Blog Post #40

Visits to The RPS and Lacock Abbey

A few weeks ago my wife and I decided to have a few days away in the Bath area, revisiting a location we had stayed at before. We like to take in a few National Trust locations wherever we go so this time I had two locations I wanted to visit, The Royal Photographic Society HQ in Bristol and the NT property at Lacock Abbey. Those of you that know your photography history will know about Lacock Abbey but more on that later.

If you haven’t visited the RPS HQ its worth a visit if you are in the area as they usually have a good exhibition on show. The RPS HQ is in a complex called The Paintworks on the outskirts of Bristol. Although large parts of the location are still a building site the RPS location is easy to find. The particular exhibition on display when we visited was “The International”. The exhibition contained some great work from photographers around the world and was very well presented in the large air conditioned gallery. Like most exhibitions I look at there were a lot of conflicts going on in my head over “why take that?”, “I could do that”, and ”how did that get into an exhibition?”. There were also the “Meh” shots and some “wow” shots. We are all entitled to our own opinions on work displayed, but I reminded myself that their work is on the wall of The RPS HQ on merit, so why isn’t mine? Where is the gap that makes their work stand out? One thing I did notice was many of the exhibits had the byline “from the series XYZ”.

The images were individual extracts from larger projects or specific bodies of work that the photographer had been working on, possibly for many years. It reminded me that working towards a project or specific body of work based around a particular theme can help focus the photographer on getting organised and as a result encourages and gives purpose to our work. This is something I need think about going forward and review what photos I have, what are the ones I like, and see if I may have been subconsciously working to a theme or not. Either way I maybe need to consider the way forward a bit more

One final word on The RPS HQ. I am a member of The RPS and I have been to their HQ twice now and, exhibitions aside, each time I have come away feeling rather cold, and I don’t mean from the air conditioning. Apart from a handful of books on sale the venue doesn’t scream out “this is The RPS HQ” and is rather soul-less. Its location probably means it doesn’t get a lot of footfall and both times I have been there I have been the only visitor there at the time. There is no RPS merchandise to purchase either which I found strange.

Across from The RPS HQ is The Martin Parr Gallery. I decided to pop my head in there too and viewed the exhibition on display. What I did notice was that they had a very good book store selling all sorts of photography books, Zines, Prints and Martin Parr merchandise. Maybe The RPS could learn from their neighbours.

Lacock Abbey

Those of you who know your photography history will immediately recognise this gentleman. He is William Henry Fox Talbot, the father of modern photography, sitting in his study at Lacock Abbey, near Bath. There are other claimants to this achievement such as the Frenchmen Daguerre and Niépce, but it was Fox Talbot who produced his first “Photographic Drawings” in 1834, and by the following year had produced the first photographic negative. Although digital is the most common process used now, it was Fox Talbot’s invention that paved the way for modern photography. During my visit to Lacock Abbey I visited the fascinating Museum of Photography they have there and stood on the very spot in Fox Talbot’s study where this photo was taken.

Lacock Abbey itself is a fascinating building, as is the whole village, and the NT have done a great job in preserving it for us, it is worth a visit.

The Oriel Window, South Gallery, Lacock Abbey

No visit to Lacock Abbey would ever be complete without a photo of “The Window”.

On a hot sunny day in August 1835, William Henry Fox Talbot created the very first photographic negative of this window. The tiny image, hardly bigger than a postage stamp, is probably the most important artefact in photographic history. It was the result of an ongoing interest, experimenting with light and chemistry to create the correct formula that would fix an image to paper.

I hope you have enjoyed this blog post and thank you for reading it. If you want to comment on this blog post please do so below or you can contact me by using the “Contact Me” facility in the website header.