How would you describe Miniclick’s ethos? 

We’re not interested in cameras and kit. We talk about ideas and stories. This means we can have a wider audience. A lot of people that aren’t photographers come along to enjoy the talks. 

We’re independent. We don’t have any sponsorship so we don’t have any ties to anyone. This means we’re free to experiment and do things like Everyone’s A Curator – a mass curation project we ran at Brighton Photo Fringe. 

It’s all self-funded. I’m a photographer and so are [co-curators] Jack Latham and Kristina Sälgvik. [Co-curator] Lou Miller is a studio manager for some quite big photographers. I think we all consider Miniclick our personal project.  We don’t make any money out of it. We just cover our costs. 

We don’t charge for entry. Being free is important not just because it makes it accessible but also because it removes any responsibility. We don’t have to worry about numbers. If 20 people turn up because we’ve tried something a bit different it doesn’t matter. At the next event 120 people might turn up.

Where do you hold the talks? 

We were initially using a café but when that closed down we had to find a new venue. Fortunately the Old Market in Brighton offered us their bar for free. Once we got comfortable in the venue we realised we could do so much more, because we had more room. We could do film screenings or panel discussions. The talks are always informal. Having them in a bar helps. People can get up during the talk and grab a drink. It’s not an academic lecture. Because we like trying things out, we do events in other places too.

Not everyone finds it easy to talk in public about their photography. Do you have any advice? 

First of all I think it’s really important to learn to talk about your work. You’ve got to be able to articulate what you’re trying to do. You don’t have to be super slick; you just have to be enthusiastic. If you’re doing a talk, make sure your passion for the subject comes across. If it doesn’t, people switch off.  

Rehearse. I can’t stress that enough. Get your talk down a week before and then spend that week rehearsing. You don’t have to cover every aspect of your work or your whole life story. Try to be succinct. We tell our speakers to talk for about 45 minutes and then we have time for some questions afterwards. 

Know your audience. If you’re talking in front of an academic symposium at a university you can get away with using more complex language than if you’re doing a public talk where the audience is going to be more varied. Don’t dumb it down but expect to do a bit of explaining. 

What should you remember when chairing a panel discussion?

You have to know the right level of interference. A chair is a link between the audience and the people on the panel who, by virtue of being on the panel, are experts. There might be experts in the audience but they’re likely to mostly be interested parties there to learn or engage in some way.

Don’t make it about you. Don’t try to be as clever as the people on the panel. You’re there to keep it on track and make sure everything is coming across to the audience in an accessible manner. The job of the chair is also to keep things rolling. If it slows down, it’s good to have a couple of questions in reserve to kick things off again. 

There’s always somebody on a panel who’ll go on and on and on if you let them. You’ve got to make sure everyone has their say. Some people can take being told to shut up – in a friendly way. Just say, “We’re coming back to that later, we just want to hear from some more people”. Other times you have to be sensitive. You might interrupt a sentence and say, “That’s an interesting idea, let’s talk about that and let’s hear from...” 

Have your microphone turned up louder than everyone else so if you do need to talk over people, you know you’ve got the loudest voice. 

It seems like there are all sorts of exciting photography events happening at the moment. What interesting organisations have you come across? 

A Fine Beginning, Document Scotland, Portrait Salon; White Cloth in Leeds; LOOK/13 and Open Eye in Liverpool; The Photocopy Club and The Photo Book Show in Brighton. Start-Up Talks and Photoforum. Lou just sent me something by these guys called Goliga. They’re in Tokyo and they do incredible events. 

There are so many different groups. Photography’s a small world but there’s a lot going on. If you want to be involved, email us or get us on Twitter. We consider ourselves to be pretty open and we like seeing new people at the talks so drop us a line.

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All images © Jim Stephenson