Four images of transformation

I could have spread my wings and done a thousand things I’ve never done before.

Alan Jay Lerner, My Fair Lady

I have been taking photos since I was ten years old, so for almost sixty years. As a child I photographed my family, mainly on family holidays. As I grew older I documented school trips abroad, my time at university, and of course holidays.

With digital photography came the freedom to take many more photos, unconstrained by the cost of film and processing. But my main enthusiasm remained travel photography. Not only does that allow me to preserve the memories of our trips, it also gives me the encouragement to focus on a number of different photographic styles and genres. Whether wildlife in Africa, street photography in various cities, architecture or landscape … the possibilities are as varied as the places we visit.

When I started blogging it was with the intention of sharing these travel photos and the stories behind them, and that is still my main focus. But with the discovery of blogging challenges, especially the photography ones such as the Lens Artists challenge, I was prompted to take more photos closer to home. The various prompts from these challenges led me to look at my photography differently, whether searching through my archives to find images to fit or heading out to shoot some new ones. And I realised that doing so, and seeing the many submissions from other bloggers, was having a positive impact on my own photography, giving me new ideas for subject matter and approaches. I started to do more creative editing, more monochrome, more macro.

London Independent Photography

But why rely only on blogging challenges to provide that stimulus, great though they are? With a view to finding yet more inspiration, as well as meeting like-minded people closer to home than most of my blogging friends, I looked around for a camera club or similar to join. During Covid I had temporarily attended the virtual meetings of a friend’s club, but with the resumption of face-to-face meetings I had to drop out as he lives at the other end of the country! Besides, that involvement helped me to see that a conventional camera club wouldn’t suit me. I wasn’t enthused by the competitive element, images being judged against each other with what seemed to me sometimes arbitrary criteria. Then I discovered my local group of London Independent Photography. This organisation describes itself thus:

We promote personal vision and expression in photography. We come from a wide range of backgrounds but each of us share the visual curiosity of looking and seeing. We are a community for the visually curious.

I joined the Ealing satellite group and have become an enthusiastic participant in its activities. We meet monthly to share whatever we’ve been working on. Sometimes we set ourselves a challenge. For instance, last year we drew names out of a hat to pair up and take portraits of each other. That was way out of my comfort zone, but isn’t that why I’d joined?! To be stretched and inspired to try different ideas.

Transformation

All of which is a very long introduction to the images I want to share for this week’s Lens Artists challenge. Anne asks us to ‘share with us your joys and passion of a hobby or life experience’, something that has enriched and/or changed our lives. Not only has joining LIP enriched my photography life, it also has a particular relevance at the moment when it comes to a conversation about change. I am about to see a couple of my photos in an exhibition for the first time, and our theme is Transformation. The exhibition will be in the bar of our local theatre to coincide with a production of My Fair Lady, and aims to respond to its themes, capturing how we reshape ourselves physically, socially, and emotionally.  

The images below are those I submitted, two of which were chosen. Your challenge is to guess which two!

Preparing for a traditional Kathakali show in Fort Kochi, Kerala

Future stars: four & five year old performers at a kindergarten in Chongjin, DPRK

Transforming young boys into monks in Bhaktapur, Nepal