Eddie Ephraums

Yesterday (Sunday 12th January 2014) I travelled to Wokingham to hear a lecture given by Eddie Ephraums. (Eddie has his own web-site and also communicates via a blog and Facebook. It is suggested that you read these if you are interested rather than any potted version I would provide). The talk had been organised by the Thames Valley Digital Imaging Group and I had come across their article in the "Membership Matters" of the RPS Journal Dec 2013/Jan 2014. My interest had been sparked by the banner headline "BLACK AND WHITE". We were told that he would present two lectures - "Many Ways of Seeing" in the morning and "Language of the Print" in the afternoon. We were further informed that the morning lecture "looks at the way different camera types, formats and media affect our relationship with the subject" and the afternoon  lecture "addresses questions of what makes a print, 'speak', how we develop our own style of printing, what we can learn from looking at other photographer's prints, and whether digital photography has made us better printers." 

I saw in the lecture(s) an opportunity to think about my own approach to black and white work and the underlying, unstated foundations of black and white printing. That did not happen! Clearly the interpretation I had put upon the words in the article was different to what the lecturer intended because what I heard (and others may have done also) was a largely unstructured meander through the thinking of someone facing some sort of crisis in his professional life brought about by the realisation that 'amateurs' were prepared to lecture for nothing (the essential element of being an amateur!) and anyone with a mobile phone with camera facilities could get that all important shot beloved of the media so that making a living from photography was precarious at best and depressing at worst. I cannot deny that this may have been the intention all along and that my interpretation was wildly wrong. It does emphasise the risk we take in reading something through the filters of our own thoughts.

I was so fed up by the time we were approaching the lunch break I had decided to cut my losses and return home a wiser but poorer man. However the last 'slide' told us the key content of the afternoon lecture was "Books". I have more than a passing interest in producing books and thought 'Great - here is something that makes the 250 mile round trip worthwhile'.  I cannot deny that there were references to 'books' including a reference to 'Japanese stitching' which is a way of binding a book together and the creation of a concertina notebook. There was also discussion about 'gravure' printing; 'silver bromide' printing and 'platinum' printing. There was no explanation at all of what these terms meant or indeed the advantages or disadvantages. It so happens that I had read quite recently about these different processes so at least had some level of understanding but from the expression on some of the faces around me this was not general knowledge. We were also offered a brief introduction to typography. Ears pricked I waited for some nugget of advice that would assist me in the better use of typography to improve my work. I was not looking for a blow by blow description but I was expecting more than I got of which the most memorable part was a series of images of shop fronts or notice boards where the typography had clearly gone awry.

The final straw that broke this particular camels back was a question from a member of the audience who asked whether Eddie Ephraums used 'plug ins'. A simple question that elicited the reply -"No". This was followed by us being told of an image that he had seen of a walrus in which the skin folds and wrinkles of the creature were so sharpened as to spoil the picture. Here was the reason why plug ins were 'bad'! The fact that plug ins are a tool for people to use and if they are used badly it is the fault of the person using them rather than the software itself did not appear to have occurred. This was then followed by the declaration that he did not watch HD television because this suffered from the same fault. Suddenly the whole day became clear and the utterings understandable at least in the world of the lecturer. Having been ready to write off the day as a lesson learned here was something that forced me to think about all that I had heard. Admittedly it was not why I had attended the lecture but it gave me pause and made me think about the things that I have heard about photographers who set out to create a world of darkrooms, black and white, film photography and fuzzy images that the digital world seems bent on destroying. In that world the skills of the photographer, darkroom technician  and printer were recognised by due reward and the amateur was seen as someone who produced snapshots and not great photographs.

Nostalgia for times gone by, when the world was a safe and comforting place and we felt secure in our skin, is a strong human emotion even when we know that no such time existed. When things are difficult and life is throwing us a series of challenges that we feel less and less able to meet we have a strong yearning for times gone by. There is nothing more alarming than finding the certainties in our life are no longer certain and that the plans we made are no longer likely to bear fruit. Perhaps that is why we attempt to re-introduce tangible things that were part of that earlier and happier way of life. Perhaps the world was a better place when we saw it through a slightly out of focus, slightly fuzzy prism. I realised as I drove home, and when I wasn't cursing the traffic on the M25, that there was a strong possibility that my choice of black and white art photography as my major project for the Course was my own longing for a simpler world. Accepting this as a possibility enabled me to gain a great deal from the day that I had initially written off.