At our first meeting of the new season, held on Wednesday 4th September, one of our long-standing members, Alan Walker, gave a talk on his 50 or so years pursuing photography as a hobby. Alan explained that his interest first developed in his early twenties when he focused mainly on candid and street photography. In the 1960’s, together with a friend, he put together an exhibition of monochrome prints titled “London Faces” which was commissioned by the Greater London Council. The exhibition detailed many aspects of life in London that today no longer exist. In those days there were no digital cameras and Alan had to carry out all his own processing in a dark room.
Whilst Alan was still in full time employment frequent trips to the Lake District led to a developing interest in landscape photography resulting in a desire to travel further afield to visit other stunning landscapes such as those found in New Zealand, Chile and Argentina and Utah, Nevada, Arizona and Yellowstone in the USA
On his retirement in 2006 Alan moved to the Lake District and he was able to spend far more time on his hobby. A trip to Cuba in 2008 allowed him to focus once again on street and candid photography. Subsequent trips in pursuit of people images have included Myanmar, Vietnam, and Cambodia. These have provided a valuable opportunity to experience and learn about other cultures.
In 2010 a long weekend spent in Scotland photographing wildlife kindled his enthusiasm for what was to become his main photographic interest. He recalls spending half an hour in a hide waiting for a red squirrel to appear and being bored to tears. However once the squirrel turned up he was fascinated and permanently hooked. Since then he has returned to Scotland on many occasions and travelled to all seven continents in pursuit of wildlife images. Africa is a particular favourite.
His first trip was to Namibia when he and his wife spent a month exploring the country unaccompanied. Trips to South Africa, Botswana and Kenya have followed.
Alan also has an interest in portraiture using both studio set ups and outdoor locations. Recently he was to be found underground in a disused Victorian reservoir near Nottingham photographing models dressed as gangsters from the 1930’s. On another occasion he spent a day in a theatre in Lancaster photographing ballet dancers.
Alan enjoys photographing a wide variety of subjects and he illustrated his entertaining talk with examples from each genre, many of which have won awards in national and international competitions.
Julie Walker