Storrington Camera Club

Storrington Camera Club meets on alternate Thursdays from September through to May at The Football Pavilion, Chanctonbury Leisure Centre, Spierbridge Road, Storrington, West Sussex, RH20 4PG at 7:30pm. All are welcome, most of our members are from Storrington, Pulborough, West Chiltington, Washington or Ashington.

Our Activities

Our programme covers various aspects of picture taking, presentations of high quality images, competitions and workshops. Our members are interested in making prints and projected images using digitial technology and film.

Di does it again!

Meeting Report

Meeting:

Summer Barbecue

One thing after another. First the visit to the British Wildlife centre, followed a week later by the Annual Exhibition, followed yet another week on by the Barbeque.

Held once more at Chairman Di Walker's home, which each year sees more floral delights added. Di herself worked very hard to make sure that nothing was forgotten, checking and rechecking things like the paper napkins, the reserve cutlery (for people who forgot to bring their own, like me!), the cream for the deserts, the sauces, the cushions, etc, etc. There was a minor panic mid week because we seemed to have too few chairs. So there were two visits to Paul and Pat's to collect two more tables and some chairs and Pat kindly rang several people to ask them to bring their own chairs. Result, there were enough chairs for a lot of people to put their feet up on a second chair! Di's partner John came over from France in a van laden with still more chairs, Boxes of cheap but fine French wine, and a bucket full of his own home grown pommes de terre, which he later scrubbed and cooked. He also prepared other delights for us like the garlic bread.

Visit to the British Wildlife Centre at Lingfield Friday 9th July 2010

Meeting Report

Meeting:

Wild life visit to Lingfield

The group at work Fourteen members of the club (strictly 13 plus a wife) visited the British Wildlife Centre at Lingfield arriving at about 9.30am for a 'cuppa' before a briefing about what we could expect to see during our visit.

The centre was started by a farmer who grew tired of rising ealy each morning to milk his cows and decided to turn the farm over to a place where the public could come and see exclusivly British wildlife, unlike most zoos and safari parks which contain animals from all over the world. It is self funding with the profits being ploughed back to improve the content and the facilities each year.

We were lucky enough to have Izzy for the day and she started by dividing us up into two groups (there were 19 of us altogether as we were joined by 5 other people).

Annual Exhibition 2010

Our annual exhibition takes place this weekend on Saturday the 17th July. See our programme for more information.

Flyer

Eric Burchell Judges Again!

Meeting Report

Meeting:

4th Print Competition - Any Subject

Eric Burchell joined us again to judge the final print competition of the season. Not as controversial as some of our judges this season, in fact he was very generous with his marking, 2x15s, 10x16s, 14x17s, 9x18s, 5x19s, 6x20s.

It would appear that birds of all varieties were his favourite subject of the night, but out of left field came Jane Coward with her Funnel Web Spider Boy who triumphed on the night. Eric commented that capturing the moment was all important and that to avoid “record” pictures for competition.

There were some exceptional pictures this week, Ian Mac getting two 20s and a 19. All birds, no surprise there, with my particular favourite “Pheasant in Snow” which was superb.

Peter Michell with his birds of a different variety, was also in form with a 20 and two 19s. “Fiona” was stunning, as were the pictures.

Derek also focussed on nature scoring one of each, 18, 19, and 20. He let us into the secret of his 20 “Merlin in Snow Storm” saying that the handler had to lie on the ground while he took the shot. The result was a wonderful picture of a rare bird, apparently in the wild. Thanks for the tip Derek.

ExAv - Our Entry

Here is our entry for the ExAv evening at Steyning on 23rd May 2010. For the best viewing go full screen and choose the 720p HD option (use the buttons at the bottom right of the player).

A Daisy Double

Meeting Report

Meeting:

Best of Year Competition

Judge Don Mitchell ARPS

Don judged this competition with his normal good humour, announcing at the start that he didn't like Portrait, Landscape, Natural History or for that matter any other genre of photography except steam locomotives. Don revealed he has been judging for over 40 years and is currently the President of Bognor Regis Camera Club. The confidence of Don to mark images as seen and not 'Hold Back' any is his testament to those 40 years of judging. With both the PI & Print Best of the Year competitions to be judged we had a lot to get through. It didn't help that the software crashed on the second image marked and it took several minutes to recover the situation. As it happened, judging ended ahead of schedule confirming that experienced judges are excellent time keepers as well.

53% of Members score 18 or more

Meeting Report

Meeting:

4th Projected Image Competition - Any Subject

Judge Graham Smith ARPS

What an improvement! Graham managed to achieve an incredible 50% increase in the percentage of images he marked in the 18-20 range. On his last visit he marked 36% of our images in his range, this time a whopping 53% achieved our top scores. An improvement on this scale will mean we all achieve those elusive big scores. More seriously, Graham is always generous in his marking and a look back at the previous competitions he has judged will bear testimony to this.

Best Print of Year 2009/10

Meeting Report

Meeting:

Best of Year Competition

Don Mitchell A.R.P.S. Just as judging is a personal view, so is report writing, and the authors assessment of the competition. In my humble opinion Don Mitchell was in top form judging our prints and projected images, with concise critiques of each picture focussing on technical detail and composition rather than the common trait we have experienced from some judges of lengthy descriptions of the content of the picture.

The marking could be described as harsh, but this after all was Best of Year, and there were considerable variations from the original score a print received to that received in this competition, which either reveals that our earlier judges were to say the least generous, or that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I leave you to be the Judges of that.

The winner this year was Daisy Kane with her “Hot Air Balloon”. Don said that of all the competitions he has judged this year, this picture would always stand out as one of the best. High and well deserved praise indeed. How Daisy is going to follow this years success I don’t know, at least for photographers like myself the only way is up!