This rearranged activity was a Zoom presentation entitled “Sliding into Digital” by Leo Rich. Leo has been an active, amatuer photographer for over 50 years and therefore seen many changes in the way photography has evolved over that period, with the advent of digital photograohy being one of the major changes.

Leo started his talk with a series of slide images that had been digitised before crossing the rubicon and showing the first images he took with a digital camera of Salisbury Cathedral. It’s fair to say he was less than impressed with the results but gradually became more accustomed to the new technology and the way it worked.

Thereafter he shared a wide range of images including wildlife and portraits of people he had met on his travels. Having fallen in love with India after a holiday there, he subsequently organised five trips with a bunch of like-minded photographers to share his love of the culture and people. His images each had a story behind them and he seemed to develop an instant rapport with everyone he met and photographed. His final selection of images featured some magnificent Bengal tigers in all their glory from sleeping, hunting and the occasional charging the jeep from which he operated.

Whilst he is no longer able to travel long haul, Leo remains a great ambassador for India and the Water Aid charity that he supports.

Our third round of competitions contributing points towards the Mayor’s Cups featured Open and Still Life images as both prints and digital projected images and was judged by Lee Spencer-Fleet from Bristol.

A smaller than usual number of prints were submitted and the winning Open print was “Blue tits in flight” by Dave Garmont and the winning Still Life print was “Cameras” by Nigel Walkley.

The projected image competitions attracted many more entries and Rob Slade won the Open section with “Brothers and Sisters” whilst the Still Life section was won by Melanie Dartnall-Smith with “Macabre side of the glass”.

Several Still Life images featured fruit items which had been photographed at a previous practical evening. The judge gave several ideas and suggestions on how to make such images more impactful through incorporating other elements into the image and creating more depth in the displays.