Tonight, we had another return visit from Ken Scott ARPS who has visited us about once a season for a great number of years either as a first class judge or to give us one of his inspirational lectures.
Once again he did not disappoint telling us about his favourite region in Southern Spain called Los Alpujarras. It lies South East of Granada and North East of Montril. It has a mountain range along its North edge and is a very fertile valley where Olive trees grow very well and some are several hundred years old and yield a very profitable crop. Vegetables are also grown and there are many citrus trees, particularly Orange, producing masses of fruit. A number of the houses have bags of fresh oranges outside which people can help themselves to, putting a Euro in a box.
Ken is a very keen walker and mountaineer, amongst several other things, and so he has found that this region really suits him from many diverse points of view, not least of which is his passion for photography. He has established a base from which he runs photographic holidays which both Janet and Liz from SCC have enjoyed.
Ken started the evening by showing us the first of several AVs which were very well produced with music and verse to accompany them. This gave us our first flavour of the region. He then continued by showing us various still pictures telling us more about why he fell in love with the area.
Ken continued by describing a trip climbing up the mountain range nearby with a friend, which went very wrong. Ken set out one morning and had not got far when he felt a cold coming on, which he thought he could walk off. However, this cold turned very nasty indeed and then the weather deteriorated dramatically and the pair of them got stranded up on the mountain, with very strong freezing winds up to 160 mph. Ken was by now in a very bad state indeed. They did eventually get off the mountain after a couple of days, with Ken's life literally hanging in the balance. In the same storm two other British climbers actually died.
Full recovery from this horrific experience changed the way Ken looked on his life and brought about several changes.
Whilst describing this dreadful disaster, Ken showed us a series of images of the most dramatic cloud formations I have ever seen. Clouds are a very good indicator of the weather both for mountaineers and sailors; but the sight of some of these most dramatic clouds, where some were a bright pink colour and in very dramatic shapes, will linger in our memories.
After the break we enjoyed more AVs and a huge number of images showing us many different aspects of life in that part of Spain including the Festivals, one of which,had the most dramatic firework bangers going off in an alarming manner; dogs, cats, cooking contests, goat herds, very colourful fabrics and much much more were featured.
I felt that I take some of the sorts of pictures that Ken likes. However, I would not for one minute pretend that I could give a lecture with anything like the polished fashion that Ken produces, or with anything like the standard of photography. Ken is a very deep thinker and talks about his photography coming from his heart, (where as mine comes from the index finger on my right hand!!). I know that he obtained a BSc in Psychology and this to my mind explains where his deep thinking comes from.
As always, this evening was exceptional with its content and its delivery. Thank you very much indeed Ken and very good luck with your latest project, walking right round the coastline of Britain, which is starting as this report is being written.