This members’ evening was the brainchild of David Seddon andit was he who supplied the 3 photographs which provided the sow’s ear to silk purse challenges of the evening. So thank you for all that David – pity you couldn’t be there to witness the mayhem which ensued.
Chairman for the evening Paul Hayward, welcomed Paul O’Toole fromWorthing on a return visit as our judge for the evening. Paul presented as a judge with an easy going manner, humour and discernment with comments from which we could all learn and enjoy our photography. He was appreciative of those photographers who had gone out on a limb to try new ideas and techniques. Paul commented that the marks that he gave would reward such efforts. He was very free with his tips on digital improvements.
Tonight, we had another return visit from Ken Scott ARPS who has visited us about once a season for a great number of years either as a first class judge or to give us one of his inspirational lectures.
It was good to see so many people at Sue Bishop’spresentation although the home supporters were almost outnumbered by visitors. We welcomed some new faces and friends from Steyning and Bognor Camera Clubs –and even Mrs Co-Chairman was there. Storrington members are clearly keen to miss the worst of the winter – I know of members in Costa Rica, South Africa and Florida at the moment and there may be more elsewhere – this is why we were a bit thin on the ground.
Rob de Ruiter returned yet again (he has been appearing so often recently that I am wondering if he wants to join SCC. However, after the marks he gave me in the last PI competition he has got no chance-only joking), to judge our round of the Southern Photographic Federation PI competition.
And very welcome he was as usual as he is one of the better judges that visit us.
Last night was the last meeting in 2016 and time for a 'knees up', or so Diana Newnes thought when I offered to bring her.
Instead, she was quizzed, but well fed thanks to Daisy who came loaded with food and drink. Anne helped her put the food out and start heating the punch, whilst our Quiz Masters Liz and Janet set out tables, chairs and Quiz sheets and generally prepared us for our entertainment.
Chairman for the evening Paul Hayward warmly welcomed Rob deRuiter our judge with an open competition for prints and set subject of “Speed” for projected images. After saying how pleased he was to return to Storrington and some early banter, Bob described us as a “lively bunch”, who would want to argue with that I wonder?
Prints were first out with 28 in total, of which 6 reached the top range of marks earned by just 4 exhibitors, so quite an achievement, well done to Anne Nagle, Di Walker, Chris West and Ray Foxlee.
I am a creature of habit, not always good habits, and I awoke at 4am this morning and started thinking about reporting on last nights visit from Peter Bamforth.
It was no good; downstairs to get a pad (not an ipad) and start writing to get the stuff out of my head. Having done that, down again to make a mug of hot Horlicks, back up, read my book and then fall asleep with glasses on, book on the floor, until 6.30am.
Only 3 of our members attended this event on Saturday afternoon at the Kings Centre in Burgess Hill, which was very disappointing. Last year at one of the Sussex Fed competitions about a third of our membership turned out and we did very well on that occasion. However, I do not think more members would have given us a better result this afternoon!
We welcomed back Roger Crocombe ARPS to give us another of his talks, this time on HDR (his notes for this topic will be available on our website for those who missed tonight).
Modern Digital cameras do not capture as much Dynamic range as Film did and so if you are photographing a scene where there are extremes of light and shade, you will only get detail in either the light areas or the dark areas, but not in both. This is where HDR will sort out this problem.
Welcome once again to David Eastley – not to judge acompetition but to give a critique of our efforts. No prints this time but all PDIs – and over 60 to view so a full evening.
It’s always a pleasure to welcome Bob Webzell to the club torun the rule over our images. His perceptive comments and sardonic humour always make for an enjoyable evening. Being the first competition of the season it was good to welcome new and returning members to the competition scene – well done to you for “diving into the deep end”.
Prints went first as usual with 28 entries of which 16 made 18 or above for a mention in dispatches–the opinions here are Bob’s as noted during the evening.
