Club News

As I said as I started the report on our last year’s meeting, this last meeting before Christmas was always called 'The Chairman’s Evening’ until recently, and tonight was very definitely Chris’s evening. He had prepared a very good quiz, which was very informative to those of us who did not know some of the answers. It was about local ‘celebs’ and in addition to this, he made the most delicious fruit cake so far known to man. It was magnificent. Is there no end to our Chairman’s talents?

My fellow 365-er Malcolm Bull stepped into the breach when our booked judge developed a sore throat and was concerned his voice might not hold out, indeed he subsequently needed 2 days off work, so I guess we have to let him off!

It was nice for SCC members to meet Malcolm without the moustache he was growing for Movember when he last judged for us.

Arriving early after a couple of photo-a-day opportunities in the clear frosty dawn, I was glad I had picked up a free coffee at Waitrose, as the tea and coffee volunteers weren't ready to start selling, although to be fair it was before “doors open time”. I stayed out of the way chatting to a 365 friend. Proceedings got under way fairly promptly with an introduction from Ken Scott of what is the first exhibition style inter-club competition in Sussex with the entries grouped into two divisions, the Development and Open categories (probably the first in the UK).

We welcomed Tony Baverstock LRPS last Thursday. His background is in landscape, still life and infrared BW photography. Having spent 25 years on the Surrey judging circuit, this was his first in Sussex. He reminded us that there was only one person we had to please, and that was not him, it was ourself. Overall, he commented that we had so many gorgeous prints, and he was impressed with the way they were mounted, saying that this was the window through which you look at the images. He often suggested a slight crop of parts of the image that weren't adding to the overall effect.

An amateur photographer from Portsmouth, Barry Day started out working in colour slides, becoming an ARPS in 1987. Establishing a darkroom over 15 years ago, he began making monochrome prints for club competitions and exhibitions, gaining a Credit distinction with the PAGB in 2001. At this time he switched to digital monochrome, and adding colour in 2009. His main interest is “Faces and Places”. We were privileged to see many of those faces, he knew the name of every one of them, and each image came with a story.

There's a breathless hush in the close tonight,

Ten to make and the match to win ....

So it was at Midhurst on Wednesday when Storrington did battle with 9 other Sussex Clubs for the prestigious Regnum Print Shield. Midhurst were the hosts and had their priorities right, the home made cakes were excellent, the technology less so.

It was very interesting to have a different viewpoint on our images from Lisa Beaney. She is a professional photographer who was invited to judge for us after a chance meeting with Martin Tomes in a Steyning pub! She specialises in wedding, portraiture, commercial and boudoir photography. All in all though, it was an evening of post-processing, whether it was something that added to the image, or was lacking!

Paul O'Toole joined us on 16thOctober for our first print competition of the year. Coming from Worthing Camera Club, he described himself as one of the “baby judges” who have graduated from the Ken Scott judging academy. He asked us to expect a wider range of marks (14-20 in practice), where the message counts for 50-60%, the content 30-35% and technical aspects just 15%. When asked how important the title was, he admitted that it should be secondary to the image, but could be useful. Here are some of his comments.

This evening, we had a new idea for a club evening from our Chairman Chris. We were asked to select five PIs that we would like some help with deciding whether they were good enough to enter a competition, because we all have difficulty making our selections, don’t we?

'Two Fellows’, which originally referred to Betty Rackman, who had achieved her Fellowship, and Tony her Husband, a ‘fella’. But when Tony also achieved his Fellowship of course the name was even more relevant

Betty and Tony have been giving slide shows (and having exhibitions) for many years. This evenings show was one of many different ones that they give, this one though had been brought up to date with recent work.

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.

Two car loads of members visited Hayling Island today leaving at about 2.30pm with the weather looking slightly unreliable.

However when we reached our first stop by the bridge to the Island near Langstone Mill, the weather was set fair. The mill is nearly unique (when working, now a pivate residence) in that it was both a windmill and a watermill, but according to John Goodfellow there is another in Norfolk. Anyway, it made a good subject for some very nice landscape pictures.

