Members Evening – May 30th 2023

Posted on by


Following a couple of successful indoor practical photography evenings, we decided to venture outdoors and challenge members to take some images of Royal Wootton Bassett. To encourage members to spend more time and thought in preparing and visualising the images they wished to take, some boundary conditions were set. Only 10 images in total could be taken in jpg format and had to be sequentially numbered and no in-camera post-processing was allowed. In essence we were trying to replicate the restrictions that naturally arose in the past when shooting with 35mm slide film which meant you had to strive to get everything right at the time of shooting.


Although the light was flat, and despite a chilly evening breeze, members generally enjoyed the experience of exploring the nooks and crannies of Royal Wootton Bassett and spent around 90 minutes searching for some different images.


Needless to say some discrepancies arose and one member, whose camera was set for continuous high speed shooting, took their 10 images far quicker than they had imagined with only one subject.  After the exercise, we convened for some well earned refreshments at The Angel and images were loaded onto the Club laptop and will be viewed after the Awards Presentation evening on June 20th.

Audio-Visual Evening – May 2nd 2023

Posted on by

Members were treated to a full evening of audio-visual presentations which had been entered into last year’s Western Counties Photographic Federation Competition. In total 30 AVs had been entered across 3 main categories: Short; Long and Photo-harmony.  Short related to presentations that were less than 4 minutes in length; Long included presentations exceeding 4 minutes and a Photo-harmony section enabled participants to demonstrate their skills in marrying images through appropriate transitions and strong harmonisation with the sound track. 

We progressed our way through the designated menu and referred to the judge’s comments after each AV to compare our perceptions and conclusions. It soon became obvious that we would not have sufficient time to view all the entries and towards the end of the evening we focused our attention on the winning entries in each category.

As always the subject matter was diverse ranging from documentary type AVs giving an insight into interesting historical scenarios exploring places both in the south west and far further afield to more abstract type productions. The common theme was that each told a story in its own particular way and the skill, patience and creativity that had been used to achieve the final results was evident for all to see. We will look forward to viewing the remaining AVs at a subsequent meeting.

Competition Evening – April 18th 2023

Posted on by

Our fourth and final round of competitions that scored towards the Mayor’s Cup trophies featured Open and Glass set subjects and was judged by Peter Crane from Swindon. The print entries were judged first and the interpretation of the set subject resulted in several entries based on the same idea of still life images of glass items. In some cases the old adage of “less is more” applied with simpler arrangements giving a more balanced composition and greater focus of the viewers attention.

The winning prints were “Angles” by Nigel Walkley in the Glass section and “Saxophonist” in the Open section.

A healthy number of projected images were received and the winning Glass entry was “Bottles and vase” by Jim Bullock and “Double Take” by Dave Garmont winning the Open competition.

Bottles and vase
Double Take

With our Annual Competition around 6 weeks away, members still have plenty of time to compile their strongest entries in pursuit of the various silverware trophies that will be awarded.

Zoom Presentation – April 4th 2023

Posted on by

We were treated to an inspiring and thought provoking talk by Susan Clark from Conwy Camera Club who shared her knowledge and experiences on the topic of “Composition – Rules and Myths”. 

Sue had extensively researched the way in which composition contributes to the impact and visual appeal of an image with some of the so-called rules dating back to ancient times. The Fibonacci rule of numbers was discovered in the 12th century and shows up in nature, human anatomy, structural designs, the shape of spirals etc.  The Golden Ratio is also a mathematical concept that can be seen in landscapes like the Pyramids of Giza through to modern day designs of corporate logos.

Lots of compositional techniques ranging from use of colour, textures, shapes (especially triangles), leading lines, cropping, rule of thirds, flipping images and others were illustrated with myriad examples from the world of art, television, film and photography. The psychology of viewing an image and deriving emotion and aesthetic pleasure during the process can be strongly influenced by the subconscious effect of many of these techniques which permeate our daily lives.

It’s fair to say that we will all look through our camera viewfinder with a refreshed and more educated viewpoint.

Members Evening – March 21st 2023

Posted on by

Our second Members Evening of the season gave attendees the practical opportunity to create images through; i) intentional camera movement (ICM) and ii) abstract macrophotography of oil/water droplets. Whilst ICM is a simple concept, shooting indoors using artificial light does tend to restrict the range of subjects and effects that can be explored.

Getting set up

However, a simple display with a clown puppet in front of a very colourful, patterned backdrop allowed people to experiment with camera settings and a variety of camera movements to suit their artistic goals.

Intentional Camera Movement

A second display featured a glass bowl of water placed on a sheet of glass above a light source with the camera positioned vertically above the water surface. By adding oil droplets and experimenting with different coloured backgrounds beneath the bowl, some pleasing outcomes were achieved. The use of coloured food dyes proved additional scope for creative compositions before they fully dispersed and the process was restarted.

Aside from exploring camera settings and getting refamiliarised with different lens options, the evening also encouraged members to socially interact in a more extensive way than standard meetings allowed and it’s fair to say that we all learned something new, including the folly of buying a cheap glass prism and then struggling to produce a light spectrum.

Competition Evening – March 7th 2023

Posted on by
We hosted our annual Battle with Cricklade Camera Club which was judged by Peter Weaver from Hanham Photographic Society.  Each Club submitted 30 open subject images and half were viewed before a short interval and the remainder thereafter. Each image was scored out of 20 points and scores ranged from 14 points to a couple of 20 point maximums.
At the halfway stage Cricklade had opened up a lead and they never gave this up during the second half to run our winners on the evening and take the cumulative battle scores to 3-2 in their favour.
After the competition, we discussed the various photography training workshops which Cricklade have set up over the spring and summer, to which we were invited to attend.  These ranged from critiquing images, PhotoShop, camera basics, mounting images as well as some specific genres like landscape photography, bird photography etc.

