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


PDI League Results

Advanced

FirstCat Humphries133
SecondGordon Calder132
Joint ThirdMike Brankin130
Joint ThirdAlan Rhodes130

Intermediate

FirstRudi Mehta125
Joint SecondMartin Leipa123
Joint SecondDavid Eckland123
ThirdKenneth Coombs122

Promotions to Advanced League

Club Average17.14
Rudhi Mehra17.86
Nigel Rand17.86
Martin Leipa17.22

Rules

  1. Positions in the Advanced and Intermediate leagues are determined by member’s top 7 scoring images across the open and set subject competitions.
  2. The club overage is calculated as the total number of points awarded by judges in the open and set subject competitions divided by the total number of PDIs entered by members, across all three leagues.
  3. Members average is calculated as the total number of points they have been awarded divided by the total number of PDIs they have entered (not the top 7).
  4. Member from both the Intermediate and Beginners leagues who exceeded the club average are promoted to the Advanced League
  5. The Beginners league positions are determined by the top 8 scoring images across both PDI and Print competitions, so cannot be calculated until the remainder of the Print competitions have taken place.

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


Club night summary – 2nd April

Our online change to the season continued this week with an excellent talk from our club secretary Cat Humphries who presented ‘shooting sunset’ recreating vintage Hollywood portraits. In the first half of the evening we were treated to a potted history of Cat’s extensive Involvement with photography for theatre groups, covering many well known shows. This section was accompanied by excellent Images she had taken. Cat’s Involvement and contribution has gradually Increased with the Theatre group (Ricky players) in addition to covering their rehearsals and shows, she has contributed and produced posters for a number. In addition she recently produced a programme for ‘Sunset Boulevard’ where she developed her skill on reproducing the vintage film star black and white photography.

During the second half of the evening Cat shared details on this photography technique and equipment used, again showing superb Images to accompany her dialogue. A very entertaining presentation which was enjoyed by our members, tuned in to this now unmissable Thursday night online.

Steve


Club night summary – 26th March

This week, our unforgettable season continued with our first online competition, originally a print competition, but for online converted to a PDI for practical purposes. The competition will count in our season for the print league table, still as a Print competition. When things get back to normal, we are looking forward to viewing the actual prints.

The competitions went well, with topics ‘open’ and set subject ‘Urban life’. We had a total of 66 entries and as always a very high standard of Images and a good Interpretation of the challenging subjects were presented.

The evening was judged by Rojer Weightman who had volunteered to try his first ever online judging role with us. Rojer did a good job with his Informative critique and ultimate scoring.

Thank you to everyone that entered the competitions and congratulations to the high point scorers on the evening.

Once again we were joined online with a good number of the membership and as always good humour prevailed throughout the night. It really is good to keep contact through this medium.

It will be great to welcome even more of our talented membership to this forum each Thursday night.

Steve


Club Evenings Now Online

Thursday club evenings are now taking place as live video conferences and are open to all members to join. See either the newsletter or the website blog for details of what’s happening each week.

To simplify joining the online Zoom meetings, all future Thursday club evenings will use the same reoccurring link which is available in the Members Only area


Club night summary – 19th March

Because of the Coronavirus situation, we are no longer meeting at the community centre until further notice. However we are still running the club online. On Monday the committee had their first online run through, which showed great promise using audio/ visual communications.

On Thursday we had our first club programmed meeting, entitled ‘You be the judge’ where the members viewed, passed comment and scored Images that had been entries into the Portrait of Britain competition.

This gave an Interesting and Interactive evening, with the members discussing the various merits of each Image before reaching a score from the comfort of their own homes.
The online system was a great technical success with over 20 of our members using it and able to contribute to the discussion with ease. A big thank you to Stuart Craig who controlled and managed the event on the night.

Thanks to the enthusiasm and technical expertise of our talented committee, we Intend to complete the remainder of the published programme for this season, by using this online system.

Steve


Corona Virus Update

Unfortunate the Corona Virus situation has affected the club as our Community Centre has closed in accordance with the government guidelines.

In addition the Committee has taken the decision to suspend all club portrait events until further notice.

However the good news is we’re moving our Thursday club evenings online!

We’ll be using the “Zoom” video conference service, which is very easy to use. The Committee used it earlier in the week and it worked very well indeed across both Windows and Apple devices.

We’ll have to see how it works in practice, but as of now we intend to hold the published programme events as-is, except virtually instead of in the Community Centre.

Cat’s latest newsletter has the connection and setup arrangement for our first online club meeting this Thursday:. Read it here.

This Thursday Stuart is leading our first online workshop – Portrait of Britain – You be the Judge – Click this link to join!

Looking forward seeing you all there.

George


Club night summary – 12th March

More great Images were displayed in our final league PDI competitions of this season.

Martin Patten was the experienced judge visiting the club to critique and score the Images. A number of authors were very close on points in each of the league tables, giving extra edge on the evening for the final results to decide this years PDI league winners.

The competition contained both ‘open’ and set subject ‘closed’. The membership entries gave a good Imaginative Interpretation of the topics, giving the judge a difficult task to decide the winning scores.

Thanks to everyone who entered this years PDI league competitions, producing such a high standard for the club.

Congratulations to the ultimate winners who will be announced shortly.

Steve