Blog

On Thursday we held our final league competition before the Christmas break. It was a themed print competition with the set subjects being ‘Curves’ and ‘Three’. We had a total of 38 entries with some really excellent examples reflecting the theme. Our visiting judge on the night was Steven Galvin who remarked on the high standard of prints presented. Thank you to everyone who entered the competition and everyone who attended the evening which was very enjoyable despite the conditions, which in our efforts to comply with a safe environment, means an extra jumper to offset our necessary ventilation. It was great to see the ‘physical’ prints being presented to a judge in the hall again!

Thank you to Vanessa Lacey who once again has organised an exhibition showing our work at Croxley Library and promoting our club. Please visit the Library over this week, if you get a chance, to view the prints and appreciate the hard work Vanessa has carried out on behalf of the club.

We recently created a short survey in the newsletter to Identify areas that members could comment on and suggest topics etc that they would like see Included in the programme. The survey will be kept open over the Christmas break, to enable everyone to vote and comment. We appreciate your feedback.

This week instead of our Christmas party scheduled to take place in the hall, we have for safety reasons changed the evening to a ‘Zoom’ night with everyone Invited to tune in from their safe and ‘warm’ homes. The evening on Zoom will have some Quizzes and we Invite anyone who would like to ‘show and tell’ an Image or two, that we can share screens and hear the story behind the shot from the author. Overall a relaxed social evening with lots of chat and the now legendary quizzes hosted by Rod Lacey.

Look forward to seeing everyone on Zoom on Thursday.

Steve

---

Last Thursday we hosted the third and final league round of the North West London Federation Inter club competition. Our visiting teams to the ‘Live’ event at the Community centre were Amersham and Hemel Hempstead. The judge for the evening was Martin Patten, who gave well Informed commentary and critique on each Image.

Once again the deserved victors on the night were Amersham. The club that knocked us out of the semi final last year. Hopefully we can avoid them in the draw for next years competition! Although it is the end of the road for us in this external competition we can take great heart from our progress again this year in consistently producing good team results in each round with some of our Images attaining judge awarded stars, along with the points. The final results were;

• Amersham. 184 points
• Croxley. 175 points
• Hemel. 164 points

Thank you to the authors who represented our club with their excellent Images and thanks to everyone who attended this event at the hall. In addition a special thank you to both committee members Stuart Craig and David Eckland for their final selection of the entered Images to suit each competition.

We still have the prestigious ‘Rosebowl’ external competition to compete in, which continues in February 2022.

It’s hard to believe that we are now in December and the world is still in chaos over the Covid 19 and other variants. Thank goodness we are still going strong, although we are being tested by the various conditions that are necessary in hopefully keeping us safe.

Thanks to everyone for continuing their support to the club and producing great Inspirational photography during these difficult times.

See you on Thursday
Steve

---

External club competitions are still very active in our calendar and last week we had a second round tie in the NW fed Inter club competition.  Last season we were semi finalists in this competition and were hoping for further progress in this years challenge.  Unfortunately we have been tied against a very strong club Amersham CC in this years rounds.  Amersham got the better of us in last season’s semi final!

Last week we fielded a strong set of Images for our second round, carefully selected by our external competition team of Stuart Craig and David Eckland from the pool of nominated entries.

The judge was Steven Galvin who remarked on the high standard presented by all three clubs.  At the half way point we were one point ahead of Amersham with some excellent comments about our Images.  Amersham managed to gain the advantage during the second section with some equally strong Images.  The final result was;

• Amersham – 181 points
• Croxley – 177 points
• Hemel Hempstead – 170 points

A very worthy result against strong opposition.  Thanks to everyone who represented our club with their excellent Images .  We now have the final group round this Thursday in our hall.  It would be great to welcome everyone to another enjoyable night of competition.
On our normal Thursday club night we held our Second round of ‘Intimate Landscape’ to enhance the earlier group nominated Images.  Once again great debate in the selection procedure to Identify further potential Images to represent our club in this external competition to be held early next year.
Thanks to all that attended to help debate and select suitable Images in this quite different category.

