This Friday at KPS ...

Kingswood Photographic Society is absolutely delighted to welcome Ian Thomson ARPS, EFIAP/s, for the first time as their speaker on Friday 7^th July, who will be giving an illustrated presentation entitled, Architecture and Landscapes. Ian will also bring 15 mounted prints for members to view during the break.

Ian says:  “My retirement, a few years ago, gave me the time and the opportunity to reignite a lifetime’s interest in photography. It was probably quite predictable that after forty years working as an architect, I chose to concentrate my energies on architectural photography.

It is sometimes said that the objective of traditional architectural photography is to represent the vision of the architect in the photograph.  I try to set aside my architectural training and to photograph architecture in a way that enables me to present my personal vision as a photographer, rather than the vision of the architect.  I photograph what I see with my eyes and with my mind. These are rarely traditional photographs, but images that derive as much from my imagination as from my eyes.

I try to seek out the hidden aesthetic in buildings and to exploit their form and detail to produce images that are both original and of artistic merit in their own right. “Record” photography shows you what you would have seen if you had visited the same building.  I prefer my photographs to try to show you something you might not have seen, had you been at the same location.

There are few sights in life that can compare with watching the sun rise over the Scottish mountains or the English Lakes, so it is perhaps no surprise that my passion for Architectural Photography is shared with a love of Landscape Photography.

I may be unusual in that I actually enjoy getting up in the dark at some unholy hour of the morning, in order to travel to my chosen location to capture those magical moments when the sun casts its first rays over the landscape.  I try to capture that ethereal interrelationship between the light and the land, which is so transient at that time of the day.

My presentation will show a wide selection of architectural photographs, in the first half, ranging from traditional architectural images to more creative semi-abstract images in both colour and monochrome.  The second half of the presentation will be exclusively landscape photographs.”

For further information about Ian Thompson, but at the risk of spoiling some of the surprises Ian has in store for us, do look at his fabulous website, http://www.ianthomson.co.uk/, from which you’ll see why this promises to be an absolutely superb evening.  We hope to see you there.

Kingswood PS meet Fridays from 7.30pm to around 9.30pm at St Barnabas Church Hall, Warmley, Bristol BS30 5JJ.  Visitors are most welcome and the cost for this evening is £3.00.