General Notes from the Secretary
The new photographic year is now well under way. By way of introduction I thought might be a good idea to let you know of the members of your new Committee for this year.
- Rolf Rowling — Chairman
- Alf Taylor — Honorary Treasurer
- Peter Picthall — Honorary Secretary
- Derek Grieve — Print Secretary
- Ian MacWhirter — Slide Secretary
- Mike Davison — Program Secretary
- Paul Hayward — Member
- Barry Hammond — Member
- Martin Tomes — Member
- A. N. Other — Vice Chairman
We really do need to have more people who will take on some of the responsibilities of running the club. Rolf can not continue after the next AGM, our rules do not allow it, and Alf have said that although he can contiune by the rules he doe not want to continue. This is serious because if nobody volunteers it could lead to complications and a club cannot function properly without a Chairman and a Treasurer.
You may find some new ideas being put forward, such as the Worthing photographic evening with a throw away camera and the Bosham outing with personal cameras. Both events were very well supported and I am sure that there will be further outings organised as the year goes on.
Your committee has taken the decision to create three “honorary members” for their significant contributions over many years to the running of the Club. They are Dennis Mace, Eric Keevey, and Hal Randall. They have a wealth of knowledge about this club and also are quite smart at photography as well.
Our Treasurer Alf Taylor is collecting all outstanding subscriptions; please contact him if you haven’t yet paid him for your annual subscription.
Slide Competition
Looking at the entry for the same event last year, I expected a very quiet beginning to the season but was pleasantly surprised. We had 24 slide entries, equaling the maximum entry of any of last year’s competitions. With the advance of Digital, slide entries everywhere have sadly been in decline in recent years and print entries increasing. Using a projector to show digital images has not yet replaced slides to any great extent – partly because of cost but also the relatively low resolution provided by most projectors. As with all new things electronic, costs will rapidly decline and quality improve.
As this competition was “any subject” it produced a wide variety of images. Wildlife, Still life, Landscape, Portrait, Record and Creative were all represented – giving the judge a difficult task, which he tackled with skill and good humor.
Jean MacWhirter came out on top with 18 (Arctic Fox) and 20’s (Gentoo Penguin & chick) and (Falkland Thrush) the latter being chosen “Best Slide”. Derek Grieve got 19 for a beautiful landscape (The Tree) and 18 for a portrait (The Guide) and another 18 (Rusty Links). Seven 17’s were awarded and six 16’s so although Jean is in the lead at this early stage she hasn’t done a “Chelsea FC” and opened up an unbridgeable gap – there is a large hungry pack snapping at her heels! The next competition’s subject “Water” may well see changes in the league table.
Ian MacWhirter
Print Competition
We had a very good evening with a good selection of entries and importantly a very good judge in Eric Burchell from Littlehampton club.
We also had a very popular winner in Sue Worsfold. She joined us last year almost as a beginner, is our youngest member and probably the keenest. Her picture was entitled ‘Sun searching flyer, waiting on the Wire’. It was a stunning picture of a dragonfly sitting on a barbed wire. The detail in the insect was amazing, particularly in the wings. VERY well done Sue.
There were two further 20’s, ‘City Scape’ by Mike Davison, a really interesting picture of some city office buildings with lots of windows, and the other, my picture of a ‘Heron in Flight’
Then we had two 19’s, an amazing picture of hundreds if not thousands of penguins in ‘St Andrews Bay South Georgia’ by Ian MacWhirter, and my ‘Morning Mist Bury’.
We had a good number of 18’s, ‘Roe Deer and Fawn’ by Ian, ‘Grand Canyon’ by Paul Hayward, ‘Porcelain Fungus’ by Ian, and finally ‘Step by Step’ by Alf Taylor. Well done to all of them.
After tea break, we tried using an epidiascope, brought by Eric, to show the end prints so that everyone could see what the judge was saying about each picture. We decided that Littlehampton could keep their machine and we will think again about a way to achieve our objective.
And the winner was… Sue Worsfold with a very good shot of the Red Arrows (the best Eric had seen), with Paul Hayward, our reigning champ, second with his ‘Shadows’ and third Margaret Gregory’s ‘Waiting for the Guests’. Well done to all of them too. There were also a very good number of entries, which is encouraging.
Altogether a very good evening.
Derek Grieve.