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.

Tuesday 25th May – "Never underestimate an old women with a camera" – talk by Sally Sallett, ARPS, CPAGB, AFIAP, BPE*3

WDPC were really appreciative of Sally coming along at very short notice. Thank goodness for Zoom as Sally comes from Wakefield!!

It is amazing how many qualifications Sally has achieved in such a short space of time. In the first half she shared some of her fairly normal pictures but in second half we saw some of her award winning images. For example her panels for her RPS distinctions and her CPAGB images, with very different but enjoyable styles.

Although Sally did not share any processing suggestions her creativity certainly showed through in her images. Many of her images can be seen on Face book. 

Tuesday 11th May – Mark Sisson, "White and Wild"

Mark came well recommended and certainly did not disappoint. Having describe the gear he uses he continued by sharing many images taken in cold climates. These ranged from Shropshire to Svalbard, from Finland to Iceland and from Japan to Yellowstone. He continually emphasised the benefit of taking images against the right back ground and being able to understand the lens you use, how they work and what you can do with them.

He described how in many cases he liked to give a sense of place and therefore had space in his images, sometimes of pure snow and sometimes of ice flows or maybe just the out of focus trees.  He demonstrated how much patience he had by waiting for hours in various hides waiting for the eagles to show up and  he mentioned the need to observe your subject and understand it before pressing the shutter.

Being unable to travel at the moment may be a good thing as I think there would be many wanting to book trips to Japan, Iceland and even Scandinavia. Lots of positive feedback from club members on the quality of Mark's images and also the excellent delivery of his presentation.

Tuesday 4th May – "Still" by Paul Sanders

 We continue to enjoy Zoom meetings and speakers from all over, which we would not normal have access to. This evening we heard from Paul Sanders, previous Picture Editor of The Times, workshop leader and tour guide, amongst other things.

Paul posed several questions and used his own life story and images to illustrate his answers. The questions he asked are relevant to all photographers and included: Why are you taking this photograph ? Who do you take photographs for? Not how do you make images but why? What is photography for you? How do you feel when you are at any given location?

His personal account was very honest, very illuminating and very helpful to many members who came along. A very worthwhile evening judging by members comments. To see some of Paul's images please check out his website: www.discoverstill.com

27th April 2021 - Competition: Theme - Macro/Close-up

We welcomed Leo Rich ARPS, EFIAP/g, DPAGB as the judge for our final league competition of the season and with 72 images to judge we were in for another full evening.

As you would expect with a theme of Macro/Close-up a high percentage of the images were natural history subjects with flowers, butterflies, fungi and various other flora and fauna featuring strongly. There were also some amazingly imaginative images which all helped to provide a very interesting and varied display of images for Leo to judge.

Thank you Leo for offering constructive helpful comments and, most importantly, encouragement.

Some of the high scoring images can be seen below:

In Members Class:

COPRINOPSIS IAANII by Les Thwaites 20/20

COMMA UNDERSIDE by Maureen Campbell 19/20

FROSTY ROSE by Pam Rutty 19/20

YELLOW BRAIN FUNGUS by Maureen Campbell 19/20

I SPY WITH MY LITTLE EYE by Tom Thurston 18/20

TIME GONE BY by Tom Thurston 18/20

In Members Advanced Class:

MINATURE METAL SKYLINE by Jan Murphy 20/20

DOUBLE IMAGE by Christine Frost 20/20

GREEN-VEINED WHITE ON WILD MARJORAM by Di Jackson 20/20

HOUSE FLY by David Ashfield 20/20

MALE BANDED DEMOISELLE by Graham Frost 19/20

CHALK HILL BLUES PAIRED by Di Jackson 19/20

Tuesday 13th April – "Abandoned Places" an illustrated talk by James Kerwin

It was a pleasure to welcome James Kerwin to WDPC tonight. When booked I thought he was from Norwich so hopefully he could have come for real to a club meeting or via Zoom, not even thinking the pandemic would still have us locked down. In reality he has lived overseas for the last few years and has spent his time focussing on the Abandoned Places, so once again zoom saved the day.

His talk recounted his different projects in various countries, ranging from Lebanon to Georgia, from Poland to Armenia. He told many stories relating to his images, both of which showed what beautiful buildings some of the abandoned places must have once been. Not really "urb ex" images but more along the lines of a society in decline, even though only one image had any people in it. Along the way he spoke about the importance of light, how he used a tilt and shift lens and also gave additional tips how to photograph architecture.

His web site, https://jameskerwinphotographic.com,  as well as show casing some of his images also gives details of the workshops the he runs often enabling participants to visit some of the more off the beaten track venues. 

An interesting evening and one which had many members considering where they could find any abandoned buildings nearer home.

Tuesday 6th April – "In the Making" by Gareth Martin, CPAGB, AWPF

Gareth joined us via Zoom from S Wales. He has had many successes in various salons and he showed the images straight out of the camera and then showed the final edited image, in some instances showing the intermediate stages as well. quite amazing how some apparently nondescript images could be processed into something acceptable to the salons. 

It could well be that if we all trawl through our hard drives we too may find some award winning images!! 

Thanks for coming along Gareth and sharing such varied images in a challenging presentation.