Tonight 5 members of SCC travelled to Henfield for the Regnum Crouch annual PI competition. It is a great pity that more members do not attend these events as one sees dozens of pictures which are generally of high quality, which should help inspire one to do better! It is also nice to support one’s club.
This evening we had the last round of the Southern Fed.’s PI competition ( we are in league 7). The Southern Fed. is largely based to the west of us. We joined it years ago to get our club insurance.
Prior to this evening we were lying 2nd , one mark behind Sandhurst.
The Judge for tonight’s competition was David Eastley LRPS who we have had as a judge before at Storrington.
Jerry Webb gave us an evening to remember with his talk showing us a large number of his B&W photographs.
Judge Mike Davison ARPS was warmly welcomed back by our chair Janet Brown.
Mike a member of Chichester Camera Club, formerly a member of this club, now returning as a judge, so poacher turned game keeper!
There were 22 prints attracting a total of twelve, 18s and above, so well done.
Our speaker tonight was Andrew Mills who trained as an artist but then became a professional photographer. He is now retired and he judges Camera Club competitions amongst other things, like travelling. He started by telling us that he was not about to tell us how to take photographs as we all know how to do that, but he emphasised that good pictures would not necessarily please camera club judge. Interesting, because I once attended an RPS workshop to advise on entering a panel for one of their distinctions.
Snow was forecast this evening and had I not have had the job of writing this report, I might have stayed at home in the warm, however, I am very glad that I did not as Bill Brooks LRPS from Bognor CC came to give us a very interesting talk about photo books and early Lady photographers. A light covering of the white stuff was on the ground as we arrived actually.
Janet Brown our chairman enthusiastically welcomed back our judge for the evening Rob de Ruiter from Bognor Regis Camera club, along with some visitors. Janet encouraged us to look at Rob’s website especially in relation to his ARPS panel in the Visual Arts category, this is entitled “Frozen remains” a fascinating interpretation of the subject.
A very Happy New Year everyone. Back again for the start of the New Year.
Janet welcomed us back and then gave out her parish notices.
Tables were set up behind the projector screen for demonstrations on Mount cutting during the tea break by Martin, Janet and Liz.
Then on to the main event which consisted of members showing 10 photographs taken during their best day of photography.
Robert kicked off by showing us 10 colourful prints of Dickens characters taken during A Dickens event in Rochester. They were all very authentic looking and very colourful.
Another year gone! How quickly life moves if you keep busy, and it disappears faster as you grow older. Daisy arrived with a large box of the food, drink and cooking utensils. Our Chairman and Liz also arrived shortly after to help with preparations. Kevin laid out the tables and chairs and before long the rest of the members attending arrived and started to eat the lovely food on offer.
Our Chairman Janet Brown welcomed Lisa Beaney back after a gap of 4 years, introducing her as a talented all round Steyning based photographer with a special interest in wedding and portrait photography backed up by being a member of ASWPP, (Associate in wedding and portrait photography) and then Lisa told us of an interest in teaching Lightroom skills, as a way of enhancing our photos.
A faithful band of six SCC members were present for the 2018 Regnum Print competition.
Liz Kindly took me there early as she and Martin were very involved with helping to hold the event and setting it up.
Martin did all the sound stuff and set up the projection of the PI versions of all the prints.
Liz did all the announcing and did a whole lot more behind the scenes in organising the event.
Only four members of SCC attended this competition at the Kings Hall in Burgess Hill. It was very ably hosted by Mid Sussex Camera Club.
The winning images are on the SxPF website.
The first bit of sad news was that Alec Pelham had died. He was an active member of Mid Sussex CC and was also the Secretary of the Regnum Crouch Committee,
We were very pleased to welcome the self-styled “Lucky” Leo Rich for the first time at our club. Were you convinced by the “lucky”? – no, neither was I. Gary Player was held to be a “lucky” golfer but in reality he was a very good golfer just as Leo Rich is a very good photographer. Player got to the nub of it though with his famous quote above. 10,000 hours and then some in both cases I think.
