Our first night of the new season was very well attended with over 30 bodies including four new faces who we hope will join us permanently. They will be most welcome.
Chris West, our new Chairman, confessed immediately that he had never been to a first night before as he had always been on holiday. So, not knowing really what had gone before he took matters into his own hands and told us all about himself and his family, finishing with his latest Photographic Experiences.
After telling us about his career and that he had previously been Chairman of the local Lions Club, Chris went on to take us through some of the highlights of the new season, which as programme secretary he had of course arranged. He also introduced the members of the committee. Worth mentioning here perhaps is that the two set subjects for this year are ''Black and White’ for prints and ‘Sussex’ for the PIs.
One item which was suggested at the AGM was to have some sessions to help people thinking of trying for RPS distinctions. Ray Foxlee our new Vice Chairman has stepped up to arrange these and appealed to any members who would like this support (to be given by others with distinctions) to let him know. Ray pointed out that we now have seven members with distinctions, plus two or three more in the pipeline, which is a very good number for such a small club. Steyning fall short of us for instance. We always have had a really good relationship with Steyning and have regarded them as rivals, forgetting perhaps that they now have over twice our membership.
Martin Tomes then gave us a presentation on the preparation of PIs. We have a pretty poor record on getting these right and as Martin pointed out, if we get them right then they look their best when projected. On several occasions in the past the projector has been blamed for unsharp images for instance when actually the fault lay with preparation. In future Martin needs the memory sticks in at the right time and he will check them and e-mail anyone who has made a mistake so they have a chance to rectify things. On our sticks will be a copy of the software Martin devised (for PCs and not Macs) which only requires you to give the titles and competition number and the gismo does all the rest for you!
We also had a discussion about the new requirements for our entries to the Sussex Fed competitions. In future we are going to have to enter 16 pictures (in both prints and PIs) divided into two sections with 8 in each: The first set will be for our 'best photographers' with our first choice images and the second will be for 'all comers', except any of those with entries in the first category.The Committee thought that this is going to be a tall order for a small club like ours as it is going to make selection a different ball game; but I am sure we will give it our best effort and see what happens. As was pointed out, it will give some of our less experienced photographers a chance to have their pictures entered into County competitions which might encourage more people to attend the events.
After the break, Chris gave us a slide show of some of his latest photographic masterpieces. He has been changing a lot of his images to B W and has been very pleased with his results. He has also discovered the ‘Square’ format which he likes. He has been doing some candid street photography with a small Canon camera (a Nikon user finally seeing the light!). To end his presentation, he showed us a series of pictures of his Grandchildren which were really lovely.
Thank you Chris for a very entertaining evening, during which we discovered who you really are.