Tuesday 22nd June 2021 - WDPC Image of the Year

We were fortunate to get the services of Alison Jenkins ARPS, DPAGB, LMPA as our judge for this our final competition of the season.  Alison had 68 images to select from and they represented just about every genre of photography you could think of - so no easy task.

If that wasn’t enough to keep her busy, our club laptop with all the competition images loaded failed to connect on zoom so Alison not only judged but presented the images via her zoom link to our members.  No problem for Alison.  Every image received a constructive critique, praise given and improvements suggested in a positive, supportive manner.

Many thanks Alison for stepping in and helping us to provide an excellent final competition for this season.

The results of our Image of the Year can be seen below:

1st Place and Image of the Year

TEARING UP THE TURF by David Blake

2nd Place Image

BALLERINA RED by Liz Blake

3rd Place Image

A MOMENT IN TIME by Les Thwaites

4 Images were Highly Commended:

BEARDED TIT, CLEY MARSH by Nick Akers

LIFE AFTER DEATH by Caroline Tillett

ON THE BOX by Paul Radden

PASSING TIME by Jan Murphy

Tuesday 8th June "All the Gear and No Idea" – illustrated talk by Roger Hance FRPS, DPAGB, BPE*5

It was pleasure to welcome back Roger to WDPC. Although fairly local we are still in Zoom mode so unusually for Roger all images were digital. However they certainly did not disappoint. 

His subject matter ranged from portraits to macro, from voles to garden birds and  from landscapes to sport. Whilst showing his images Roger also clearly talked about how he had taken them, what he was aiming at and also how he was continually looking for new subjects. Some of the images included only being taken last week. One thing became clear was that Roger certainly understands his subject when talking about wildlife.

He recently switched to Olympus gear and did refer to his body/lenses quite often but not to the detriment of his talk.

His presentations are always good, his style is very easy to listen to and understand, with many hints and tips provided, and inspired many of us to go out tomorrow to try and get some garden birds, if nothing else.!

it is worth noting that apart from a few Welsh landscapes all images shown were taken in England. 

Roger has recently started his own YouTube channel where he has uploaded several videos on a range of topics, mainly facing on wild life. Click here.

Tuesday 1st June – "The Way I See It' by Chris Upton, ARPS

Many positive comments after Chris Upton's talk, which covered the 7 steps he thought were necessary to take a good picture. He started by emphasising the need to work out what is the message you are trying to convey before considering the Hows.  Each of his points was most ably illustrated by his own images.

The talk was good instruction for our less able members and a useful refresher for the more experienced.  Lots of practical suggestions, hints and tips but Chris also stressed that looking at all the videos, reading all the books, listening to all the talks etc  was no substitute for actually getting out there with your camera.

Post meeting note: This week Chris has received a commendation for his image "Medusa" in the Sienna awards. No mean achievement considering there were over 50,000 images submitted.