Yesterday's Special Presentation, the first of 2021, was given by Julian Claxton, the award winning professional photographer and founder of the project 'Give A Child A Camera'.

Julian's presentation covered the period from 2012 to the present day. It all began with a big adventure, a cycle ride from his home in Suffolk to Rwanda and his discovery of a simple school in a remote, rural corner of Uganda. In this single classroom school the idea of empowering these young children through the making of interesting and emotional pictures of the children's lives took root. Julian collected old film (!) cameras donated by people in the UK, took them back to Uganda and gave them to the children. He taught them the names of the parts of a camera and how cameras and film worked.

Then he gave all the new camera owners the mission to record the story of their life through portraits, family and landscape. The hope was that the exercise would build a new sense of confidence and independence in the young people and, hopefully, demonstrate, learn and understand the art of making photographs. Maybe even think about a career in photography.

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