Speaker :Arthur Ransome

Monday – October 3, 2011

7 – 9pm

Talbot County Community Center, Route 50,
Easton.

SEEING IN BLACK AND WHITE

Although we naturally view our world in its myriad of colors, do we really see?

Black and white photography helps transcend the visible by adding emotion. In this lecture I will demonstrate the tools that we, as photographers, can use to add emphasis to our images that not only help the viewer visualize the subject but also tease the other senses, creating the catalyst for imagination.

Biography

The expression of emotion was perceived as a sign of weak character in the working class North East of England where Arthur grew up. Motivated by a desire to share his emotions and life experiences Arthur pursued photography as his outlet.

A relative latecomer to fine art photography, Arthur began his photographic life when scuba diving in Puerto Rico during the six years that he lived there. Scuba diving introduced Arthur to sights that he could only describe through the photographs that he made. Although moving to the Washington DC / Baltimore area in 2005 stopped the scuba diving, Arthur continued to seek imagery above sea level. Working mainly with 35mm format cameras and sometimes large format, 4×5 view cameras (slowly using up his stock of very out of date Polaroid PN 55 film), Arthur photographs the black and white world that he sees around him. Although his subject matter is varied, he chooses subjects that express emotion and a sense of time, place and being.

Arthur’s work has been featured in B&W Magazine and Silvershotz Magazine and has been included in several group exhibitions around the United States. An exhibition of Arthur’s work will be on display at the Easton Gallery of Photographic Arts from September 1, 2011.

Arthur’s work can be seen on his website (www.aransomephoto.com) and he also maintains an active blog (http://aransomephoto.com/blog/) in which he notes his feelings, thoughts and philosophy about photography.

The title of my presentation is “Seeing in Black and White” and the following is a summary:

“… with color, the subject was not necessarily important: only the color itself was of interest….” – Brassai.

 Visitors are welcome to attend the seminar.

The Tidewater Camera Club, in Easton, Maryland is a private, non-profit organization that was founded in 1963.