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Cranleigh Camera Club

CCC is a small friendly club catering for people of all ages and photographic abilities and is affiliated to the Photographic Alliance of Great Britain through the Surrey Photographic Association.

If you enjoy photography and may be looking to improve your photographic skills, or wish to share your photographic experiences with other like minded people, then please come along to one of our meetings. The "About Us" tab above provides more information about the club and how to find us. You can also find us on the Cranleigh Camera Club Group Facebook page on the internet. (See "Useful Links" on this page to access our Facebook site.)

Roundup of recent club activities

(For a full summary of all previous club meetings go to Activities archive page and select the year.)

11 December - Members and their partners/spouses enjoyed the club's Christmas social evening and meal at the Bricklayers Arms in Shamley Green. As is traditional at this event the chairman Mike Guy announced this season's Chairman's Challenge will be - ‘Show me love’.
The challenge is not about technical skills either in camera or editing in post but you will need to achieve results that meet the following brief:
The chairman was once told that people often forget the words that are said to them, but they will never forget how those words made them feel - it’s all about emotion and how you feel!
His challenge is for you to create a photograph that shows love. It could be your favourite image of your wife, husband, partner or children. It may be the love that someone else shares, a couple in love for instance. it could be a loved pet, maybe your cat, dog. It could even be something physical that you love such as a vehicle, car, motorbike, cycle or train. Finally maybe it’s a tree, plant, flower or place. There is no limit to love!
The presentation of your love can be in any form print or PDI, but there needs to be a clear message of ‘love’ demonstrated.
Mike will be judging images according to the following ctiteria:

• Meeting the brief and strength of the message in terms of love
• Technical merit
• Composition and presentation

Make love, not war! Members will need to present their responses for judging on 14th May 2026 (PDI to be sent via e-mail on the Sunday prior to the event)
Please let him know if you have any questions.

4 December - Graham Mansfield judged our 2nd PDI and Mono print competitions which included the Set subject: Anything in water. After holding back 5 images in the Mono print open section and 4 in the set subject he awarded the maximum score to images from Angela Karney and Mike Hall respectively.
In the PDI competition he held back 4 images in the open section and 2 in the set subject before awarding maximum marks to Julian Hall in the open and to Ron Boon in the set subject as follows:

Mono print Open section:

Falling tulip by Angela Karney

Mono print Set subject section - Anything in water

Zebras in the waterhole by Mike Hall

PDI Open section:

Baby Elephant having a rest by Julian Hall

PDI Set subject section - Anything in water

Waiting by Ron Boon

27 November - The evening commenced with a presentations by fellow member Ron Boon: People whilst traveling - Street and candid photography. Ron showed a number of his images, some taken years previously on film and digitally scanned, most of which related to his travels overseas including the USA and Cuba. Ron explained why he had taken each image and how he approaches people in order to gain their consent to be photographed. He emphasised how important it was to greet people with a smile and in many cases where there are language difficulties to gesture with his hands to indicate he would like to photograph them. In the majority of cases this always works. Ron generally uses small cameras with reasonably short focal length lenses, a 50mm standard being one of his favourites, enabling him to be less conspicuous and less threatening as well as not advertising expensive camera equipment.

For the second half of the evening Miles Thompson's talk covered: Spanish architecture and Scottish landscapes. Miles has a love for landscape photography and architecture, historic buildings such as castles, palaces and churches in particular. He took us on a brief tour of Andalusia in Spain visiting the architectural wonders of Seville, Cordoba and Granada namely: the largest gothic cathedral in the world - Santa María de la Sede and the Royal Alcázar of Seville, the amazing intricate Moorish architecture of the Alcázar de los Reyes Cristianos and the Mezquita in Cordoba as well as the Alhambra in Granada before ending the Spanish element of his talk with images of Gaudy's gothic architectural masterpiece the Basilica de la Sagrada Família in Barcelona.

Some of the images from their talks are shown below:

        
New Orleans street kids and Cuban lady at home by Ron Boon

        
Seville Cathedral and On the path to Kilchurn castle on Loch Awe by Miles Thompson

20 November - Our 2nd Colour prints competition also included an open and a set subject section which were judged by Keith Newton LRPS. The set subject being - Anything in water. In all 37 images were entered and, after Keith gave some feedback and advice for how each image could possibly be improved, he awarded the maximum score of 10 in the open section to Mike Hall and Ann Smith and to Mike Hall and Ann Smith for compliance with the set subject. Their winning images are shown below.

Open section

        
The leopard stare by Mike Hall and An impression of autumn by Ann Smith

Set subject - Anything in water

    
Hippos play fighting by Mike Hall and Stillness by Ann Smith

13 November - Photo art challenge. Ten club members brought along their own creative art, inspired by the work of Stan Farrow we saw during his presentation the previous week. Despite having such a limited time to prepare their submissions it was remarkable to see so many images and just how creative our members are in producing photo art, often a genre not commonly seen during club competitions outside of the digital art category at the club's annual exhibition. Each member described why and how they created their images which led to some discussion by those present. Most of the artwork submitted had been processed using software such as Photoshop in order to produce the final result in the few examples from Ann Smith and Angela Karney below.

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