Cameras put focus on older people

06/04/2009

 Just how do you sum up, in a single image, the concept of older people taking the opportunity to learn new skills? Plenty of our readers had some ingenious ways to get the message across and a small panel of us met at the Leicester head office of the National Institute of Adult Continuing Education a few weeks ago to judge who had managed it best.

 

The theme of the competition, ‘Growing Old Disgracefully’, encouraged some readers to capture their friends and partners in some highly interesting, not to say revealing, poses! But the ones we finally plumped for not only captured the spirit of celebrating age but also acquiring new skills.

 

The winner was ‘Learning The Ropes’ by Wendy Taylor, portraying Bert Taylor literally learning how to make rope at the Dorset Steam Fair. 

It’s not only an intriguing image, and the one with the cleverest caption, but the study is absolutely superb.

 

 ‘Amazing’ is the title of Ron Lapthorn’s photograph, showing his U3A Science and Natural History Group visiting the Hedge Puzzle and Butterfly Zoo at Ross-on-Wye. That won second place.

 

“We built a maze from plastic caps, which proved to be educational, fascinating and at times hilarious,” he says. “The disciplined way we had to build the maze turned to light relief when we were organised into two teams by linking hands and challenged to see which group made it to the entrance first.”

 

  From spacial awareness to conquering vertigo... the intrepid Allan Yates was immortalised on film by his wife Beryl in the third-placed “Teaching Grandfather to Climb”. It shows Allan being taught how to climb on a playground spider’s web by his granddaughter.

 

Congratulations to the top placed images - all of whom won some very handy vouchers - and watch this space for news of forthcoming competitions.

 

And congratulations to our unplaced entrants too - there really were some excellent images in there and choosing the top three was not easy!