On Saturday August 2nd, we held our first summer event. For the last few years now we have had a Barbecue, usually held in the Chairman’s garden.

Our new Chairman Chris decided that for a change it might be nice to have a cream tea this year instead.

And so the call went out to members asking those attending to bring sandwiches, cakes, scones, strawberries, blue berries, raspberries and of course chairs.

After a couple of statutory items, Anne Nagle gave a very comprehensive report of this seasons events and achievements, adding that she felt we were improving as a club with our results. She then mentioned especially how much hard work Glenn Donnelly had put in on our behalf as our first Publicity Manager, and how successful she had been at the job. Well done Glenn. She will be missed and we do need someone to carry on the good work. Anne herself will carry on in the meantime as she is to stay on our Committee.

We were joined by our old friend Walter Benzie ARPS on 15thMay for our Best of Year competition. He started by shaking several peoples’ hands, then telling a story about a photographer in Bombay, who just happened to be Henri Cartier-Bresson. I have since discovered a Cartier-Bresson quote, “Your first 10,000 photographs are your worst.”Perhaps there is something in my 365 obsession!

Ex member Mike Eddowes was going to instruct us on' out of doors’ portraiture this evening for as long as the light lasted; but the day dawned very wet with not much prospect of improvement.

So the powers that be decided to ask Martin Tomes to introduce us to our new lighting set (INTERFIT EX 150) which was kindly donated to the club by someone who had purchased it but had never used it. It will be available for club members to borrow and use.

Our final print competition was judged by Lindsey Green fromLittlehampton Camera Club. She described herself as coming to photography from an art background, and certainly enjoyed the artistic endeavours she was shown.

Starting with a 17 for Norman Kirby’s warm vibrant ‘Slow grey morning at Southsea’ then a held back image ‘Osprey – Just up’ from Derek Grieve, we might have been lulled into a false sense of security. However, her marking was from 14 to 20, with only twelve images (25%) getting 18 or more.

Robert Canis gave us a truly memorable presentation of some of his work at our show of the year held at Washington Community Centre once again. When we host an event like this, it is impossible to know ahead of the evening how many folk are going to attend. So the worry is firstly will we cover our costs and secondly make a profit. This year the attendance was a little disappointing, possibly because the subject matter did not attract the public?; or maybe because it was held on a Friday instead of Saturday. We shall never know.

Our great friend Leslie Cutting visited us again tonight to give us some more Adobe Photoshop tuition. Leslie uses Elements 12 which is usually considered the best editing programme for photographers. Photoshop CC is a more comprehensive alternative. but it now requires a monthly subscription of nearly £9, and is not available unless you have had CS 6 or maybe some earlier versions of CS. I do not believe that it gives photographers very much more than Elements anyway.

Thursday saw thelast PI competition, and it was a hard fought one. Marks varied from 12 to 20, with seventeen being held back. The judge John Bradshaw showed us a few of his wonderful images first: he likes to try and replicate 19th century darkroom techniques digitally, also working on projects such as following the Greenwich meridian across the UK.

Tonight's meeting was an 'extra' one and the idea for the content came from a conversation that chairman Anne had with a member of Bognor C.C. They had obtained a DVD from the RPS and shown it one evening.

Five of us gathered yesterday for theSussex Federation Photographic Competition. We met at a new venue, The Kings Centre Burgess Hill, and also on a new day a Saturday. I am not sure if the change of day had an effect on the attendance generally or not, but I felt there were fewer people than last year when it was clear we had out grown Wivelsfield Village Hall. The Kings Centre can hold 500 people.

This evening we were treated to a show of superb artistic talent by Diana Goss MSc UKCP ARPS who specialises and thoroughly enjoys Night Photography. She was going to be accompanied by a gentleman who partners on her night adventures, but unfortunately he was unable to attend. Diana emphasised that for personal safety it is unwise to venture out alone at night and in any case her partner works with her (and sometimes with more assistants as well) to enable her to get the results she is seeking.