Dudley Williams was our guest speaker this evening and there were three new faces as well, two of whom joined the club. Kevin Harwood who lives in Storrington and Pat Arculus who has rejoined us having been a member several years ago. Both of you are very welcome and we hope that you enjoy what we have to offer.
The first meeting was well attended by members, but sadly only one potential new member arrived. We had hoped for at least three.
Our last meeting of the season was quite well attended, with most others not present for good reasons.
Chairman Chris opened proceedings by telling us the sad news that liz Barber fell whilst doing some winning shots in Scotland and has badly damaged her wrist. We all wish her a very speedy recovery
Then on with the proceedings. First apologies followed by approval of last year’s minutes.
Time now for Chris’s report. He said how much he had enjoyed being Chairman of our club and went on to tell us about the high points and the low.
Rob de Ruiter ARPS and his guest, Carolyn joined us for Best of Year.
Currently the President of Bognor Regis Camera Club, Rob brought along his successful ARPS panel, as I had suggested we see this after an evening at Bognor when these images absolutely captivated me. He described the process he had taken to achieve this distinction, and told a couple of stories around the 'photography'. If you missed it, or would like to see it again, the panel is available here.
This evening was organised by Daisy Kane and she asked six more members to join her in showing the rest of the club where they would like to take the club to do some photography.
The evening started with Chris congratulating the club on its recent success in the County competitions.
It was good tosee such a gathering of Storrington members at the Barn Theatre in Southwick last night for the 2016 Regnum Crouch Projected Image competition. Before the main event started I’m sure we had already won the prize for the highest proportion of a club’s membership in attendance. It was especially good to see the MacWhirters whose house move has kept them from club evenings recently.
Eight members of SCC (25% of our members) attended the Sussex Federation print competition at Burgess Hill on Saturday afternoon and I suspect that most of us expected that we would end up being placed 10th or 12th as usual. However, we were in for a great surprise, as my e-mail to Chairman Chris on Sunday morning explained:
Dear Chris
I am extremely proud to be able to report to you our outstanding performance at Burgess Hill yesterday afternoon when our club was placed 3rd overall.
Originally billed as a panel competition, this was changed to a stand alone PI competition due to a lack of interest in panels within the clubs members. Each person could enter 4 separate PIs for “Every Picture Tells a Story”, and the 3 year rule was waived, certainly allowing Ray to enter a 40 year old image.
When the idea of titles came up at committee level,
Having arrived from Mexico that morning I was more thanhappy that Janet was chairing this meeting as I dozed along coming to terms with a 6 hour time difference and a 28 degree (centigrade!) temperature difference between getting on and getting off the plane. Then at half time Derek took me to one side saying he was going home as he wasn’t feeling well and would I write up the report – more attention needed from then on! Derek has provided his first half report (thank you Derek) – I’ll use that as notes for those times when I was a bit adrift, mid Atlantic.
Keith Gibson, fromKingston near Lewes came to judge our final competition round. New to us, Keith has been involved in photography for 40 years, specialising in landscapes both monochrome and colour. A science teacher by trade, he has 20 years judging experience, and it certainly showed.
We were a bit thin on the ground for our third competition night. Several members were away, and several more had been struck down with various “lurgies”. Thus it was up to the stalwart few to try and make enough noise to welcome Glyn Edmunds back. It was certainly a more subdued occasion, but we did our best to lift the mood for Glyn.
We were pleased to welcome Ken Scott ARPS back to the club to give his new lecture “It’s All in the Mind”. Ken is a man of many parts. We know him through his photographic work which includes lecturing, judging Camera Club and County wide competitions and as the author of books on photography. He also organises the training of photography judges in our region and we all know how difficult their task is from our “I’ll be the Judge of That” evening. Outside of photography Ken is a keen mountaineer, a qualified cricket coach and by profession a psychologist.
David Eastley LRPS came to judge our round of the Southern Fed. Projected Image League competition tonight, which is an annual fixture.
There are 7 clubs in our league and each club enters 8 images. So 56 pictures to be judged.
