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.
