The Children’s Meeting asked the Wider Westminster Meeting for submissions for their Online Photography Exhibition. The eight themes were: Nature, Hope, Colour, Wood, Leaf, Spring Watch, Fun, Scary. A total of 26 people submitted photographs. Thank you so much for contributing.
Please feel free to click on the photos for a slideshow, and we welcome comments on this page. Here is the Exhibition:
Westminster Quakers Children’s Meeting
Photography Exhibition Spring 2021
Ada Holtam Lewis - Colour
Colour - "Found this in the walled garden of Brockwell Park. I like the colour on the wood that somebody I don’t know drawed" (sic). (taken on a smartphone)
Ada Holtam Lewis -Hope
"I put this on a tree near where I live and hope a bird finds it!" (taken on a smartphone )
Ada Holtam Lewis -Spring Watch
Springwatch - "Taken in Brockwell Park when the weather was still was very cold. Before the air was fuller with some joys of spring." (taken on a smartphone)
Gerry Miller - Nature/Hope4
In the first two photos, the robin has come to help himself to some of my mid morning toast. I started providing mealworms for the robin and its mate. In the second two photos, you see the robin having a mealworm. I used my smartphone to take the photos. They're all taken inside the shed at my allotment.
Gerry Miller - Nature/Hope3
In the first two photos, the robin has come to help himself to some of my mid morning toast. I started providing mealworms for the robin and its mate. In the second two photos, you see the robin having a mealworm. I used my smartphone to take the photos. They're all taken inside the shed at my allotment.
Gerry Miller - Nature/Hope2
In the first two photos, the robin has come to help himself to some of my mid morning toast. I started providing mealworms for the robin and its mate. In the second two photos, you see the robin having a mealworm. I used my smartphone to take the photos. They're all taken inside the shed at my allotment.
Gerry Miller - Nature/Hope1
Here are a few photos in the category of Nature — though they also could be in Hope, since I see this little bright eyed robin at my allotment every day and he always wants to know what I'm up to. Last week I was up an apple tree on a ladder, doing some pruning, and robin even flew up to a nearby branch to check up on me there.
In the first two photos, the robin has come to help himself to some of my mid morning toast. I started providing mealworms for the robin and its mate. In the second two photos, you see the robin having a mealworm. I used my smartphone to take the photos. They're all taken inside the shed at my allotment.
Andrew Rendle - Scary
Category: Scary
Where: The Parkland Walk viaduct in Muswell Hill, above St James's Lane. (The Parkland Walk is a disused railway line that linked Finsbury Park to Alexandra Park, via Crouch End, Highgate, and Muswell Hill, and is now a "linear park".)
Why: Everyone finds different things scary, and it's a long way down from here!
Andrew Rendle - Nature
Why: This photo captures natural process in action, though they are slow ones! (If it's hard to read, the sign on the fence reads: "These wonderful big oak trees are around 200 years old and their age is beginning to show. Originally they formed part of a hedgerow in Tottenham Wood Farm, the predecessor to Alexandra Park. The holes, dead wood and splits in the bark provide a huge variety of habitats for many species of invertebrates, birds and bats. Whilst they are valuable for wildlife they are prone to losing limbs as they age. This area is now closed to the public to allow the trees to age with dignity.")
Andrew Rendle - Hope
Category: Hope
Where: My front garden
Why: Planting things always feels like an act of hope, and the new shoots of tulip bulbs emerging from the soil are one of those hopeful acts starting to come good
Andrew Rendle - Colour
Category: Colour
Where: My kitchen
How: Using my phone's camera, and various t-shirts to create a blank background
Why: The fruit bowl & veg drawer contain so many colours and shades, and I just wanted to let them sing!
Andrew Rendle - Wood
Category: Wood
Where: in Highgate Woods
Why: This pair of tree trunks (hornbeams, I think), not quite circling round each other but having a good try, feel like a near-perfect bit of woodland.
Bruce Cadbury Spring Watch4
Here are some photos I've taken to remind me of the first sproutings of Spring.
I took all of these in my garden yesterday.
Bruce Cadbury Spring Watch3
Here are some photos I've taken to remind me of the first sproutings of Spring.
I took all of these in my garden yesterday.
