Blog

As the nights continue to draw in and winter is knocking on the door we need all the photography Inspiration we can get, to keep our creative spirits up. This week we had the perfect tonic with a great talk from landscape photographer Paul Mitchell. Paul has won the Sunday times landscape photographer of the year, among many accolades in his career.

His comprehensive presentation covered a tremendous amount of Information with detail ranging from ideal equipment to carry when out shooting, to cover all conditions and eventualities. To apps to find such things as tidal information and weather conditions.

In addition with his fabulous Images he themed his presentation to cover; Leading lines, The golden hour, The blue hour, Atmospherics, Extended exposures & infra red

Giving details and great examples, with Information about many locations he has visited to photograph. Paul has a great presentation style and was also eager to answer as many questions that the membership had. He clearly has extensive knowledge and a real passion for landscape photography.

I’m sure a number of our club photographers will be out trying one or two new techniques shared by Paul from this excellent and Inspirational presentation.

Denise Noverre, our new club secretary this season, has excelled in her choice of speakers for the club to present on Zoom, with this being the third excellent presentation we have had so far.

Steve

As we start our second lock down period in the country, to try and slow down the pandemic. It naturally has an effect on any photography plans we may have had. From travel which has in the past provided us with so much fresh material for competitions. To communications and meeting to share Ideas and Inspiration. We were hoping to be able to carry out a survey around now, to see if we could consider a safe return to the community centre hall, but unfortunately that has now moved further into the distance.

Thank goodness we have the Internet and zoom to facilitate our Thursday meetings and we are able to operate a full programme. As we have said before, the Internet doesn’t suit everyone, but we are here with a warm welcome for all and in particular for any members that haven’t tried it and of course for any new members.

The club provides a welcome distraction from what’s happening in the world and hopefully provides a level of communication and Inspiration to take your creative mind elsewhere for a few hours. Our excellent committee work hard to make sure we have all areas in the club covered to a very professional standard providing a great product to the members.

On Thursday our third league PDI competition of the season, once again produced some great Images. The competition was judged by Kathy Chantler who ultimately chose the high scoring Images. (As always these can be viewed on our website) We had an Interesting and diverse collection of Images within the competition which, as always was tightly contested to gain points in the league.

Thank you to all that entered, making it a good nights viewing. Congratulations to those who scored the highest points.

It was a tale of two Catherine’s in our first round of the prestigious Rosebowl inter-club competition. We hosted the event using Zoom, pitched against Chesham and Field End with judging from the experienced Colin Harrison. We were joined by members of all represented teams, creating a good friendly atmosphere for the evening. There was a total of 45 Images to be critiqued and scored from the teams. Strong Images were naturally entered by all clubs, keen to continue their journey within this long standing prestigious competition.

Ultimately it was the two Catherine’s that achieved the biggest Individual award on the night by receiving a star for their outstanding Images. Catherine Allen for Imaginary flowerscape (Field End) Catherine (Cat) Humphries for Haunted (Croxley)

Field End won the overall first round by scoring 285 points. Croxley came Second with a very strong 272 points Chesham came third with 252 points.

We had a very strong selection and scored highly with a number of Images;

Well done to all the team that represented the club in the competition. Congratulations to Field End for their result and we look forward to the next round and continuing in this competition.

Following our recent win in the first round of the NW fed competition and a second place now in the Rosebowl we have got off to a good start in external competitions. Thanks to our creative and talented membership.

Steve

Last season we joined the NW federation league for the first time as an additional external competition during the season. It was an Interesting excursion, but unfortunately we didn’t fair to well against the other camera clubs, but it was valuable experience.

This week we started the new NW fed competition and were drawn against Harrow cc and XRR cc with a very different outcome in the first round. We won on the evening by a clear margin scoring 221 points against XRR 216 and Harrow with 205. A very satisfying outcome for the first external competition of the new season, which bodes well for the club and our talented membership.

There were more excellent Images on show for our first print league competition (shown as PDIs for practical reasons). The evening was judged by Paul Burwood who gave the critique on the Images. It was an ‘open’ competition with a tremendous amount of subject matter variety within the entered Images. The standard was very good, giving the judge a further headache when selecting the higher scoring Images, holding back a large amount for final scoring.

