Club News

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.