Page 19 - Cape-Camera-Jan-Feb-2022

Cape Camera January/February 2022

Gail and I were married in 1971 in my last year of medicine and our balance with a few sliders in Lightroom.
I finally qualified in 1972. Soon after this I began my specializ- Another turning point for me was when I attended a workshop
ing in ophthalmology and the next four years was a time for at Kammieskroon in Namaqualand. This was run by the Cana-
raising our three lovely daughters, and studying and working dian photographer Freeman Patterson who opened a whole
as a registrar at Groote Schuur. Again my photographs were all new world into the art of flower photography. His way of mak-
about the early years of our new family and holidays we went ing images were both inspiring and exciting. I met a very en-
on. Looking back I realize how fantastic it is that my early pho- thusiastic group from the Helderberg club, lead by the likes of
tographic interest enabled us to have such a good record of our Nicole Palmer, Paddy Howes and others. This was the first real
early days. photography workshop I had attended and saw immediately
I completed my training at Cambridge spending two years in the benefit of spending a whole week with other like-minded
England and returned to a consultant position in the eye de- photographers completely immersed in one`s hobby. I arrived
partment at Groote Schuur hospital which I held for four years home full of inspiration and enthusiasm, feeling that I had learnt
before going into private practise in 1984. Photography was so much. I then started attending meetings in Somerset West at
very much in the background during these years but finally their club and continued there for some years. Their competi-
I decided to join a club and joined CTPS which then held it`s tion evenings also took place once a month but there was no
meetings at Jarvis street in Cape Town. grading applied to members so the top images got the best
This was a significant time for me as suddenly I was sharing scores and this inspired us to improve our skill set
images with other photographers for the first time, having my We had a monthly audio visual evening, and this is where I real-
images critiqued, and really beginning to read and learn about ised where I wanted going forward with my photography. I was
the art and craft of photography. My record shots didn`t cut it accumulating hundreds of slides and not able to share enough
any longer and my real passion was born. Landscape and wild- of them with others and this became the perfect medium to do
life images started becoming part of my portfolio. I have very this. Syncing music with slides in an artistic way became very
fond memories of those meetings and all those who helped satisfying and since then this has continued to be my passion.
my growth. I soon realised the benefit of seeing other people’s Of course in the early days it was a much more complicated set
work and it gave me many ideas on new things to try and pho- up with two slide projectors, a dissolve unit linked to the projec-
tograph. I was shooting slide film at this stage and had started tors, and a special tape deck with the music that sent a signal to
using Nikon cameras. Great excitement when we could achieve the projectors to change dissolves. Move to current times and
four frames per second, but not so good when a whole role of we have our laptops with fancy software like Wings and PTE to
film was gone in a flash. Discussions often were about what film showcase our images artistically with music and dissolves that
was the best to use, Velvia or Provia whereas now we adjust col- were not possible in the early days.

Cape Town Photographic Society 18