Image © Rashida Managera

We welcomed four new members to our first meeting of 2022 – Fred, Matthew, Pradeepta and Richard and welcomed back two long standing members – Hugh and Peter. It was a great start to the New Year to see so many old and new friends. The theme for the meeting was “experimental” but the meeting began with some personal projects.
Austin began by showing some images of sculptures relating to the human body which he had been unable to show in November. His images showed a clever use of lighting to bring out detail – this was especially clear in an image of the Nelson Mandela bust on the South Bank. Sue then showed minimalist seascapes taken in Dorset whose bands of colour looked like Rothko paintings. Dorota showed black and white landscapes full of ambiguous manmade objects which gave a feeling of mystery and unease. By contrast, Janet showed images taken on a walk round her neighbourhood revealing texture, light play and small details which are normally missed. Jan also gave us a new take on a daily routine in a grid of coffees with patterns carefully hand drawn by baristas. He thought that perhaps there was a code involved as each customer seemed to be given a different pattern.
Moving on to the main theme of the evening, Edey showed images of trees and a local river which experimented with non -naturalistic colour in post processing. The choice of colour emphasised shape and movement and made the river and trees seem unfamiliar. Hadi experimented with colour and black and white backgrounds for a floral image. The results were delicate and spiritual and each background made a clear difference to the look and feel of the image. Anna experimented with a tilt shift lens giving literally a different perspective and focus on the world.
Rashida had taken hand held images of flowers and slices of vegetables in ice. These made fascinating and beautiful still lives which became more abstract as the ice melted. Heather presented photographs of her local area in a new way by putting them in a slide show with music. The finished product was a quirky and humorous slide show of details of suburban life. Alec was also drawn to experiment with colour and showed one image of the Wheel with a number of different effects.
Nusse’s experiments were with negatives and colour negatives and also an accidental double exposure. This gave some very striking effects including an almost graffiti like shadow of a spiral staircase. Robin showed a series of portraits taken on his iPhone in portrait mode using the mono film lighting setting. This gave beautifully lit portraits with a very dark background. The subjects had a truly 3D quality. He also showed a set of images of buildings in the North of England which had been brightly coloured in post-production – the aim being to contradict the old saying that it is grim up North. Finally Steve showed some examples of analogue experimentation in the dark room. These included solarisation, reverse processing and lith printing which everyone found particularly appealing.

Austin Guest

Sue Czapska

Dorota Boisot

Janet Nabney

Jan Cylwyk

Edith Templeton

Hady Bayoumi

Anna Lerner

Rashida Mangera

Alec Wyllie

Nusse Belton

Robin Barr

Steve Jones

Sukhy Hullait