Summary of 2024-25 club activities

 

10 April - This was our 5th and final colour print competition of the season and judged by Roy Williamson. After holding back 12 of the 36 entries the judge awarded 10 to the images from Phil Copestick, Stefan Foryszewski and Ken Lillywhite.

The winning images were:

    
Damselfly by Phil Copestick and Take off by Stefan Foryszewski

Tulip by Ken Lillywhite.

3 April - Ludshott hosted the 2-way interclub competion which was judged by Ann Healey FRPS DPAGB EFIAP/g BPE5. Congratulations to Ludshott Camera Club who were the overall winners of the competition with a strong selection of images. Although they won the Nature section convincingly

Cranleigh narrowly beat them in the Open section. The overall points awarded were:

Section	Cranleigh Camera Club	Ludshott Camera Club
Nature	66	75.5
Open	134	133.5
Total	200	209

27 March  - Our Reg Mullard wild flora and fauna competiton was judged by Roger Mendham LRPS. There were 28 prints and 23 PDIs and, in what proved to be a strong competition, he judged Julian Hall's print of two dragonflies mating as the overall winner, narrowly beating Ann Smith's winning PDI of Pelican preening.

Those receiving awards in both print and PDI sections are shown in the table below.

Dragon flies mating by Julian Hall.

Pelican preening by Ann Smith.

 

20 March - Club member Ron Boon gave a very interesting presentation on the subject of Mobile phone photography and apps. Mobile phones are making a big impact in the world of photography and reaching levels of quality previously the domain of mainstream cameras. He stressed that it was essential at the outset to set up your phone's camera settings to suit your style of photography and post processing workflows. He demonstrated how to do this using an iPhone, although stating other phone systems such as Android all use similar set-up routines for their own generic phone cameras. Ron discussed the use of camera modes such as general photos, portraits, panorama as well as clarifying the meaning of various iPhone settings including formatting the camera settings to capture raw images and deciding whether to preserve control functions such as macro, lens correction etc in order to suit the photographers requirements.

Using a number of pictures taken on his own mobile camera phones he covered how to control depth of field, blur backgrounds, adjust focus, use slow shutter speed settings and make best use of live view etc. Ron also gave some useful tips when describing their capture such as deliberately tilting the camera to include more elements in a picture and turning the phone upside down - perfectly suited for getting low down to the ground while taking reflections in water. He concluded with a demonstration of how he employs a number of photo apps to post process the images such as Snapseed and Lightroom amongst others.

All in all,it was a very informative talk that will no doubt inspire other club members to use their phone's camera more frequently. After all a phone is nearly always with you whereas your conventional camera may not be.

13 March - There were 23 PDIs and 29 mono prints entered in the 4th round of the open PDI and Mono print competitions plus the Set subject: Motion/Movement. The competitions were judged by Tim Clark LRPS who, after giving the reasons for his scoring, also suggested how some of the images might be improved.

In the PDI Open section awards went to images from Tim Cheshire, Mike Guy, and Miles Thompson and in the PDI set subject section to Julian Hall.

In the Mono print Open competition maximum marks went to images from Ron Boon and Angela Karney and to Stefan Foryszewski for the set subject.

PDI Open section:

    
Fly On Wood Avens Seed by Tim Cheshire and The entrance to the Mill House by Mike Guy

Baby Alligator by Miles Thompson

PDI Set subject section:

Porsche flat out at Goodwood by Julian Hall

Mono open section:

    
Railway Night Shift by Ron Boon and Three trees - mirrored by Angela Karney

Mono Set subject section:

Caterham by Stefan Foryszewski

6 March  - A presentation by Fred Barrington FRPS titled An opportunistic snapper in the UK. Although Fred is a very well travelled and enthusiastic photographer who has won various awards and given solo exhibitions this talk concentrated on his images from the UK - mostly London. His photography is basically what and how he sees an image using colour and smart use of angles etc.

Two images below (© Fred Barrington) are typical of what we saw on the night.

     

27 February  - Members brought along their images and completed entry forms for the club's Annual Exhibition which will be held on Saturday 29 March 2025 and judged by Steve Kingswell ARPS, AFIAP. We have in excess of 340 pictures entered this year of which 250 are prints

20 February - The 4th round of our colour prints competition with the set subject Motion/Movement was judged by Graham Mansfield. He praised the high standard of the images on show and out of the 42 entries, 21 in the open section and 21 set subject, he held back a total of 11 images before awarding the maximum score of 10 to Julian Hall and Angela Karney in the open section and 10 to the images from Ann Smith and Chris Flood for the set subject.

The winning images are:

    
Open section: - Leopard stare by Julian Hall and Red amaryllis by Angela Karney

    
Set subject: - Splash by Chris Flood and To the woods by Ann Smith

13 February  - A presentation - Photographing landscapes whatever the weather by Tony Worobiec. For many years Tony was a highly successful teacher of art and photography, however in 2002 he made the decision to leave teaching in order to become a full-time writer and photographer and he regularly writes for photographic magazines both here in the UK and in America. He recently completed his sixteenth book Photographing Landscapes Whatever The Weather - the subject for this talk.

