Members Evening – March 18th 2025

Our third Members Evening of the season provided an opportunity for members to share ideas and information on a wide range of photographic topics of interest.

A short presentation was made on using neutral density filters and long exposures to create the desired artistic effects. Discussions widened to all types of filters that can be used and the pros and cons associated with their use.

Cheat sheets, or aide-memoirs as they might more politely be described, were shared covering a vast array of subject matter in an easily understandable and readily downloadable manner. We will look at the best ways to make this information easily available so members can pick and choose depending on their needs and projects being pursued.

Battle – March 4th 2025

We hosted our annual battle with Cricklade Camera Club which was judged by Sandie Cox, who is a member of Bristol Photographic Society.

Despite using many of the images that had secured victory for us in an earleir battle this year, we were soundly beaten by Cricklade, whose collections of images resonated more strongly with the judge than ours did on this occasion.

Congratulations to Cricklade Camera Club and we look forward to our next encounter in 2026.

Annual General Meeting – February 18th 2025

Our Annual General Meeting was well attended and the primary objective was to elect Club officers for the forthcoming year. It was refreshing to welcome some new Club members to the Committee and being involved in the runnng of the Club wil serve as useful background should they wish to take on more onerous roles at a future date.

Following the AGM, we were given an excellent presentation on how to compile audio-visuals using Canva and Suno software packages and a demonstration on what could be achieved. This will have sparked interest in experimenting with the techniques learned and hopefully we can share the fruits of our labours at a future meeting.

Battle – February 13th 2025

Once again we took part in the annual battle with Swindon Photographic Society and Highworth Camera Club, which is organised and hosted by Swindon PS. Each Club entered a total of 20 “Open” digital images and the battle was judged by Peter Weaver from Keynsham Camera Club.

In a closely fought contest, Royal Wooton Bassett managed to pip Swindon by the slender margin of 2 points with Hghworth coming third. Thanks were extended to the hosts for organising the event and the judge for his comments and scoring decisions on the evening..

Competition #3 – February 4th 2025

Our third competition round for the Mayors’ Cups was judged by Peter Orr and featured “Open” and “Architecture” subjects. A healthy number of prints were submitted in both categories as more members are engaging in print work, which is very encouraging to see. Both the “Open” and “Architecture” winning entries were submitted by Nigel Walkley with ‘Seawed in the mist’ and ‘Looking out of the window’.

As expected there was also a good submission of digital projected images and both winning entries were submitted by Robert Slade with ‘Pigeon collision’ and ‘Modern Art Reflections’.

Pigeon collision
Modern Art Reflections

Sports Photography Presentation – January 21st 2025

The Club welcomed Michael Berkeley from Salisbury who has photographed over 40 sports and gave an insight into the life of a freelance sports photographer. It was a very interesting story and timeline into how to get going, the do’s and dont’s and how to get paid for your work. A very informal approach with a matter of fact attitude made a very enjoyable talk with great imagery.

Members Evening – January 7th 2025

We started the New Year with a Members Evening which was mainly dedicated to using one of those bits of kit that sits dormant in peoples camera bags for long period of time….the flashgun……or speedlight as It is referred to nowadays.

A short presentation was given at the start of the meeting on the basics of how to use flash and ways to create diffused lighting depending on the subject matter. This was followed by a practical demonstration of using a single flash unit through to using slave units driven from a master, which opened up many more creative lighting possibilities. Members were then encouraged to experiment with their flash settings and a check list provided to minimise the inevitable oversights that can occur when a piece of equipment is not regularly used.

Hopefully those of us who have shied away from using flash due to the perceived complexities will now feel more confident and able to continue experimenting and capturing images in lighting situations which would otherwise have proved difficult to work with.

Architectural Photography Presentation – December 17th 2024

Thomas Peck entertained and educated us with his Zoom talk featuring a diverse range of architectural images taken in several Eurpean locations, and a host of tips and techniques that had been employed in their creation.

Many of his images of buildings were taken in black & white, using long exposures to create ‘fine art’ photographs of modern architecture, which have become very popular recently. Tom explained the importance of initially surveying the building from several perspectives before setting up his tripod and putting his neutral density filters to work. He looked for shapes, curves, lines, symmetry, vanishing points, angles and reflections to heighten the interest and impact of the final image.

He shared ideas on how to work with converging verticals by having a reference ‘true’ vertical in the image to provide balance. Several of his images featured a human to provide a sense of scale and he creatively used negative space in some bridge images to focus the viewers gaze. Not all his pictures had been taken with a high-end DSLR and some very impressive mobile phone images were shown.

Tom concluded his talk with the ‘before’ and ‘after’ images of a Belgian bridge, which he had transformed with his post-processing work and a lot of patience. Without doubt, this talk has given us a lot to work with as we prepare our images for an Architectural competition in February.

Bridge – Tom Peck

Christmas Dinner – December 10th 2024

Our annual Christmas get together with partners took place at the Angel Hotel where we enjoyed festive fare and good conversation that extended well beyond photographic matters. Such was our enjoyment of the evening, and our relaxed state, that we dispensed with appointing a photographer to record the event and all had an evening off!