Club Night Summary #111

Creative Workshop

Our last workshop evening of this season was themed for members to share Images and to explore the creative decisions behind the processing, to create the ultimate authors vision. We had two presentations on this subject. One from myself showing before and after Images, starting with the raw file and comparing with the finished Image.

Explaining the Inspiration and thoughts in achieving the final Image. Mike Brankin gave an excellent presentation, also showing Images whilst demonstrating the build up to achieving his vision for his successful work. (Unfortunately cut short through loss of signal from his camper van in Scotland!)

As a bonus, Cat Humphries gave the members an update on her recent change of camera and the challenge of lighting in drama group productions. Showing some wonderful theatre Images while explaining her issues and ultimate resolution.

It was reported that both Rebecca Berman and Stuart Craig had achieved highly commended accolades for their recent entries into the PAGB competition for photographs taken on a camera phone. Many congratulations to both for their achievement.

Another enjoyable evening spent celebrating our passion for photography.

Steve


Club Night Summary #110

Final Print Competition

Some really Inspirational Images were shown in our final league print competition of this season, held at our latest Thursday meeting. We had 47 entries to enjoy while judge Terry Pollard had the difficult task of separating the Images by giving critique and awarding marks. These scores will now go to decide the final league positions of the print league to be announced along with the PDI league result on the 10th June, after our club AGM.

As always the competition was closely contested with a number of Images being held back for the judge to decide the higher scoring entries on the night. With it being an open competition there was plenty of variety in the subject matter, adding to the enjoyment of the evening.

Congratulations to the higher scoring authors on the night and thanks to everyone that has entered the competitions this season, giving us all Inspiration with the high standard of entries throughout.

We still have a great programme for the remainder of this season with the ‘PDI of the year’ and ‘Print of the year’ which Includes both Colour and monochrome.

We also have a workshop, the AGM and our virtual Summer party still to enjoy

Steve


Club Night Summary #109

Autofocus

As more Covid restrictions are being lifted, we are able to start thinking about our Camera Club future in a much more positive light. We are able to start planning for next season, where we hope we will be able to start the season in September back in our hall at the community centre.

Our virtual world for the last year on Zoom has enabled us keep everything going with weekly meetings throughout. We are grateful for the continuous communications Zoom has facilitated and our members have still produced a high standard of Images during the season. Despite the threat and restrictions of the pandemic.

At our latest Thursday meeting we had a great example of Zoom use when George Purchase was able to expertly share his screen and guide us all through ‘Getting the most from auto focus’ where George explained the principals behind the camera’s auto focus system and how to get the most from it.

In Addition David Eckland gave the members news on a photo expedition he was organising in Oxford on May 24th. Rebecca Berman will be assisting with the visit, utilising local knowledge of the area, to ensure great photography opportunities.

David also displayed some of his great Images taken on the previous popular photowalk in London. Another Interesting workshop night, perfectly tailored to Zoom.

Steve


Club Night Summary #108

Social Evening

One of the best things about being part of a camera club is the weekly opportunity to meet and communicate with like minded people, who equally appreciate the creative side of photography.

Our latest workshop ‘members evening’ provided an ideal platform to share stories with other members. In addition to verbal communications, some of our members gave demonstrations of topics by showing Images, using the Zoom shared screen option. This is a really powerful way to convey a story by adding great Images and the opportunity to demonstrate a software manoeuvre.

Stuart Craig gave the group an overview of the new external competition ‘Intimate landscapes’ and explained the requirements while also showing some Inspiring Images to help understand the subject.

Ian Bennell had visited a ‘harvest mouse’ workshop and shared some wonderful Images captured during his visit. He also gave the group a great Insight by describing his day on location.

Arron Dowdeswell gave us an impromptu talk on drones, a really Interesting subject in which Arron is clearly very proficient in this area. Drone photography offers an exciting opportunity to capture different angles and hard to get to places.

Gordon Calder demonstrated the ‘Sky replacement’ tool and once again gave us all a brilliant and Inspiring tutorial with some great examples of his manipulation of Images.

Thank you to everyone who took part in the evening, which once again demonstrated the talent we have in our club.

Steve


Club Night Summary #107

Penultimate Print League Comp

In a difficult and completely unpredictable year we have continued to run our club programme featuring great competitions, speakers from around the world, numerous workshops and social events. Hopefully this has served to Inspire and motivate our members and help distract away from the pandemic we are all living through.

It hasn’t been easy for any of us, when the first lock down struck at the end of last season a number of other camera clubs stopped their meetings which left them in disarray. We are blessed with having a great conscientious and responsive committee who Immediately reacted to the pandemic, quickly organising Zoom connection and ensured we did not miss one meeting in the existing season. Their commitment was such that a whole additional summer programme was organised which continued through to the current season, an amazing achievement.

I would like to personally thank each member of our committee for their support in making our club so successful

Our AGM ( annual general meeting) is on the 20th May, so anyone who would like to get Involved in the running of the club and help continue with this great legacy, either as part of the committee or offering support to the team, please contact us as soon as possible. There are opportunities that need to be arranged for next season.

