Talk at the RMPS & Irving Penn

A new photographic society has been formed in our village at the start of the year. It is a small society, and its specific aims are to share knowledge & experience, and not to be competitive like a lot of camera clubs. Anyway, I made the mistake of offering to do a talk on "Composition" using some of the things I have learned on my course, and immediately regretted it as I absolutely hate giving talks. It came back to haunt me, as these things tend to, and so I ended up doing a talk on "Elements of Design" last week. Despite being a small group, it is a very professional and well educated audience which was pretty intimidating as I was terrified of making a fool of myself. As a result, I spent a lot of time on preparation reviewing my notes, making summary slides and, most importantly, seeking out examples to illustrate the principles. This was a very helpful exercise in itself, and helped to consolidate my knowledge.

In the end, the talk went very smoothly and I received a lot of kind positive feedback afterwards, which was a real boost.

As an aside, whilst preparing the talk I discovered that Irving Penn uses triangles in a lot of his work, creating very dynamic portraiture. Here is some examples: