I’ve always been interested in taking photographs to “record a moment in time forever …” and have albums packed full of memories of places visited to remind me of where I’ve been and what I’ve seen. Also, albums of our children over time to show family celebrations and to record physical/facial changes as they’ve grown into the people they now are. I’m not a great fan of manipulating photographs via software packages and try to keep the editing of pictures I take to a minimum. I joined Wolverhampton Photographic Society in September 2015 after returning from a holiday in South Africa, following retirement that Easter. I took my beloved Nikon D40 with me and was lucky enough to have taken some memorable pictures of what we saw. I found the club members at WPS very welcoming to a ‘newbie’ and many of them made a real effort to help me to settle in and feel comfortable. Mike Piper, Carol Bailey and Gyna & Roy Hawthorne were particularly helpful and kind in my early days in the club. I was encouraged by many members of the club to start entering my pictures into competitions, so from September to Christmas 2015 I attended every club night and watched carefully how competition evenings were run and what processes were involved. I plucked up my courage to enter my first competition at the beginning of 2016. I’m pleased to say I had quite a bit of success with the competitions I entered, particularly in 2015/16 and 2016/17 seasons and at the end of season Awards I received many certificates and a couple of trophies! Who’d have thought it? I haven’t taken so many photographs during the past couple of years as frail, elderly parents have had greater need of my time, but I was hoping to do more in 2020 until the dreaded Coronavirus arrived in the UK! So, “Watch this space!”