Once again our Chairman has come up with something new which was thoroughly enjoyed by everyone present. Ever since he joined the Committee a few years ago, Chris has come up with new ideas which were new to our Camera club
The evening started with a few parish notices. Liz was thanked for managing and setting up the display in the Library and again this week for setting up a great display of our prints in the square at Storrington. We hope that all will have a look as it is a brilliant way of letting the people know what we get up to.
Sadly, the final meeting in 2015 was poorly attended, as we had a very nice evening.
I arrived to put out too many chairs, as it turned out, to find Daisy delivering bags full of goodies forus to eat and drink. Unfortunately she was feeling unwell (she was chauffeured by her Son who has just passed his test) and so she retired homeward. ( We have since learned that she is now feeling better.) So Anne then took charge of things and heated up the mulled wine and set out all the platters of fine grub.
LastThursday we welcomed Paul O'Toole for our second competition night. He described himself as one of Ken Scott's baby judges, and progressed into judging because he felt it was hard to be critical of judges if you weren't prepared to put yourself up there. I think this baby judge has grown up quite a lot, and can now at least call himself a junior judge! The evening was amusing, and gave a lot of food for thought photographically.
Graham Smith ARPS presented his retrospective “60 Years ofFollowing my Eyes” at our recent meeting. Graham has judged our competitions in the past but this is the first time he has given a talk to our club.
This evening we were very privileged to have Vanda Ralevska who gave us a talk entitled ‘Landscape Photography’, a very ordinary title for an extraordinarily evening full of many Ordinary things photographed Extraordinarily.
Two of our members had individual success at Saturday’s County wide competition (18 clubs took part) and our team results were none too shabby either.
Roger Crocombe ARPS returned to us to give us a very detailed and well prepared talk on how we should approach any subject that we want to photograph by preparing ourselves in advance in a structured way. He showed us a series of slides showing the procedures which I will not try to repeat here as Roger said that he would make his talk available with slides on our website.
“First catch your hare” – the famous recipe instruction applies equally well to Nature Photography – be the quarry animal, vegetable or mineral. Our nature photographers travel the world in search of great shots of elusive prey – some even venturing to Norfolk. Last night’s meeting showcased the club’s nature photography with the first half dedicated to the work of Derek Grieve LRPS with the second half of shorter presentations from four others.
So we met again for the start of a new season, and a new format for competitions.
Ray, our vice-chairman, was in charge this evening as Chris is away with his family for a while.
He introduced our guest speaker, Lisa Beaney, who came to judge one of our competitions last season. Lisa hails from Steyning, and is a Wedding Photographer, together with her Husband Phil, and is an award winner in Wedding photography, Fashion and Glamour, and Portrait photography, together with an ARPS with the Royal Photographic Society. According to Ray she is ‘certified’ to instruct in Adobe Lightroom!
Well here we are again, after what can only be described as a very mixed summer. The first meeting was very well attended and we welcomed six new faces, who we hope will join as members. I would ask them to come to some more meetings before they make their minds up, as the first meeting of the season is hardly typical. New folk are sometimes put off by the sight of big mounted prints. We are a bunch of friendly people who enjoy their photography, but who do not take things too seriously. Photography is to be enjoyed.
The meeting was not very well attended, but we welcomed a new member, David Richardson, who had been a member of the club in the 1990s. I arrived a little sad as I has heard that at least three members were leaving us, but left much happier.
Chairman Chris decided to kick off with the presentation of the cups.They were awarded as follows:
APSA, EPSA, EFIAP/s, ABIPP, ARPS, APAGB joined us to judge our Best of Year. A very highly qualified photographer, he explained that his favourite set of letters was receiving recognition from the USA. He remarked on how many good strong images the club was fielding for our best of year competitions, with a lot of monochrome. There was a good selection, and a relatively narrow band of marks. At the end of the evening Glyn showed us a real variety of his work, which was a real treat.
We had three and a half presentations from club members Ray, David, Martin and Chris.
First up was Ray Foxlee talking to us about different methods for producing Black and White images.
