Summer school continued on 26th July with John Gravett’s talk about “creative” photography delivered over zoom and on screen in the pub. John demonstrated a series of techniques with polarisation and diffraction of light, using water and DVD discs, coloured straws with light and photoshop ‘bending’ and misted water on a dandelion seedhead, cleverly fixed in a bath of milk. All was delivered with humour and insightful description of failed attempts, it was very inspiring.
The next week was its practical equivalent with several stations for us to play with, John scurrying helpfully from one to the other, members helping each other and lots of chat and fun. Straws, sausage roll ‘wrappers’, coloured lights, water spray – children’s party really! All done with things/props we have at home and could easily repeat. The attempt by Joan Hall and David Cottrell to video share the evening to the zoomed contingent was tricky mostly for reasons of lighting, and direction of lighting at the various stations but shows how far we have come with our (mostly David C’s !) work to hold hybrid meetings. A ‘practical’ session over zoom is pretty ambitious!
9th August saw a talk by Phil Savoie on the principles of photography. Phil’s background is at the Natural History unit at the BBC. I had to miss this sadly, being on a family holiday and the follow-up feed back was so positive that I clearly missed one of the best talks. It had something for everyone, and even the most seasoned nature photographers have been practising with Phil’s suggestions, achieving some of the best results they have ever had! Phil will be asked back for a talk in the future!
The last summer school session was a show of 5 or so images and/or AVs from each member, which I had the pleasure of compiling into a show. Tremendous images from the summer, either taken on one of the walks, at a practical session or inspired by summer school. Over a hundred images were shared showing the vast range of interests and skills of all of us – many favourite bits of work, much of very high quality. Forty odd people attended in the pub for a great atmosphere, with several more on zoom (mostly our more distant friends). Flowers and a voucher for the most influential contributors to summer school’s success (Mary Naughton, Ron Henry, David Cottrell and Peter Maguire – with Maggi forgetting a bunch for herself, self- deprecatingly).
2022 summer school was a roaring success with more attendants than ever before. We now have a short break and then start the 2022-2023 season on 06th September both in the Duke of Wellington and on zoom. Our ‘exhibition’ video is easily found on Youtube by searching for Gosforth Camera Club, should you be missing us in the short break!