© Georg Berrisch
The meeting was the last one of the 2024-25 season. We had the Viewfinders AGM. The main events of the 2024-25 season were briefly described and the club treasurer presented the financial report for the season and described the evolution in the club’s membership. The Viewfinder’s committee for 2025-26 was then elected.
A guest speaker, Georg Berrisch, talked about his 18-month travel in South America,
He and his wife Florence made 40,000 km over 410 days on the road, and went to 5 South American countries, with their presentation focusing on Chile, Argentina and, to a lesser extent, Bolivia.
They showed photos of their modified truck and some of the roads where they passed, as well as some where they could not pass and had to go back. And they showed a good number of photos of the amazing landscapes they visited.
Georg writes about our travels under @thetravelingbertha, on both Facebook and Instagram, and occasionally posts photos on Facebook and Instagram under @georg_berrisch_photography.
Alun had a presentation on the main characteristics of lenses used for photography which should guide your choice, the main ones being focal length, linked to the angle of view, and maximum aperture, linked to depth of field . His presentation was centred on his own choice of lenses for event photography, but he also mentioned how different genres of photography have different requirements and can therefore lead to different choices.
The second part of the meeting was dedicated to showing photos from some members of Viewfinders. Eight members showed their photos, ranging from a sample of her work presented by Paulina M., a recent Viewfinders member, to photos taken on a trip to Guatemala by Janet W., photos from Ethiopia by Beatrice S., and including also some photos closer to home, such as those of a German open cast coal mine near Aachen, by Héctor E., the royal greenhouses in Laeken by John S. or photos taken along the canal between Brussels and Haren by Adrian C. Dagmara J. showed photos taken during the recent Viewfinders photo walk in Ghent and Piotr W. closed this part of the meeting with a series of photos from a big rock festival in Poland, called Pol'and Rock.
Joaquim Capitao
We had a TTT on backup strategies, presented by Alun Foster.
The main event of the meeting was the second of this season's members’ challenges, on the theme of “Song titles”.
David Vannucci, was the guest judge for this challenge. David is a Belgian concert, festival and tour photographer based in Brussels and Lisbon, who was our guest speaker at the September 2024 Viewfinders meeting.
Unfortunately, David had to cancel at last minute so the dynamics of the voting were adapted for the evening. He was really looking forward to participate in this event, and an online video call was organized a week later to listen ti his comments on the photos that participated as well as presenting his winning choices for the challenge.
The overall winner selected by David was a photo inspired by a music by The Beatles, “While My Guitar Gently Weeps”.
The best projected image was a photo inspired by “Paris Texas”, by Ry Cooder.
The best print, selected by those present at the meeting, was inspired by “The Show Must Go On”, by Queen.
Finally, the “people’s choice” award went to a photo inspired by “How Much Is That Doggie In The Window”, by Patti Page.
Club member Sabine Posdziech had a very interesting presentation on cyanotype, which she entitled “Printing with sunlight”. Cyanotype is a photographic printing method that produces monochrome, blue-coloured prints on different supports, being sensitive to ultraviolet and blue light spectrum. She briefly introduced the history of cyanotype and then described the process she uses to create beautiful blue prints from carefully selected photos. She also explained that, by washing the prints with products other than water different colours can be obtained. A copy of her presentation "Cyanotype Printing" can be found in the Tutorial Notes page.
The main event of the meeting was our guest speaker of the evening, Elke Pannier. Elke is a Belgian photographer and a photo editor in the Flemish daily newspaper De Standaard. She talked about her work as a photo editor and presented her latest personal project, “Heartland”. This is a documentary project about the borders of the Dutch Bible Belt, an area straddling between tradition and innovation.
She also described her work as a photo editor in a major Flemish newspaper, describing the tasks of a photo editor, the choice and the sources of the photos which are published, including the differences between photos for the printed newspaper and those for the website or app.
Joaquim Capitao
Photo project “Photos in the style of…”
Nine club members submitted photos done “in the style of…” for the annual photo project, presenting photos inspired by the work of other photographers or of painters.
These were a very interesting set, showing how photographers can be influenced by art works they see, either intentionally or simply as part of their cultural background that influences what and how they photograph and/or develop their images.
The main event was our guest speaker, Nick Hannes. Nick has already presented his work to Viewfinders a few years ago but has recently published a new book, “New Capital”. In his own words, this book “shows how utopia and dystopia are sometimes surprisingly closely related”.
The objective of this project was to show 6 cities, built since the 1960s or still being built, designed to be the new national capitals. The cities covered in the project were the New Administrative Capital (NAC) in Egypt, Brasilia in Brazil, Abuja in Nigeria, Astana in Kazakhstan, Sejong in South Korea and Nusantara in Indonesia.
His photos show both the architecture of the new cities, generally intended to glorify the political regime of the countries, the people who build the cities and those who live or work in them. They should be seen as a kind of “social critique” on the concept of new capitals, reflecting the different social and geographical conditions and different political regimes under which they are built.