Today turned out to be another beautiful sunny day after a chilly start.
A dozen of us assembled at about 11.30am and set off into the gardens at Highdown. We were met almost immediately by some very colourful tulips in all their glory, and the few of us with tripods!, set them up and the shoot began.
Our final print competition of the season was judged by Roger BathardLRPS. He held back a dozen images, and several scored 18 or 19 straight away as well. With just five of the held backs left to score, Roger decided he wanted to go home, but did manage to make his final deliberations. He did say he preferred to just choose the top three, but managed to give us a good spread of marks from 14 to 20. Common themes were the size of the subject in the frame, and subjects placed centrally, but there was nothing really bad!
We were shell shocked by the huge number of images and prints that we had seen, and confused because we had no idea what scores we had been given or what place we were in the two categories. This was still the case three days later as we had been told that the results would be published on Saturday evening. The scores had not obviously arrived three days later as I write this. The suspense is killing!!? Update: I now find that they had been revealed to other members of the club, but they have kept them from me, and then they expect me to write a report!!? [Ed. I did send them to you]
I am afraid that you have me again reporting on this competition because Janet is away, no doubt paddling frantically to avoid being swept away by strong currents in some far off very wet place. I used to do the print reports when I was Print Secretary and it was a lot easier because I had already seen all the entries.
Tony Worobiec FRPS was our guest speaker this evening. Some of us saw him when Steyning CC had Tony as their guest speaker before Christmas when he gave a talk on BW photography, the one he was originally booked to give to us! So we knew we were in for a great evening, and so it was.
Tony’s talk was entitled ‘The Art of Composition’ and he started by making a few funnies about his surname and other stories to get our attention.
Tonight it was SCC’s turn to host the Crouch Shield P.I. Competition at the Steyning Centre. Daisy and Janet did the meeting, greeting and relieving attendees of their cash. Jean and Ian further removed money, by selling raffle tickets for the fine array of prizes. In the Kitchen, Anne was in charge of half time refreshments, ably assisted by Liz, Steve and Paul.
The 3rd Print competition was judged last Thursday by Rob de Ruiter ARPS from Bognor Regis Camera Club. Working to the set subject of Monochrome it was not a huge entry, but the standard was exceedingly high, and it was a tough one for Rob to assess. He started out by saying that he was interested in the attitude to BW photography, and recommended a couple of books on the subject (perhaps someone could tell me what they were?). Throughout the evening he gave tips on which images lend themselves to monochrome.
Tonight, we were treated to a visit by Roger Crocombe ARPS, who is the current Chairman of Bognor CC. He gave us a very in depth and very interesting talk on the basics of understanding the requirements for taking properly exposed and sharply focused images with a DSLR camera.
Last Thursday we welcomed Catherine Jolley LRPS LBIPP to our 3rd PI competition. Hailing from Littlehampton Camera Club, Catherine is a Wedding, Portrait and Fashion photographer. She described her role on the evening not as judging us, but that she was there to help coach us. She certainly provided some excellent and useful comments throughout the evening, often about how the image could be brought to life more with a slight crop, or a little work in the post-production.
It is 5am and I am awake from natural causes. I try to go to sleep again, but I start to mentally do my report on last night’s meeting; and so I decide to get up, arm myself with paper and pen, and start to write this!!
Last night it was our turn to hold our round of the Southern Fed. P.I. competition. We appointed the judge who was Carol Speight ARPS from Chichester CC, who lives in Billingshurst. Carol has been a judge for us in the past and was favoured by Chairman Chris as he got his first 20 from her.
To start 2015 we welcomed John Read, Managing Director ofMarrutt Ltd., to talk to us about all aspects of printing. John started the evening as a session of “Photographers Anonymous”. He held an amusing (but alarming) group therapy session which asked us to reveal how much we had invested in camera equipment to feed our habit. On the basis of this he conjectured that a £500 investment in an ink jet printer of photographic quality was something of a bargain.
