One advantage of holding an occasional on-line meeting is that we can call-on speakers who are further away from Potters Bar than our usual search area.

This was the case on 12 May 25 when we welcomed Les Forrester from his native Yorkshire. Les is, mostly, an architectural photographer, and an award-winning one at that. His presentation was called “Contemporary Architecture and Friends”. The Contemporary bit is easy to understand but the “…and friends” was a reference to buildings that interacted with contemporary structures (eg a museum in Berlin where a modern extension has been added to a classical building). During the evening, he showed images from many locations including Amsterdam, Stuttgart, Berlin, Baku (to highlight the dramatic work of his favourite architect Dame Zaha Hadid), Gateshead, Leeds and London.

The one thing Les made clear at the beginning of his talk was that he does not, generally, create “record” shots. His final images are more artworks based upon his original photograph. He will replace windows, modify the sky de-saturate colours and remove “annoying” elements to produce his signature style of clean, dramatic and graphic pictures that may even end up looking like an architect’s drawing.

As well as showing us his excellent pictures, Les also gave away some of his image processing tips (he made it all look very easy). In addition to post-processing tips he also recommended not taking public transport from location to location (unless you are photographing dramatic underground stations, of course!) but to walk as he has found many an interesting location by accident while en-route from one planned location to another.

In his summing-up, Society Secretary, Sam Sagar said “You aid that your presentation “should make you think” but not what to think. There is a fascinating style to your images and how you approach them, not using technical kit [Len very rarely uses a tripod, for example] but you still produce a quality of image that is absolutely amazing. You do a fantastic job with your pictures.”

Examples of Len’s pictures can be found here https://www.lesforrester.com/