Summary of 2024-25 club activities

28 November 2024 - A presentation - Perpetually in Motion Part 1 by Claire Carter. She is a photographer from near Fort William in the Scottish highlands and has received numerous awards since 2007 for her landscape photography. Claire believes that landscape photographers have to be in tune with the fourth dimension - the passage of time. Her wonderful photographs taken at various locations in Scotland, Ireland, Norway and Iceland et al, illustrated how the forces of nature create motion and change, from the Northern Lights to tides and clouds. She also explored, with examples, how changes in light which can vary over a few seconds to hours or even seasons/years offer numerous creative possibilities for landscape photography.

Three images from her presentation (© Claire Carter) and which recently received awards in her HC portfolio for the Scottish Landscape Photographer of the Year, are shown below.

21 November 2024 - Our 2nd Colour prints competition, including a set subject - Textures, was judged by Geoff Young. In all 43 images were entered and, after Geoff gave detailed feedback and advice for how each image could possibly be improved, he awarded the maximum score of 10 in the open section to Julian Hall and Mike Guy and to Julian Hall, Miles Thompson and Stephan Foryszewski for compliance with the set subject. Their winning images are shown below.

Open section

   
Reflections of the past, London St Pancras by Mike Guy and Ferrari under the lights at Singapore by Julian Hall

Set subject - Textures

   
Textures of elephants by Julian Hall and Pots and Oak Leaves by Miles Thompson

Autum texture by Stefan Foryszewski

14 November 2024 - A presentation - A never ending journey by Roger Reynolds Hon FRPS FBPPA FBPE APAGB.
Roger has been a professional photographer for over 45 years and his talk clearly demonstrated his main passions for the natural world, its landscape, people and the fauna and flora as well as sports and architecture. Since 1995 his travels have been taking up a major part of his photography and with his specialist photographic travel company Photoventures he explored and photographed many locations throughout the world, in particular the United States. This presentation tracked Roger's photographic journey, whether it be on his travels with Photoventures or his own personal and professional assignments and throughout the evening we were treated to a stunning array of photographs and informative narrative.

See Roger's website at: www.rogerreynolds.photography

Below are a selection of photographs, © Roger Reynolds, epitomising his presentation:

   
Brickworks toil and Kirjufellfoss after sunset, Snaeffelssnes, Iceland

   
Late Mist, Madison river near Quake lake and Snowy Egret aggression - Ft de Sot - Florida

7 November 2024 - A panels workshop. 13 members brought along half a dozen prints or more, forming a set of pictures that were related in some way according to a theme or a sequence in a shoot etc. Ann Smith lead the evening and the idea was to have tables placed around the room for members to lay out their prints in differing ways to form a panel. After each member had laid out their panels everyone moved around the tables and offered opinions re the way the prints panels had been organised, whether all or some of the images added or detracted from the panels and how the panels might be improved. Discussion included: overall balance, juxtaposition of colour, tones and textures and the subject orientation of each image and how it impacts the visual flow around the panel etc. The aim was to encourage more members to showcase their images by constructing panels and also to consider entering a panel in the club's next annual exhibition in March 2025.

31 October 2024 - There were 32 PDIs and 35 mono prints entered in the 1st round of the open colour PDI and Mono print competitions judged by Roger Mendham LRPS. He gave a fair critique of the images on display and offered his opinion of how some of the images could be improved. In the PDI competition he awarded maximum score of 10 to two images from Ron Boon and one image each from Julian Hall and Graham Kurn. In the Mono print competition he awarded maximum marks to the images from Ron Boon, Ann Smith and Tim Cheshire.

PDI Open section:

    
Just passing through by Graham Kurn and Egret in the sea by Julian Hall

    
Storm Clouds over Cromer and Superbike Brands Hatch by Ron Boon

Mono print section:

    
Promesse by Tim Cheshire and Crosby Beach - Another Place by Ron Boon

Storm light, Weston-super-Mare by Ann Smith

24 October 2024 - A live presentation by Dave Brooker - (A little bit of everything). Before he moved from Cranleigh David was one of our former club chairmen and is an accomplished photographer. David took us on a series of audio visual journeys with stunning landscapes and iconic architecture he had photographed in the UK and around the world. He also gave a quick demonstration of how he built the AVs using software. A thoroughly enjoyable evening and certainly not one to have been missed.
See below for a sample of David's images (less audio) shown during his presentation:

    
Budapest Parliament and Cuckmere

    
Taj Mahal and Valencia Opera House

17 October 2024 - 1st open Colour prints competition judged by Peter Merry LRPS. 41 images were entered and after a well balanced critique he awarded Julian Hall, Ron Boon and Pete Baldrey the maximum score of 10 points for their images which can be seen below.

    
Just chillin by Pete Baldrey and Lake district by Ron Boon

    
Brothers in the wild and Sunset in San Francisco by Julian Hall

10 October 2024 - An evening to review members' images taken in response to the challenge set by the programme secretary on 19 September, namely churches or anything associated with religion. Each member was asked to submit up to 4 PDIs for discussion.
A small sample of the many images submitted for the challenge gives a flavour of the evening and is shown below.

 

3 October 2024 - Tutorial workshop / around the tables. The aim was to provide members with the opportunity to further develop their photographic skills and techniques by sharing their knowledge with each other with. During the evening members were free to move around the room and join a number of tutorials being led by experienced members. The topics ranged from taking images with your mobile to editing with different software, the benefits of a prime lenses and even buying and selling camera equipment. The members conducting the tutorials were:

• Pete Baldrey - Nik silver effex
• Ron Boon - Phone photography
• Phil Copestick - Keylines
• Miles Thompson - Prime lenses
• Mike Guy - Buying and selling photographic equipment.

26 September 2024 - A bring your camera for a walkabout challenge. Members met at the church hall for a briefing on the set task before proceeding on the walk into the village with the aim of taking 4 images, in the space of 30 minutes. On their return to the church hall members uploaded their images to the club's computer for reviewing the results.

19 September - Our first club meeting after the summer break was informal and an opportunity to welcome and introduce two new members to the club, Ken and Yvonne Lindup. As is usual at the first meeting, the Programme Secretary Angela Karney provided us with details of the new season's programme and also announced that churches is the theme for this 1 month challenge ie anything to do with churches or religion. We will review the results of the challenge at the 10 October meeting - up to 4 PDI images from each member. Phil Copestick had also put together a slide presentation showing images created by some members during the summer break which used various creative filters in their making. We eventually broke for refreshments and time for socialising as well as discussing a number of prints brought along by members which demonstrated some of their recent work.