Page 18 - Cape-Camera-Jan-Feb-2022

January/February 2022 Cape Camera

A Member’s Profile

Ken Woods

When I consider the state of my photography now it`s interest- ing the luxurious bush, birdwatching, collecting butterflies and
ing to look back and figure out how it all started and where it all birds eggs and doing a bit of taxidermy - much to my grand-
came from. It has been a long journey and it`s been wonderful mother’s distress. I think these early days imprinted in my psy-
to be part of the technology that has come to us photographers che a love of the outdoors and it`s birds and wildlife, and hence
over the last 60 plus years. Looking back I remember my first my later passion for wildlife and nature photography.
`real` camera was a Rolleiflex given to me by a friend’s father. It Our school had a very active natural history and photographic
took large rolls of black and white negative film. Move forward club which I ran and so started my journey into the world of
to 2022 and we now shoot with cameras that can lock onto a printing and developing black and white images. It was all very
bird’s eye in flight and take 20 frames per second. Add to this all basic as no real teaching took place but we had fun with our
the fancy post processing software and we find ourselves in a cameras, and all thought we were amazing photographers.
very privileged place today in photography. School ended and then it was off to UCT to study medicine
My earliest recollections as a young boy were watching my Dad, for six years. I still dabbled a bit in photography but most im-
who also enjoyed photography, developing his black and white ages were about documenting our student lives with pictures
images in our spare bedroom in large trays of chemicals on the of rugby, parties, times on the beaches, camping trips etc and
bedroom table. I still recall the pungent odour of the developer keeping a record of those wonderful student days. I don`t re-
and fixer and then watching in awe as this image emerged from call reading about how to take photographs but certainly was
the clear liquid in the tray. He even added colour to his images adept at using a light meter and had the basics of exposure and
by painting onto the monochrome photographs with oils on a composition. Everything was manual and I recall getting the
cotton bud. needle of the light meter centred to get the exposure correct.
I grew up in Zimbabwe and had grandparents who were farm- All record shots with no gold awards.
ers and spent most of my school holidays on their farms explor-

17 Cape Town Photographic Society