Club night summary – 25th June

As photographers we are always looking for fresh Inspiration and the ‘challenge’. On our first night of our new summer programme, everyone certainly produced plenty of diverse progressive thoughts within their work.

Our first topic of our challenges was ‘home objects and still life’ a title that Inspired plenty of Imagination from our talented photographers that contributed to the evening.

We had 24 Images to view with each author giving a commentary on their Images and fielding questions from the members.

Although this wasn’t a normal judged competition, the standard reached on the produced Images suggested our photographers normal quality of work was naturally very high. This produced a very enjoyable, good humoured evening of review.

Unlike normal competition evenings where there is very little time for Interaction and review of the work produced. This was a refreshing change giving the authors time to explain the thought process and techniques behind the Image.

Our webmaster George has put the Images from the evening onto the members section of our club website.

I would recommend anyone who may have missed the evening, to view the Images and perhaps be Inspired ready for our next challenge in the summer series.

Thank you to everyone who took part in the evening and we look forward to seeing as many members as possible next Thursday.

Steve


Club night summary – 18th June

This week we held our end of season party awards night, the annual opportunity to celebrate the creative work produced by our talented members throughout the season.

A very different end of season awards night held online through Zoom. Normally the successful authors would be physically presented with trophies and certificates for achievements in the various categories. This year the awards were announced alongside an excellent slide show of each successful members Images, including a panel of representative Images for league success.

This season we had three leagues to highlight, with promotions from both newcomers and Intermediate leagues into the advanced league. All leagues were competitively fought throughout the season with a very close points tally at the top of each league separating the ultimate winners.

Authors were Invited to comment on their most successful prints or PDI Images, during the evening, sharing details of their outstanding work as their Images were displayed.
The actual presentation of Trophies and certificates will be held once we return to our hall at the community centre, hopefully in September.

The night also featured the members choice award chosen from highest scoring PDI’s produced during this season. In addition there was another challenge set for the members, to have the best Zoom background on the night to represent a ‘party’ this featured some great and Inventive visual offerings.

A full evening which also featured a review of the season covering life at the club before and after the current lockdown and a visual walkthrough of next season’s programme.
We were also pleased to confirm our exciting summer programme starting next week and every Thursday until the start of our new season on September 3rd. We will be meeting online with a ‘light’ more Informal programme of photography challenges and sharing discussions.

As always, further details of the awards and Images shown in the gallery are available on our website.

Steve


Club night summary – 11th June

This week we had a really Inspiring presentation from John Humphrey with his ‘Creative photography’ talk.

John was a great communicator covering a number of different topics, which ranged from macro water drops, flower photography and his passion of pushing art boundaries with his abstract techniques. His delivery style and content was pitched perfectly, giving useful Information on how he created many of his stunning Images.

For those that couldn’t make the online Zoom presentation, good news, it has been recorded and is available to view in the members area of our website. I would highly recommend catching this presentation of this exceptional photographer and his skilful creative techniques.

It was also announced at the meeting that we will be continuing with Weekly Zoom meetings throughout the summer. This follows the memberships enthusiasm to keep in contact during this period, with a ‘light’ programme of photography challenges and weekly communications.

Next season’s programme will be published shortly, which will Include details of the summer meeting period.

Steve


Club night summary – 28th May

This week was our PDI of the year competition. Images that had scored 19 or 20 in competitions during this season. A great opportunity to view the very high standard produced by our members during the year.

Judge Dave Hipperson had the task to score and choose the winning Images. Unfortunately he could not attend the Zoom meeting on the night, but had requested the entries a few days before, so he could judge and score and produce critique comments to send along.
On the night Cat projected the Images and read the judges comments with scores.

Thank you to all members that had produced such excellent Images during the season and Congratulations to the ultimate winners of the competition.

It was an enjoyable evening concluding with the winners and commended authors giving Information about their Images asked by other members.

You can enjoy viewing the winning Images on our gallery.

Steve


Club night summary – 21st May

This week we held our AGM (Annual general meeting) a necessary formal procedure in the running of the club.

A different twist this year in holding the first ever virtual AGM online, More history being made in this topsy turvy year!