Bruce Cadbury Spring Watch2
Here are some photos I've taken to remind me of the first sproutings of Spring.
I took all of these in my garden yesterday.
Bruce Cadbury Spring Watch1
Here are some photos I've taken to remind me of the first sproutings of Spring.
I took all of these in my garden yesterday.
Bruce Cadbury Spring Watch5
Here are some photos I've taken to remind me of the first sproutings of Spring.
I took all of these in my garden yesterday.
Breandan Knowlton - Colour
The photo "Colour" I took from where I live, looking across the Thames at night and seeing all of the sparkly lights and colours of Canary Wharf reflected in the river. Even the empty offices and apartments of a financial district have some colour, reflected in a river that has flowed past London counting-houses for hundreds of years.
Breandan Knowlton - Hope
The photo "Hope" I took of some very cheerful flowers in my apartment, bursting forth with the promise of spring and rebirth. These yellow lilies recently emerged from little furled umbrellas into boisterous golden song.
Mal Woolford - Wood
How:Black and white film. I tried different places to stand looking through the camera until the scene looked right to me.(Foma Fomapan 100 ISO 4x5/50 sheets - Short Date Special)
Why: The two gates together make me think they might be friends, and one day people will come through them and play together. Where: A woodland path called Lovers’ Walk near our house.
Mal Woolford - Nature
How: Black and white film. The light-coloured leaves caught my eye. (Foma Fomapan 100 ISO 4x5/50 sheets - Short Date Special)
Why: It’s really hard to make a picture with lots of detail in it. I wanted to try.
Where: A woodland path called Lovers’ Walk near our house.
Mal Woolford - Hope
How: Black and white film. I used a tripod and covered my head to look into the glass viewfinder. (Foma Fomapan 100 ISO 4x5/50 sheets - Short Date Special)
Why: Even though it’s winter, sometimes the sun is strong. It was late afternoon and when I noticed how strong the sun was I went straight out to my favourite gate to see what it looked like. Where: A woodland path called Lovers’ Walk near our house.
Loz Hall - Nature
This photo is of the first bits snow falling around a tree with almost a root like complexity of branches.
It looks like the tree has turn itself upside down just so that which was beneath can experience just once the rarity of snow.
And with the focus on the tree at the expense of the blurred snow it seem it is all happening in slow-mo as the tree savours the moment.
OR
It is just a pic taken by a phone whose camera has such bad focus that the result looks a bit cool.
Kate Ulrick - Nature2
Category: nature
This is a picture of a pond that had frozen over so solidly that not only the ducks but 2 lads were able to walk over the top of it.
Kate Ulrick - Nature
Category: nature
This is a picture of the river Irwell in Salford a week after it had flooded. The geese were loving it.
Kate Ulrick - Fun
Category: fun!
This is a picture of a pigeon tree at my local park.
Jonathan Lingham - Colour
Colour. Beautiful sunrise.
Jonathan Lingham - Nature
Nature. Icy catkins on an alder tree.
Jonathan Lingham - Fun2
Fun. Children having a snowball fight in the park.
Jonathan Lingham - Fun
Fun. A man accidentally trod in some spilled paint.
Jonathan Lingham Scary
Scary birds. Taken in Mary Harmsworth Park in Southwark.
Joe Holtaway - Spring Watch
Spring watch (Snowdrops in the woods behind our house)
Joe Holtaway - Nature
Nature (Bella the cat - our very own little tiger)
Joe Holtaway - Hope
Hope (Save The Oaks protest to save 2 mature trees from felling- I feel hope in the growing care that people have - this group crowdfunded a designer to come up with an alternative bridge design in Sydenham woods to avoid cutting these down. The council is currently considering it)
Joe Holtaway - Fun
Fun (catching snow flakes on my glove)
Joe Holtaway - Colour
Colour (Ladybirds hibernating in our house - underneath is a little catcher to save them flying all over the room when they wake up!)
Jean Jameson - Colour
Colour: taken indoors with a pink card behind, because I loved the light and colour.
Jean Jameson - Nature
Nature: taken on a cold, wet walk in the Queen Elizabeth Park - loved the reflection in the flood water.
Ian McIntyre - Nature2
Photos of squirrels in trees in the park behind my school for the category nature.
