During the past twelve months, much travelled member, Jill Toman, has been unable to follow her passion for far away places, so her regular slot in our annual programme was without the anticipated landscapes and portraits that would have undoubtedly come of her planned trip to Oman. Nevertheless, she did manage a photographic endeavour in Italy, where suitably masked and socially distanced, she was able to work the usual magic.

Members benefitted from the fact that her planned travel was disrupted and resulted in a couple of days on her own in Pisa before travelling to meet her group in Tuscany. She explored the usual sights and sounds of this popular destination, and the Tower leaned obligingly, but she also took us down the winding back streets and along the riverside, and we enjoyed the colours and the atmosphere that she captured there.

Jill is a skilled landscape photographer, and the hills and trees of Tuscany provided her with much to capture. Her days were clearly filled from dawn to dusk, ably catching the light and the mists for which the region is so famous. Used to seeing photos of the iconic, undulating, dune-like landscapes, bathed in sunlight as we are, it was interesting to discover that, when Jill visited, the land was ploughed and furrowed ready for planting, and the inclement weather made walking in the heavy clay and the leading lines area extremely difficult. However, the landscapes were indeed stunning, awash with unusual leading lines. We also enjoyed and appreciated the skills needed to capture the shots of mediaeval cities atop the hills from a range of angles, and in varied light. In the absence of Oman, we were entertained for the rest of the evening by the images and anecdotes that have made made the past year a very different one for all of us.

Jill’s evening featured walks in the English countryside with friends as well as camera colleagues, and visits to family amongst the rocks and hills of Yorkshire, that as a geologist, she savours. It was a light hearted evening that brought back memories of weekly challenges that took us all out of our comfort zones, ribbed the friends we had “lost” on the hillsides, and the times we managed to spend together with our cameras between the extremes of the two lockdowns.

Next week a new judge, John Taylor, will give us the outcomes of our recent Open Competition as we begin the accumulation of points in colour and mono for POY 2021.

Jenny Short