Finally, we were able to hold our second Pi competition ofthe season. Originally schedule for 11th November was cancelled due to the unexpected adverse weather conditions in November. With a set subject of 'Touch', it came as no surprise that there were lots of images depicting hands in one form or another.
The third and final print competition of the season saw a total of 73 images submitted by our members and it was pleasing to see some of our newer member submitting for the first time.
The competition was judged by Don Mitchell, President of Bognor Regis Camera Club. Don in his imitable style likes to create a rapport with his audience and didn't disappoint on this occasion.
Our old friend Derek Forss visited us again, this time at a hurriedly rearranged evening at Pulborough Village Hall as our normal venue was suffering with a serious water leak and could not be used.
It was our turn to host a Mix and Match contest between ourselves Steyning CC and Southwick CC. It was held at the West Chiltington Village Hall, which turned out to be a very good venue for the event (just the right size with good kitchen facilities). However we were unable to gain access until 7.30, as someone else was using the hall till then, and we had a bit of a scramble getting set up.
Di chose the Sussex Yacht Club for the start and base for our photo walk which was very well situated for us to find lots of photographic material.
We met there at 10.30 for tea and coffee paid for by our Chairman. Di then gave us a welcome and suggested some of the places and sights in the immediate area which might encourage our photographic juices to flow. Tjhe weather was dry but bitterly cold and without any features in the sky what-so-ever, sadly.
Problem?? No Chairman to organise the evening! Reason? The Chairman is having a 'Knees up' in Newmarket at her firm's annual Christmas Bash.
Solution?? Vice Chairman steps in in a womanly way and organises a really good evening's fun.
Anne together with Liz Barber and Audrey club together and select two teams for the 'Mix and Match' competition from our total ranks, appoint a Judge - Clive Trussler (at the golf club pronounced TRUEs LER) to judge (he is a very good choice for the role as he has by necessity had to develop a very thick skin over the years).
Paul Hayward's first trip to the Antarctic was brought to an early end when one of the passengers fell seriously ill, not one to give up, Paul made a second trip.
It seems that travel problems follow Paul when he goes South. This time the trip started late because of problems on another boat which was a trip for divers. The divers ended up sharing Paul's boat. The quantity of gear the divers needed was impressive. They weren't popular with Paul as he was hoping for a room on his own, but with all the extra people there was no chance of that!
A small band of stalwart SCC supporters went to Hailsham in blizzard conditions (actually there was just a dusting of snow on them there hills) to hear Judge Bob Webzell ARPS judge the second ever Sussex Fed P.I. competition.
We came away smiling at our best ever Sussex Fed competition result, certainly in the last 15 years and maybe ever. We were up against 20 other clubs (amongst them there are some top rated clubs) from East and West Sussex and some from Kent.
The one we were all waiting for?... Our opportunity to display our ingenuity in representing sound in a picture. Amazingly only half the members attempted it and some of the entries did not meet the criteria set by the Judge, Eric Burchell. Eric did an excellent job in describing what we were looking for in these special subject competitions. In this case you needed to hear the sound coming from the picture, not imagine it. This was indeed very challenging but wonderfully achieved by our top scorers.
Storrington CC were very privileged indeed to have a talk this evening by Tony Penrose, the Son of Lee Miller. Tim Hulbert our former Programme Secretary left us with two pretty tricky set subjects this season, but to have arranged this speaker was very creditable as he was probably the best speaker the club has had in many years. One member said it was the best presentation he had ever attended.
Our first PI competition of the new season saw an excellentturnout of 81 images submitted for evaluation by our judge for the evening, a former member, Mike Davison. Mike is now a member of Chichester Camera Club, having previously been our programme secretary. He gave us a talk last year on 'Trying for an RPS Distinction' encouraging us to 'go for it'.
Our first competition of the new season attracted a high number of entries and it was gratifying to see so many of our new members entering for the first time.
Our judge for the night was Trevor Gellard FRPS, a fellow of the Royal Photographic Society, Judge, lecturer and a member of the distinctions panel at the Royal Photographic Society.
Trevor has exhibited in International exhibitions and has had several one man exhibitions. He is an active member of the Brighton and Hove Camera club and a member of the Mirage group of Photographers.
This was an evening of two halves, slide shows shown in the conventional manner and those shown with most images at 90 degrees to the norm giving some of us sore necks!