Ian McIntyre - Nature1
Photos of squirrels in trees in the park behind my school for the category nature.
Ian McIntyre - Nature3
Photos of squirrels in trees in the park behind my school for the category nature.
Colour - Heather Martin - photo 2
Photo 2: the photograph was taken on a Lumix camera in Crystal Palace in Southeast London when it snowed in January 2021. The colour of the plant (I believe it's witch hazel) caught my eye as it was accentuated in white snow. It was a bit of colour in an otherwise white and wintry surrounding.
Colour - Heather Martin - photo 1
Photo 1: the photograph was taken on a Lumix camera in Betts Park in Southeast London. The robin sitting caught my eye while I was taking my daily walk one winter morning and stayed still long enough for me to take a photo of it. I really like robins and enjoy photographing them. The robin was a bit of colour on a gray morning.
Colour - Heather Martin - photo 3
Photo 3: the photograph was taken on a Lumix camera in Crystal Palace in Southeast London. The vibrant green seemed so at odds with the winter weather and reminded me that spring was coming.
Christine and Sammy Jones - Hope
Category: hope
Name: Sammy Jones
How image was captured: saw it on ball court at local park
Why: love worms and they are so good for the earth
Where: local park
Christine and Sammy Jones - Wood2
Category: wood
Name: Sammy Jones
How image was captured: close up and low down to the ground
Why: love the mushrooms & looks like a face
Where: Chiswick Park
Christine and Sammy Jones - Wood
Category: wood
Name: Sammy Jones
How was image captured: playing on logs and trunks
Why: love cobwebs and mouldy logs
Where: Chiswick Park
Christine and Sammy Jones - Nature2
Category: nature
Who: Sammy & Christine Jones
How captured: stood still in the park and edged towards heron slowly
Why: Sammy loved it
Where: Chiswick Park
Christine and Sammy Jones - Nature
Category: nature
Who: Sammy Jones
How image was captured: by staying still
Why: love herons
Where: Chiswick Park
Michael Booth - Spring_Watch
About the image: using my mobile phone
Why: I saw these crocuses in Kew Gardens. They really felt like a sign of spring, bursting through the autumn leaves from the end of last year.
Michael Booth - Nature
About the image: using my mobile phone
Why: This is the fruit of a monkey puzzle tree in Kew Gardens. I rather liked the way that one fruit has already gone – fallen? Picked? Who knows why it is no longer there. I also took a photo of a complete set of 5 seeds, but I liked this one better. Nature copes with imperfections and strives to allow trees and plants to grow seeds and so the species continues.
Michael Booth - Leaf
About the image: using my mobile phone.
Why: I liked the variegated colours – the lighter green is new growth on this tree in Kew Gardens.
Michael Booth - Colour
About the image: using my mobile phone
Why: I loved the way the flowers were doing their best to ignore the snow, so that their colours same through. This is just outside our house, looking over the garden.
Michael Booth -Hope
About the image: using my mobile phone, out of the window by our dining table where I work each day
Why? The cat looked so hopeful. There are about half a dozen cats who pass by the window. This one seemed to be looking longingly at the idea of a warm room.
Michael Jardin - Behind the Scenes
The photos were taken by me on Sunday 7th February 2021, on the Wornington Green estate in North Kensington. The temperature was below freezing and the snow was blowing in little flurries. They were the only shots taken with this camera, a 'field camera' that takes negatives on individual sheets of cut film measuring 4 x 5 inches. I've added two pictures of how I use the camera- it's an involved process with a lot of things to go wrong, especially with a sixty-year-old camera that I haven't yet really worked out how to use. I processed the negatives myself, folded over and held with hairbands while squished into a tank designed for rolls of film on spools. I then made contact prints by placing the negatives directly onto photo paper, exposing them to light and developing them in trays under red 'safelight'. The prints therefore can't be any bigger than the negative and that's why these scans are a bit small.
The estate is being demolished piece-by-piece to build new housing at a much higher density- the principle being that they can re-house existing residents who wish to stay on while building large numbers of flats for sale for profit. The land sits on one end of Portobello Road so it's an attractive marketing proposition. The landowner and the developer were proposing to cut down 37 mature and healthy trees in the public realm only to replace some of them and then with smaller trees that would be in private gardens. They have said that they will try to transplant and so save three of the trees but one understands that this is likely to fail and the trees will ultimately die as will those that are simply felled.