Nick’s work and information on his books, including “New Capital”, can be found on his website, https://nickhannes.be. An exhibition of his work on the “New Capital” project is ongoing until 30 March, in the Cultuurcentrum Ter Dilft, in Bornem, about 50 km from Brussels.
Joaquim Capitao
The guest speaker in the January meeting was Christa Geeroms, a Belgian photographer who recently published her first book, “Personal Spaces”, a retrospective of 12 years photographing the man and woman next door. Her photos show people in their environment, putting them in the context of their lives. But the photos also reflect a lot of Christa’s personal history, so the personal context refers to both the person photographed and the photographer.
Christa started by explaining how she started photography, how she started taking photos without a clear objective in mind, and how her idea of exhibiting her photos developed into the creation of a book, in which she worked with poet Huguette Damiaens to have a mix of photography and poetry.
Christa’s work and information on her book “Personal Spaces” can be found on her website, .
Adrian presented a TTT on using oil and water to obtain vibrant and colourful photos. He described the material he uses for this, which consists of a glass bowl, a colourful background, a spoon and, of course, oil and water. From the photography point of view, he uses a camera with a macro lens and a tripod.
Adrian explained how he manages to have the oil “bubbles” perfectly in focus and he described the camera settings he uses. He then showed several examples of beautiful photos produced in this way.
Joaquim Capitão
We had a Technique Tip (TTT) by club member Alan Waldern, on the subject of “Saving money and going faster”, or how to be economical with software and other subscriptions.
The “main course” of the meeting, one of the semi-annual members’ challenges, on the theme of “It’s A Square World”. Members were invited to submit photos with a square (1:1) format, either as prints or as digital images, following the “inspiration” and rules recently distributed by e-mail. The submitted photos take advantage of the square format. An album will be added later with all the photos that participated in the challenge.
Our guest judge was Jess Sutton, a British artist living in Brussels since 2011, who was also the guest speaker in our meeting of January 2024. Jess uses video, painting, performance, photography, collages and installations to express her fascination with space, time and existence.
Viewfinders member Eduardo Tardáguila had a presentation of a project he developed in his native country, Uruguay. In his own words: "it's about Photography, but it's also about dreaming, and how both working together can change the whole trajectory of someone's life.
It is about the development of a 10 years Photography project realized in Uruguay (South-América) together with Marjan Van Doorselaer. The fundamental structure of the project was the creation and diffusion of images showing the reality of the Uruguayan people with disabilities. Increasing the awareness about it, could be a way to improve their condition inside the society. To make this possible we began to teach photography to disabled people in Montevideo. The motto was: A vision of themselves, told and created by themselves. "
Hélène Cook presented one of her series inspired on the photography of Ernst Haas as an introduction and inspiration to the photo project that will run until February, with the title “Photos in the style of”.
The rest of the meeting was covered with presentations of photos by club members of the recent photo walk in Charleroi, as well as personal projects.
The October meeting was the occasion to commemorate 30 years of the Viewfinders Photography Club of Brussels. As stated on our website, Viewfinders is “inspiring photographers of today and the next generations”, and we are open to anyone with an interest of photography, as we represent a wide range of backgrounds, nationalities and photographic abilities and interests.
In this occasion, we started the meeting with a social event, sharing a birthday cake.
Our main event of the evening, a presentation by a guest speaker, Carine Van Gerven.
Carine Van Gerven is a Belgian photographer and photography teacher from Pelt and her name is practically synonymous with the highly successful “Lens op the Mens” photography festival that takes place in Pelt once every two years since 2017.
But Carine is also a highly successful photographer on her own right, having exhibited in several countries and having been curator not only of “her” festival in Pelt but also of the Helphoto International Festival in Helsinki. She also received international awards in events such as the prestigious Siena Awards 2024.
Carine Van Gerven creates personal life stories and emotions with a nod to the past but still universal and off all times. Her beautiful photos of “tableaux vivants” are inspired by 17th century paintings and form a body of work that is unlike anything seen at Viewfinders meetings before. To find out more about her, visit her website.
Our guest speaker, Brussels and Lisbon-based Music Photographer David Vannucci shared what it takes to be a committed concert, festival, and tour photographer. He walked us through the challenges and joys of low-light photography and working with strict routines and schedules while working on festivals or being on tour, but also shared the rewarding and creative process of working on studio projects, off-stage with artists and performers.
Over the years David developed a niche for Behind the Scenes photography, a niche that he was able to finetune through his collaboration with the Belgian music festival Pukkelpop: It was the starting point for his “Stardust” series of photo expos and books.
You can find more info on David’s work visiting www.davidvannucci.art and www.muckmag.com/work/stardust-pukkelpop-mainstage.
In addition, Erick presented a “technique tip” on the use of social media as a way to increase the visibility of your photos beyond your circle of family and friends, and for attracting potential customers or opening possibilities for collaboration. He highlighted the fact that different social media have different audiences.