Shooting the dark, Tuesday 22nd November

Hi Folks,

Shooting the Dark, Tuesday 22^nd November.

I don’t think the format of last night’s photograph session had been tried before and the evening starting with a 10 minute talk by Brian on how to get the best light from ones camera. Brian explained that cameras like to produce night time shots in grey but with the use of their settings most cameras these days can now extract the minutest of available light.

Brian said, “Setting the exposure to minus one or two will help push up the value of the cameras other settings when used in the dark. Also as it’s not a judged competition this was an opportunity to push up the ISO settings beyond 12k because it doesn’t matter about any noise or blurr”. “There are various light sources available to us, think of car headlights or even the lighting inside the car”, said Brian.

Once Brian had finished the talk, Kathy handed around some slips of paper with members names written on them. The last time I picked a name out of a hat was when Red Rum won the Grand National but tonight I drew Dave Powell giving him the shortest straw having me for his partner for the evening lol.

For a bit of fun in teams of two we each had to produce a photograph to be shown on the projector on the clubs social night. I am told for all those that missed the evening you can still enter a picture but it must be taken within a range of 10 minutes of the community hall. There were various torches and sources of light available to us and we were told to meet up in the hall again at 9:30pm for coffee.

My partner Dave had clearly been thinking about this evening for some time and asked me if I would become his model for the evening. I could have been Twiggy but my portly figure would have given it away.

Dave had devised an experiment that would involve me sitting in the chair holding two mirrors with coloured lights either side. I don’t think I have ever spent an hour looking at myself through mirrors with my glasses on and it was with some relief when Dave asked me to take them off and I had suddenly become 10 years younger again lol.

I was then asked to wear a cap and “look mean like a gangster”, he said.

I hope this photograph doesn’t appear on any wanted lists. Finally Dave was pleased with the final creation but I won’t spoil the surprise by telling you just now.

Fortunately for me Kathy had brought in two “light sabres” and I noticed they were not being used, so I had Dave reflecting them across the wall of the back room. I did get a strange light effect along the wall and Dave was not to be see in the picture.

However, it was then decided that the exit sign lit in the room was too bright for the task, so we ventured outside into the darkest part of the car park.

I then set up the camera placing it on a tripod, asking Dave on the count of three to press the button down whilst I madly waved the sticks in both hands until we got the required result.  After which we both ducked and I said to Dave, “That 747 was a bit low they must be using a different runway at Luton tonight” lol.

The best picture was kept for the social

Once inside for coffee, we saw various Christmas lights had been brought along by members to use in the session. So it should be a good social evening seeing them all.

Next week

Next Monday evening there is an inter club fun challenge at Hemel Hempstead.

I understand from what was said last night that three clubs are taking part and each club has 36 photographs to show with the task of trying to match a photograph. So the first club shows a photograph and the next two clubs have one minute to find a suitable match from their 36 pictures and the judge gives marks for a close match.

At first with 36 photographs this may come easy but once the photograph has been shown it cannot be used again. So by the twentieth photograph someone may show a red bus and with only seventeen photographs available ones best match may be only a red ladybird and the audience of each team  has to persuade the judge that it is a good match because…………….heckling is allowed by the other teams so should be a fun evening

Club Challenge Round 2