Thursday, 28 September 2023

Tuesday 26th September - Howard Denner 'Twenty Feet from the Stars'

Tonight we were introduced to the world of a press photographer who specialises in live music performances.  It's not an environment any of us have experienced as photographers.  But after seeing Howard Denner's photographs and listening to the stories behind them, we all had a very good idea of the challenges.  

Howard described the many constraints he had to work with, such as constantly changing lighting, obstacles on the stage blocking the view, fellow photographers jostling for position, limited time and grumpy audience members.  He also described some of the post-processing actions he used to produce the finished images.

It turned out our club members in the audience were a group of old rockers who proved pretty good at identifying the stars from way back when.  Howard's photographs of the performers were so evocative that we all left the meeting feeling like we'd been at a live music concert back in the 1970s or 80s. 

Wednesday, 13 September 2023

Tuesday 12th September Zoom meeting - Martin Patten 'How to critique your own photos'.

Critiquing our own photos is a challenging task for all of us.  We are too personally attached to our images and each one triggers emotions and memories for us which may not be conveyed to the viewer.  Tonight's speaker, Martin Patten, started his presentation by giving tips on how to overcome emotion.  He then illustrated a number of other important principles to apply which should help us be more objective when judging images.

In the second half, Martin invited us to comment on a sample of different photos using the principles.  We soon discovered that club members viewing the photos formed different interpretations and opinions! Competition judges may be more consistent in their reactions but there are no guarantees.  If we follow Martin's advice, our success rate in competitions should improve.  We will find out as this season's competitions progress!

Wednesday, 6 September 2023

Tuesday 5th September - Summer Challenge

We started the new season with our Summer Challenge. This year 18 club members took up the challenge and entered a portfolio of six images taken during our summer break. Each entry also had a contact sheet showing all six images.

The first step was to see a preview of all the entries. Then the hard work began!  Our judge, Bob Darts, reviewed all the images and made brief comments on each one. He selected 10 portfolios to put on his shortlist. After further inspection, he whittled this down to six before finally announcing his top three and two highly commended.

Congratulations to our 2023 Summer Challenge winner, Christine Alcock, whose entry Bob described as a stunning set of images.  

WINNER
QUEEN ANNS LACE  by Christine Alcock

In second place was 'In Among the Flowers' by Andy Caws, third place Francesca Shearcroft's 'Garden Insects' and two portfolios were highly commended, 'Butterflies' by Maureen Campbell and 'Golden Hour' by Steve Gregory.  You can see all the shortlisted portfolios below.

Our thanks to Bob Darts for judging our Summer Challenge.

2nd
IN AMONG THE FLOWERS by Andy Caws

3rd
GARDEN INSECTS 7 by Francesca Shearcroft

Highly Commended
BUTTERFLIES by Maureen Campbell

Highly Commended
GOLDEN HOUR by Steve Gregory

FLYING THINGS by Martyn Anderson