The Annual Prints Competition is the final activity in the 2017/18 season and was judged by Adrian Herring, who had judged the projected images one week earlier. Entries were submitted in three categories Action; Open and Portrait and the winning prints were:

– Action  “Black swan takeoff” by Dave Garmont

– Open  “Trulli houses at dawn” by Adam Kowalczyk

– Portrait  “Zulu boy” by Adam Kowalczyk, …….which was also selected as the Best Overall Print in the competition.

As before, the judge was sharp-eyed and his comments were both succinct and constructive. After judging Adrian and his wife Vanessa kindly showed some of their prints, which powerfully demonstrated how to work with the available light and the importance of looking at images from a different perspective. Indeed some shadow images of cycle riders could be viewed whichever way up you preferred, with each orientation giving a totally different effect.   All the prints submitted will be displayed at a free exhibition in RWB Library from August 11th – 25th and visitors are most welcomed.

The Summer photo-shoot programme starts on June 26th with a visit to Cherhill White Horse.

The final event of the season is the Annual Competition which is held over two consecutive weeks and digital projected images were first to be judged by Adrian Herring. Entries were submitted in three categories: Action; Open and Portrait and a healthy number of images were received.

Adrian gave honest and helpful feedback on the images and some common themes to emerge were: giving more space around the subject matter, demonstrating connectivity within the image and reducing saturation levels in some cases.  Our liberal interpretation of “Portraits” proved challenging to the judge and caused some mirth, with several entries which could probably have been submitted into the other two catergories with more success.

The winning images were:

– Action “Thanks for all the Fish” by Brian Holden

– Portrait “Charlie” by Adam Kowalczyk

– Open “Matera (Puglia, Italy) at dusk” by Adam Kowalczyk ……..which was also selected as the Best Overall Projected Image.

We look forward to Adrians’ return on the 12th to judge the Print entries.

As has become a customary part of our annual programme, the Club enjoyed the support of Great Western Cameras in Swindon who organised a presentation from an equipment supplier. In this case, Hamel, from Vitec Imaging Solutions Division, ably demonstrated the versatility of Lastolite lighting equipment by Manfrotto and assembled a studio lighting set for portrait photography. This comprised a collapsible, double sided urban screen which was hung from magnetic mounts on two telescopic lighting stands. Two Ezybox speed lites were used to illuminate the model and experimentation carried out to see the effect of fabric diffusers, grids and gel filters to give various creative effects. Club members were encouraged to try different lighting arrangements to explore and appreciate the influence upon the final image.

The overall quality of the equipment and its simplicity in setting up was impressive. Many thanks to Ian from Great Western Cameras for organising the evening on our behalf.