Last night we had a very good attendance for the last speaker of the 21/22 season. We welcomed Mike Bennet from Yorkshire, who gave us his talk 'Random Thoughts of a Confused Photographer'. I'm not sure he was very confused! His images covered nearly every genre you could think of and had a great clarity.

One of his preferences is street photography and he showed us some great images. Light is very important to him; he searches out shadows or beams of sunlight and tries to catch people in an unguarded and unscripted moment and capture a 'decisive moment', admitting that, especially when 'shooting from the hip', it resulted in a low successful hit rate! (don't I know it!!)

He also demonstrated his willingness to try many other genres - studio portraiture, landscapes, a smattering of wildlife and others. Images were taken in many different locations, all over the country and a few from his travels abroad on work trips. He captured some areas of the north that have now disappeared, the old fish town area of Grimsby etc, recording them in a 'photo-journalistic' manner. He likes to take himself out of his comfort zone and trying subjects and genres that he hasn't tried before. I think many of us could learn from that! I know I will continue to try new things.

He also talked about projects and challenges that he liked to set himself while out with his camera.

At the beginning of the second half he showed a wonderful AV of mono images "Northern Town' accompanied by the haunting track of Disturbed's version of 'The sound of Silence', I found it strangely emotional.

The rest of the second half showed his more creative images, he talked about the thinking behind the images and how he put the images together. He finished up the evening with a more detailed account of how he put one of his images together, showing the layers involved. A very good evening!!