Vanessa Lacey has once again managed to negotiate with Croxley library to hold an exhibition of our prints representing the club for a week starting 11th December.  Please bring a couple of your prints to Vanessa this Thursday or the following week to enable her to organise the event.

Look forward to seeing everyone on Thursday.
Steve

---

It was Inspiring to see and hear the stories behind our Members evening, where we had Invited members to bring along one or two of their favourite prints and give a short presentation on why they were their favourite.  Each author which had brought along prints gave a great Insight into their reasons for selecting the chosen Images.  There were Interesting stories on each print to help the receptive audience understand the background to the prints.

This section of the evening was a bit longer than scheduled, reducing the time available for the planned debate on ‘growing the club’ which was an Interactive open topic.  Thank you to those that raised points on the evening in the limited time.  Although we ran over our allotted time, we clearly could have spent a lot longer on this subject.

Looking forward this week to our next session of ‘Intimate Landscape’ competition, as we get to grips with this quite difficult new topic for external competition entry.  The evening will be led by our external competition Secretary Stuart Craig In our quest to find the Images that will be put forward into the competition.

See everyone on Thursday.
Steve

---

Another busy week for the club, with both Internal and external competitions taking part. On Wednesday we took part in the first round of the prestigious ‘Rosebowl’ competition on Zoom. We were pitched against three other Camera clubs to compare our Images with. The judge on the night was Colin Harrison a well seasoned and respected judge for this competition. We fielded a well balanced set of strong Images produced by our talented membership. Every Image from our team scored well and as a result we won this first round of the competition. Alan Rhodes scored 20 for his excellent Image ‘One man and his dog’ In addition, the judge had two star ratings of which this Image was awarded one star. Congratulations Alan! A tremendous team result and well worthy of the convincing victory.

The final results were;

• Croxley 266 points
• Stoke Poges 258
• Hemel Hempstead 256
• Whitchurch Hill 245

On Thursday we had a league PDI ‘open’ competition in the hall. This was judged by Martin Patten a very good photographer and experienced judge from Watford CC. We had 48 entries offering a wide variety of subjects with some really excellent Images. Thank you to everyone who entered and Congratulations to the higher scoring authors on the night.

We now look forward to this week’s members evening in the hall, where we have Invited everyone to bring along one or two favourites prints and give us a short presentation on why it’s their favourite. For example things like, where taken and why, the emotional connection, Influences, conditions etc. Doesn’t matter what the print scored, if entered into competition, or when produced, it’s just personal to the author to share with the very receptive, appreciative group. If we have time we will also have an open short debate on Improvements to your club. How can we entice/recruit more members and what can we do to ensure all existing valued members are happy with the club.

Look forward to seeing everyone on Thursday

Steve.

---

Our latest guest speaker was professional photographer David Clapp who joined us on Zoom for a very engaging presentation entitled ‘ Images with Impact’ David treated us by showing many of his Images from his extensive collection and gave Interesting stories regarding their locations and conditions. He also gave us a good insight into the world of professional photography by sharing his thoughts and views. A very Interesting and Inspirational night which joins the catalogue of excellent speakers that we have been fortunate to have presenting over Zoom.

Our attention now turns to continuing the PDI league programme and our next ‘open’ Competition this Thursday. We look forward to seeing more excellent Images entered by our talented members as the PDI league starts to take shape.

We also have the first round of the prestigious ‘Rosebowl’ External competition taking part this Wednesday on Zoom, with our opposition being Hemel Hempstead, Stoke Poges and Whitchurch hill Camera clubs. Should be Interesting night!

Also looking forward to our Members night on the 18th November. Following our change of programme, owing to Croxfest being cancelled again and the world is still trying to recover. (Details of the members evening below)

See everyone on Thursday, back in the hall

Steve

---

It was great to see physical prints again in our first print Competition in nearly two years. We had 36 prints entered for the ‘open’ competition and I was personally stunned by the quality of the entries as they were placed along the walls of the hall, ready for the judge to commence the competition. It is much appreciated the effort that goes into entering a print competition, with the preparation work that is needed. However seeing the end results on Thursday night, I’m sure it made it worth while for everyone, who should be proud of their work.

