RPS Women in Photography
Presence / Absence
A photography competition for RPS Women in Photography members
What is present in a photograph — and what is missing?
For our latest RPS Women in Photography competition, we invite members to respond to the theme Presence / Absence, inspired by Phantom Bodies: Material Obsessions by WIP member Eli Pimentel ARPS.
Photography has a unique relationship with presence and absence. A photograph can preserve something that has disappeared, suggest what lies beyond the frame, make visible something that might otherwise go unnoticed, or evoke a person, place, experience or feeling without showing it directly.
Your photograph might explore the body, identity, memory, loss, change, traces, relationships, belonging, visibility or the passage of time. It might consider something physical that is no longer there, something that remains, or something that can be felt but not necessarily seen.
Or you might interpret Presence / Absence in an entirely different way.
The theme can be approached through portraiture, self-portraiture, documentary, landscape, still life, abstraction, constructed photography or any other photographic genre.
We are deliberately leaving the interpretation open — we want to see where the theme takes you.
The inspiration: Phantom Bodies: Material Obsessions
Phantom Bodies: Material Obsessions by Eli Pimentel ARPS is a deeply personal artist’s book exploring the body, memory, trauma and mortality through photography, mixed-media artwork and philosophical reflection.
The work grew from Eli’s experience of undergoing major surgery as a young child, when one of her lungs was removed. With no conscious memory of the event, she uses photography and art to explore the gaps between what happened to her body, what can be remembered and what can be imagined.
The book brings together photography and medical imagery with physical interventions and materials. Medical scans are transformed through embroidery using materials including horsehair, steel, silk and wool, while other images draw upon organic matter, natural forms and objects.
At its heart, the work considers the relationship between our bodies, our memories and our sense of self. One of the ideas we have drawn from Phantom Bodies for this competition is presence and absence — how something physically absent can nevertheless continue to have a presence through the body, memory and lived experience.
It also raises fascinating questions about what photography can make visible — and what inevitably remains unseen.
About the book
The physical edition of Phantom Bodies was printed and hand-bound by Book Works in London and has been exhibited at Offprint at Tate Britain. It is also included in the RPS Women in Photography Members’ Photobook Library.
Your challenge
We are not asking you to recreate Eli’s work, or to make photographs about illness or trauma.
Instead, take Presence / Absence as your starting point and make it your own.
Think about what a photograph can reveal — but also what it can withhold.
Perhaps your photograph contains evidence of someone who isn’t pictured. It might explore an empty space, an altered landscape, an object carrying a memory, the human body, a relationship, a transition, or something that once existed but has disappeared.
Your response can be personal or observational, literal or metaphorical.
We want to see your interpretation.
Judge
We are delighted that Eli Pimentel ARPS will judge the competition and select the winning photograph.
Entrants will also be invited to include a short statement about their interpretation of Presence / Absence and the thinking behind their photograph.
The prize
The winner will receive a physical copy of Eli Pimentel ARPS’s beautifully produced, hand-bound artist’s book Phantom Bodies: Material Obsessions.
How to enter
Open exclusively to members of the RPS Women in Photography Group.
One photograph per member.
Alongside your photograph, please include up to 100 words explaining your interpretation of Presence / Absence and, if you wish, a little about the thinking behind your image.
Closing date:
Winner announced:
Presence / Absence is an RPS Women in Photography members’ competition inspired by ideas encountered in Eli Pimentel ARPS’s Phantom Bodies: Material Obsessions.