The first person to arrive tonight was our speaker Collene Slater who had driven all the way from Wales. Luckily she only had to go home to Brighton afterwards. The usual folk from SCC were there and a short time later there was a great gaggle of visitors, who were of course very welcome, A large number of them were from Steyning CC, who are our great friends, plus some Henfield and Worthing members.
This report is late because the really nice sunny weather has kept me away from my computer. However, beware “We’re doomed, doomed I say”, (as Private Frazer in Dad’s Army would say), because we will no doubt pay for it later with a hard winter. This evening we were visited by Graham Sergeant FRPS and Carole Speight ARPS (a regular visitor recently as a judge) who showed us some brilliant AVs, which they had singly or together produced. They have won awards so are amongst the very best around to show us this photographic art form.
Great anticipation as we welcomed Keith Gibson from Lewes to judge this season’s opening competition. Our chair Janet Brown introduced Keith with an outline of his interests in landscape, street and architectural photography, backed up by a keen interest in hiking, travel and local atmospheric scenes.
This evening we were very happy to welcome back Paul O’Toole who has judged several of our competitions in recent times. He is Irish (there’s a surprise!?) and looks just like a shorter version of Chris Evans, but without the very recent birth of Twins. Folk who do not listen to Radio Two will not know what I am talking about.
We started off the first meeting with half the Committee members absent including two vital folk, Martin and Alex, our trusted laptop/ projector operators. Janet not only took her first meeting as Chairlady but also bravely took on the projection. This did not start well as we have a case with all the cables (about 12 of them) and three of us could not identify the correct one to connect the club laptop to the projector. After about 10 minutes we abandoned this approach and as we found a cable that connected Janet's laptop, we proceeded with plan B.
Annual General Meeting 2017-2018.
The first item on the agenda where apologies for absence from David Seddon, Daisy Kane, Martin Tomes, liz Barber, Alex Swyer, and Peter Picthall
I then started the meeting with my last job as joint Chairman - the presentation of the Cups which were won as follows:
“Best of Year” is always an evening of reckoning for our images and never more so than this time when the judge was an unknown quantity to all in the club. Don’t get me wrong – we are all very grateful to Ian Brash for stepping in at the eleventh hour due to Trevor Gellard’s ill health but Forest Gump and chocolates come to mind – “you never know what you’re gonna get”.
Before tonight's talk, we had told other clubs about our speaker, Rob White, and as result we had a room full, including 10 visitors.
Rob was introduced to us by Chris West who used to work for a company in Horsham, and Rob started there as a boy straight from school. Chris left the company, and they lost touch with each other but eventually got reunited through Facebook. (Not all bad then?)
Paul Hayward opened by whetting our appetites for the events of the evening which would see the final results for our competitions of the year. Paul then welcome Malcolm Bull judge for the evening and thanked him for this return visit and for stepping in for Ken Boddy. 24 prints were shown, with wide ranging subjects, pleasing Malcolm for quality and presentation. He held four back, which increased the anticipation.
I went to tonight's meeting expecting a talk about Eastbourne town and wondering what could possibly be of interest there. I soon found out.
The answer came when our speaker, John Staples, the President of Eastbourne Camera Club, put the title of his talk on the screen; we were going to see a selection of work from the permanent Collection of the club’s pictures collected by the speaker from various sources over a very long span of time.
Anne Nagel kindly picked me up in her car and we arrived at the Tangmere Centre Hall in good time. We went inside and were immediately told by a very nice Lady that we would not be charged entry fee, but would we please buy some raffle tickets instead. Inside the hall we found another cheerful lady selling raffle tickets with a big smile on her face. It transpired that they must have sold of good number of tickets as the Hall was pretty full, so Chichester camera club who were running the event must have done quite well we hope.
