Annual Exhibition Opening Night

Hi everyone,

Yet another great night for our club, members and friends of SLPS.

When it comes to an exhibition venue with style and presence they do not come better than the Liverpool Anglican Cathedral, well may be the Metropolitan would tie with it. It is such a great space to show our members fantastic images in.

Thank you to every one who participated in the organisation that led up to the exhibition, no matter what you did, big or small. Thank you to everyone who came and manned the exhibition desk, and talked with the many people enquiring about the images and the club. I must thank everyone who entered their images, without you there would be no show. I thank also all the guests that came along, it shows to us what a friendly and well regarded club we are.  Our MC for the evening, the ever bubbly and consummately professional Barbara Green, introduced the audience to our star guest for the evening, Eamonn McCabe. Eamonn is an astounding sports photographer, award winner, portrait photographer and writer amongst other things and who is also an honory member of our club. He gave a wonderful talk about how photography has shaped his life and he remarked ow good these pictures were at our exhibition. I think he may even have requested a couple for himself!

Our photographer for the evening was Bill Davies, a great member of the club, who passes on his skills to so many of us. Many thanks Bill, even if you do use a Canon 😉

It was also my pleasure to present two extra special awards. The Presidents Trophy I awarded to Mike Lawson. Mike has been the secretary from heaven for me, taking many tasks and tirelessly getting on with the work behind the scenes, but of more visibility to the members is his willingness to take people out on many nature field trips to various sites and hosting our annual summer nature competition.

I also had the pleasure of presenting a Life Membership award to Martin Reece, OBE ARPS. This award was given to those people who give so much to the club it hurts! Martin has been a great pillar in our club for many years and beside his numerous occasions of being our president and other committee positions, has organised many of of our competitions, and won most if not all of them over the years. Martin has given many evenings entertainment and instruction and is always on hand to help anyone with their enquiries, whether they be about photography, skiing, trains or Venice! A most deserved award indeed.

A very warm welcome and thanks to Heather Garnett, who presented the ‘Eric Garnett Trophy’ to Michelle Burrows.

And our exhibition wouldn’t be the same if we didn’t have such great sponsors. So, many thanks to Will, Chris and the management of Wilkinson Cameras, our local photographic shop on Lord Street in the Liverpool City Centre. To Margi Laverty , Rob Curtis and the crew at c3Imaging of Tower Street in Brunswick Dock, Liverpool 3, I say again “Wow, that is a catalogue!”. Such a brilliant example of a publishers work that shows of the achievements of our members. Please visit these two places if you need any photo equipment to add to your list or specialist printing work to be done for you or your business.

Paul Matthews

Anyway, without further ado, here are some images of the evening.