Keswick Photographic Society

The latest meeting of the Society featured award-winning wildlife photographer Alastair Marsh. He visited us hot on the heels of multiple successes in the latest British Wildlife Photography Awards (BWPA). One of Alastair’s hedgehog portraits is featured as the front cover of this year’s BWPA book. His talk was subtitled ‘trying something different’ and was illustrated with stunning photographs of native species mostly close to his home in North Yorkshire. The images were outstanding both in their technical quality and the inventiveness of his compositions.

The inventiveness came from the ingenuity with which he arranged the photographic set-ups used to capture unique aspects of animal behaviour. The overriding aim was to remain as unobtrusive as possible so that the animals acted in a natural manner. To achieve this, much of the photography relied upon the remote triggering of the silent shutter of a camera that was often positioned inches away from the subject. He also subtly exploited remotely-triggered low level flashlights to illuminate either the subject or its immediate surroundings to produce evocative naturalistic images.

For our second meeting of the new season the club were treated to a presentation by longstanding member Keith Snell of his photographic hits and misses over the years. Hits were those images that had been awarded medals in international competitions, whereas the misses were favourites that he felt should perhaps have been rewarded. However, he emphasised that as photographers we should not be seeking to please competition judges but rather to please ourselves. Very often our emotional connection to an image would then make it uniquely personal.

Keith attributed his start in photography to his family moving at his early age to a house with a bathroom. Having running water and a small easily-blocked window, this could be temporarily converted to a dark room for the contact printing of film negatives. His further progress from then on was largely the result of inspiration and advice from fellow photographers, not least through joining Keswick Photographic Society when he moved to the area in 2008. He also considered that becoming a photographic judge of local club competitions improved his own critical appreciation as well as enjoying the wealth of photography excellence in the camera club scene.

Tag: wildlife

Alastair Marsh: ‘Wildlife Photography’, 16th September 2026

Keith Snell: ‘Hits & Misses’, 9th September 2026