Salt Spring Photography Club
Minutes - January 10 2018 meeting
• The meeting opened with our new president Pierre Mineau.
• Pierre encouraged members to contact him directly with feedback or any new ideas about the club. He can be reached through the club website or directly via email at:
pierre.mineau2@gmail.com.
• Pierre pointed out that a big item on the 2018 agenda for the Club is the proposed ‘PhotoFest’ – the combined effort of the SSI Photo Club and Photosynthesis coming together for their annual show. A committee has been struck to arrange the first event in 2019. If anyone wants to become involved in the preparation, they should let the executive know.
• New members were welcomed: Alberto Lara and Sebastian Lassak.
• Members were reminded to renew their membership. Pat Page, our treasurer will be collecting $30.00 for 2018. There is an envelope for dropping off cheques at the Apple Photo community dropbox.
• Shows:
o Judy McPhee has a presentation at TJ Beans
o Doug McMillan will be presenting photos at Country Grocer
o Our club’s Lobby Show is now on at ArtSpring until Jan 31 at 5 PM
• Anna McColm has taken on the challenge of organising a photography exhibit to be held during the combined Tour des Îles – Electric Vehicle Jamboree June 22-24 2018. This was as a result of an invitation/request to the club.
• A reminder that Club Photo walks will be held on the third Sunday of each month at 10 AM. The next one will be Jan 21 -- at Duck Creek, Sunset side. Doug to put this on the website calendar.
• Jana Zachariou mentioned the Ladysmith Biannual show with a 19 Jan submission. The show starts Feb 3. (2 pieces@ cost of $30.00 a piece for interested photographers).
• Jana will have more information forthcoming on the next Eclectic Visions show 18 to 30 May.
Margaret Benmore introduced our guest speaker and presenter: Greg Constantine, a documentary photographer, who is currently visiting Salt Spring Island as artist in residence with the Arts Council.
His work " Nowhere People " has been featured in a Tedx talk (available on Youtube). This is a great way to hear him describe the context of his work . This has been an 11 year project, telling the story of people who have no country to call their own. For many reasons the country they live in refuses to recognize them as citizens, leaving them with no paperwork no national identity, which of course makes their traveling, working and living in other places very difficult.
Greg’s presentation was very well tailored to the club – speaking primarily about his journey and development as a photographer.
Greg's challenge was how to put that huge diffuse global issue into images for the world to see. Greg presented us with his documentary photos: taken in color and black and white, whether film or digital images. He and his wife Jen are based in Bangkok Thailand. His cameras are Nikon F 100 with 24 mm wide lens and 28 m fixed lens, Leica M6 with 35 mm lens. He uses natural light -- no flash. He uses an Epson printer. With his shift to digital he uses a Nikon D 750 and a small Sony DSC RX 100 with Zoom audio recorder.
In 1987 he quit his job to travel. In 2000 the purpose of his travel was to document stroke survivors and he donated the photos and stories to a Stroke organization.
From 2002 - 2003 he worked on a project documenting the struggles of North Korean refugees seeking asylum in southeast Asia. In 2003 the BBC published a small text story and one of his photos. He had a small exhibit shown at the Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles, then in Washington DC and then in Seoul. It was during that project that he became aware of the issue of statelessness. In late 2005, he embarked on the project Nowhere People.
2006 saw him documenting Nepal’s stateless communities. He showed photos of the state of people there with a photo essay and used only natural light. Greg's preference is with black and white. His images are stark and contrasty – filled with bright
In his Nowhere book he showed how the children are invisible and lacked identity.
In 2010, he self published his first book about the Nubian community in Kenya. The book included archival photos he collected with a team of Nubian youth. These helped the Nubian community regain a piece of their (officially ignored) history.
His second book was published in 2012 about the stateless Rohingya community in Burma.
His third book was published in late 2015. It is a book of the whole project Nowhere People and focuses on stateless people in 12 countries. All three books were self published and funded with grants. He distributes the books by himself as well at exhibitions, on his website and through Amazon.com.
In 2016, Greg Constantine received a PhD from Middlesex University in London in the area of Social Work and Social Policy. This is a research PhD based on his published work, books and exhibitions from the project Nowhere People.
The meeting adjourned without looking at the member’s submissions. The photo challenge of
‘borders or boundaries’ will be shown at the next meeting instead.
Colleen Barnes Horel
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