The Rye and District Camera Club’s annual print exhibition in St Mary’s Centre during the Rye Arts Festival was very popular. Visitors commented on the amazing quality and ingenuity of the photos and Rye News interviewed two of the exhibiting photographers, Stu and Sam Muswell.
When did you start taking photographs?
Sam: I remember taking photos as a kid on family days out and holidays with a basic 110 film camera. As you can imagine, the results weren’t great. Once I started to go abroad at around 17 years old photos were a great way of capturing what I’d seen. On my return, I’d show my nan and she would say my photos looked just like postcards! I always found it exciting sending the roll of film off to Truprint to see what came back.
Stu: I have been taking photos for years, but only seriously since joining the Rye Camera Club three years ago.
What is your favoured style and subject and why?
Sam: I enjoy taking photos of landscapes or a scene. My images often include a shadow or reflection. They sometimes tell a story but more than that I hope they give a feeling. If someone else looks at the photo and has a reaction it gives me satisfaction. Of an image I submitted for the recent exhibition, Garden Gate Shadow – Belmont House, I had some people say that it invited them through the gate and someone said that they felt as if a loved one might come through the gate towards them. I was delighted by that.
Stu: Astrophotography, because I have been fascinated by space ever since watching the Moon landings in 1969.
Who has helped you on your learning journey?
Both: Seeing photos that other Rye and District Camera Club members put forward for competitions has encouraged us to look for the unseen and unusual and to think more about composition. Our photography has improved greatly since joining, thanks to the support and encouragement in the club.
What have been the biggest challenges so far?
Sam: The biggest challenge for me is that I often use the automatic settings on my camera and phone, so I need to better understand the functionality of my camera so that I can control the output and take better photos.
Stu: Mastering image processing, using a myriad of free and paid-for software, has been a huge challenge and I still have a lot to learn.
What is on your bucket list?
Sam: My travel bucket list keeps getting bigger and that is when I take most photos. Mexico is our next trip which will be full of colour and hopefully some shadows and reflections.
Stu: Going to a seriously dark sky to image the Milky Way with an interesting foreground is definitely on my bucket list.
Why would you encourage people to join the Rye and District Camera Club?
Both: This year the Rye and District Camera Club will have been in existence for seventy years which is an amazing achievement. It is a friendly, active club with members of all abilities, taking photos in various genres. You don’t need to be an expert: you just need to have an interest in photography. We meet every other Monday evening between September and April in Iden Village Hall. The club has a vibrant programme with monthly competitions, digital and printed. Many of our members take part but some just enjoy seeing the different images submitted. There is also a speaker or activity once a month. We have really enjoyed being part of the club for the last three years and would not hesitate to encourage anyone who is interested to come along to a meeting to see what they think.
Are there particular photographers or photographs which have inspired you?
Sam: Many years ago I went to an Ansel Adams exhibition. I didn’t know about him, just that Time Out said that the exhibition was good. I was blown away by the fact that he could take the kind of landscapes he did in black and white, and still produce an image which did such justice to the scenery without colour. More recently I have discovered the late Henri Cartier Bresson’s images, which I really enjoy for their shadows and reflections, and the way he captured a moment in time perfectly and with humour.
Stu: The photograph which inspires me is the Hubble Ultra Deep Field image, taken by the Hubble Space Telescope in 2014, which contains 10,000 galaxies.
Image Credits: Sam and Stu Muswell , Kt bruce , Sam Muswell .