Problems
After
these very successful shows, We came up with the idea of an exhibition with each of us showing a portfolio linked to the River Thames and we started work. Unfortunately, this show was never to appear; as when the club committee heard of our plans they decided to take the whole event over. Most of us in the group refused to co-operate, and what finally emerged was a large and predictable club event, though with one or two fine colour landscapes. Further problems between Group 6 and the club resulted from an article of mine published in the Amateur Photographer, in which one or two key sentences had been altered in sub-editing (possibly maliciously) to render it even more controversial. Our success had made us a number of enemies in the club and it was now clear that our future had to be as a separate organisation.
Our initial response was to constitute ourselves as 'Group 6 Photographers', intending by this to continue to stress our initial link with the club. It was soon made clear that this was not agreeable to the club and we then agreed to change our name completely; to FrameWork in 1985, and we entered a new phase of activities. We were now free to invite photographers not in the club to be a part of the organisation, to come to our meetings, and to show with us. This solved many problems - not least that a number of us were already on the point of leaving the club- but at the expense of losing a meeting place. Over the next roughly ten years we met in various homes and pubs, then for a time at a community centre in Kew. and organised around a dozen shows. For several years the Watermans Arts Centre in Brentford provided us both with a meeting place and also an exhibition space which we helped to set up in the bar area. Our final venue for meetings was a community centre in Twickenham
