5th September
2001: Annual Exhibition
On Wednesday,
Chairman, Trevor Cox, welcomed members to the start of the new
season and announced the winners from the Annual Exhibition in
Central Library. He also reported that there had been very positive
feedback from members of the public who had viewed the photographs
on display. The first evening of the new season was devoted to
recent work by some of last year’s trophy-winners and Ron Clarke
entertained us with slides from a midsummer trip to the island of
Tromso in northern Norway .As there is daylight for 24 hours during
the summer months, Ron was able to take photographs in the middle of
the night and managed to capture the water and mountains in
surprising lighting conditions. Judy and Derek Leak then followed
with slides from a few days spent in Kent, which included trips to
the coastal towns of Rye, Hythe, Deal and Dover. Through the slides
we visited an ossuary, a church tower, two castles and a walk along
the white cliffs above Dover harbour. Derek also showed examples of
title slides that he had been experimenting with and explained how
he had produced them by re-photographing from a computer monitor.
Trevor Cox completed the first half with slides on a mixture of
topics, which showed his diverse interests. We saw photographs taken
during portrait sessions, some buildings, creative work and some
lovely use of light, colour and texture on natural objects such as
wood, boats and water. Avery Bailey started the second half with
some of her many prints of local scenes which included the massive
modern structures connected with the construction industry in
Lowestoft. Alternatively, she had some atmospheric shots of yachts
and tall ships which are also very much part of the Lowestoft scene.
Avery finished with her print entitled, “Thirsty”, with which she
won the Best Print in the Exhibition trophy. Finally, Mike Lloyd
presented a selection of prints on a variety of subjects some of
which were taken with a digital camera and some on 35mm. We were
able to pass these prints round and view at close quarters the local
scenes, churches, birds, gardens and visits to Lincoln and Boston,
U.S.A.
19th September
2001: Les Ayres
Les Ayers, ARPS,
MPAPG, APAGB, from Kent, came to give his print presentation –
“Ilfochrome to Inkjet”. The first half of the evening was devoted to
Cibachrome (Ilfochrome) prints in black and white and colour all
produced in a traditional dark room. The subjects were often simple,
natural objects such as trees, bark, leaves, lichen, sand, stones,
etc. and were taken in various locations around Britain. These
culminated in the panel of fifteen prints with which Les gained his
A.R.P.S. award. Members were very impressed with the standard of the
work and the pictures were admired at close quarters during the tea
break. The second half of the evening also contained really
excellent work this time all produced digitally using an Epson
printer. Les showed us the different artistic effects of certain
papers and techniques such as emphasising contrast, lightening or
removing unwanted objects. Nothing was ever added to Les’s pictures,
he said. Some of the prints in the second half were taken in the
National Parks of America again with the emphasis on natural
features with particular reference to their texture such as the rock
formations in the canyons and at Zion. The final selection of twenty
prints which resulted in his M.P.A.G.B. award contained some of the
original fifteen but with digital improvements which increased the
contrast and made the pictures look more three-dimensional and
dramatic and we were not surprised to learn that Les has exhibited
at the renowned Super Salon in Austria. When Derek Leak gave the
vote of thanks, he spoke for all of us when he said that he had not
thought the fifteen prints could be bettered but was extremely
impressed with the final results and vowed to go away and try
harder!
14th November
2001: Peter Ransome
On Wednesday,
14th November, Peter Ransome gave us a slide presentation entitled
“Photographing the Pharaohs”. Peter uses a Pentax camera and Fuji
film, some of which he’d had to set at 400 and 800 speeds to cope
with the low lighting when photographing the Egyptian artefacts in
the British and Cairo Museums. During the course of the evening we
visited the Valley of the Kings, the temple at Luxor, the three
classic pyramids at Giza and the temple of Rameses the Great at Abu
Simbal which were all very well illustrated by Peter’s good slides.
His commentary was both interesting and informative and he is
obviously extremely knowledgeable about the subject. By the end of
the evening we had learnt something about Egyptian gods, temples,
pyramid-building, mummification and the after-life ending with the
exciting discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb in 1922. The vote of thanks
was given by Alan Beaumont. A piece of excellent news that I can
give you is that on Saturday, Nov.10th at Needham Market, Lowestoft
photographic Club won the East Anglian Shield, a much-coveted award
fought for annually by twenty-one clubs in the region.
28th November
2001: Judy & Derek Leak
Wednesday 28th
November saw a packed house enjoy “The Romance of Rajasthan” – a
superb audio-visual by Judy and Derek Leak. This was given using the
Royale system, a twin-projector, continuous dissolve unit with
stereophonic soundtrack throughout and authentic Indian music. The
commentary was interesting and informative and traced a journey
taken largely in Rajasthan in the year 2000 on a cultural tour led
by Peter Baker who was present in the audience on Wednesday evening.
Members were given a taste of the major cities of the region,
visiting forts, palaces, temples and shrines as well as desert
villages and markets along the way. There were many fine examples of
Hindu and Mogul architecture and stone carving with excellent
photography of the beautifully decorated interiors. Judy and Derek
had also included many images of people going about their daily
lives showing their, often harsh, environment. All these pictures
were interspersed with animals, birds and flowers of the region, so
that a complete overview of Rajasthan was given during the evening.
As well as club members, there were many guests in the audience,
including those who had been on the same tour as Judy and Derek. The
exuberant applause and fulsome praise at the end of the presentation
showed how much everyone had enjoyed it and Alan Hale was very
complimentary about the quality of the photography and the
audio-visual skills of the presenters when he gave the vote of
thanks.
[Thanks to Judy
Leak, LPC]
