Watford’s Camera Club’s Presentation, Tuesday 29th January 2019

Hi Folks,

Last year some of our camera club members visited the Watford Camera Club to talk about some of our photographic interests we have here in the Imagez camera club.

Last night was a reciprocal visit from the Watford Camera Club to show what kind of interests / projects are pursued by some of their club members.

The BBC weather forecast did it’s best to put people off but we still had a large number of people attending the evening and the weather turned out better than predicted, with temperatures rising to plus four for the journey home.

So to start the evening Chris welcomed all members of Watford CC who had come along.

First to give a talk was Gareth Quinn who first asked the audience if any of us did sports photography and explained that his passion was photography in cycling events taking place all over Europe.

Gareth told us he has a collection of over 35 thousand cycling photographs.

In this shot Gareth said, he was lucky as the sun was coming in from the left and just at the moment of pressing his camera a flash went off from someone’s camera on the right side of the road to light the cyclist’s face.

 

Some of the races are quite brutal and this race was over 260 kilometres and one can see the cobbles the riders were having to ride over

 

Gareth also takes pictures after the events of the rider’s faces as they still show the pain that they have endured during the race.

 

In this particular shot taken by Gareth it shows an event being sponsored by Israel where the race was staged.

 

Here Gareth points out that these are good places to experiment with getting speed shots as the cyclists are passing every few minutes.

 

Who could resist getting a shot of this lady who was prepared to pose for you, said Gareth.

 

One can get dramatic pictures like this with water spraying up from a drinks station.

 

Other cyclists will know you are there and will often  give you good shots of them.

 

Gareth liked the look of the shiny wooden floor on the velodrome in this picture.

 

This shot shows the reflection of the cyclist’s coach giving last minute instructions to the rider.

 

Finally this picture take by John Pierce of the Tour de France can never be taken again as barriers are placed around the start and finish and therefore it is no longer possible.

 

The second talk was by Michelle Cirkel

This is Michelle amongst her lens and trophies

Michelle is a graphic designer and as a hobby has involved herself in taking at least one photograph a day in the 365 challenge (I think in FB). One of the rules in the challenge is that the album must have two pictures of the author. Michelle has also taken a couple of weddings using her photographic skills  which she enjoyed doing.

 

Michelle said she likes cats and produced this award winning photograph. It was put together using a box with hole cut out. The contents of a hoover was placed around/ in the box. The rat was borrowed and not quite sure if it was photographed separately and layered in.

 

Another picture she took in Kenya of this child’s ear. Michelle at first was not sure about showing it but I think it did well in competition.

 

One of Michelle’s favourite pictures was of two monkeys and was taken behind glass. This was not the whole picture taken but has been cropped to show the atmosphere and relevant story. Michelle said, it does not quite come out on the projector as well as it does on the print.

 

Michelle was particularly pleased with this picture and said it is important to get oneself in the prime position to take it.

Michelle had seen other shots and used them to locate the area and where she has since managed to get various shots of Royalty

 

This is a shot taken in an ex American prison mainly for the wall texture but behind the bars was a cardboard cut out of a guard and many people have thought the guard was real.

 

 

This was a candid shot taken in London using natural light. The guy looks quite menacing.

 

This shot was taken early morning in Michelle’s garden. There was dew on the lawn and many people have remarked about the colours created by the flowers.

 

This image was created from a club night session where all the club members were taking hundreds of pictures of the model. However, Michelle wanted to produce something different and layered a frame around her and added in the shadow.

 

Michelle’s last picture captured at an airshow shows a good expression on the face of a lady playing a wartime part.

 

 

Coffee time

 

After coffee and cakes it was Kersten Luts turn to do the next talk.

Kersten is part of the Bucks Music Trust which involves organising all kinds of concerts from small to huge ones held in the Albert Hall. Being a photographer helps in the creation of posters and group promotions.

Kersten said, there is no standard rules in music photography as the lighting is always changing. He normally has an ISO setting of 1600 as a starting point to 2500. He works in manual mode using f2.8 to f3.2. If he shoots and the shot looks too dark he quickly changes the shutter speed and fires again only getting seconds before the light changes again.

Most photographers are only given three song numbers to take pictures of the artists before being move out.

 

The musicians usually get lost in their music and it is important to capture the emotion.

 

This is a good example for a banner / poster not superb in texture but the emotion and the colours are great.

 

With the drummer try and bring out the motion of the hands, some will have their hands high whilst others just tap the drums.

 

Take the pictures in your style, some look hyper unreal but these music concerts are not reality. So stage the photographs to create an interesting pose.

 

Taking photographs head on, one will find there is always something in the way eg. a microphone etc. So position yourself to the side or 45 degrees to get the better shots. Colour in low light is also difficult so sometimes use black and white.

 

For promotional shots think of ideas rather than having groups just standing around

 

This was taken in an old shed with the added background for interest

 

Kersten liked this shot of the saxophone for its detail and colour

 

The next to speak was Barry Saunders. Barry said he liked photography from the earlier times and was reluctant to move into digital photography.

Barry said, that unlike the three previous speakers who are exceptional winning photographers he was not.

Not that his pictures were bad but he just has not found the judges to agree with them yet.

So he often experiments with pictures and giving them strange titles to confuse the judges

In this one he used the photograph of a person and then filled in a ladder

 

 

Sometimes putting  a blurred subject in to make the judge think lol

 

In this picture he took, the mother was really pleased with the picture but he changed it

 

Then Barry got into making Kaleidoscopes

 

or putting people into strange places or patterns

 

Here Barry took a famous windmill in Holland and then decided to change it into a Delft pottery look but I don’t think it was appreciated by the judge

 

 

Barry entered this with a title called ‘vomit’ for Micki Aston to judge but I think she was struggling with the title. Barry later pointed out images of people hidden in the scene.

Another of Barry’s work

 

This one was presented in competition and the judge did not know what to make of it. Barry explained one of pieces of the jigsaw on the roof was purposely set upside down lol

This last picture shown is fascinating the way it has been put together.

I think Barry is truly an amazing guy with his work and he had us in stitches all through his talk.

 

The last to give a talk was Lloyd Moore who said, “how can I follow Barry” lol.

Lloyd loves dogs and was a police dog handler and dog instructor.

He originally had an old Pentax camera and joined Watford camera club in 2014.

 

Even now his daughter is a dog groomer so he has plenty of models coming through to photograph

 

Lloyd said, dog nose’s are quite often dry looking in photographs so he does a bit of post processing on the nose which helps a lot.

 

This dog loved the coastline and was in the water straight away even if it was cold. This was photographed with the dog coming out almost looking like a bear

 

Another dog and seeing the snow for the first time was loving every minute of being out in it

 

Lloyd likes this shot as both the dog and owner have feet off the ground

 

This is a Labrador

 

A friend was dressed up for a party

 

So both photographs were mixed to produce this shot

 

And finally one of the club members was changed into a dog lol

 

Thank you to the Watford presenters and all their friends who came along to the evening.

 

Next week is

AGM and It’s a Knockout