'Two Fellows’, which originally referred to Betty Rackman, who had achieved her Fellowship, and Tony her Husband, a ‘fella’. But when Tony also achieved his Fellowship of course the name was even more relevant
Betty and Tony have been giving slide shows (and having exhibitions) for many years. This evenings show was one of many different ones that they give, this one though had been brought up to date with recent work.
The evening was not very well attended which was a great pity, as those who missed it could have learned some lessons about composition, as well as seeing a huge variety of amazing subjects, all photographed impeccably. What a team they make, both being passionate experts at photography and encouraging and criticizing each other’s work, and therefore producing the very best results.
In the first half, Tony gave the commentary whilst Betty manned the computer, adding a few comments where she felt appropriate.
We started by seeing some shots taken in their garden (near Romsey) of flowers and other wildlife. As Tony pointed out, their pictures were often taken to give a pleasing pictorial result, rather than setting out to take the normal wildlife protocol. We also saw some wonderful Infra-red shots of landscapes (shot on 35mm film) with some of the river Tess, which runs near their home.
Next we saw some manipulated images carried out with a very early edition of Photoshop, which, at the time, being so new, were very often achieved by exploring the strange new digital world. Some of the results were amazing, particularly as there were very few pixels available! There were some stunning flower pictures shown as examples of their experimentations. Tony showed us a collection of insect images of dragonflies and particularly butterflies which were brilliant and included one picture with fourteen different Comma butterflies, which had small differences in wing patterns and contours, amazing.
During the break Betty had displayed a collection of her beautiful prints which we all admired.
Then it was Betty’s turn to do the narrative. She started with some 'people pictures' (advising us that they did not do portraiture). These were taken on some of the great number of amazing places that they had visited over the years, including Paris, Switzerland (and the Alps), Spain, the Canary Isles, Lanzatotti with its volcanic areas, the Azores, Crete, Cyprus and finishing up in Wales, where they have a retirement holiday home. These visits have produced many lovely landscapes, cactus and rare orchid images which most of us would give our eye-teeth for!
All I can say in conclusion is thank you Betty and Tony for an amazing and inspiring evening showing us your very special photographs.