Stunning landscapes and Candids.

Meeting Report

Dudley Williams was our guest speaker this evening and there were three new faces as well, two of whom joined the club. Kevin Harwood who lives in Storrington and Pat Arculus who has rejoined us having been a member several years ago. Both of you are very welcome and we hope that you enjoy what we have to offer.

Dudley started by giving us a short history of his love of photography, at least I think that’s what happened as I was dispatched home to go and get my Mac laptop as initially our Windows laptop could not see Dudley’s pictures. However, having beaten the world land speed record for an automatic VW 1.2 Polo, and very nearly colliding with a deer, I returned to see one of Dudley’s lovely landscapes shining out on our screen!

So, still shaking, I sat down and enjoyed some breathtaking images.

Dudley loved handling his Father’s Nikormat camera as a child and this helped to inspire him. His Dad gave Dudley this camera not so long ago and he brought it along for us to see why he loved it. It was of course a film camera, but was very heavy and beautifully built.

A more inspiring experience was going on a photographic workshop in Scotland with a professional photographer Bruce Percy. Dudley not only fell for this man’s work but also for the Scottish landscape.

His favourite place to go is the Isle of Harris in the outer Hebrides. It is very unspoilt, very sparsely populated and not visited by tourists. Dudley travels there in his VW van which he has converted so that he can drive, eat and sleep in it. It has plenty of room for all his gear and he finds a location and just sits there watching the light changing and bringing the landscape to life, which he then converts into the most moody and spectacular pictures.

He uses the nearest frame configuration to square and then crops down to square for the final image. He feels that ’square’ is the most dramatic format. He has been there many times as the climate is comparatively mild because the jet stream hits it directly, and he just gets inspired by the emotion that the weather brings. Dudley’s day-job is in IT, so Harris is a huge release from that!

He has had many pictures published in well known and respected publications such as 'Landscape Photographer' and National Trust literature to name but two. Dudley uses Nikon cameras with good quality lens like Zeiss, but lately has also used a Fuji camera.

After the break we were treated to many brilliant images from Cuba, mainly Candid street shots. When he first arrived he just explored the urban scenery before persuading a local gentleman to escort him to locations where he could find some good subjects. Having seen a likely target he firstly got the person to stand in a suitable place out of the direct sun from above and with a suitable backdrop. This gave good lighting on the face and we saw some great street portraits. He also took quite a number of shots indoors, for instance in a barbers premises which actually was the barber's house. He stayed in BBs as the hotels are state run and not good.

Altogether we had a very relaxed, informal evening with some really excellent pictures to enjoy.

So, thank you very much Dudley.

Submitted by Derek Grieve on