It's very sad to see this happening and to speak to the remaining residents of a half-demolished estate who are expecting to be moved out in the short or mid term for their homes to be demolished- homes that they have often grown very fond of, and which have been safe, warm and spacious places to live in and bring up their families. The local council have been made aware of the imminent destruction of the trees, and have voiced their concern when they have pledged to uphold environmental values, promote cleaner air and in particular to treat estate residents with a bit more dignity after the Grenfell fire. They have said that their lawyers have advised them that there isn't much that they can do.
It's probably as much 'sad' as 'scary', but I hope you enjoy the photographs.
Michael Jardin - wornington_requiem_3
Michael Jardin - wornington_requiem_2
Michael Jardin - wornington_requiem_1
Michael Jardin - wornington_requiem_4
Neil Jameson - Scary2
Scary - homeless person packs her worldly belongings next to abandoned Xmas preparations
Neil Jameson - Scary
Scary - Trafalgar Square normally packed on a Sunday morning. Empty!
Neil Jameson - Hope
Hope - 91 year old Anita Rosenthal having vaccination!
Neil Jameson - Hope 2
Hope - diverse volunteers at Darul Ummah Mosque food bank - every Tuesday for 45 weeks! Including me!
Neil Jameson - Colour
Colour - red sky morning - view from window - Canary Wharf on Fire!!
Rob Francis - Nature4
Here are my photos for the Nature category, taken on a walk on Hampstead Heath on 10 January. I was blown away by the frosted spider webs in particular, and loved the frosted leaves!
Rob Francis - Nature3
Here are my photos for the Nature category, taken on a walk on Hampstead Heath on 10 January. I was blown away by the frosted spider webs in particular, and loved the frosted leaves!
Rob Francis - Nature2
Here are my photos for the Nature category, taken on a walk on Hampstead Heath on 10 January. I was blown away by the frosted spider webs in particular, and loved the frosted leaves!
Rob Francis - Nature1
Here are my photos for the Nature category, taken on a walk on Hampstead Heath on 10 January. I was blown away by the frosted spider webs in particular, and loved the frosted leaves!
Sarah Holtam - Fun
Fun - Muddy puddles make for a whole lot of fun. (taken on a smartphone)
Sarah Holtam - Scary
Scary - We found a completely white spider during an estate garden day. (taken on a smartphone)
Victoria Shaskan - Wood
Up A Tree.
Theme: Wood
Victoria Shaskan - Nature
In the Meadow. Theme: Nature.
Taken at Grove Park Nature Reserve
Victoria Shaskan - Scary
Deep Underground.
Theme: Scary
A rotting log being overtaken by ivy, likely a natural bug hotel, taken at Grove Park Nature Reserve
Victoria Shaskan - Fun
Secret Den. Theme: Fun
Victoria Shaskan - Colour
Mix of Rainbow.
Theme: Colour
Taken at sunrise from our window
Philippe Close - Scary
This photo was taken with a specific member of the CM judging panel in mind. On a walk to St. James Park this younger fellow adapted the song lyrics to The Grand Old Duke of York as we passed his statue, this reminded me of that song. I do hope they remember the words.
Philippe Close - Nature
In the city I often feel starved of nature. This piece of public art somehow conveys this for me.
Philippe Close - Colour
Under the Stockwell Theatre there is a lovely golden orange block of acetate. On this day, it was fly-posted (on the other side) and so gave it a wonderful crinkled texture. It has since been cleaned. I do love street ephemera that feels like paintings. This one is a Modernist Malevich (Taken with Google Pixel Phone).
Philippe Close - Wood
Footway Closed Sign (Woodchip Board, Laminated Inkjet Print). This reminded me of the fun of a chemistry class where the ink is dispersed and separated. The metaphor of Closed Footways is hard to resist at the moment.
Philippe Close - Spring Watch
St. James Park - Loved watching kids pick the daffodils in the park with a sense of joy, and the adults looking on with gasps of horror. (Taken with Google Pixel Phone Portrait Mode)