Gerald Chamberlin

Gerald Chamberlin

This week (24th Oct) we were delighted to welcome as our guest speaker Gerald Chamberlin EFIAP, DPAGB.

Gerald lives in Cumbria and is Chairman of Morton Photographic Society. Gerald is passionate about black and white photography and lately infrared photography.

Gerald had entitled his talk ‘My World in Black and White’ and it would include both print and digital media.

Although Gerald describes himself as ‘not a landscape photographer’ he has a passion, through his love of fell walking and bike riding of everything to do with the outdoors, especially the Lake District.

As the title of his talk would suggest all the photographs, both print and digital would be monochrome with perhaps just a hint of colour in the odd one.

Gerald likes his pictures to tell a story and he likes to spend time ‘building’ these stories, often returning to the same image many times over using Photoshop to edit, often meticulously  replacing the backgrounds and backdrops to an image where he felt the original didn’t work.

This evening we were treated to some stunning black & white images, both print and digital were topnotch.  The prints beautifully printed, mounted and presented.

From images of the Lake District and Tanfield Railway to trips to Nantwich and Aberdeen following the actors from ‘The Sealed Knot’, an historical association dedicated to reenactment of English civil war battles that provided some stunning images. Locations such as Blist Hill and our own Beamish provided inspiration for more quality images.  One in particular taken at the Edinburgh Fringe of a couple of black ‘slaves’ was, in addition to the quality of the image, quite thought provoking. 

The second part of Gerald’s presentation entitled ‘Something Different’ concerned infrared photography. Gerald explained how he had an old Nikon D200 converted to infrared at a cost of around £200 and how he found infrared to be a steep learning curve and a learning curve he is still on.

Unlike some of the traditional infrared images many of us have seen where only white, black and greys are visible, Gerald’s images contained subtle almost sepia tones and in some cases hints of blues and yellows.

A trip to Sweden, where Gerald has friends who have an equestrian farm in the forrest provided an opportunity to experiment with infrared on the many interesting, unusual and beautiful locations and subjects available. Old wrecked cars hidden amongst the trees in the forrest, a sculpture park with some huge exhibits. An old house in the woods, the ‘Badger House’, abandoned and left almost as a time capsule.  Gerald also related how some of his infrared images when entered into competitions often fooled the judges who would comment on how well the snow and ice had been captured on the trees and grass oblivious to the fact that it was probably taken mid summer.

Gerald finished the evening with a brief explanation on his editing workflow for infrared using Photoshop.

Gerald stayed to answer questions from the members who then were able to view the prints he had brought to display.

We thank Gerald first for making a none to inconsiderable journey to be with us this evening and for delivering an excellent presentation backed up with beautiful images and prints.​

Bob Finlay (President)