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Chairman's Night


On Monday 17th January it was the turn of Chairman David Mortimer, to entertain the members. He had chosen to chart his 67 years experiences in photography from Darkroom to Digital and Beyond using key dates and events to illustrate his journey.
From the age of 10 he used the family's Kodak Box Brownie camera to record images of his model aircraft which he constructed and flew.
During the teenage years his interest grew and he eventually purchased his first 35mm camera and set up a small darkroom.
He joined the Minehead and District Photographic Society (as it was then known) in 1962/63 where members produced mainly monochrome prints at that time.
In March 1964 the Beatles came to town, David got onto the platform with the other press photographers to photograph the 'Fab Four' up close and personal. Later selling many prints to the hundreds of screaming fans.
In the ensuing years he and wife Sue travelled to many countries recording their travels on 35mm slide film which they used in their Audio Visual shows.
In part two members were shown a collection of darkroom prints including his successful CPAGB Panel.
It wasn't until March 2009 that he converted from film to digital. Next followed a collection of his travel PDI's both home and abroad.
In 2013 he and Sue joined a small group of photographers for a trip to the Venice Carvivale. One of the group was Barry Mead from Bristol, he introduced David to the world of creative or altered reality image making, a direction which he still follows.
In the spring of 2015 he and Sue journeyed to Newquay to try their hands at photographing the high speed sport of Thundercat racing, a very unpredictable and exciting sport which they still follow.
The evening was rounded off with Beyond..... David said having been introduced to creative photography by Barry, he intended to carry on exploring altered reality as a means of expression and creativity in his own work. To end, members were shown a few recent images from this genre.
All agreed it had been a pleasure to take a nostalgic look at the days of darkroom and to see the quality achieved from the wet print process.