‘Flower Power’ theme for images displayed at Morpeth Camera Club meeting

Club co-chair Sue Dawson hosted the evening and several members who enjoy photographing flowers, with themes and techniques in particular, had been invited to show and talk about some of their floral images.

First up was Pat Wood, with a particular interest in Orchids, who explained the ideal growing conditions, provided their Latin botanical names and illustrated her talk with a variety of beautiful, white, cream, bronze and mottled varieties – which were presented mostly with a black background to highlight the detail.

Karin Jackson, regarded by the club as a photographer/botanist, gave the audience examples of plants and stated their preferred habitat for thriving, which included Herb-Paris, the Bee Orchid found in our coastal regions, the wall growing Toothwort, Hong Kong’s Shell Ginger and the exotic Sarapus Tongue Orchid.

David Moore followed with flowers taken in his garden – with images of many varieties of clematis and beautiful examples of roses, some accentuated with sparkling raindrops.

John Thompson’s talk followed with a before and now presentation featuring an array of his garden flowers, which included water lilies, roses, vibrant poppies, patterned foliage, honeysuckle, flowering cacti and wisteria.

Those in attendance saw how he had set aside some of his lawn with long grasses and accentuated these with a short Av (Audio Visual) clip of grasses swaying in the breeze.

Keith Pratt’s images, taken with his iPhone, followed with him saying that he doesn’t have a set agenda and he photographs what he likes. Members saw examples of blue and purple irises and golden lilies taken when out for walks and when on holiday on the Isle of Skye.

Taking on an artistic theme of flowers, Dave Bisset showed the audience how he created multi image photographs of majestic cactus flowers using filters and distortion radial curves, with glowing edges, inverted colours and atmospheric blurring.

Peter Downs, notorious in the club for the use of abstraction, presented Acer leaves, Allium, Grape Hyacinth and daffodils using blending modes, multiple exposures, lens blur, and throughout described to the audience his complicated methods of creating ethereal alternatives to usual flower photography.

Davy Bolam came next, explaining his techniques of photographing frozen flowers. He gave a step-by-step explanation of how it is achieved and also the experimental learning curve situations of what can go awry.

He illustrated his talk with striking images of crocus, dandelions, snowdrops and daisies frozen in time.

Photo stacking and Macro shots was the theme of Glyn Trueman’s talk, where he explained his methods of obtaining depth and detail in photography.

Meticulous images of pixie cup lichen, delicate fungi and insects, detailed macro shots of snowdrops and poppy seed heads were included in Glyn’s presentation.

Andrew Flounders followed by saying that his approach to photography is to use monochrome as his chosen medium in order to focus on fine detail, its texture and, where he can reveal, the structure of the plant.

Those in attendance saw a back lit puffball, beads of ice on foliage and sunflower images to represent ‘Earth, Wind and Fire’.

Light box photography was Sue Dawson’s theme, which was illustrated with the equipment she used. She explained her methods of using multi exposures, painting with colour, adding backgrounds and monochrome conversion.

Members saw lovely examples of her work, which included translucent poppies and Columbine resembling a Victorian botanical print.

To conclude the evening, John Barnes gave those in attendance a guided tour of Belsay Gardens, where the gardeners are recreating them as they were originally planted in Victorian days.

There were images of gardeners, advisers from Kew, the Quarry Gardens, which is a microclimate for exotic flowers, and swathes of multi coloured Rhododendrons.

Thirteen club members took up the challenge – all with different themes and techniques, with a variety of styles and interests, which made for another very interesting evening at the club.

Sue thanked everyone who took part, after which refreshments were served.