Speaker – Les Loosemore – Wednesday 5th May 2021

As part of our summer program on Zoom the Society had the pleasure of welcoming Les Loosemore from Bridgend in South Wales to give us a wide ranging presentation on his style of photography. In his younger years Les  was a footballer, then after this career ended became a referee for many years. To cement a Celtic connection his player Idol was the Scottish Internationalist the sublime Jim Baxter. With the musical accompaniment of Jon Vangelis tunes, Les showed 7 sections of images with a total of 440 slides . The first was entitled “Triptychs”, with the pictures and the mood of the music in tandem.

The second entitled “Waterfalls”, was a variety of images on this theme combining movement and stillness. The third was entitled “Wintertime”, with many stunning shots taken in Macro. The fourth entitled “U K”, consisting many of Welsh panoramas and in letterbox shape to give them the greatest visual effect. Then “Overseas”, these included images from Australia`s Gold Coast and Sydney, a number from Bergamo and the Dolomites in Italy and a few of New England in the U S A. The last collection was entitled “Abstraction”, this section encapsulated the photographic vision Les was promoting with his images.

He demonstrated how natural shapes and colours alongside man made structures can both be dramatic and sympathetic when shown one after another. Although Les came to photography seriously in his later years his philosophy is, see the picture first, then take the shot. His also advised that no amount of photoshopping and editing can make a bad image, good. Throughout his presentation Les was able to make the mundane seem ethereal using colour and shape, truly a master of his craft and greatly appreciated by his audience.

Joe Peterson