Club News

Our first PI competition took place this week with 73 images submitted for scrutiny. For some this was a new experience, for others old hat, but just as hard for old and new alike. A new judge was selected for this first competition of the season, John Staples ARPS. The evening started with a run through of all the submitted images as requested by the judge, so he could get a feel of the pictures. Personally I think this is a wrong way to judge, as a preformed opinion can be formed on certain images rather than marking them one at a time.

We welcomed back Leslie who has become an annual attraction in our calender of events. This evening was devoted to layers. Some people (including me) have some difficulty in understanding the concept of layers. If I had had Leslie explaining them to me before I would have picked it up much faster. Leslie teaches Photoshop Elements at Lodge Hill Computer Centre, Coldwaltham, Pulborough if anyone is interested in improving their skills.

This second evening of our new season has been set aside for members to give a slide show of their 'stuff'.

We had lovely flower images from Daisy; A taste of Morroco from Chris West; A tripto Germany from Peter Pictall; A holiday in Iceland from Peter Michell; A boat trip to the Northern lights from Audrey all before the break.

Afterwards, Chairperson Di chose her favorite print from those entered and Charmaine Hayes won the bottle of wine for her image of a surfer (her son?) taken by her whilst in the sea herself.

Our first meeting of the season was very successful mainly because of the very encouraging number of new members who signed up to join us. Jane Coward nearly wore her pen out writing receipts. We have sadly lost two members to our friends at Steyning. Tim and Clive both felt that they would get more of what they want for their photography at Steyning which is a bigger club and offers more workshops and speakers. Both of them had committee jobs at Storrington and we are very grateful for all the work that they did for us.

Saturday dawned quite brightly but by lunch time dark and threatening clouds were very much in evidence and the Chairman person was visibly twitching in case she had to dash out and bring all the seat cushions indoors.

The evening started with the presentationof the cups for last year's competitions.

Walter Benzie, having giving a talk earlier in the season,came back to adjudicate the 'Best of the Year' for both Prints and PI's, with Martin taking the Print title and Paul taking PI.

At his suggestion we allowed Walter to allocate 1st, 2nd, 3rd and Highly Commended in this competition, rather than our normal method of allocating points, feeling that it was right in this contest as there is no league positions to be contested.

Print Competition

The third and final PI competition of the season was judged by John Lynch. This was the first time John had judged one of our competition and it was fascinating to see another style of judging.

For some time (years), I have been suggesting to successive fixture secretaries that I have a friend in Arundel who is a Theatre photographer who had said to me that he would come to camera club and give a talk on his work. This always fell on deaf ears.

However, we had a spare slot and Chairperson Di said “what about your friend Mike Eddowes filling the void?” And so I arranged it.

We held our judged by the members panels evening again this year. We don't get a judge in, everyone present is given a peice of paper and required to score each panel as it is shown.

Putting a panel together isn't about picking your three best images and presenting them all at once, it is about finding three images which work well together. That might mean similar shapes or colours or some other unifying theme.