Alnwick, Camera Club

Laine showed a series of pictures taken on her latest visit to India.

Palaces, temples and street markets figured largely in her photographs, but the greatest emphasis was on the people. She showed us shopkeepers, farmers, fishermen, silk producers and traditional dancers, amongst others. Her rapport with her subjects is clear and many seemed keen to have their photographs taken.

Richard Stent showed a fascinating series of images of Whitby, taken before and some time after the extremely high tide of last November.

The high tide pictures were all in monochrome, so effective that you almost felt the cold and wet, whereas the later pictures, taken from the same points of view, were in colour, providing contrasting feelings of warmth and optimism.

Dave Dixon presented two sets of images. First he showed a series of Newcastle’s less obvious architecture, featuring subways, stairs, bridges and car parks.

While some were liberally decorated with graffiti, and many could be regarded as examples of urban decay, Dave’s pictures had a beauty of their own, with fine composition and sensitive use of monochrome and muted colour.

His second presentation concentrated on Newcastle’s Civic Centre, a building that he holds in high regard for its fine architecture. As well as excellent images of the exterior, taken by day and night, we also saw an impressive range of interior shots, which were a revelation to many.

To complete the evening John Strong and Dennis Hall presented a fine gallery of prints.

John’s colour pictures included local and Scottish landscapes and an historic image of cranes leaving Swan Hunter’s shipyard for the last time, while Dennis’ pictures featured colour and monochrome prints of various subjects, including interesting images of Malta.