The article about camera clubs comes from the AP. The author took the line that the system used in judging
competitions stultified imaginative photography since pictures were produced to a formula to win. Discussion
should replace battles, competitions etc. it is an argument that is not new and it does have some merit. Perhaps
there is a formula for winning. Do the rules of composition constitute such a formula? Some would say that if
they are not followed the picture fails.

I cannot see that the competitive element within a club is a bad thing. It provides an incentive to take better and
better pictures. Once you have the know-how you are able to do what you want with your photography and get what
you want out of it.

When you get to the point of wanting to show your work to a wider audience there is a big choice available: slide
shows, audio-visual sequences; local, national or even international exhibitions always want to see new work;
magazines and even TV appeal for pictures (weather forecast programmes for example often show seasonal
pictures sent in by viewers). The list is long and the variety of subjects just as long. Over the years camera club
photographers have submitted pictures by the thousand and the range and variety of subject matter are there to be
seen which brings me to the exhibition. The Royal Photographic Society of Great Britain (RPS) has recently
transferred its collection of photographs and cameras etc. to the National Museum of Photography, Film and
Television at Bradford. To commemorate one hundred and fifty years of this camera club the Museum staged an
exhibition from the collection. It was a stunning show with examples of work from the amateurs of the early days to
works by leading photographers from all over the world and professionals like Karsh of Ottawa. The tremendous
variety of subject and the sheer quality of the large plate pictures was impressive. There were a few huge pictures,

composites from five whole plate negatives (forerunners of Photoshop layers?). Super colour photos using the
tri-carbro process. My favourite was a 20x30 monochrome print from Pontings collection of Antarctic pictures
showing shapes in ice and ice floes with a tiny figure of a man giving perspective to the sheer size of the lanscape.
The quality was stunning. The exhibition had it all, macrophotography, x-rays, high speed, people, landscape, war
and the first photograph. I came away with the impression we are not producing better pictures now, the quality is
not as good. Colour films have become too contrasty so that prints lack shadow detail. Subject matter is the same
but different in a backward sense. This is not an example of the ‘things were better in the old days’ opinion, this
exhibition speaks for itself...