Members Evening – March 21st 2023

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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.

Christmas Dinner – December 13th 2022

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Members met at The Angel Hotel for their Christmas Dinner and enjoyed good food, wine and company.  With everyone being “off duty” and no-one bringing along their SLRs, it was down to the serving staff to take some pictures on a mobile phone to record the event.

We now have a break to recharge the batteries and meet again on Tuesday 10th January 2023 for a Members Evening.

Merry Christmas

Xmas Dinner 2022

Competition Evening #2 – November 29th 2022

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Our second competition of the season included an Open section and a themed section of “Shadows”.  It was very competently judged by Peter Orr ARPS who gave detailed and constructive feedback on the images and also added background information, particularly for the wildlife images on show. Both sections attracted a healthy number of entries with widely differing interpretations of the subject matter. Prints were judged first and a digital projection of each print was used for the first time. This enabled the audience to have a better view of the print content but it was the physical mounted print that was being judged. 

The winning print entries were as follows:

– Open Prints “Stag” by Nigel Walkley

Prints Open "Stag"

Prints Open “Stag”

– Shadows Prints “Shining example” by Nigel Walkley

Prints Shadows "Shining example"

Prints Shadows “Shining example”

After a short break, the projected images were judged and the winning entries were as follows:

– Open DPI “Rust in pieces” by Dave Bound

Open Prints “Rust in pieces”

– Shadows DPI “Colourful shadows” by Peter Hodgson

Shadows DPI "Colourful Shadows"

Shadows DPI “Colourful Shadows”

This concludes our formal programme and the final activity of the year will be the Christmas Dinner on December 13th which will be held at The Angel Hotel. It only remains to wish our Club and Facebook members Best Wishes for a Merry Christmas and a Healthy New Year.

Presentation “My Portraiture Journey” – November 15th 2022

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Terry Walters from Swindon Photographic Society gave an inspiring talk on his journey in portraiture photography with over 140 images of his work. Starting from Club photography sessions with models, he moved onto working with both amateur and professional models in a variety of locations including disused warehouses, ruined castles, reenactment events to beaches. His competitive nature and quest for different or unusual images takes him off the beaten track to find them and his work has gained wide recognition with just under 900 images accepted in international exhibitions gaining EFIAP, EPSA and BPE2 accreditation.

 

A variety of lighting set ups were covered ranging from natural light in both indoor and outdoor settings through to stroboscopic lighting to achieve the desired effects against challenging backgrounds. Guidelines and protocols for working with models were outlined along with the pros and cons of working with amateur v professional models and also being able to handle unexpected moments which were the subject of several anecdotes.

 

When Terry arranges a model shoot he takes along his “props box” which provides a never ending range of items to adorn the models and create the exact image that he is looking for.  Props ranged from clothing items, smoke grenades and imitation firearms to name but a few. 

 

A selection of prints were displayed during the interval which members could examine up close and fully appreciate their quality.

DPIC Evening – November 1st 2022

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The slideshow produced by the Western Counties Photographic Federation of the top entries into their 2022 annual digital projected images competition was viewed and featured entries from the top 10 clubs across the region and the overall winning entries. Over 100 images were viewed spanning many photographic genres and as expected the quality of images was impressive with many having been taken around the globe in some exotic locations.

The travel theme was continued after the interval when we viewed a recorded lecture by Sue O’Connell entitled “Travels in Mongolia”. This described the visits Sue and her husband made to the Altay mountains in the far west of the country, where they spent time with the eagle hunters and attended the annual Eagle Hunting Festival, followed by travelling to the Gobi desert in the south. Over the 45 minutes Sue gave a great insight into the main characteristics of Mongolian culture, their way of life, cuisine, customs and particularly the strong relationship and mutual dependence upon their livestock to survive the very harsh and unforgiving environment.