Tony Worobiec made a very welcome return to Storrington CC to encourage us with the notion “Landscape Photography – whatever the weather”. How appropriate as I sit in the warm writing this watching the rain lashing down outside – but it is a bank holiday after all.
This eagerly awaited competition was postponed from 1st March due to snow.
It was good to welcome back Carole Speight ARPS APAGB, a member of Chichester Camera Club, and local resident in Billingshurst with an interest in landscape photography in various forms, both at home and abroad.
Originally an underwater videographer, Peter found the 100kg excess baggage charges with his equipment difficult, so changed to photography “topside”. He travels the globe searching for that one image in his head. We were taken on a whistle-stop tour from sharks in a tightly packed defensive sardine bait ball, to crocodiles in the Okavango delta, through farmed wild species such as wolf and bobcat in America, to the Arctic for bears and the salmon run, then back home to Pete’s Hampshire Hide Hire business.
Vice Chairman Janet was in charge this evening, as we are training her up for the next two seasons when she takes the Chair. Paul had the dreaded ‘lergy’, so why didn’t you take the meeting as joint Chairman I hear you say. I take the Committee meetings and the AGM and generally chivvy people behind the scenes!
Last night we had a talk from yet another remarkable lady photographerm Viveca Koh FRPS. She is also an amazing artist and has combined her two talents to produce unique and spectacular pictures.
Viveca started her talk by showing us that her photography started at a very early age using her Mother’s Kodak Brownie Box camera, which she still has in her possession. (As a matter of completely uninteresting fact, the same thing exactly happened to me, except that I take extremely ordinary photographs!).
A crackingstart to the competitions of 2018 as Paul Hayward welcomed Ken Scott our judge for the night, member of Steyning camera club and long standing friend to this club. There was an air of expectation together with hope of a good night of helpful comment, critical, discerning assessment and good humour – we were not disappointed.
First off 28 prints with an open subject, which proved to be wide ranging and interesting.
A very Happy New Year to one and all.
I really should not be writing this report as this evenings activity was not for me. Why, I hear you cry? Simple, I do not ‘muck about’ with my images apart from cropping, sharpening, levels, highlights and shadows and clarity.
I do not use layers and am not artistic and therefore I try to take photographs of what I see before me, mainly birds and landscapes.
In a club like ours, you are never going to please all of the people all of the time, like life really.
Well here we are again, 5am, brain working overtime you have got to write a report tomorrow so as you are now fully awake get on with it.
We had a committee meeting a week ago at my house, (running the committee meetings is about the only useful thing I do as joint Chairman), and the Christmas party was discussed. Our brilliant Secretary Daisy volunteered to get the food and drink again, bless her, and David said he would produce a quiz and Liz said she would come up with a picture quiz again.
On Friday evening four SCC members attended the Regnum Print Competition hosted by Littlehampton CC at the Woodlands Hall in Rustington which is a very nice airy hall, well appointed, but with the most uncomfortable seats ever. Come to Storrington CC where we have a choice of two types of seat, both comfortable.
We were assured of an entertaining evening with two Paul’s in charge!
Paul Hayward as chairman, welcomed the return of Paul O’Toole as judge, who brought some of the “Emerald Isle” humour together with skill and perception, as we journeyed through the entries.
In his introduction to the judging, Paul O’Toole shared his thinking behind architecture as a photographic subject and said that black and white bridges were the norm and at the end of judging he added and cathedrals, as 4 were exhibited here in various forms.
Another remarkable Lady showed us her work this evening, following some others who remain in my memory, Vanda Ralevska and Rosie Armes in particular (and some of our own ladies of course). Pete Bamforth once said, whilst giving us one of his special talks, ”the ladies are coming!”
Asrid McGecham LRPS gave us an inspiring talk entitled ’Feel the Land’ which sent me to bed with my head buzzing, but somehow I managed to sleep and started this report at 6am the following morning with a ‘cuppa’.
