Camera Club Open Evening

I had a lovely evening at the Camera Club.
I was impressed with how organised they were - everyone was given name badges as they came in. It was also nice to see Sara, who I know from the Baskie and Stitch and Bitch - she'd come along to see if she could get some help with the technical side of photography. She knows how to use a dark room, but computers confuse her! A couple of the members suggested a program called Lightroom (I think), but they also do regular "Ask the Panel" sessions for questions like that. The next one is next week, on January 14th, at the Masonic Hall from 7.30pm.
There's a lot going on - the present programme of events runs until the end of February, with something going on every week. Non-members are charged £5 entry - and there's always home made cake! There are also competitions. I might go back for the Members Night on 4th February, when one of the members is talking about a trip he did around Northern Spain in an old sports car.
Set up in one corner was a laptop showing a slideshow of members' photos on a screen. There was a wide variety, including still life, action shots of surfers, horses galloping through water in the Camargue, Buddhist priests in Nepal, landscapes....
Members come from quite a wide area, too. I met people who had come from Knighton, Llangorse and Talgarth, as well as Hay. And they are interesting people, too - one chap has a daughter who is something important in Twitter, another used to work for Oxfam, and I got into some fascinating conversations, including one about politics in Estonia and Latvia - one of the members has Latvian grandparents. He said his name means "oak tree", apparently a common surname in Latvia.
Another lady (there are a few more men than women in the club at the moment) was also singing the praises of what she called the Walking Wounded walking group. It's a group that meets at the bus shelter in Hay on Mondays at 2pm, for people who have health or mobility problems to have a gentle walk together, and who couldn't manage the route marches that the Hay Walkers go on. Some of them have had strokes, for instance. One of their walks soon will be starting from Llyswen, up a side road that is little used, so they'll be forming a convoy of cars to get there.
In the interests of full disclosure, I have to admit that I was given two After Eight mints when I mentioned I'd be writing about the Camera Club in this blog!