Thank you all the members that tuned in to see and hear from the various committee members, how the club had performed and progressed in the last year. The presentation included a summary of club affairs with aims, financial Information and the election of the committee for the coming year.

During the AOB (Any other business) section, we had some great Ideas and discussions from the members and committee.

Details of the meeting will be published shortly.

Steve


Club night summary – 7th May

Steven Galvin gave a talk provocatively entitled ‘Judge, Jury and Executioner’ which proved to be an Interesting presentation explaining details from both a competition judge and a photographers point of view.

The evening proved to be an Interesting and thought provoking insight into the science of perceived good or bad Images and the selection process of judges in awarding scores.

Once again we were able to continue our diverse season programme through the online support of ‘Zoom’ with members looking relaxed within the safety of their homes. It’s great that we are able to continue our creative hobby during this difficult period, with our weekly meetings giving lots of Inspiration and challenges.

For any members that haven’t been able to join us online so far, it is very easy to get on line. Just visit the members area of our website and follow Instructions to join the meeting.

Steve


Club night summary – 30th April

Two weeks ago we put out a challenge to the members, to download and edit two members Images from the raw state and Interpret them as if they were their own Image.

The brief was to simply edit as they thought best suited the Image, with no barrier to creativity or software choice. Other than the original raw Image basically ‘a blank canvass’ to work from!

The Images provided to download were from Committee members Ant who offered a great portrait of a muscular man and George who gave us a great composition landscape of an old character barn set in woodland. This week we reviewed the results! We had 30 Images presented covering both portrait and landscape

The variation in changes through the editing and authors Imagination was amazing with some really great Interpretations and clever use of software and editing skills. Each author spoke about their Individual Interpretation and editing method explaining how they arrived at the final Image.

Thank you to Cat, Vanessa and George for controlling the night and to everyone who took part in the challenge or just tuned in for the Interest.

Once again, a great Interactive enjoyable night, bringing the club together in the face of adversity, caused by our current lockdown situation.

Steve


Club night summary – 23rd April

It’s great that technology as enabled us to continue our season programme online. This week we had our scheduled trophy competitions for both Portrait and Landscape, With everyone tuned in from the safety of their homes.

We were joined by experienced Judge Lloyd Moore from Watford Camera Club who had the difficult task of finding the winning Images on the night

The normal club high standard of Images were entered for the competitions with 36 Landscape and 23 Portrait, giving 59 to Judge.

Thank you to everyone that entered and congratulations to the ultimate winners of the trophies. You can see all the details and Images on our Website.

Steve


Club night summary – 16th April

The Importance of post processing was the focus of this week’s online workshop where we had two excellent tutorials presented by two of our talented Committee members.
George gave us an Insight into the tools offered by ‘Affinity’ software, demonstrating several stages of control and methods on this relatively new product which is fast growing in popularity.

Ant gave us a master class in the art of ‘dodging and burning’ plus more in ‘lightroom’ setting up, to accompany his presentation with a demo mode to enable members to work alongside his presentation.

The evening was captured on video, enabling the countless techniques and tips shared during the evening to be tried by members at a later date. Downloads and viewing available on the members section of the Clubs website.

We are really grateful to both George and Ant for the professional presentations given during the evening, which once again underlined the vast talent we have within the club.
In addition to the Interactive tutorials we also gave details and launched our process challenge of both landscape and portrait Images (download yours from the website) to be viewed in two weeks.

We also tried a game of Adobe/Affinity virtual bingo which ran through the evening!

Steve


Club night summary – 9th April

‘Photography at home’ was the theme of this week’s online meeting. Members were asked to submit Images recently taken during the enforced ‘lockdown’ while they were at home.

We had over 40 PDI Images presented with an amazing variety of subjects, all representing our current situation.

It was a really Interactive meeting with each member giving a short overview of their own Image and briefly discussing feedback with the other photographers.

The evening was a really enjoyable, good humoured and Inspiring event with 30 members in attendance.

We were also pleased to announce the winners of the recently completed PDI league competition, and also Inform the member promotions to the advanced league for next season. Congratulations to those photographers and a big thank you to all our members that make our competitions so competitive. Updated PDI league table here.

Steve

PS: No recording this week