Despite a very wet and windy Monday evening, the club’s first meeting back in the hall since December 2019 was well attended and went brilliantly! I arrived early with the intention to help setting up. Well, I got to the hall and there Chris, Mike and Lesley was all set up and rearing to go! Well done Guys, you did us proud!
Every member coming through the door was greeted with heartfelt enthusiasm. Everyone was a trooper and brought their COVID lateral flow test results with them. Thank you for that guys.
Our seating was well spaced out but that did not stop conversations flowing and I’m sure me must have sounded like a flock of birds twittering in a tree because like usual it was loud with lots of laughter ringing out. Phil and Chris are new members who joined the club during the last 18 months and it was great to see them there. Guys, I hope you enjoyed yourselves and that we will be seeing more of you. Unfortunately Stuart, our Chairman, could not attend the meeting. Stuart’s mom has taken seriously ill. Stuart, we wish your mom a speedy recovery and please keep us posted on her progress.
Our ever gallant Vice Chairman, Mike Bond, led the meeting for the evening. Mike, Happy Belated Birthday! Thank you for sharing your very special day with us. Nope, there was no cake. Mike made us believe his ravenous family ate it all…LOL!!
It was great to see Rod Fry there after his health challenges during the last almost 2 years. If you see Rod walking extra skew, it is from the 3.5kg weight of his new titanium hip …LOL! Rod hopes to receive the second new hip in the next 3-4 months. Dave Collerton was there and has recovered well from his hip replacement during the lockdown.
Chis Arkell did an amazing job! Chris run the Zoom setup to connect our speaker and our zoom members with us in the hall. The zoom meeting connection was then displayed on the big screen for us. Brian Northmore gave us an excellent talk named “On Dartmoor”. Brian showed us photographs of his 10 year long journey photographing Dartmoor. It was extremely interesting as Brian gave us such a good summary of the history of Dartmoor and how he has tried to capture the remnants of this history with his photography. Then Brian shared his photographic journey with black and white photographs and eventually to colour photography. Throughout his talk it was clear that we as photographers need to shoot local, understand our environment and connect with it. We need to plan for possible locations, keep well informed of the weather patterns as well as understand our local weather patterns. Always keep a list of future locations of interest to shoot to always have a plan B lined up. Overall: Experiment, Experiment, Experiment. Brian could not see the audience, only the zoom meeting members and commented on how strange that felt for him. He has enjoyed connecting with various camera clubs via Zoom. Brian loves to share his knowledge and experiences with other photographers and have loads of videos on YouTube. You can see more of Brian’s work on his website: https://www.briannorthmorephotography.com/ or visit his YouTube channel on: https://www.youtube.com/c/BrianNorthmorePhotography
All in all it was a very successful meeting well attended and thoroughly enjoyed. Thanks again to Mike, Lesley and Chris Arkell for their hard work to make everything happen for us.
Guys, if you have not yet paid your subscriptions for the new season, please may I ask you to do so as soon as possible. If you have not yet looked at our fantastic website that Dave Collerton has set up, please do so here: www.ppcphotography.org.uk If you would like set up a gallery of your images on the site, contact Dave Collerton. If there is any news you would like to share with the club in our weekly newsletter, please contact me directly.
Looking forward to seeing even more of you on Monday evening. You would be able to join us at the hall or on a Zoom meeting. On Monday evening we are going to listen to a talk by Huw Alban called: “Emotional Landscape”.
Kind Regards
Cornelia Frost, Paington Photography Club Secretary
