Judge and be Judged

 Recently I was asked to judge the Woodford and Wanstead Photographic Society annual street photograph competition. The society was founded in 1893 and is one of Britain’s oldest photographic clubs, with members scattered across the globe. 

 

Luciano Ocesca, their programme secretary, had attended my talk ‘Why shoot B/W film in an era of easy digital colour?’ and enjoyed it. So he invited me to take part. I’d never done this before, or even belonged to a photographic society, but I said yes, armed only with inexperience and preconceived ideas. It was a mildly terrifying prospect but I’ve told myself to accept more invitations. 

Their process was slick. The rules were explained, I asked questions that were quickly answered, I was told politely but firmly that I was not allowed to bend the rules as I tried to avoid scoring every picture out of 20, and sent links to national judging criteria. The pictures, all sized and titled, were sent to me with metadata removed. I was also invited to their latest talk by photographer Lisa Rendall to get a feel for the club. Nice pictures if you like ICM (Intentional Camera Movement).

At the same time, I was completing the latest work in my project about the Lea Bridge Road, an in-depth look at K&H Timber Supplier, a business that has been trading from a row of Victorian terraced houses since the late 1970s. I knew I was going to hit that low ebb that comes from finishing a story, something I touched on in my previous post ‘…And now for my next trick’, so I thought this was a good way to get going again. 

 

Judging the competition was humbling and inspirational. Humbling because people had spent a lot of time shooting, editing and submitting work just to be judged by me. Inspirational because there was so much energy going on and passion for photography at all levels of ability, technical know-how and gear used. Fifty-eight images to look through and I had to choose first, second and third. For each image I felt I needed to say why it wasn’t a winner while also explaining what I liked. This is also a good way of looking at your own work. Here are the winners: 

First place ‘Nothing to See Here’ by Leigh Kogan, second ‘Appleby Horse Fair’ by Julian Smith and third ‘Good Mood’ by Adrian Gorst. 

 

But the real inspiration for me was that the pictures were varied and strong, and, most importantly, everyone had bothered. Why go through all that effort for someone, a complete stranger, to look and go ‘meh’? I suppose it’s the notion of bothering and risking a ‘meh’ that continually vexes and drives me.

 

During the same week I showed my work on K&H Timber Supplier to a much-respected photographer, colleague and friend. He said it was a small stepping stone on a long story-telling journey. Was that a ‘meh’? 

 

And he’s right. What I am doing is small, but for the people in my pictures, it’s one of the biggest stories I can shoot and that is why I bother. When I turned up at K&H Timber with copies of the book that includes their story the excitement of the people shown on those printed pages was, for me, like winning first prize in a competition. 

The book itself was rather an afterthought despite trying to be structured in my approach to the story’s final digital presentation. I wanted to compare the visual impact of using black and white against colour for the same story. I also wanted to experiment by presenting the story in different ways: as a series of still images with captions, and using a combination of the same images as a video presentation. For the video, I was also aware of how long people engage and made the black and white video specifically for Instagram, i.e. less than 60 seconds long. Both videos were posted on YouTube. Interestingly, the colour video that is over five minutes long has eight times more engagement than the black and white video. The still images shared on Instagram have much greater engagement than the video. Lesson here is that content does better on the right platform. As a side note, I just can’t bring myself to engage in TikTok, so I don’t have an account – maybe a mistake.   

 

Below are links to each presentation, so if you have time, have a look and think which works best for you. Click on each of the pictures to go the the different stories. 

Colour stills with captions

Black and white stills with captions 

Colour stills and video

Black and white stills and video

In the end, I wanted it to be accessible no matter how people prefer to engage with stories. I also hope it’s a body of work that will form an archive of ordinary lives for the future -  something I fear is being ignored. 

 

 

 

Russell Boyce 2025

 

Edited by Giles Elgood

...And now for my next trick?

Last week a line was drawn under my work in Hull. Stories I had begun in the 1980s and completed over the last three years - ‘Rag Bone!’, ‘Ladies and Gentlemen, Kandy de Barry!’ and ‘Star & Garter’ - all converged in one place. Drag artist Ray Millington, originally known as Kandy de Barry, was performing as Bobby Mandrell in the Star & Garter pub, now called Rayners. Rag and Bone man and long-term friend George Norris was there, not to collect scrap, but to photograph Ray. I was in Hull to show some friends our exhibition ‘You and Me in HU3’ at the Humber Street Gallery, which featured these three stories as well as pictures by George. An opportunity for a ‘happy snap’ too good to miss.

George Norris, Ray Millington and myself in Rayners, on Hessle Road, Hull March 23, 2024. 

Below George Norris with horse Sally and cart, The Star & Garter pub and Kandy de Barry performing in the St Georges pub, all taken in 1983

In two weeks’ time, our exhibition in Hull will be closing. All the books of the show have sold out, feedback in the comments book was heart-warming, media coverage and gallery footfall were terrific, and we’ve just finished a series of talks about it all. 