We arrived at Lancing Parish Hall for the Crouch Shield PI competition which was hosted by Worthing CC. We paid, bought raffle tickets, as you do, and had a large 'goody bag' thrust upon us containing Olympus catalogues, a very useful lens polishing cloth and very luckily a pen, since I immediately found out that my own pen had expired. We then met up with fellow SCC supporters, I counted eleven, and sat down.

There was a good number of entriesto this set subject, and a very high standard of varied images. Most were black and whites, but there were a few sepias, although one of mine was a “false orangey colour” in our judge’s words, so take care out there next time round! The main advice was to think whether the toning added or subtracted from the image. With just a couple of the entries, he would have liked to see the colour version, as he felt that converting to black and white doesn’t always work.

This evening we had our second 'Knockout' competition devised and run by John Gauvin, ably assisted by Alex. Last season we had our first similar competition using prints from everyone entering. This time it was three PIs and 69 were entered. Two images were projected side by side on the screen and we voted with a show of hands with our choice of the best image. Alex counted the votes and if there were an equal number of votes for each image, Alex settled the result with the toss of a coin,(a £1 before the break and a 5p after_ the tea must have cost a lot!)

I always look forward to having these SCPF P.I. competition rounds held at our venue, because one can get nice and close to the images and hear exactly what the judge is saying, where as if similar comps are held in their usual necessary big halls you can miss quite a lot sometimes.

Martin gave us a talk on last year’s 'One a Week’ project which a number of us took part in during 2013. The idea is that you are given a new topic each week and you must take at least one image of the subject during that week, which you then upload to the Flickr site. Once there, your fellow members of the group can tell you what they think of your efforts. If you get no comments, as happened with most of my shots, you can take it that nobody thinks them worthy of comment! Not good, but in my case predictable.

Our final meeting of the year used to be called the Chairman’s evening and this one certainly was just that. Anne bought all the food and drink and engineered the evening as she thought fit, which was to get everyone talking to one another. She was very ably assisted by liz who prepared and heated up the very tasty punch and organised and ran a quiz; by Daisy who helped setting everything up; and by Chris who also ran another quiz.

Our first print competition was judged by Roger Crocombe ARPS, who was also from Bognor Camera Club. He started the eveningby telling us that he was going to favour a picture which tells a story well over one which was technically perfect e.g., a slightly soft photo which told a story well would not be penalised heavily for its technical defects. He then went on to talk about the 365 group in which he was taking part and of which Janet is also a member (Janet is also doing our own weekly challenge). He is taking around 700 photos a week, it must be nice to have that sort of time.

Ten members of SCC attended the Sussex Fed P.I. competition at Wivelsfield Village Hall which was hosted by Mid Sussex Camera Club, whose Chairman Alec Pelham introduced the gathering to the Judge Steve Lawrenson ARPS APAAGB, who is a member of Reigate CC. Alec said that Steve had visited a lot of the clubs in the Region; however he has not visited us and he seemed to penalise us for this oversight in his marking of our entries! (joke)

This evening was in two parts. The first half consisted of two very well put together presentations by Chris West and Liz Barber on how they were recently awarded their LRPS Distinctions from the Royal Photographic Society.

Michael Hewett assisted by his Wife Jean gave us a really special evening. Michael is a real Dinosour with modern technology, and proud of it! He cannot switch on a mobile phone let alone a computer and has no desire to ever do so. Jean takes care of all these things and even drives his car for him, because she enjoys it; and she assists him in his presentations.

This was our first competition of the season.

We had 69 entries submmited, so I was looking forward to a good evening of judging. Our judge of the evening was Rob de Ruiter LRPS.

The night was wet and windy outside, but there was rejoicing inside!

A goodly band of eight SCC members came to the Steyning Centre for the Regnum Print competition. It is a great pity that more members do not attend County Competitions, because those of us who do attend see some really good pictures and this gives us new inspirations for our own work.

A warm welcome to a new season, good to seesome new faces amongst us.

This meeting was presented by Derek but we were treated to photos by Derek Grieve and Di Walker on a trip around Iceland where they had enjoyed a ten day Photography Course (according to Di) and a Photographic Holiday in Derek’s opinion! They went with Colin Westgate FRPS of Quest Holidays and with some interesting characters making up the select group, including a Judge and a Russian Lady.

