Morpeth Camera Club members enjoy their annual 'Big Event'

Kathryn is an international award-winning photographer, who combines the Seeing Eye with her Photoshop skills to create stunning fantasy images full of emotion with strong narratives.

Kathryn opened the evening with a short history of how she got into photography, the photographers she met along the way and her introduction into the digital world. So determined was she to master Photoshop that after a few weeks she had produced her own composite pictures of characters placed in unusual or unlikely settings.

She then went on to develop her own post-processing techniques including the use of blending modes, layer masks and bas-relief effects. Entering competitions, watching photographic judges and presenting her work in exhibitions, she said, had all contributed to her success in photography.

Amusing anecdotes of trips to Scotland in winter were illustrated with glowing hoar-frosted trees and sweeping snowy landscapes and were followed by useful suggestions on how to achieve mood and atmosphere into one's work. Her brilliant use of light was evident in her Lake District lake reflections, autumnal forests, bluebell woods and silver birch trees.

When the weather is really bad one can always turn to still life, she said, and went on to show examples of delicate fading flowers and graphic images of hats and shoes.

After a short interval Kathryn showed the audience images for which she is better known and for which she has been awarded medals. This is work over which she had ultimate control, in finding backgrounds to suit her subject such as an old railway carriage with a soldier returning from war, spectators impossibly close to massive waves, and a First World War nurse in the middle of moorland; all images with a story to tell. These composite images are always connected in some way, usually by a colour which recurs within the scene.

Before and after images revealed that a mundane subject can be transformed by replacing skies, by deleting unwanted objects, introducing other characters and placing light just where she wants it to be. We enjoyed anecdotes of Goths, steam punks and colourful characters which she has approached with the view of taking their photograph to be used within another context, to tell a story and to have a narrative. Fantasy landscapes, telephone kiosks sinking in sand, Dali-esque creations, and a girl seemingly floating on rocky shores were among the many examples of her vivid imagination.

Kathryn stated that when she is taking a photograph, she likes to be able to visualise the end result and capture the emotion she wants to convey to the viewer. To conclude her presentation, we saw images taken in the Outer Hebrides of derelict croft interiors, of detritus with a sense of abandonment that certainly captured the mood and emotion she strives for.

Co-chair Sue Dawson thanked Kathryn for her absorbing talk, after which the audience were able to view a large selection of her prints.

For more information about the club, go to www.morpethcameraclub.co.uk and/or its dedicated Facebook page.