Jonathan was delighted to be invited to join the Royal Photographic Society Education Working Group.

“We need to change the mood and the culture. We started to manage change within The Society’s Distinctions. Now we need to support that 21st century vision via our mission as an educational charity, with the stated aim of promoting the art and science of photography.”

Michael Hallett (Chair of Education).

The working group includes Head of Photography and Film at the University of Westminster, Fenton Medallist Andy Golding; documentary filmmaker and media consultant Peter Hayes ARPS; Emeritus Professor of Imaging Science at the University of Westminster, Ralph Jacobson ASIS HonFRPS; Head of Photographs at Birmingham Central Library, Peter James FRPS; Photographer and Associate Head of Media and Communication, Coventry University, Jonathan Shaw FRPS; and Skillset’s Photo Imaging Sector Manager, Pippa Walkley.

We are delighted to announce that Jonathan has selected as one of a number of artists for the Situation Leeds project JUNCTION.

What is JUNCTION?

JUNCTION is a series of temporary commissions for Leeds City centre utilising the ubiquitous `junction box` as its canvas. Everyday we walk by these neglected metal boxes without a second thought, but now JUNCTION offers artists and designers the chance to transform these tired boxes into vibrant, intriguing and humorous interventions in street life.
Where?

All the identified boxes lie in the town centre; they form a trail that starts outside Leeds Train Station, go up Park Row, ending at the crossroads of Park Row and the Headrow, adjacent to the Henry Moore Institute and Leeds Art Gallery.

This is the first step in Situation Leeds’ commitment to raise the public art profile of the city. Over the next few years we hope to widen the JUNCTION project to other sites across the city and identify other exciting opportunities to work creatively with the urban fabric of the city centre. We believe that `the everyday`, could be a lot more intriguing, and we see JUNCTION as a first step to attract interest, support and sponsorship for further creative public realm projects that will make walking round Leeds City Centre more interesting, extraordinary and pleasurable.

Miller shows us more than just photographs and paintings in this show. This is one of the reasons why it is so appealing. He keeps on nudging us, encouraging us to think more widely, to think about how what Muybridge and others did had an impact on art, photography, books, film, the theatre. Didn’t Busby Berkeley’s gorgeous choreography, all that brilliant sequencing of movement, owe a debt to what Muybridge discovered? And didn’t Berkeley’s choreography also remind us of the way in which Cubism broke up the human figure? Yes, and yes again. Undoubtedly.

To read the full review please click here.

Jonathan Shaw’s Triple Jump, Harold Edgerton’s Densmore Shute Bends the Shaft & Portrait of Jonathan Miller

“On the Move: Visualising Action,” at the Estorick Collection of Modern Italian Art in north London until April 18, for which Sir Jonathan has assembled a wide range of material examining the perception and depiction of movement.

The show includes not only Muybridge’s fragile lantern slides, but the devices which first reproduced visual movement in the 19th century, such as the phenakistoscope, zoetrope and praxinoscope. But it also extends to animated studies of highly technical research into how we perceive movement, Futurist paintings, modern panoramic digital photography and comic strips.”

Further reviews can be seen at;

On the Move is an engaging, thought provoking show… – Evening Standard

…an enthralling show… - The Guardian/Observer

SMIRNOFF Hot Pick! – Time Out London

(the show) raises all kinds of questions, not only about how we perceive movement in still images, but also what art is – The Independent

On the Move: Visualising Action at the Estorick Collection, London. 13th January – 18th April 2010.

17th January, The Sunday Independent, The Critics, Visual Art/Film by Charles Darwent.

“And other rooms bring Miller’s story up to date by focussing on the modern interest in depicting motion motionlessly, from Jonathan Shaw’s shot of a triple-jumper mid-jump to the sequentially flailing fists of Billy Whizz.

This is fascinating stuff, although more needs to be made of its central cognitive drama. As Miller points out, the perception psychologist, Sigmund Exner, found that the eye actually registers the gaps between frames in the apparently seamless story of, say, Steamboat Willie. It is the brain that fills in the narrative, preferring its stories complete. This knowledge raises all kinds of questions about how and what we see, but also about what art is and what it is for.”

Click here to read the full story on the Independent’s website.