Wednesday 10 December 2014

Tuesday 9th December - WDPC Christmas dinner at Brown's Kitchen

Fortunately for us, one of our own members is restauranteur Mark Clayton who provided us with an excellent Christmas dinner at his restaurant Brown's Kitchen in Mundford.

We were looked after extremely well by Mark and his team who ensured everything ran like clockwork.  Well done Mark for providing us with a suburb meal in lovely surroundings.  Judging from the following images it looked like everyone enjoyed the evening.

Wishing everyone a very merry Christmas and a happy New Year.






Wednesday 3 December 2014

Tuesday 2nd December - Jim and Fred Price 'Difference between Club photos and Exhibition photos'

Thanks to Jim and Fred Price from The Beyond Group we had a lively, entertaining meeting last night.  They spoke with much experience on ‘The Difference between a Camera Club picture and an Exhibition Picture’ - Jim has amassed over 1250 acceptances in exhibitions and Fred is up to 1100.

To begin, they explained various photographic organisations and the awards and qualifications they offer.  We saw medals they had been awarded and the many exhibition books containing accepted work at national and international exhibitions.  They demonstrated the differences between judges scoring at Club competitions and the approach used by exhibition selectors, by showing several prints.  Some had been successful at Club level but not at exhibitions, for other prints, the opposite was true.

After the break, we had a chance to see the exhibition selection process in action.  Two sets of three ‘selectors’ viewed over 30 prints and scored them (out of 5).  Each print was on the stand for a matter of seconds.  Our gold medal winners and our selectors’ favourites tended to be those that made an instant impact through lighting, subject matter, composition, message etc.

If you would like to see more work by Jim and Fred, check out their websites http://jimpricephotography.co.uk/Jimprice/Home.html and http://www.pricephotographic.com/Price_Photographic/Welcome.html.

Here are links to other organisations they mentioned:
British Photographic Exhibitions (BPE) http://www.britishphotographicexhibitions.org.uk/
The Photographic Society of America (PSA) https://www.psa-photo.org/
International Federation of Photography Art (FIAP) http://www.fiap.net/
The Photographic Alliance of Great Britain (PAGB) http://www.thepagb.org.uk/ 


Jim and Fred Price ask for a donation to the Help for Heroes charity instead of a fee.  From Club funds we donated £100 and a collection on the night raised a further £82.44 for the charity.

Monday 1 December 2014

Sunday 30th November - WWT Welney

A foggy start soon made way for glorious sunshine and, once we had all assembled in the car park, we made our way into the centre - some of us discovered that the marvellous facilities also included jumbo sized bacon rolls!

Wellie boots were the order of the day as several of the hides were already a few inches deep in water including the water level photographic studio. We took it in turns to try and get some shots of the many swans and ducks that were literally 'in your face'.  Others made their way to the hides around the centre to try and capture that special shot.

The weather clouded over in the afternoon but, sadly, no dramatic sunset for the swan feed.

Some of our images are shown below: 



Vintage Wall Art by Sue Baldwin

Trying to Take off by Diana Graham

Dribbler by Graham Jackson

Welney Sunlight by Christine Alcock

Female Stonechat by Caroline Tillett

Evening Glow by Francesca Shearcroft

Double Reflection Duck by Jan Murphy

Wellies Required by Andy Caws

A Tender Moment by Di Jackson






Wednesday 26 November 2014

Tuesday 25th November - Round 1 Print Competition

Well done everyone for supporting this competition - there were 70 prints on display.  EAF judge Alan Sarsby had the tough job of analysing and scoring all the entries.  He began by explaining his scoring rationale.  A well-taken, well composed image could expect a score of 14/20.  To get more than this there must be some extra special element.  If any technical errors were spotted, a score less than 14 was likely.  This may have resulted in some lower than usual scores but the logic was clear.

Alan awarded scores of 19 or 20 to 21 prints from the three groups (Club, Intermediate and Advanced) and you can see these images again here.  Special congratulations to Di Daniels, Jan Murphy and Roy Scrivener who achieved top scores with both their prints.