Rojer weightman was our judge on the night and he applied his vast experience with his critique during the difficult task to awards scores and find the ultimate winners on the night. Thank you to everyone that entered the league competition and to all that attended the evening. There is always a great atmosphere on competition nights with everyone giving each other huge support throughout.

Despite our enthusiasm to show this week’s talk from both the hall and home Zoom, this week’s presentation will only be available on home Zoom, therefore there will be no community centre meeting this week. I’m sure this week’s talk ‘Images with Impact’ presented by David Clapp will be a really entertaining and Inspirational night.

Look forward to seeing everyone on Zoom on Thursday (log in details on our website, if needed).

Steve

---

Last week the first external competition was held ‘Park street landscape cup’ with 10 clubs including ourselves competing for the honours. Our history hasn’t always been good in this particular competition where we often come across other clubs with greater pedigree in landscape photography. However spurred on by our growing success in recent external competitions and some careful selection we fielded a very well received set of Images. We ultimately finished a very honourable 3rd on the night, only missing out by a few points from the eventual winners. We were also the only club to score 2 x 20s in the competition from Amanda Culley and Gordon Calder with their excellent Images. Overall a good result for the club and further prove of our growing strength in external competitions.

Thank you to all the members who had Images representing the club for this competition, making it a great overall team effort. We made a bit more club history by beaming this Zoom competition into the hall for us to watch together. We had good visuals on the large screen and perfect sound for the broadcast. It was great to give a collective cheer as the Croxley entries were shown and critiqued by the judge.

Having proved the technology, we would like to expand the use of Zoom broadcasts into the community centre hall for our next speaker David Clapp with his presentation ‘ Images with Impact’ on the 4th November giving everyone a chance to watch in the hall together. Looking forward to our first print competition for nearly two years in the hall this week!

See everyone on Thursday

Steve

---

After four weeks back in the Community centre hall, we returned to Zoom for last week’s presentation. Keith Snell was our guest speaker, broadcasting from his home in the Lake District. His talk had the Intriguing title of ‘But is it art’ sharing with us his take on ‘representational’ and ‘Impressionistic’ photography and art. A very Interesting and Inspiring presentation, with Keith showing many fine examples of his own work. In particular his passion for abstract and ICM (Intentional Camera Movement) photography.

We are back in the hall this week where we will be creating another first for the club by showing ‘live’ view on our big screen of ‘The park street landscape cup’ in which we will be competing to try and win the competition. It will be great to meet together to cheer on our entries and compare our work with other clubs during the evening.

The following week we have another landmark where after nearly two years, we will be holding our first print competition back in the hall. It’s an ‘open’ competition with up to three entries per person. It will be brilliant to have physical prints on show back in the hall for the judge to critique. Personally, I think to produce a print for competition is a very satisfying experience and although a bit more effort, it is overall a rewarding achievement.

Look forward to seeing everyone on Thursday

Steve

---

It’s now been four weeks since we returned to our hall at the Community centre. It has been great to establish face to face meetings again and also to welcome back valued former members who were not so comfortable with Zoom meetings.

Last week we held our first league ‘set subject’ PDI competitions. The subjects were ‘Paths and roads’ and ‘In the kitchen’. Some really good Interesting Images were produced by our talented membership, giving the visiting Judge Alan Taberer plenty to consider in his judgement of awarding points. As always members can see the higher scoring Images on the excellent club website Image gallery.

During the lockdown period of our season’s we managed to present some great speakers where Zoom enabled us to have presentations within our financial budget from much greater distance than normal. I think the furthest was Georgia!

We have continued to book some outstanding presenters for this season also via Zoom and this week is no exception with Keith Snell presenting his ‘But is it Art’ with Keith giving his view on abstract photography. I’m sure this presentation will provide lots of Inspiration for our Individual photography. So we are not in the hall this week, but a great opportunity to tune in on Zoom to enjoy the presentation. Details to join the meeting are in the members area of our website.

We have a few more outstanding guest speakers through Zoom dotted through the programme this season, but primarily we are now back operating safely in the hall with a great social atmosphere which hopefully will continue as the World gets back to some kind of normality.

Look forward to seeing everyone on Zoom this Thursday.

Steve

---