I am still a working guy but with the sudden unexpected elevation to President that may need to take a shift in emphasis. Shortly after the AGM I left for 2 weeks of meetings in Shanghai, China. Around 4000 of us descended on the city and my focus for the event was discussions around applications of printing, the core topic of all my working life.
These large meetings bring me into contact with some interesting communities associated with photography. Display, inkjet and sustainability were topics I was looking into this time.
Image display is pervasive in photography. From the screens we use to edit images to those we use to view still and moving images. It could be the display on your camera, or that on your smartphone. In Shanghai our particular focus was the foldable and bendable displays currently appearing in mobile devices – impressive systems.
Inkjet is a printing method many of us are familiar with to realise prints for display. But why was sustainability in amongst this technology mix? This was a global meeting of the electronics community and we realise that sustainability has to be part of our future, otherwise we have none.
The irony that we had all travelled the globe to plan strategy on sustainability was not lost on us. I will return to this topic in a future blog as The RPS has a part to play in this area too. More to follow in the January 2020 edition of The Journal.
Finally, this was an opportunity to make photographic connections. Through The RPS I had made contact with Kaiyu Lu and we were planning to meet up during my visit. Unfortunately as I flew in, he flew out for an assignment in Vietnam. Maybe there will be a next time…
Image credit: Shanghai skyline © Alan Hodgson ASIS FRPS