Ian McBean started the evening by showing us some mouth watering shots of Mauritius, having first showed us where in the world it is. I imagine some of us will put it on our list of places to visit one day.
This was the best attended first night of SCC since I joined the club in 2000. Over 30 people came to our first night back with Jane Coward our treasurer working flat out taking subscriptions from 27 members including 4 new recruits.
Sunday afternoon found us meeting in Sainsbury's carpark, Horsham for one of our photo walks.
The weather shone on the righteous as ever, and a pleasant walk was enjoyed by all who attended.
One thing after another. First the visit to the British Wildlife centre, followed a week later by the Annual Exhibition, followed yet another week on by the Barbeque.
Fourteen members of the club (strictly 13 plus a wife) visited the British Wildlife Centre at Lingfield arriving at about 9.30am for a 'cuppa' before a briefing about what we could expect to see during our visit.
Eric Burchell joined us again to judge the final print competition of the season. Not as controversial as some of our judges this season, in fact he was very generous with his marking, 2x15s, 10x16s, 14x17s, 9x18s, 5x19s, 6x20s.
It would appear that birds of all varieties were his favourite subject of the night, but out of left field came Jane Coward with her Funnel Web Spider Boy who triumphed on the night. Eric commented that capturing the moment was all important and that to avoid “record” pictures for competition.
Judge Graham Smith ARPS
What an improvement! Graham managed to achieve an incredible 50% increase in the percentage of images he marked in the 18-20 range. On his last visit he marked 36% of our images in his range, this time a whopping 53% achieved our top scores. An improvement on this scale will mean we all achieve those elusive big scores. More seriously, Graham is always generous in his marking and a look back at the previous competitions he has judged will bear testimony to this.
Just as judging is a personal view, so is report writing, and the authors assessment of the competition. In my humble opinion Don Mitchell was in top form judging our prints and projected images, with concise critiques of each picture focussing on technical detail and composition rather than the common trait we have experienced from some judges of lengthy descriptions of the content of the picture.
The Crouch Shield for Digital Projected Images was held on 12 March 2010 and hosted by Henfield Camera Club. The judge for the evening, Bob Webzell is a past president of Brighton Hove Camera Club and lectures and judges throughout the south of England.
In the first round, Paul Hayward scored 17 points for his image entitled 'Hard Times'. This put us in 6th place at the end of Round One. Could it get better?
We had a really interesting evening with Roy Hales and his wife Angela who gave us a presentation about the wildlife in Borneo.
Their particular hobby is the study of spiders and the rainforest in Borneo has a lot of different varieties including some brand new ones not before seen or therefore named.
They keep a huge collection in pots in a room in their house with dozens of specimens and look after and study them. They also run the British Tarantula Spider Society.
A great time was had by all, the one opportunity in the year that we can all become judges.
I was personally shocked by some of the comments made, lampooning some of the Judges we have had this year, showing a total lack of respect. Hopefully next season we can raise the standard of judging and have some more insightful comments to help us improve our pictures.
We co-hosted this competition with Southwick CC. They were responsible for setting up the seating, manning the entrance, making the teas and coffees and running the raffle. Park Cameras sponsored the event and provided some raffle prizes.
Mike Davison ARPS, who was a member of our club for a number of years, returned this evening to give us a presentation about trying for an RPS distinction.
Whilst still a member with us, Mike was awarded his LRPS; but he was already a member of Chichester Camera Club, which is a much bigger club than ours and is stuffed full of photographers with RPS distictions, feeling that they offered him more, as he is an exceptional photographer himself.
I have belatedly been asked to write this report as both our Print and PI secretaries are away on holiday - lucky devils missing all this gloomy weather!
Our old friend Eric Burchell (steam engine enthusiast) judged this competition for us in his own experienced style giving mostly quite high marks. There were Four 20s; Eight 19s; and Fifteen 18s out of a total entry of 54 PIs.
Southwick hosted this Mix n' Match evening between Southwick, Steyning and Storrington Camera Clubs.
An evening of fun was had by all, as Eric Burchell judged whether our images matched the image put up by the leader of each round, and which was the best image offered.
Tonight we had a welcome return visit by Derek Forss. He has been a professionallandscape photographer for many years working for, amongst many others, the National Trust and Ordnance Survey. Derek also teaches photography at Earnley (south of Chichester) and leads photographic walking holidays for HF holidays, who have a house locally - Abingworth Hall at Thakeham.
