Vice President, ArchivistRod Orrell LRPS
I joined BHCC over 14 years ago now and I haven’t enjoyed my photography more since doing so. The club has helped me improve my photography, I am a LRPS with the Royal Photographic Society and am in the process of putting together my A Panel to progress onto the Associateship of said society. This has been aided by the wonderful support of the members at BHCC, such people as the late Bill Wisden Hon FRPS MBE and David Miles ARPS, and the amazing speakers we have attend our Tuesday night meetings, such as Martin Parr and Peter Dench, to name but two.
My interest in photography was awakened as a young lad, when I used to sit in my Father’s ‘Dark Room’, the basement of our house at the time, and watch him produce wonderful prints from the negatives, that he had developed earlier, on the enlarger. It was totally fascinating to me at the time watching an image appear out of nowhere, whilst immersed in some liquid concoction.
He bought me my first camera for my 13th birthday, a Richo, and occasionally I would be allowed to use his ‘big’ Canon. I suppose I followed his example and started using Canon myself, when I started buying my own equipment, but recently I have switched over to using a micro 4/3rds outfit in Olympus. I do still retain possession of most of the ‘old’ cameras that I have ever used, as well as the lenses.
I don’t have any particular ‘genre’ that I am associated with, I just love going out with my camera and shooting whatever takes my fancy, but recently I have joined the “Documentary Group” of the RPS and am starting to think along these lines.