Ellen Whittle has been a member for three years and it was really interesting to hear how she has enjoyed a series of Open University and other short courses, taken during that time, which she feels have helped her make the transition from film to digital photography and from using ‘intelligent auto’ to full manual control.
Robert Wilkinson talked about his interest in wildlife, safari and travel photography, and how he has mostly concentrated on entering, and often winning, competitions in order to progress his skills and interest.He enjoyed a short course at City-Lit with Grant Smith on architectural photography and his images show a great appreciation of patterns and graphic design.
Amanda Lane brought a new dimension to the evening with a description of how she benefitted from having a photographer father who encouraged her as she followed her love of art, so that now she uses photography as part of her creative work. She has produced several books showing this development and is obviously enjoying exploring new approaches to her art. We loved the image she showed us of herself at two, wearing a huge camera!
Diana Palma - also known as Bela Boreal on her images, said that as a psycho-therapist, she was going to tell us of her relationship with her camera. She loves to tell stories with her images, particularly when travelling and she tends towards a candid, ‘street’ approach, not minding what she describes as ‘untidy’ shots, but which illustrate her lively and warm interest in people and their environment.
Chris Wright brought in an A2 framed picture to illustrate with great humour, his photographic journey. First he showed us images from a safari which had really been a disappointment - the giraffes ran away, the monkey in the tree was too far away for the lens he was using and even the zebras failed to excite. In particular, he thought his image of an elephant fell far below his expectation: therefore, using his editing and Photoshop skills, he combined the best of several images into an amazing composite which he is happy to hang above the television in his lounge for all to admire!
Finally, Colin Page brought us up to date with a few of his more recent images, having already introduced himself at an earlier new members’ evening, where his photography had been much admired. He was also one of the winners in our informal poop-up gallery, held for the first time on this occasion.
The Pop-up gallery was welcomed as an interesting initiative, prompted by Alan Ainsworth who had seen it elsewhere and thought it might be an encouragement to members to keep on printing. Natalie Robinson turned Heath Robinson with a cleverly contrived hanging system and we voted for our six ‘faves’, during the break. Those people whose print scored in the top five were then asked to speak about why they had chosen that particular print and how it had been produced. Many thanks to all who participated, making it a very practical and interactive evening. Thanks too, to Paul Shelley for this image.