Scoring 20/20:

TOWER BRIDGE AT TWILIGHT by Di Daniels

ONE IN A MILLION by Di Daniels

UNDER THE PIER by Roy Scrivener

INTO THE LIGHT by Roy Scrivener

DRIFTWOOD ON METUNG BEACH by Jan Murphy

GHOSTS OF ST PAULS by Jan Murphy

POPPY by Carol Clifford

ELLIE by Fran Grimsdell

FUN ON THE BEACH by Marnie Ball

SHADOWS AT CHRISTS COLLEGE by Sue Baldwin

BEACH BOLT by Andy Lowe

THE BRIDGE INSIDE THE WATER by Martyn Anderson

TAKING THE LEAD by Di Jackson

WALKING THE DOG AT COVEHITHE by Andy Caws

Scoring 19/20:

ICE CREAM MA'AM by Chris Kot

HAPPY DAYS by Kim Scrivener

FOREST SNOWSTORM ICM by Robin Orrow

JAPANESE MAPLE by Martyn Anderson

POLITICAL STORM by Di Jackson

COASTAL OUTPOSTS by Dave Angood

SKATEBOARDER by Andy Caws


Wednesday 12 November 2014

Tuesday 11th November 2014 - Walking With Bears - Robin Orrow



GRIZZLY FISHING by Robin Orrow

Our thanks once again to Robin Orrow for another fascinating presentation. This time we learnt about Robin's determination to observe and photograph bears. His journey took us from Finland and Bavaria, via Spitsbergen to North America. Many of his most recent photos in Canada and Alaska were shot with a 50mm lens which certainly adds impact - not for the faint hearted!

Robin mentioned a number of people and places and here are links to three useful websites:

Spirit Bear Lodge
http://www.spiritbear.com

Ian McAllister website
http://pacificwild.org

Info on Katmai National Park Alaska
http://www.nps.gov/katm/index.htm


Thanks again, Robin.

Wednesday 5 November 2014

Tuesday 4th November 2014 'Focus On ... Monochrome'

We had a record entry of 62 images (should have been 63, sorry Helen) for this 'Focus On Monochrome' session making a difficult task for the 43 members there to pick their favourite images.  After three viewings of all images, the voting papers were collected in.  Our spreadsheet crunched the numbers (3 points for a vote for 1st, 2 points for 2nd and 1 point for 3rd) and the favourite monochrome image was Robin Orrow's 'Walking The Walk' (25 points), followed by Dave Angood's 'The Deck' (22 points) and joint 3rd place went to Di Jackson's 'Political Storm' and Robin's 'The Scream' (20 points).

Robin then reworked some of the images and demonstrated what could be achieved using Lightroom.  Most of the adjustments resulted in improvements but others got mixed reactions and sparked discussions.  As with many aspects of photography, it comes down to personal preferences and there were 43 different opinions to consider last night!  Thank you Robin for taking the time to edit over 30 images.

The favourite monochrome images of the meeting are here.  Many thanks to all those who contributed images.


WALKING THE WALK by Robin Orrow (25 points)

THE DECK by Dave Angood (22 points)

POLITICAL STORM by Di Jackson 20 points)

THE SCREAM by Robin Orrow (20 points)

WAITING by Christine Alcock (19 points)

EYES by Chris Kot (16 points)

FULL ON AT OULTON BROAD by Di Jackson (16 points)

BAY OF FIRES by Jan Murphy (11 points)

THE CUSTOM HOUSE by Heather Ryder (11 points)

VINTAGE MARINE GLORY by Jack Mitchell (10 points)




Thursday 30 October 2014

Tuesday 28 October Round 1 Digital Competition

We had a busy evening with 76 images for judge Frank Blyth to review and score.  Once again the judge commented on the high standard in the Club class.  Ten images were awarded top marks (20/20) and Christine and Jan achieved top scores for both their images.  Well done to the top scorers and to everyone who entered.  

Here are the images which scored 19 and 20:



CRICKET by Marnie Ball


BANK VOLE by Graham Goodwin

WINDY FARM by Kim Scrivener

BIG BEN by Jan Murphy

THE PIER by Jan Murphy

SPIDER WEB JEWELS by Martyn Anderson

COSMOS by Christine Alcock

CROMER SEAFRONT by Roy Scrivener

LONDON BY LIGHT by Christine Alcock

NECK AND NECK by Keith Mountford

WHEATEAR by Graham Goodwin

FLOWERS ON WHEELS by Pam Rutty

WOODLAND CASCADE by Tim Leonard

FINAL APPROACH by Di Daniels

THE BALLERINA by Robin Orrow

A QUIET CORNER OF THE ORCHARD by John Mills

ALL FISHED OUT by Jack Mitchell

DAHLIA REFLECTIONS by Francesca Shearcroft