Our recent public meeting on the 10th was well received with an audience of around 30 members.
Our speaker, Den Bridel, gave a stimulating and wide ranging account of wildlife in Somerset by showing and describing photographs from his personal collection taken over recent years. Recently Den moved onto digital photography and has started to make good use of its attractions for such work.
I've uploaded a couple of photos I took last year on Feb 15th in Snowdrop Valley on Exemoor. As spring flowers are showing early this year we will be visiting this lovely site again by the end of January with some friends living near London just to give them a special treat!!
Within a week and just by coincidence I was able to visit the Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2007 exhibition in Bristol. Of course the very best equipment had been used for most of the exhibits and they were truly remarkable. However just as Den Bridel had recounted from his experience many photo opportunities come about as a result of spending a long time in the most appropriate places and waiting for wildlife to come within range of the camera.
My encounter with good wildlife photography links in very well to a topic discussed at our members meeting on the 16th Jan.
It was one of several ways to be aired by means of which our group could get a new impetus and a new direction to our activities. The suggestions included :
Adopting one of our nearest nature reserves to give a sense of belonging to an area.
Wildlife Gardening with links to local gardening clubs.
Establishing a link to one of our local schools to make contact with a younger generation of children and their parents.
Events based on practical activities such as willow weaving.
Discussion evenings or open forum meetings.
Workshops on Art and Photography for wildlife.
Personally I believe this last idea could be very rewarding.
To consider all this we are hoping to get a committee meeting next week to decide on how we proceed for 2008 and not least to welcome 2 new committee members joining as a result of the 16th Jan meeting. That is great news.
There was much more to report on from that meeting which will follow.
