Featured image: © Sue Czapska

A mistake can result in an interesting photo, as Central Group members proved in the group’s February meeting, which was on the theme “Mistakes”.

David Helms showed a variety of photos of mistakes, notably one where the letter U in the word pub had been turned around on a wall adjacent to a pub near the Thames Barrier.

©David Helms

Julian Sainsbury contrasted two images of an underpass in Portsmouth one of which showed a chair placed in the road. The image with the chair engaged viewers more, and we suggested they could be shown as a diptych.

©Julian Sainsbury

Steve Jones entertained us with colour analogue film mistakes, including light leaks, camera movement, underexposure and misprocessing to produce vivid colours. The images reminded us of the creative potential of analogue film, which isn’t vailable in digital photography.

©Steve Jones

Jan Cylwik showed images from his Lost Futures project, which created colour images from 3 similar monochrome images by using RGB masks.  The colour images were of nationalist icons taken from early 20th century coins.  When displayed on the monitor on the wall, they looked flat, but unintentionally 3D when viewed through the appallingly bad lenses in slide viewers (which can’t focus RGB in the same focal plane).

©Jan Cylwik

Austin Guest curated a variety of photos of mistakes, including Freddie Mercury’s notebook with mistakes crossed out, alternative fates of King Harold found in the Bayeux tapestry, humorously misspelt notices, and a cat shredding a cross-stitched embroidery mistakenly left out on the carpet.

©Austin Guest

A few personal projects were shown:

Barbara Luckhurst’s new project visually explored the ethnically diverse area of Green Lanes.  Her images contained striking compositions of figures in urban landscapes and a variety of local signs.  Her previous project celebrated community by displaying prints in a local park of people she had photographed sitting together on benches. 

©Barbara Luckhurst

Edey Templeton showed images taken at the Winter Lights festival in Canary Wharf.  These included reflections in water, silhouettes, and the striking effects of intentional camera movements to transform scenes into abstract art.

©Edith Templeton

Sue Czapska experimented with the clone stamp tool in Photoshop to produce a creative tension between different views of the seaside taken from the same place.  This gave her more control than using in-camera multiple exposure and resulted in thoughtful compositions combined with colour washes to create a mood. In another set of photos, she created a sparse Japanese aesthetic by superimposing birch tree trunks on images of vertical plastic straws in a glass of water.

©Sue Czapska

Seventeen people attended the meeting, including four new attendees. The next meeting will be on March 11, with the theme “Patterns”.