Club members presentations, Tuesday 29th October 2019

Hi Folks,

Tuesday night was a presentation of things that have taken the interest of our club members during this year. This is just a snapshot of the evening and what took place.

The first to give a talk was John Timbrell.

John first talked about Somerset house that was showing pictures taken by the British press which gave him some knowledge of a place called the Barge House an old brick building with derelict walls. It is free to go inside and take pictures.

John had about ten framed pictures on display this evening in the community hall.

 

These are just a couple of them I photograph whilst they were on display.

 

John then went on to talk about modern life and noticed a guy at an Atm in Brighton on a mobile phone which gave him the idea of producing a series of street photography pictures showing modern day life and the use of various devices.

This guy is listening to a device and making a fashion statement with ripped trousers.

 

Another guy finding an electric point to keep his phone device topped up.

 

A lady with an Iphone making communication with a friend via video link.

 

Here at the tube station all but two in the group of people were using some form of device.

 

Next to give a talk was Mike Perry on Orford Ness Suffolk.

Mike said it was a coincidence that he and Chris had visited the place within a week of one another after Chris had talked about the lighthouse there.

Mike went on to talk about the shifting shingle there and the erosion caused by the North Sea. There is a boat trip over from Orford Quay to the island  which was once used by the Ministry of Defence.

 

Once over on the island it looks flat and bleak with winds of 40mph, one has to keep to the pathways which can flood at times.

 

It was used for radar testing during the war

In the 1950’s during the cold war, it was used as an atomic research station and parts of it still show remains of the testing of explosives.

 

 

From the derelict building the lighthouse is slipping under the moving shingle.

 

Mike said one can see the lighthouse already has a tilt and engineers are looking at the best way of keeping it up.

 

Mike said, the whole experience and the island’s history makes it a fascinating, bleak and sinister place.

 

The next to speak was Nick Bennett on photographing musical groups and singers in places from tiny pubs to the massive O2 area. The photographers are allowed into the pits below 5 minutes before the start. The experienced photographer will try and get the best position to the side of the microphone. Then they set up the gear and have a wide and medium lens available.

 

Whilst Nick was talking he ran a slideshow of hundreds of images

 

Places like the London Palladium require a long lens whereas other places may need a prime 50m lens.

 

The biggest hazards at the venues are the paying public and things like bottles of water being thrown onto the stage. Bouncers  dealing with disruptive people and are not so careful with where they land. Also the lighting keeps changing as the technicians can change lighting to the beat of the music and the light can be altered to darkness very quickly. Nick normally runs with an ISO speed of 3200 or in Auto ISO. The photographers are not allowed to use flash and can only shoot for the first three songs.

 

The next to speak was Jan Dell on theme of Fungi and she has been studying various species and apparently there are over  15,000 varieties in the UK. Jan has been going around the Buckinghamshire woods over the last couple of months.

Jan brought along eighteen images of varieties that she has photographed

The header picture is called an Amethyst Deceiver which Jan had not seen before. It is very attractive and lives in leaf litter beneath deciduous trees

This one is call natural frills, a bracket fungus with  rubbery tough wavy brackets usually in orange and yellow and grows on dead wood.

 

This next one is the honey fungi and was take under some low prickly trees by Jan. It had been a wet day before in Maple Cross nature reserve but now the sun was out and shining on the fungi. The fungus grows out of tree trunks. The cap is a honey colour and the dome is slightly scaly but expands and flattens with age.

 

The next is called the Shaggy Inkcap which is found in fields and grass, starts off egg shaped, grows to a point, turns black at the margins as it gets old and then liquifies. Jan photographed in monochrome as it was black in colour.

The last is called the Sickener, Jan was excited when she saw another red fungi but different from the Red Agaric which I have not added on here. As the name suggests it is highly poisonous. Jan said there are no white spots on top  but has a white ring around the margins. It will open out and flatten. The gills are a fresh creamy white. This was a very young one and was spotted in Bryant’s Bottom. ( young Bryant should not have ate this one lol)

 

Coffee Time

 

The next speaker was me where I did a talk on a visit to Leeds Castle for a 50th anniversary celebration

 

This four poster bed clashed with modern day technology and was not a problem for Catherine of Aragon who stayed at the Castle. Having spend 50 years laying on the right of the bed and Mrs G the left I swapped sides to let my wife have the the best view.

However, sleeping on the other side of the bed and searching for my glass of orange on my usual side caused me lots of problems in the darkness.

Spending time at dawn to get reflections in the water became a habit

 

I was asked by security why I was taking pictures of lots of doors and pointed out our club has a competition with a theme of ‘door’. Oh he replied, there are hundreds of doors in here.

 

Standing one  evening in poor weather conditions with my camera on a tripod I watched two German girls turn up. They proceeded to do various poses with the castle as a backdrop one assumes for their boyfriends lol. Once they had finished the flirty poses they each took it in turns to jump up whilst the other took a picture. However, this proved unsuccessful, so I took my camera off the tripod and took this shot using continuous shutter speed. She then managed to get the shots by converting her camera to do the same.

Well the judges like a bit of interest in a picture so how about this lol

 

Next was Kathy Chantler who explored the grounds of  a deserted care home

 

Finding the past amongst  piles of derelict rubbish which once was a thriving peoples home

 

The broken pair of spectacles lay on the floor once owned by a resident

 

A book lay amongst the leaves, Kathy said everyone was young once and still had dreams of their life as we do now.

Here is a plaque for Alan Curtis titled in “In God’s Garden” perhaps a summer sitting place of peace for the residents.

“

 

now all boarded up and abandoned

 

Next was birthday boy Chris Andrews who was invited to represent Olympus Cameras with a permit to go inside the pits at a race meeting.

 

Chris wanted to capture the tension and atmosphere during the race.

 

The action that unfolds during the race.

Thank you to all that took part in the evening.

 

Next week is

ImageZ Club Challenge Round 1