We have now held our penultimate print league competition (shown as PDIs for practical reasons) Another good night that produced more inspiring Images. The Images were Judged by the experienced Sandy Watson. Thank you to everyone that took part in the evening and congratulations to the higher scoring authors on the night. (don’t forget to can view the Images on our excellent website in the gallery).

Steve


Club Night Summary #106

Last PDI
League Comp

It’s an exciting stage of our season, with a number of competitions coming to a head. We have now completed our final PDI league competition, so final PDI league positions can be confirmed.

As always, the latest competition judged by the experienced Michael Lurie was keenly fought by our talented membership, to achieve the best Individual league finish. With 45 entries into the ‘open’ competition there was a tremendous amount of variety on show, with some Incredible and original Images displayed. Thank you to everyone that has entered competitions this season, giving us such enjoyable Thursday evenings and providing such strong materials to select from for potential future representation of our club in external competitions.

We still have a great three months of this season to enjoy with other competitions ahead, Including completion of the Print league, Portrait and Landscape cups, PDI of the year and Print of the year (Colour and Monochrome). In addition we have our ‘remote shoots Worldwide’ presentation from our virtual guest speaker and a number of themed workshops to look forward too.

As things are changing back into some form of normality in the World, we photographers can get out and about a lot more in pursuit of more Images. Life looks a lot more positive, so it’s really good that we can share our passion together through our club.

Have a good Easter – Steve


Club Night Summary #105

Peer
Review
Night

In our latest workshop Cat Humphries led the evening with the theme of judging Images.

This was a follow up to our previous workshop of a few weeks ago, where we discussed the merits of Images and what elements separate one from another. Also the qualities circuit judges in Camera Club Competitions look for. Such elements as;

  • Impact and Interest
  • Viewpoint
  • Composition
  • Colour
  • Techniques
  • Manipulation and presentation
  • Landscapes
  • Portraits.

All were discussed as tips for judging, critiquing and self assessing photos. We put all of this knowledge into our latest workshop and Invited our talented membership to submit Images that had not been in competitions at the club before. These entries were then judged by our membership and not an external judge.

Voting on the various Images in advance of the night and then revealing each Image with scores as a normal competition would be presented. The membership offered critique on the Images and the previously voted score was revealed. This process gave a nice Interactive theme to the evening.

It was a really Interesting workshop and gave everyone an Insight into the thinking of the mechanics relating to the difficult task of dividing winning Images from others.

Huge thanks to Cat for her hard work putting together such Insightful workshops which have been really enjoyable.

Congratulations to David Eckland for his excellent overall winning Image ‘Brill windmill’.

Thank you to everyone that entered Images and all that took part in the evening.

Steve


Club Night Summary #104

Circles &
Industrial

Print Competition

Our Thursday night ‘fix’ of all things photography has been the tonic we have all needed during these turbulent times. To be together with like minded friendly people with the common goal of photography, has helped us all cope with pretty well everything that has been thrown at us in the last year.

You can gauge the high level of enthusiasm and creative input in everything the club members tackle whether it’s a competition or workshop or just enjoying some of the great talk presentations we have had this season, from both visiting speakers (curtesy of the long distance Zoom potential) or our own talented members sharing tips and demonstrating techniques. The overall photography Inspiration comes from all our members working and being together as a club. A powerful combination!

Our latest club league print competition gave an Interesting challenge with the two set subjects of ‘Industrial’ and ‘Circles’. There were some diverse and Imaginative Interpretations of the theme, 61 Images were entered to enjoy, viewed on Zoom by visiting Judge Steven Galvin. Thanks to everyone that entered the competition and congratulations to the higher scoring authors.

Special mention for consistent In form member Gordon Calder who was awarded 20points for his two excellent Images in the ‘Circles’ competition.

Steve


Peer Review Competition

Peer Review Competition Open for Voting

Members are invited to start voting on the images their fellow photographers have entered into the peer review competition. The Members Area contains all the materials you need, including the Google voting form and the gallery of the entries (30 images)

Voting closed on 14th March to allows us time to collate the scores in time for the reveal on the 18th.

Thanks,

Cat & George


Club Night Summary #103

Image Analysis Workshop

We are very fortunate as a camera club to have an active judge in our membership. Someone who knows about judging and delivering at the sharp end with many clubs every season. So it was great to have Cat Humphries lead our latest workshop evening entitled ‘Judging Images’ an evening designed give an appreciation of the intricacies of judging Images.

Cat talked us through the judging thought process, accompanied by an excellent power point slide show. In addition, armed with the pointers she shared with us, we were able to become the judges on the night, in an Interactive mock competition of her demonstration Images. This was enabled using ‘Zoom’ and phone voting. A thoroughly enjoyable evening which sparked plenty of healthy debate in this sometimes contentious area.

Armed with this additional knowledge (plenty of Information on our website) we have now Invited club entries into an Internal competition where we all become the judges and go through the judging thought process to vote for a winner.

Our next workshop night on the 18th March will review the outcome of this peer reviewed competition. Overall this time spent gaining knowledge and Insight into judging will help us all in our own photography work, as we consider our Images for competition entry.

Steve