Club Meeting, 'An Evening of ...' - Tuesday 24th October 2023.

                 

‘An Evening of Black & White Photography’ was the subject of Morpeth Camera Clubs meeting on Tuesday 24th October,
with guest speakers Edward Forster ARPS and Tony Shepherdson from Whickham. They both enjoy having projects and
themes in their photography and are part of a small group of six photographers who go out on excursions, photograph
what they like, and learn from each other whilst enjoying a common interest in printing and sharing their results.

Edward opened the evening with a set of prints on the theme of the Guggenheim Museum exterior that concentrated
on cameo shots of its textures and shapes. He explained that he likes to work in sets or panels of pictures and went
on to show a selection of atmospheric night time shots of Newcastle’s quayside steps, including the Holy Jesus Hospital,
people in shadowed subways, and the alleyways and graffiti around the Ouseburn.

We enjoyed panoramas of Teesside industry and limestone pavements, followed by caves, quarries and climbers on
outcrops and whinstone escarpments, all of which accentuated the patterns and textures of rock. Ed loves the sense
of motion and we saw prints of fast-moving cycle racers; although, he added, it can be quite scary if one is too close to
the riders. He prefers re-enactments and we saw characters from a WWII Pickering meeting, together with the Ragged
Victorians at Tanfield, prints which he aged with post-production sepia toning to compliment the era.

Following on we saw prints submitted to the RPS on the theme of coastal scenes; moody Dungeness with its old boats
and railway lines, New Zealand’s working harbours under dramatic clouds also dunes and sweeping beaches at Embleton
and Druridge Bay. He emphasised the importance of capturing good clouds when photographing monochrome landscapes
to create drama in the scene.

Edward concluded his presentation with great prints taken at the Americana Festival at the Sage, now called the Glass
House. We saw singers and musicians taken from unusual angles with detailed shots of feet, instruments, microphones
and sheet music; all taken from a different point of view and cropped for maximum effect.

Tony opened his presentation by saying that on occasions that he does shoot in colour, he always reduces the saturation.
He prefers open-ended projects such as photographing the Ouseburn area which can change week by week from where
we enjoyed seeing graffiti and reflections in water. Prints followed taken at Newcastle’s Mela Festival with its colourful
dancers, drummers and fashion shows. When capturing cycle races, he said one needed a lot of luck to produce a clear
image. His take on the Americana Festival was to photograph the audience only, even though, he said, he was not really
comfortable taking photographs of people.

Being mainly a landscape photographer, Tony loves our coastline and we saw Bamburgh Castle under big skies and the
beach at Cresswell where one is sure to see something different every day. He likes the light variations that landscape
photography brings, and he illustrated this with windblown sand at Druridge Bay and Dunstanburgh Castle in the mist.

He is drawn to trees under dramatic skies; showing a Brampton skeletal copse, silver birches in the fog, and desaturated
trees leaving ethereal branch detail. The results of a day project produced multiple images of sand patterns where we
were shown twelve images, all different, taken in one small area of the beach.

Tony was commissioned to take photographs for a restaurant owner who wanted to illustrate to his clientele the origins
of the produce on the menu. Prints of a free range pig farmer, a Holy Island mussel farm, oysters being gathered from
racks and long-horn cattle breeders were included. Tony provided anecdotes of this time, concluding that this was a
great experience to have had and an opportunity to meet so many hard-working characters.

Edward and Tony showed us their work across many genres of photography, yet it was noticeable that although some of
the images had been taken at the same time and place, they were totally different. They provided a very entertaining
evening with images demonstrating the strengths of black and white prints but on occasion, considered use of colour.
The Club Chairman then thanked them for an informative and interesting presentation.

Steph.