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. 

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!

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

Tuesday 4th July - Zoom meeting Mike Martin 'Shooting People'

For our last meeting of the season we were joined by Mike Martin who took us through his journey into creative portrait photography.  He described how he started and then showed a series of portraits charting his progression through different styles of portrait photography.

Mike dares to be different and experiments with techniques not usually associated with portrait photography such as using a fish eye lens or an infrared camera.  When entering these images in exhibitions they have often proved to be 'Marmite' shots with some judges giving them the lowest score possible while other judges award them medals.

There is a clear message from Mike's approach - make images that YOU enjoy because you can't please everybody.  

Tuesday 27th June 2023 - Image of the Year competition

In the last competition of the year, we welcomed Naomi Saul to judge the print and digital Image of the Year. First up were 21 digital images ranging from creative images through to classic nature and landscape shots. Naomi held back 9 on her shortlist before settling on Roy Scrivener’s ‘The Artist’ as the winner.

After the break, we turned to the prints. There were 16 entries and 7 were held back and in with a chance of scooping the title. The winner was Di Jackson’s ‘Compromised Mountain Hare’. 

Congratulations to our winners and runners up. You can see their images below.

Digital Image of the Year 'The Artist' by Roy Scrivener

THE ARTIST by Roy Scrivener

Print Image of the Year 'Compromised Mountain Hare' by Di Jackson

COMPROMISED MOUNTAIN HARE by Di Jackson

Runners up in the Digital section:

2nd place  LITTLE OWL by Sandie Jardine

3rd place  DREAMY COSMOS by Jan Murphy

Highly Commended  FLAT AROUND CORUM by Christine Frost

Highly Commended  CATCH OF THE DAY by Robin Orrow

Highly Commended  LOOKING INTO EMPTINESS by Stephen Gregory

Highly Commended  BOAT GRAVEYARD by Francesca Shearcroft

Commended  HARE WASHING by Caroline Tillett

Commended  MONGOOSE by Diana Graham

Runners up in the Print section:

2nd  CAMBODIAN MONK by Carol Martin

3rd  ACCELERATING INTO THE STRAIGHT by Andy Caws

Highly Commended  LOWER MANHATTAN SKYLINE REFLECTING IN HUDSON by Jan Murphy

Highly Commended  LONE HARBOUR SEAL by Jack Mitchell

Commended  MALE STONECHAT ON BRAMBLE by Christine Frost

Commended  FARNE FROM BAMBURGH by Roy Scrivener

Tuesday 13th June - Focus On Composites

In earlier meetings this season we have seen demonstrations from club members and watched Zoom speakers create composite images.  Tonight was a chance to see how people applied the various techniques to create their own images.  We saw a wide variety of results which demonstrated both skill and imagination.

There were 30 entries and the members at the meeting voted for the top 5.  The clear favourite was Sue Baldwin's 'Bootiful'.  Sue described the components of her images and how they were combined as did the authors of the other images in the top 5.  Scroll down to see the images that received the most votes.

In the second part of the meeting, Jack Mitchell did a step-by-step demonstration using Photoshop and Lightroom to create a contact sheet of six images.  This is something that will be needed by entrants of our annual summer challenge.  Jack also covered adding a pinline or stroke to finish an image and saving the image as a correctly sized jpeg - I know our competition secretary will be pleased if more of us master resizing!

1st BOOTIFUL by Sue Baldwin

2nd AT THE GOING DOWN OF THE SUN by Graham Jackson

3rd CANT SEE ME by Stephen Gregory

4th THE FACE IN THE CITY by Jan Murphy

5th PRETTY IN BLUE by Francesca Shearcroft

6th= A HOST OF GARDEN BIRDS by Jack Mitchell

6th= POPPY PATCH by Andy Caws

6th= THE BLACK SWAN by Roy Scrivener

9th WAIT FOR ME by Graham Jackson

10th= CARNATION by Diana Graham

10th= PLAYING IN THE MUD by Francesca Shearcroft

Tuesday 6th June - Bob Johnson 'The Kingdom of the Ice Bear'

Bob was originally scheduled to visit us next season but kindly stepped in when our original speaker pulled out.  We will still see him next season with a different presentation.

This evening Bob took us on a journey around 'The Kingdom of the Ice Bear'.  We experienced the images, sounds and smells of a four-week trip Bob made in Svalbard aboard the Havsel, a converted seal hunting ship.  While the main subject was polar bears, we also saw photos of seals, arctic foxes, walrus and skuas.  The trip started and ended in Longyearbyen and Bob's images showed us what life was like living in the most northerly town on the planet.

Next time we see Bob, he will transport us to the Serengeti.