This week’s meeting of Bangor & North Down Camera Club had as a speaker the renowned US Photographic Artist Fran Forman, in an event which was jointly run on Zoom by the club, and the Royal Photographic Society (RPS). Fran is a very well-known photographer and artist, who has published two books and has been exhibited throughout the USA and Europe. Fran’s talk was entitled ‘The Trials and Tribulations of Creating my Photobook’, and in it she discussed the process of creating her latest book entitled ‘The Rest Between Two Notes’. The RPS attendees were from across the UK, and also included some international visitors from among other places the Netherlands and Buenos Aires.
Fran began the evening by discussing her approach to creating her images. Fran creates her images as photomontages, where she combines images of people with different backgrounds to create her photographic art. Fran worked through several examples showing the original photographs and the thought process she went through to create the final image.
In the current environment where travel is restricted, Fran has started using an innovative online approach to photographing her models. She has used Zoom to manage remote photo sessions, and had the photographs taken using the models own camera or phone, sometimes relying on a third party to press the shutter. This has allowed Fran to continue adding new images to her portfolio even though she is unable to travel.
Fran then talked through many of the images in her book, the various photographs used to create the book represent a body of work which has taken a decade to complete. Fran also discussed the extensive work required to create the image groupings within the book, a process which took considerable time and soul searching. Fran also remarked that the background to one of the images was taken in Northern Ireland at Kearney village, when she visited the club back in 2015.
The images featured in the book are presented thematically. These themes could be broadly interpreted, but fall into categories such as allegory, folklore, portraits, architecture, landscapes, internal reflection or whimsical fantasy.
There was great feedback from the evening’s attendees on Fran’s work, many found her approach truly inspirational, which will help them to think differently about taking a more artistic approach to their photography in the future. Our thanks to Fran for a fantastic evening.
If you would like to see more of Fran’s work you can visit her website at www.franforman.com, or follow her on Instagram at @franforman. Her new book ‘The Rest Between Two Notes’ is also available on Amazon.
Next week we have the annual Audrey Argue memorial competition for photographs of animals. This is always an evening of fabulous images.