Competition Evening – February 7th 2023

Posted on by

Our third and penultimate round of competitions for the Mayor’s Cups for prints and projected image was judged by Sandie Cox, who is well known to the Club from previous visits both as a judge and a speaker.

The competition subjects were Open and Rural and with the wide definition of the latter subject, some of the images entered into the Open competition would also have fitted well into the Rural category. Several images depicted cold, frosty and foggy scenes indicative of some of the recent weather conditions that we had experienced.

The print competitions received a modest number of entries from the small but enthusiastic core of print photographers and were judged first, with both the print on display and a digital image of the print projected alongside to improve the viewing capability for the audience. The winning open print was Barbury ground squirrel by Nigel Walkley with Stanton park lake from Dave Garmont taking the Rural first place.

Barbury Ground Squirrel

Stanton Park Lake

As expected, the projected images attracted a healthy number of entries and occupied most of the evening’s judging activity. The winning Open image was ‘Waiting for the rain to stop’ by Jim Bullock who also took first place in the Rural category with a composite image taken by mobile phone ‘ Misty vale at first light’.

Waiting for the rain to stop

Waiting for the rain to stop

017_015_Rural_Misty vale at first light

With our final competition in April, the league tables are competitively poised and it’s still all to play for!

 

Zoom Presentation – January 24th 2023

Posted on by

Malcolm Hupman from Corby Photographic Club gave us a presentation entitled “Where I photograph in Great Britain” and had kindly stepped in at short notice. His talk comprised over 300 images taken at a wide range of locations across the length and breadth of Great Britain and was supported with informative and interesting key background details for each location. Starting in his home county of Northamptonshire, Malcolm shared the many locations visited which included stately homes, canals, nature reservoirs, rivers and reservoirs to name but a few.

He then took us on a whistle stop tour around the Home Counties, East Anglia, the South West, North East, Wales, Scotland and the Lake District which was a favourite area and portrayed by many landscapes taken in all the weather conditions that this area encounters. In addition to the informative narrative, Malcolm’s powerpoint slides each included file information on the camera equipment and settings used. A range of cameras had been used from a mobile phone to a point and shoot compact to DSLRs with a variety of mainly short focal length lenses to capture as much of the scene as possible. Some post-processing was done  to improve the colour and sharpen images.

By the end of the evening it really felt like we had been taken on a tour of some of the most scenic locations in Great Britain and undoubtedly a number of places and images will have been familiar to the audience. Hopefully visiting some new and attractive photographic areas will have been stimulated by the talk.

Members Evening – January 10th 2023

Posted on by

Our first meeting of the New Year kicked off with an entertaining and instructive talk by Peter Brogden about why and how to clean DSLR camera sensors.  He started by showing us a house of horrors of poor or non-existent care of cameras and lenses, a sort of Darwin Awards for photographic equipment maintenance.

Cameras are not hermetically sealed boxes and dust will get inside. If you are using a zoom lens each time you zoom in and out you are forcing air, and therefore dust, into the camera. Each time you change a lens then dust can enter the camera. That dust will settle on, not necessarily the sensor, but on the low pass filter that sits in front of the sensor. .
Peter ran through the sequence of cleaning, starting with how to discover if there is dust on the sensor by firstly taking a photo of a blue sky or a piece of paper using a small aperture, say f22. Then in your photo editing software bring down the whites and blacks and the dust will appear as blotches in the image. He made a clear distinction between dust and contamination which can be either water spots or greasy spots.

Firstly the dust should be removed which is a dry cleaning process. Make sure your batteries are fully charged then remove the lens and lock up your mirror to reveal the sensor.  With mirrorless cameras the sensor is usually visible once the lens is removed. To remove dust from the sensor use a ‘blower’ for this. Never use canned and compressed air.  Once the blower stage is completed use a silicone pad and dab it on the sensor four times, once in each corner.

If there is contamination by water or grease, the next stage is a wet clean using swabs and cleaning solution. Swabs are available in different sizes depending on the size of the sensor. After applying a few drops of cleaning solution on the end of the swab, insert it into the camera, start one side of the sensor, swipe across the sensor to the other end, reverse the swab and swipe back to the start.

After a short break, Bob Philpott shared details of his experiences using trail cameras and CCTV to track wildlife. He started off with an inexpensive trail camera to develop his familiarity and experimented with different set ups before moving to more advanced equipment to capture photos and/or video. Video is his preference as it gives an insight into the behaviour of the subject being captured which is more informative than a still image. Some methods to reduce infra-red flare on night images were covered along with ways to secure the camera when installed in a public location. A good deal of time and patience is needed to capture images and once an animal’s behaviour is understood, this increases the likelihood of obtaining pleasing results. His footage included mainly deer, foxes, hedgehogs and an active badger sett.  A specially constructed box with entry and exit points and a camera secured inside had successfully achieved footage of smaller wildlife including field mice, a shrew and a rat exploring the surroundings.

Bob is a keen environmentalist and a member of the RWB Environmental Trust. A key objective of his work is to record wildlife activity and upload this into a national database. This enables not only the general well being of the local environment to be assessed but also provides a means to protect habitats to enable the wildlife to thrive.