This evening was organised by Daisy Kane and she asked six more members to join her in showing the rest of the club where they would like to take the club to do some photography.
The evening started with Chris congratulating the club on its recent success in the County competitions.
As reported elsewhere, we were placed 3rd in the Sussex Fed print competition, however it transpires that the organisers got the result wrong on the day and on a recount Eastbourne turned out to be the winners making us fourth, still a brilliant result. It reinforces why I said in my report that the number of entries is far too high, making it a nightmare for all involved, including the clubs entering.
Then of course we won the Regnum PI competition. All of this is really the result of efforts from all the members entering the competitions who contribute to the competitive ethos driving us all to do better.
Then on with the main business of the evening.
Martin started by showing us pictures taken in Brighton which is a brilliant place to photograph with so many different subjects. Martin showed us lots of examples of buildings, people, graffiti and much more.
Next up was David Seddon who showed us pictures of London, where he was born and brought up, explains a lot!! The Shard featured quite frequently with pictures taken from different places at ground level (Ray asked where one picture was taken from, to which he got the reply ‘South London’). I thought that some of the shots of the City from the top of the Shard were very good indeed. It is somewhere that I must visit sometime. David told us that it is not straight forward as the glass may have rain drops on it for example.
Then Janet took us to Chichester where she would clearly like to host a visit as she had done some research into photography in the Cathedral and in other interesting buildings in the city. She has clearly been there on many occasions and had some very interesting things to show us.
Following Janet we had John Gauvin who has fallen deeply in love with Africa and in particular the Maasai Mara in Kenya, where the annual mass migration of Wildebeest occurs. He has already visited before and has already laid plans for yet more visits. John started by showing us the accommodation at their base camp with very comfortable tents with proper beds. Then we saw their transport which was a specially adapted Land Rover with no doors on the nearside and built in camera mountings to enable some great photography. His pictures of the herds crossing a river were amazing with some great sequences, and also really close up shots of lions and other species,
After the break, we were treated to Daisy’s Slideshow of her †rip to India some years back. It was brilliant and filled with competition winners. Her images had authentic Indian music to accompany them, and you really did get a feeling of what attracts people to go there for photography.
Next it was my turn, when the standards dropped dramatically [Ed: the standard certainly didn't drop]. I have got hundreds of images taken in Norfolk, but 90% of them are bird pictures. I did spend several hours trying to find pictures of the landscape and some of the other attractions to be found. I just love the countryside, the buildings, especially the Churches, and the relaxed pace of life to name but a few that attract me.
Finally, Chairman Chris showed us a couple of images taken in Worthing followed by his main show which was of Cuba, where a large part of his family had a recent trip. We saw lots of the famous old American cars and trucks as well as pictures of decaying buildings and people and a lot of the political graffiti which is everywhere.
The evening was very entertaining and interesting and our thanks go to Daisy for organising it and Martin and Alex for doing the projecting and all the contributors.