This evening's meeting kicked off with some of Derek's slide shows. We were shown several collections of images, starting with a couple of short ones. The longer sequence which followed contained aneclecticmix of pictures, I don't think I have ever seen the Eurofighter Tornado and mating damsel flies in the same sequence before. Derek then picked out some of the images and explained what they were and how he had gone about shooting them.
The second half of this evenings meeting was a very comprehensive instruction by Martin Tomes showing us how he deals with his digital images from downloading the camera's card to having it ready for printing. Sadly time did not allow him to show us fully final preparations for printing.
Our last meeting of 2009 found us with Christmas Fare - nuts crisps mince pies and mulled wine brought by some members (who I will not name as I do not know who they were sadly; but thank you)
We started the evening with the presentation of a cup by Paul to Chairman Peter which he won at the recent Sussex Fed P I competition for the Best Image_his study of 'Katie'. Peter could not come to the competition as he was away and this all came as a complete surprise to him. Very well done Peter.
Chichester triumphed yet again! But enough of them, what about the team that came second? You guessed, it was us!
A great effort against the giants of the competition, we were ahead at the half way stage, but were pipped at the post with their last print which scored a 20, giving them victory by 2 points.
Star of our show was Derek with his “Golden Eagle with Kill” that won great praise from the judge Liz Boud. Honourable mentions went to Daisy for “Upper Cast Neighbourhood” and Ian with “Male Broad Bodied Chaser”.
Judge Ian Betts
Our second projected image competition had 54 entries submitted for analysis by our judge for the evening, Ian Betts. Ian, from Henfield Camera Club, judged our 3rd PI competition last season when he marked in the range 14 to 20. On that occasion he gave five images the lower end of the range of 14 points. This time only one image received that mark and it would be prudent not to mention who the photographer was.
Judge Graham Smith ARPS
A big change from last months judge with 36% of the 58 entries achieving top marks (18-20). This was very much in line with Graham’s approach to judging, although his marks were down on last year. As usual the held backs were numerous which meant that John and I earned our money as competition secretaries.
The competition was held at Hailsham and six of our members attended. The judge was a very amusing gentleman by the name of Clive Tanner.
In Round One, Daisy Kane was only awarded 15 points for her beautiful picture of an Indian lady surrounded with her cooking pots, which must have disappointed her greatly (she was there). Paul and I both agreed that when projected here, it lacked the real colour saturation that it had when viewed elsewhere previously. This is one of the problems with P. I.s in my opinion. Slides were always the same.
An evening of two halves, the first was me talking about High Dynamic Range Imaging and the second was Roy presenting the practicalities of wedding photography.
I started with a presentation of the whys and wherefores of HDRI. I followed that with demonstrating how to take a set of exposures and use Photomatix to tone map them in order to create a printable image.
I recommended two books:
Paul gave us a really amusing talk on his trip to Antartica towards the end of last year.
He had us smiling and laughing throughout with his descriptions of his companions and some of the incidents that occurred, all the time showing his wonderful images of the ship, the rough seas and the fantastic Arctic scenery; but above all, his wildlife shots of the penguins, seals, sea lions and the birds with a 'winning shot' of an albatross in flight.
Our first competition went very well with Tony Riley standing in for Walter Benzie as our judge. Derek Grieve got the best print award.
There were a lot of prospective new members at first of our new members evenings for the 2009-2010 season. Di started the evening by going through what the camera club does and was followed by Tim Hulbert showing some of his prints. We then had a very long coffee break which gave us the chance to chat and to help people to understand their cameras and how to take better pictures.
After the break we showed some of the entries for last years projected image competitions.
The day of the summer barbecue arrived with the weather looking decidedly 'dodgy'. However the rain held off until most people had finished their main course!
The event was held once more at Di Walker's house which has a very smart terrace which is just the right size to accomodate 28 members of our club sitting at tables.
Our 2009 exhibition took place at The Old School, School Lane, Storrington on Saturday July 25th from 10:30am until 4pm.
A variety of work was on show, contributed by many of our members. As you can see from the photograph there was a large display of prints. We also had a projected image show running on our digital projector.
Our catering team provided teas, coffees and biscuits.
Our photo walk at Amberley took place on 9th August 2009. We were fortunate that the weather was good and we were blessed with some great evening light.
Amberley is a pretty little village adjacent to the Adur river and north of the south downs.
We gathered at 6:30pm and set off around the village. Members were seen photographing a variety of subjects including a cricket match, flowers and the local architecture.