We were treated to a fascinating evening when Paul Berkleley (and his wife) came to tell us about the Triggersmart System.

The day dawned looking slightly unreliable but improved rapidly.

I was taken to Brighton with Martin Tomes and rapidly transported by Di Walker. We needed lunch to support us for the afternoon and I suggested Shoreham Airport's cafe. This proved to be a very good choice and we had a very reasonably priced and tasty snack lunch each. I would recommend this venue to anyone.

Ten club members plus two friends of members visited the British Wildlife Centre at Lingfield.

We assembled at 9.30 and had a welcome 'cuppa'. Then the keeper who was going to take us into the various enclosures introduced herself and off we set.

Anne Nagle started the evening with her report on our year's events and highlights and we all agreed with her that it had been a very good and interesting season.

Walter Benzie was our judge for the evening. Walter startedthe evening by saying that this particular set of images was of a very high standard which was reflected in the scoring.

Seventeen I hear you say. Yes that’s the score.

The judge, Andrew Perry, after much deliberating, pacing up and down, stroking his beard announced the score, yes you’ve guessed it, 17. After the first dozen or so images it was too obvious that if an image was not held back then it was going to score seventeen. There was even a murmur going through the audience before the score was announced.

Well that was it, the end of another season, and what a season it has been. We have had new faces, new judges, new evening activities and some cracking images to look at. All in all I think it has been a very productive season and I look forward to the next one.

The evening was for the members to submit their two best projected and printed images for a different judge to asses and to hope to win the best print of the year cup.

The nights judge was Glyn Edmunds ARPS, DPAGB, EFIAP/b.

This was the last Competition before our best of the year.

There werea total of 51 images submitted for the evening’s competition.

The judge for the evening was Ken Woods. We started off with our usual run through of all the images, and then the judging began.

Our table top photography evening was our second practical evening of the season. There were several table tops set up with different lighting. Liz brought along some stressed plastic and polarising filters to bring out the coloured patterns in the plastic.

On one table we used continuous lights, which consisted of two angle poise lamps with daylight energy saving bulbs (with a diffuser in front of the lamp) and a slide light box (which makes a very good large light source).   

On Saturday April 13th, SCC hosted a presentation given by Mark Cottle MA who travelled up from Devon to give us an illustrated talk on 'Shackleton's Endurance Expedition captured on Camera', held at the Ashington Community Centre.,

Sadly our Chairlady Anne Nagle was struck down with a nasty complaint which made it impossible for her to be present, and so our Vice Chairman Paul Hayward stepped in to introduce and MC the evening making a fine job of it.

Mark grabbed everyone's attention from the start being a very polished speaker who knew his subject matter backwards.

This evening we had the very welcome return of Rosie Armes who has previously given us both an evening show and has judged a competition. Rosie has more distinctions than you can shake a stick at, but to me the most relevant are her FRPS and her MPAGB, of which there are only 115 in existence!! She is a member of the advanced photographers of Chichester CC, which is where we first met her.

Chichester CC hosted the 2013 Regnum Crouch PDI Shield at the Assembly rooms in Chichester. The event was organised very well by Mike Davison (trained by SCC!). The Judge for the competition was Tony Riley from Dorking, a well respected Digital expert who has given a talk at SCC and judged a competition, which I remember well as he gave me a 20!!

A small, but dedicated, band of seven members of SCC attended the Sussex Fed. Print competition at Wivelsfield village hall to find the place heaving with folk. I believe seats were eventually found for everyone; but the Sussex Fed. gentleman standing in for Chairman Ken Scott said immediately that they would have to find a bigger suitable venue next time as we have clearly outgrown this one.

The event was hosted very well by Horsham Photographic Society and our prints were judged by our very long standing friend Walter Benzie ARPS.

First I should explain the title. Iain McGowan FRPS produces his photographic output in what mustbe a fairly large garden shed, so everything which he showed us literally came from the garden shed.

This is the second inspiration presentation we seen this year, the first being Ken Scott before Christmas.