Here are our winning images.
Yesterday evening we welcomed David Eastley to our club once again to give a critique of our work. This time we had prints and PI’s rather than just PI’s as last year but David’s approach was much the same as previously – but that’s because, even in this era of fake news, the fundamentals haven’t changed and if we get those right we are a long way to successful photography.
So we launch into a new season after a long summer break filled with photo opportunities.
Our new vice chairman Janet Brown welcomed Malcolm Bull as judge, Derek Grieve newly appointed chairman for 2017 sorted the prints in the unavoidable absence of Anne Nagle print secretary, Alex Swyer presented them for judging and marking, then later Alex presented the projected images in his own inimitable way.
I knew that we were going to see some stunning photographs as I had looked at Richard Peters website before our meeting, but I did not know what a complete treat we were all going to have with his talk.
The first meeting of the season went well, with plenty of banter, especially as it was David Seddon's 65th birthday the day before, and he had foolishly offered to buy everyone's teas and coffees. Daisy had come up trumps with a cake as well, so the break was even better.
The main part of the evening was billed as a series of Members' summer images. There were ten presentations in all, with a great deal of variety. I will apologise right now for not taking any notes at the time, so I am a little vague on some of the presentations.
The AGM followed the same routine as usual with one major change-I was in theChair.
During my report for the year I mentioned how much we appreciated Jane Coward arranging the Coffee mornings and I also thanked John Gauvin for giving us a series of tutorials on Lightroom and I gave them each a small token of our thanks.
I nearly did not come to this meeting as I had a nasty tooth extraction on Tuesday and felt rubbish up to midday on Thursday.
I was immediately asked to do the write up as Audrey was AWOL and Chris was busy ‘up front’; no problem, I enjoy doing the write ups.
Andy Beel FRPS is an acknowledged virtuoso in monochrome photography – folklore has it that he holds the world record for going from zero to FRPS so it was a coup to have him talk to us. In fact not only did we all enjoy his talk on Thursday evening but we also had a workshop on the Friday. I’m going to find it tricky to sort out a write-up between the two events.
I arrived at the football clubhouse a little later than usual to find a small band of members huddled together in the car park. Anne rushed forward to say that she might have put the wrong code in the security keypad and now they could not get in (rest assured Anne that would not happen), So I tried a couple of times as well to no avail. I then tried to ring the caretaker’s number which I had from some years back, but being Storrington no signal.
The competition was held as usual at the Kings Centre,Burgess Hill which unlike its surroundings is a really nice hall.
It was a beautiful sunny afternoon and frankly I would have been far happier elsewhere enjoying the wonderful weather.
However, we were shown some really great pictures, 210 if my maths are correct. The prints were all displayed nicely in an adjacent hall before the main event.
Southwick CC ran the event very well and we had three accessors: Alison Cawley ARPS DPAG EFIAP; Martin Fairs, and Caroline Colgate ARPS.
We were treated to some wonderful railway photography fromNick Gilliam - who had previously been a guest at the club as he lives just up the road in Ashington. Nick has had many of his photographs published in the national magazines devoted to steam railways – and this is no mean feat as Railway Photography is such a popular genre.
We were recently invited to join in this 4 way competition with the camera clubs of Rottingdean (our hosts) Southwick and Steyning and 4 of our members attended. Each club submitted 10 images which were shown and marked in random order – which made it difficult to work out where we stood as the evening progressed – rather like a 400 metre race where the leader is not revealed until the bend has unwound.
The Crouch Projected Image competition was hosted bySteyning and held at The Henfield Hall, Henfield. Ten members of SCC attended.
The Crouch Projected Image competition was hosted by Steyning and held at The Henfield Hall, Henfield. Ten members of SCC attended.
We were pleased to welcome Mike Davison ARPS, an ex-memberof our club, to judge the final round of this season’s competitions. We had open subject PIs preceded by prints with the set subject “Abstract”.
