Life Through Lent and a Lens

I continue to be very busy this week, and have got rather behind with my blips!

We had our last Lent study at Christine’s house group, plus the usual lively conversation and discussion. I had brought mini hot cross buns to have with our teas and coffees, which were rather popular with everyone. My main blip shows a flower blossoming on the beautiful Magnolia tree in Christine’s front garden.

I spent the afternoon trying to catch up with everyone’s Blipfoto journals and uploading more of my own backblips, then had an early tea before driving over to the Colchester Rugby Club for the evening. This was a talk organised by the Colchester Photographic Society and given by the renowned professional photographer Scarlet Page, who specialises in portraits (see Extras). Having been around music all her life - her Dad is Led Zeppelin founder and guitarist Jimmy Page - Scarlet’s main subjects are bands and musicians. Her career reached a 30-year milestone in 2024, and she talked about her lifelong passion for photography while showing us a great number of personal favourites from her extensive body of work. You could actually see her skill and creativity improving in her images as she gained experience after graduating, and she has worked hard to earn the respect and reputation she now enjoys. I was hugely impressed by her determination to succeed on her own terms, talent and merit, and her refusal to trade on her father’s fame. She mentioned how physically tough the work is, lugging around not only the cameras and lenses but lights, tripods and backdrops. Also long hours standing in the “pit” at gigs doing hundreds of shots of bands, possibly being rained on and standing in thick mud if you’re at a festival such as Glastonbury. It’s not for the lazy or faint hearted. A really interesting evening which I enjoyed very much.