At our meeting on 28th October, Keswick PS were treated to a night of entertainment by Dalston Photographic Society. The event followed a different format to the usual talks Keswick are familiar with and it was a lot of fun.
Dalston began with a mix of photographs and AV (a video of sliding images to music) by Ian Gregory named ‘Garden Safari’, showing a fascinating selection of insects in the form of macro photography. Our chairman Tony Marsh was particularly wowed by the range and quality of the visuals – it was almost like watching a top-quality BBC wildlife production. We saw how potter wasps used caterpillars to feed their larvae and looked inside a nest box of a leaf cutter wasp which created individual pods for their larvae. We were introduced to cuckoo wasps and horsehair worms. The video finale presented the lifecycle of the cabbage white butterfly.
We were then taken around the world by Steve Jeffrey to K2 base camp and Antarctica. We saw images and videos of flying up the Indus valley, a precarious drive to Askole and then the final 2 week trek up to the 5,000m camp. On the way we saw the Baltoro glacier, heavily laden mule trains and their shoeing, the Trango Towers and finally Concordia with its amazing view of K2. In his second presentation, Steve showed his exploits kayaking with whales in Antarctica. Despite the kayakers being but tiny objects in the water, the whales were incredibly gentle with their interactions with them and put on amazingly acrobatic displays. In another video, the colour and vibrancy of Cuba was displayed in the form of ancient cars, cigars, beautiful cities and cows ploughing tobacco fields.
The final speaker was Richard Speirs who entitled his talk ‘Recent work’. He described his trip around Armenia beginning with pictures of military robotic dogs on the streets of Yerevan that he entitled Dogs of War. Richard had a particular interest in street photography but also showed images of Great Ararat (a 16,000 ft mountain), several monasteries, copper mining, traditional bread making, coloured bee hives and an abandoned radio/optical telescope installation with its control room.
It would be true to say that the evening was a great success and the members of KPS are already planning their return visit to Dalston.
Our next meeting on Wednesday 4th November is on the subject of ‘Forty Fells’ by Tom McNally, which is also currently a free exhibition at Rheged Discovery Centre near Penrith running through until January 2027. Prospective new members and visitors are always welcome to join us at 7.30pm in the Quaker Meeting House, opposite Booths supermarket, Keswick or alternatively via Zoom. Please contact us with with any questions or to reserve a place.