In landscape photography, you can’t change the weather, but you can change where you are to find good opportunities and at the outset the subject/location for your photography should be chosen to suit the prevailing weather conditions. This talk examined how landscapes have many forms like countryside, industrial, coastal, or urban and each place will have its optimum moment to shine. Taking great photos requires an understanding of how weather affects light and mood - the key parts of any landscape.

The four images below (© Tony Worobiec) are examples of how weather - rain, mist/fog, wind and storms, creates impact in photography.

     
     

6 February  - Pete Baldrey kindly volunteered to judge our annual Match-a-Print competition between Ladies and Gentlemen. To even the team numbers from the start, three gentlemen transgendered for the evening and joined the ladies team. Both teams each had 40 images from which they could choose a match for each competiton round and in the end the ladies well and truly beat the gentlemen by a clear 7 points.

As we can deduce from the points scored in the table below, out of the 40 rounds, there were 22 matches and 18 no matches. All in all a good fun evening with much heckling of the judge's decisions which he took in good humour commensurate with the spirit of the competition.

	Ladies	Gentlemen
Matches	12	10
Best picture*	22.5	17.5
Total	34.5	27.5

* In one round 2 pictures tied for best image and awarded 0.5 marks each.

Further details regarding the rules for this competition can be found at Match a print

30 January 2025 - There were 28 PDIs and 32 mono prints entered in the 3rd round of the open PDI and Mono print competitions judged by Paul Graber ARPS. 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 Tim Cheshire and one image from Julian Hall. In the Mono print competition he awarded maximum marks to the images from Ron Boon, Elizabeth Bulley and Pete Baldrey.

PDI Open section:

    
Love in a mist by Tim Cheshire and Tachinid fly feeding by Tim Cheshire

Elephant trail by Julian Hall

Mono open section:

    
Waiting - The Lanes Brighton by Ron Boon and Emerge from darkness by Pete Baldrey

Frozen by Elizabeth Bulley

23 January - Unfortunately our scheduled Zoom presentation by Ruth Grindrod was cancelled at the last minute when the presenter reported her internet connection was lost following workmen accidentally damaging the internet cables to her home in Scotland.

16 January - 36 images were entered in our 3rd open Colour prints competition judged by David Hughes CPAGB BPE2. There was a wide selection of pictures on display covering many genres of photography including still life, portrait, landscape, horticulture and wildlife. After holding back eight of the entries for a second viewing he awarded the maximum score of 10 to the images from Julian Hall and Norman Price and 9.5 to images from Pete Baldrey, Mike Harrison and Ann Smith. The two winning entries can be seen below.

    
Dragon flies mating by Julian Hall and Rosé by Norman Price.

 

9 January - Freezing weather meant the first meeting in the new year, a workshop/review, had to be held via Zoom to avoid travel difficulties. Thirteen members submitted a selection of their photographs (up to 4 PDIs) and gave a résumé for each stating:

• what specifically appealed to them to take the image,
• how it was shot (lens and settings if known) and any constraints experienced at the time of shooting.
• what post processing, if anything, was undertaken in order to achieve their final image.

Based on this information further discussion ensued with the other members proffering suggestions for possible improvements to the final images.

19 December, 26 December and 2 January 2025: - Club was closed for the Christmas break.

12 December - Club members and partners celebrated Christmas 2024 at the Bricklayers Arms, Shamley Green. During the evening the chairman announced the Chairman's challenge this year will be a little different from previous years in that there will be no set subject, genre or style and that it would be an open style competition with two caveats, namely:

1. the images must be recent and taken between December 2024 and May 2025
2. there must be a creative element in the shot eg no straight landscapes/portraits etc and could encompass aspects such as an artistic use of blur, composition, colour, lighting etc. It could also incorporate the creative use of lens zoom, double exposure or art filters in camera. The choice of subject and technique to be used during image creation is left to each member's discretion.

05 December - Tim Morland ARPS expertly judged our 2nd PDI and Mono print competitions which included the Set subject: Textures. In the PDI competition he awarded maximum marks to Ron Boon in the open section and to Ron Boon and Julian Hall in the set subject.
In the Mono print competition he awarded a score of 10 to images from Elizabeth Bulley and Chris Flood in the open section and to images from Angela Karney and Chris Flood for the set subject as follows:

PDI Open section:

Friends Chatting, Taj Mahal by Ron Boon

PDI Set subject section - Textures

    
Mushrooms by Ron Boon and Textures of elephant's trunk by Julian Hall

Mono print Open section:

    
Waterfall in the Rockies by Chris Flood and The lamp by Elizabeth Bulley

Mono print Set subject section - Textures

    
Limestone shelf, Kimmeridge by Angela Karney and Eurasian Wolf in Winter Coat by Chris Flood

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.