Small Worlds with Eugene Theron

ABOUT THE EVENT

The landscape is a busy place, and we mostly try to photograph all of it at once. Grand view, big sky, everything in the frame. It is the picture we go looking for, and it is the reason we walk past almost everything else.

Eugene works the other way round. He breaks nature down into small pieces: ice on the edge of a river, seaweed across wet rock, bark that has folded in on itself, paint coming off a wall in the desert. Once you start seeing like that, he says, you do not stop, and it changes how you look at a place long before you get the camera out.

This evening is about how he does it and why it works. He will talk about the thinking behind intimate scenes, then get practical: what he looks for, how he decides what to leave out, and the technical considerations that make the difference between a busy picture and a quiet one.

Eugene presented for us in July, on finding your own photographic voice and it was one of the most enjoyable evenings of the summer.

WHO THIS IS FOR

Anyone who comes home from a good location with nothing, because the light did not do what it was supposed to. Small scenes are the answer to a flat grey day and they are available in a wood ten minutes from your house.

It suits you if you already photograph landscapes and want more from the days that do not deliver, if you like detail and texture and are not sure how to build a picture out of it, or if you keep photographing the same view because you cannot see what else is there.

No particular gear. Eugene is clear that the camera you own is almost certainly enough.

WHAT WE WILL COVER

Why bother with the small stuff. What you gain by distilling a landscape into pieces, and what it does to the way you see the whole place.

Finding them. How Eugene explores somewhere, what makes him stop, and why he deliberately does not plan too much. Knowing too much about a location means arriving with expectations.

Building the picture. Shape, texture, colour and structure, and the decisions about what stays in the frame and what does not.

The technical considerations. The practical side of getting these images cleanly, which is the part he has added since July for anyone who wants the how as well as the why.

Making them mean something. How a small scene can carry the story of a whole place, and how it sits alongside your wider images rather than replacing them.

WHAT YOU WILL NEED

Nothing on the night. Come and watch.

ABOUT EUGENE

Eugene Theron is a landscape, nature and wildlife photographer, originally from South Africa and living in north Wales.

His photography is fuelled by an overactive imagination, a love of nature and a desire to explore. The dramatic landscapes of Wales, the mountains and coast of Scotland and the vast open landscapes of southern Africa all hold a special place. He seeks out places he has a genuine connection to, and he runs workshops and private mentoring alongside his own work, on both the technical and the creative side.

Before photography he studied earth sciences and worked in the energy industry, and the geology has never left his pictures.

See more of his work at eugenetheron.com

FROM MARK

I met Eugene in person in Birmingham, which almost never happens. I usually meet our presenters first on a screen. We got talking, and within a few minutes I knew I wanted him in front of you.

His July talk was one of those evenings where the chat says it better than I can. Caroline called it one of the best talks she had heard for a long time. Gina said the hour flew by. Jan said he expresses his own opinions really well, which is exactly right, because he does not tell you what to do. He tells you what he does and why, and leaves you to make your own mind up.

This one is more practical. In July he mentioned, almost in passing, that small scenes have become a mainstay of his work, and that was the bit several of you wanted more of. So here it is, an hour on the small scenes: how he finds them, how he builds them, and why a patch of ice can hold him for ninety minutes while his friend photographs the mountains.

If July was about why you photograph, this is about what you do on a grey Wednesday in a wood!

BOOKING

£6 for the evening.

The recording will be on the website within 24 hours and you have access for four weeks, so please book even if Wednesday evening does not suit you. Nothing is missed.

THIS PRESENTATION WILL BE RECORDED AND AVAILABLE TO WATCH FOR UP TO FOUR WEEKS.