Men Only
30 January 2008
"David Renhard Performing at Men Only"
A varied and enjoyable evening was held at the Dawlish & Teignmouth Camera Club on the 30th January when five male members entertained the audience with a wide selection of subjects
First up was Brian Hopper who spoke on how he got involved in photography in the first place and showed a number of his prints. He said that he was an “opportunist” photographer concentrating more on subjects that appeal at the time rather than going out looking for specific subjects, however, if these subjects are Cathedrals or National Trust properties, so much the better. He was keen to encourage the newer and less experienced members to take part in competitions as this was a good way to gain experience and learn from other peoples work as well as getting judges comments on their work.
Following Brian was long term club member Ken Holland on the subject of “Darkroom to Digital”. This presentation showed very interestingly how he had progressed through doing excellent, mainly black and white, work in the darkroom to now fully embracing the digital age with equally impressive results. Prints were shown and commented on taking the audience through this transformation as well as demonstrating experimentation with various new techniques in the darkroom along the way.
Three more long term members made presentations in the second half of the evening, starting off with John Thomson whose subject was “Real Slides”. This covered non-digitally enhanced or produced slides and entertained us to over two dozen often dramatic slides taken in the Lake District and on Dartmoor. Looking at these slides made everyone realise the effort that goes into taking good landscape photographs in these often remote but extremely picturesque areas as well as the care that is needed in less than favourable weather conditions!
The penultimate speaker was David Renhard who gave an interesting and very informative talk with digital images on “From Slides to Digital”. This followed the early development of the slide industry and how, over the years, vast progress had been made. Also covered was the development of colour prints and in particular the growth of competition in this area and the problems Kodak and other large companies faced in the light of this competition, particularly in the field of developing and printing.
The evening was rounded off by Ernie King showing some fantastic images in his presentation entitled “Big Cats”. These images were taken when he visited the Wildlife Heritage Foundation at Smarden in Kent. This is a UK charitable foundation working to safeguard the long term future of these creatures. It aims to keep them in surroundings as near as possible to their natural habitat and is only open to the public on rare occasions. Special fencing is installed at this Foundation enabling a foot square to be removed to allow safe close up photography.
The evening was arranged by the club’s Competition Secretary, Terry Boulton.