“Photography is a record of life as it flies past”

Jane Leitch has lived in Neston for five years but spent some of her early married life on a barge with her husband and small children.

She was faced with endless photographic opportunities every day from the window of the barge and Jane used to wait – often impatiently - for the films to be developed and the photos to be delivered, to see if she’d managed to capture the perfect shot.

Here, Jane shares her photographic journey.

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Jane Leitch and Rusty

When and why did you take up photography?

I was a sketch-pad person when growing up and not really interested in photography until my mid-twenties. As a family, we were living on a barge on the Thames and the wildlife and photo opportunities that came past our window every day made photography almost inevitable. In those pre-digital days, it was trial and error. I’d wait with bated breath for the latest arrival of my printed photographs to gloat over taking the very best swan take-off only to find a blurry close-up of the camera strap and other similar disasters. My best picture is always the one I’ll be taking a week or month from now.

What do you love about taking pictures?

It’s a record of life as it flies past you, sometimes literally. You get to hold some of it back for future reference and you can re-visit that person, place or beautiful landscape again. There’s also an element of that ‘gotcha moment’ when a particularly striking image comes into view.

A colourful sky at sunset in West Kirby

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Where is your favourite place to take pictures and why?

Is it cheating to say the Wirral, especially the Dee side of this lovely land between two rivers? I love its greenery and ‘sea-nery’, its woodlands and its oakiness, its merging of river, sea and land and its effortlessly arty skies. Three particular mines for fantastic images are Neston marshes, Thurstaton Hill and the coast round from West Kirby to Hoylake.

A snowy winter morning in Yorkshire

What is your favourite subject matter and why?

Anything photogenic and photographable! I have a habit of swamping people with photos of my grandchildren but I also love nature, from wide sea-faring skies to tiny flowers. I tend to overdo the Hilbre sunsets, but who doesn’t? They’re more visually pleasing than Netflix.

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After the rain on Woodfall Lane, Neston

What do you enjoy about being part of our Camera Club on Facebook?

It’s good virtual company, a safe space to visit when the care side of home gets weighty and it’s a channel for expressing myself. It’s nice seeing my own work on the page, but also really good to ‘borrow’ other club members’ eyes and see places and spaces I occasionally have difficulty accessing, especially at sunrise. I’m especially fond of the marine people’s contributions. I can get my daily dose of ‘vitamin sea’ through some fantastic wave and shore shots.

If you could photograph anyone/any place/anything, who/what would it be?

A good avian take-off or close-up fly-past would be fantastic. There are some very good birds-in-flight shots taken by other Wirral Globe Camera Club members which leave me feeling a little green with envy. I’m currently limited to what I can do on dog walks or when I take my husband for a drive around, but I have a cunning plan to take my DSLR out for a half-day or so in the New Year. Given that I still haven’t downloaded photos on it from last year, I’m going to have to work a little bit harder on that one!

Sunset on the marine lake in West Kirby