A couple of the hundreds of comments left by people who visited our exhibition at the Humber Street Gallery 'Wonderful, eye opening, Incredible, important photos'

Exhibiting this work has been as exciting for me as when I was a child blowing up an enormous balloon to bursting point, then letting it go, releasing the pent-up energy, wonderful to watch as it darts around the room. 

 

But now the hunt is on for the spent balloon. It’s never easy to find. And after going through the story-telling process, I am feeling like that spent balloon. I have to start again, but I need time for a rethink.

 

The big question – why bother?  

 

On and off for about the last 18 months and interrupted by the ‘You and Me in HU3’ exhibition, I have been shooting a new story, walking up and down the Lea Bridge Road in northeast London. it’s typically London and ordinarily happy, with business, leisure, faith, food, migration, gentrification, cycle and bus lanes, and 20 mph speed cameras. I want to capture the ordinariness of the changing face of London and I think the Lea Bridge Road community sums up this change perfectly. 

 

I knew I was going to hit the buffers once the Hull exhibition closed so I decided to take some pre-emptive action. As I was revisiting the stories I’d shot in Hull in the 1980s, I decided to ask my original tutor, respected documentarist Daniel Meadows, if I could show him my recent work and ask for feedback. Despite the passage of over 40 years Daniel hadn’t lost his edge. He asked me all the questions that had been nagging in the back of my mind. In short, why am I doing this? Is the story interesting enough? Are the pictures good enough? Why am I using an old Rolleiflex and shooting black and white film?

I have printed out Daniel’s key point and put them on my notice board. They are as good as they are brutal. Pulling out a few in bold to mull them over, I’ve added images to illustrate them. 

 

1 - ‘Sharpen the focus of your intent’ tells me I am not fully communicating what I am trying to say. This is true. I am still circling the story and need to find a way in to capture the essence of this community without misrepresenting it. This will take time. 

A woman waits for a bus on the Lea Bridge Road, London September 23, 2023.  

 

4 – ‘No point photographing familiar things unless you show them in a way which hasn’t been seen before.’ In short, the pictures are boring in terms of content, composition and light. I agree and have still not shot a picture that makes me think, mmm I’m happy with that, but I am getting closer. I have restricted myself to a square format film camera as an entrée to people I photograph on the street and as a visual challenge to my own picture-taking. I am very much struggling with technology, or the lack if it, with the Rolleiflex but I don’t want to do what I did when I was a student aged 23 shooting 35mm format black and white film, nor do I want to do what I did as a news photographer, using the latest 35mm digital technology. I want to struggle with something that is new to me and will, I hope, eventually produce different results from what I have done in the past. 

Boys chat on the top deck of a bus just off the Lea Bridge Road, London September 26, 2023.  

 

5 – ‘You seem to be avoiding getting too close and I wonder why?’ I know exactly why. I am trying to rebuild my confidence in photographing people and at the same time struggling with the notion of a ‘negotiated space’ in which to take these pictures. As a news photographer there was no negotiation, I just took. Today, I want my pictures to have a feel of ‘candid permission’, so the images will have a look of being candid while being permissioned but without being set up. This is a very small space that I am trying to occupy, which I sometimes fear might not really exist given it’s now 2024.

Girls chat as they wait at traffic lights to cross Argall Way that crosses Lea Bridge Road, London September 4, 2023.  

 

10 – ‘Justify working in black and white’. I have considered this and decided to shoot black and white for two reasons. The first was to take out the noise of colour that we are bombarded with on the street when composing pictures. Secondly, I wanted to give people actual prints and slow the ‘act of photography’. This I hope will produce an image for them that feels more considered and as a consequence is more treasured. 

A woman cycles down Lea Bridge Road, London, past graffiti on a wall, September 27, 2023.  

 

12 – ‘Keep going’. And this is what I intend to do. 

A woman vapes and blows smoke as she walks past dumped furniture on Bickley Road just off Lea Bridge Road, London, September 1, 2023.

 

This post originated as a few notes to clarify my own thinking. But after chatting to a few colleagues I realised that many are going through the same thought processes, so I decided to share some of my thinking. Rejecting the obvious attractions of a comfy sofa and afternoon TV I have loaded up the camera with film and headed out. 

 

Plucking up all my courage I asked Kelly Bear if I could photograph her and her dog, Dr Nommy, as they headed off to the vets just off the Lea bridge Road. At the end of the day, it’s just a picture of a woman in the street with a dog on a lead but to me it represents the next step as I leave the past in the past and try to use what I have learned in Hull with future work.

Kelly Bear with her dog Dr Nommy who were off to the vets along the Lea Bridge Road March 21, 2024. Kelly, who lives on the Lea Bridge Road, said the biggest change she had noticed is that there are so many better coffee shops since she moved to the area. 

 

Russell Boyce  

Edited by Giles Elgood