Masters
Putting photographers back in the same room. Bangkok, and wherever this goes.
You met when you bought your film at Calumet.
You met at Joe's Basement, waiting for your film to be devved. You bought your chems at Process Supplies. You got your fine art hand prints done at Gordon Bishop's. You met in the queue.
You talked shop in the shops, and it was fun being a photographer. Beers and coffees. Talk about jobs and assistant work. The word passed around. The BJP every week. A notice board with assistant needed and a phone number.
That was what it was like back then. Vibrant.
None of it was arranged. It happened because the work required you to be in the same rooms as other photographers.
All of that has gone. The labs went, the shops went, and the reasons to be in a room together went with them. The communication has gone. The community has gone. Photography has become a solitary affair.
Masters is a platform to bring it back together.
An evening. One photographer, their work on a cinema screen, and everyone who turned up.
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Lights down
The work
On a cinema screen. Large, in the dark, with sound. No introduction, no titles.
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Then
The film
A retrospective built from the archive, with the photographer in their own words.
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And
Someone who was there
A photographer who knew them, or worked the same materials in the same era, telling you what it really took.
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Afterwards
The bar
The part that matters as much as the film. Stay and talk to whoever is standing next to you.
The film is the excuse. The room is the point.
Every evening puts a few hundred people who care about photography in the same building, and sends them to the bar together afterwards. That is the actual thing being built.
From there: prints released by the photographers we show, walks and meets between the evenings, and somewhere to put your work in front of people who will tell you the truth about it.
And in time, somewhere permanent. Walls to hang on, a darkroom, a studio, a library, and a bar. Free to walk into. Built by the people who use it.
That is a long way off. It starts with one room, one evening, and whoever turns up.
Pull up a seat
In front of the camera or behind it. Professional, amateur, or otherwise. If photography is in your veins, this is for you. Entry is free, and there is no membership to buy. Put your name down and you will hear about the evenings, the prints and everything in between, first.
No noise. A few emails a year, and only when there is something on.