First night of the new season,Tuesday 12th Sept

Hi Folks,

Well summer is officially over and it was time to meet up in the community hall again.

Chris our chairman welcomed all new members to the club and gave the views of the committee and what had been decided for the coming season. He  appreciated everyone had slightly different interests but hope the coming programme touched on something for everyone. Chris said the club benefits from members working and learning together, sharing knowledge with their images and using various techniques.

The club has arranged some beginners nights giving advice on cameras and software and basic photography rules. There will also be interactive group nights and critique nights to help club members produce better photographs.

There will be guest speakers and fun nights where we try and match photographs against other clubs or member groups.

Also the usual internal competition themes and the winner on the night events will continue to help members  get a comparision with other members shots.

Then each of the committee members gave a short speech on their roles

Brian the new treasurer was collecting new membership fees and they are set the same this year at £40 plus £2 coffee/hall money or £100 all paid up.

Dave is the new webmaster and will organise the site and add members images to the photograph libraries.

Nick is the new projectionist and internal competition secretary and requires all entries in before Sunday midnight for each competition.

Chenxi is the external competition secretary and is requiring all members to send good photographs for entry this next week. The club can use last year’s images but most of the best ones have already been used so get your photographs in as soon as possible please.

Alan the programme manager has put a programme together which should give a good variety of events during the winter season and is hoping to stage a new ‘before and after’ critique night where the two images are shown side by side. Sounds like a good idea as we will all benefit from that.

The picture match competitions could have macro pictures where we have to guess the subject, Also there is to be a new ‘Tell a story’ night where one is asked to show four images that combine to tell a story and it is hoped those taking part will  put a little story to go with them.

Steve is going to run one evening where we take photographs using indoor lighting like torches, candles or lamps and it is hoped members can supply both the light and subject matter on the night.

Kathy our club secretary will be reading this to get ideas lol

Coffee/teas were free last night

In the second half club members were invited to say what they had been up to in the summer months and show some images.

Chris started by saying he has been over Europe driving 2000 miles in his classic police car.

Chris said he did not realise how vast the mountains were and he nicely emphasise this by just have a couple of guys in the bottom right hand corner to show the scale

 

In this second picture is the group that covered the miles

 

Then is was my turn to explain that having spent a weekend changing this image and listening to the judge I have now taken on board the judges comments about having two pictures in one and that I should have take either the cottage or water well but not both lol

 

 

So this year I have lots of cottages by themselves but whether they have the wow factor it remains to be seen

Having got that sorted.

This year I visited Spinalonga Island the Cretan leper colony which was portrayed in Victoria Hislop’s book.

I had not read the book but wanted to get my own thoughts on it

But unravelling the history I found out that the poor Cretans had suffered slavery for over 700 years after Crete was sold off  for 5000 gold coins and this slavery only ended a few years before when the new Greek Government sent the first 297 lepers to the island in 1904.

I just did not know where to start with the story but settled on telling the hardships the lepers suffered not being able to return once sent to the island.

The last 20 lepers were sent to Athens in 1957 after a cure was found. The village is now being refurbished to look as it did before 1957 as afterwards the locals took out most of the reusable materials.

Next was Dave and he explained he had been helping a photographer with weddings this summer.

and has been producing shots like this in that time.

 

Tami was next showing some shots taken down at a club members farm.

 

Peter was next and said he took this shot of a sculpture down at College Lake

He also went to the Scilly Isles and took this pleasing shot.

I believe he said this was in Devon when he got lucky with this shot of the pony looking as if interested in fixing the car.

And another of his shots showing peace at Weston Turville reservoir.

Stan then got up to say he is in a photographic group that take a photograph every day but most go into the garden to get a shot.

So Stan having some flowers out did the same. People were fascinated to know how he got the bug on the flower in the right position.

This other picture was taken by Stan at the Lindengate meet up and he managed to get the sun right to get the hairs on the stem shining bright.

One of about a hundred attempts said Stan lol.

This plant was taken by one of our members who noticed the light was just right on the leaves this was taken by chance but other attempts taken afterwards did not seem as good.

Last to speak was Brian, who captured Emma just right jogging the canal.

He has also been working with a studio model group who have produced some good work.

This shot was of a friends dog that had proved to be hard to photograph, Brian had to get down on the floor as the dog is constantly running around.

Brian also came up to the farm evening and took this shot of the police car. He got down on the ground to make the police car look more menacing in this shot.

Lastly Brian had been to Finland for the car rally and got this shot. Apparently the fastest cars go first and these guys were doing about 120 mph to take off here.

 

ImageZ Camera Club Program