Thank you to everyone that entered the competition and congratulations to the higher scoring authors on the night. As always, you can view the winning Images on our excellent website gallery.

Steve

From the moment our guest speaker played the opening Av style Photography (Images set to music) showing amazing sports shots, we knew were we in for a treat of an evening.

Mark Pain multi award winning photographer joined us on Zoom last week to give a presentation on sports photography.

Mark shared his vast experience in the Industry having been Chief sports photographer for the Mail on Sunday for over 20 years and winner of many awards including Olympic photographer of the year 2012 and SJA sports photographer of the year 2013.

The much travelled photographer shared detail on how some of his amazing Images, ranging from professional golf, formula one racing and premiership football were achieved, often in difficult circumstances, dealing with Inclement weather and physical locations. In addition to giving great tips on equipment and how to best tackle sports photography.

In the second half of the evening Mark focused on the 2012 Olympics, where once again he Impressed with outstanding shots of many events and competitors and explained a lot of the thinking behind obtaining such fantastic images.

He has a great delivery style and encouraged questions throughout the evening always happy to share his knowledge. It was a very Inspiring and enjoyable evening which had everyone fully engaged with this outstanding prestigious photographer.

Our new season has got off to a great start, which so far has Included two superb talks/presentations.

Steve

Despite these difficult times happening in the world, it’s great that our camera club is still flourishing and adapting as best we can to the new normality.

Communication is so Important in all our lives and we continually try to embrace this principle in our activities, through our weekly online meetings, with its varied programme.

We have also Increased our recent external activities, with club members organising small group gatherings within Government guidelines. David Eckland has recently organised a London photography walk and Gordon Calder a painting with light Workshop in his home studio, all of which has been very welcomed by club members. In addition Ant (Anthony Highet) has continued to successfully run his model portraiture sessions.

The club has also enhanced its ‘what’s app’ group and is encouraging further communications between weekly meetings to keep in touch. All of this helps us combat these uncertain times and is there for all club members to enjoy.

Last week was our 2nd PDI league competition with 2 set subjects ‘Movement’ and ‘Textures’. A tremendous response of entries with 78 in total. The judge for the evening was Alan Taberer who had the difficult task of sorting the excellent Images and ultimately choosing the higher scoring Images.

There were some great Interpretations of both set subjects, the higher scorers are featured in the clubs website gallery. Thank you to all that entered the competition, giving us all a very enjoyable evening.

Steve

One of the many great things about being in Croxley camera club is the opportunity to express your own photography Interests with other like minded members. We have many talented members who are happy to share their experiences and often Inspire others to try different techniques or style of Images. Everything we do is naturally under the ‘umbrella of art’.

Last week for our online meeting, we had a video/ AV evening where members were Invited to share with others, either a video or audio visual presentation on any subject and with suitable accompanying music. We had 17 entries which made for a very entertaining evening, with some really considered content and great music.

Once again the commitment to Inspire others with the the creative thoughts of subject matter and choice of music, was evident by the quality offered from all. We were treated to some excellent photography, expressing the story the authors had to tell with the really well chosen and meaningful music.

Thank you to everyone that attended the evening and a special thanks to those who entered material to be shown, it really was appreciated by all. Special thanks also to George who organised the showing of the videos and smoothly controlled the technical aspects.

Steve

This week I was reminded we had held 24 online meetings since the Coronavirus came into our lives, causing the lockdown and subsequent loss of our meeting hall for obvious safety reasons.
Thanks to the ‘zoom’ facility we have met every week since March, completing the season, running through the normal summer break and here we are just a few weeks into our new season.

Ironically the last meeting in March held at the community centre was a competition night judged by Martin Patten, who was also our Judge for the first competition of our new season this week.
The competition was an ‘open’ PDI and as always was a closely fought event, with many excellent Images contesting for the highest league points.

Our judge for the evening was also at our ‘Zoom’ online meeting and gave ‘live critique accompanied by constructive comments and tips regarding the entered Images, as he distributed the points and nominated the highest scorers.

An enjoyable night, enabling the membership to enjoy the diverse collection of Images that an ‘open’ competition brings.

Thank you to all that entered the competition, which as always is a great way to measure your own Individual progress during the season with your creative work.