all of the photographers made realistic renderings of their subjects. Only “Auckland Skyline” presented an obviously manipulated view, while “Farmland, Cookham Dean” and notably the two prints by Joe Humm had a restricted colour palette. This defied the predictions made ten years ago, when many conventional photographers feared that to adopt digital technology would be to open an unclosable door into a world of pastiche and surrealism.

The popularity of wide format or “letterbox” photographs was also obvious. Unlike painters, photographers have historically been constrained by the 3x2 or 5x4 shapes dictated by film and photographic paper, but panoramic cameras and inkjet printers offer today’s photographer more options.

"River Alde" - Joe Humm