‘More than Mountains’ with Tom Dodd

TENBY AND DISTRICT CAMERA CLUB At the meeting on Thursday 31st October, Neil Thomas Vice Chairman thanked the three club members who travelled to Connah’s Quay to represent the club at the P.A.G.B. inter club print championships held on Saturday 26th October. He then introduced the speaker for the evening, Tom Dodd who travelled from Blaenau Ffestinog and was supported by his two grandchildren. Tom’s theme for the evening was ‘More than Mountains’, before showing any images Tom told members he remembered visiting Tenby as a child with his dad who worked for the bus company Western Welsh. He is a native of Abergavenny and then moved to North Wales where he was employed in the outdoor leisure industry leading parties of young people into the mountains. “I have always been taking photographs, but I guess my interest in mountains and landscape started with my work”. He told us he is is a ‘Permajet’ sponsored lecturer and gives many talks around England and Wales. His images of the Mountains were spectacular, taken in the French Alps, Switzerland, Nepal, Greenland and of course the Snowdonian National Park. Tom explained that a lot of his early images were taken as slides, which was then scanned and the print produced. His interest goes beyond the mountains, he describes his work as a large format of social photography, where his images managed to capture people in their social context without being heavy handed; this was evident in the portraits of people from Katmandu, the street scenes of Belfast and the small grocers shop in Abergavenny. Before the coffee break Tom told members “Our photography should be documentive in addition to the images we take for competition, every picture tells a story”. Tom continued to show images of birds and insects, flowers, family images and close ups; and saying to the audience that “composition and arrangement of your images is important and to shoot what you love, marry photography with something you are passionate about”. Neil Thomas thanked Tom for a wonderful and light hearted talk and hoped that he would return to club in 2014. 7th November – Falkland Islands – Wildlife and Landscapes – talk by Nigel McCall 14th November – Judging of Black and White images