The Club was very pleased to welcome back Micki Aston, the renowned photographer and judge, who presented her excellent show on China. And this wasn’t any old show. It gave the low down on the life of the residents in the cities and contrasted this with the metropolitan and tourist side. The hot spots of the countryside were delivered to us minus the tourists; the bustle of the cities was set against the quietness of the side streets. Local cafes and shops had a drab beauty of their own and were sometimes a welcome relief from the garish colours of the main streets.
Micki whisked us through a mesmerising trip visiting Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Macau, and the Great Wall – and these were just a few. We saw the many different styles of architecture; we met the locals, smiling affably, showing off their photogenic children, and we saw reminders of the people from the days of the Mao Tse-Tung reign.
But it wasn’t exclusively about China. Micki included many photographic tips for us, and demonstrated these through her images. Two outstanding points she made: never be afraid to include blur in your image as long as there is also sufficient sharpness in other areas; and remember recession, the fading of the layers as the image recedes to the horizon, such as mountain ranges.
There was a very good turn out for this presentation which shows that Micki is a guaranteed crowd puller, and she certainly excelled!
Visit Micki’s website to see some of the images from the show – www.astonimages.com