The new season opened with a warm welcome back to all members from Kathy and a short talk on how the club intended to continue using Zoom until Christmas when the Covid 19 situation would be reassessed. There is a small hope that we may be able to have a form of Christmas social but the format of this is yet to be discussed, and sadly again may not be possible. Coffee mornings have taken place during the Summer season on Thursday mornings and David Gibbs was thanked for his part in developing and leading the programme which has been greatly enjoyed by all who attend.
Kathy explained for the club to meet in the hall we must meet strict government regulations including, cleaning schedules, social distancing, and risk assessments. She explained that we are tentatively proceeding on zoom to ensure people feel able to access the club safely, as face to face meetings in the Weston Turville hall may be a step too far for some at this present time.
She then handed over to Chris programme secretary to talk about some of the good things planned up to and after Christmas.
Chris explained that using zoom enabled the club to have some interesting speakers from across the country, such as John Gravetts a photographer from the Lake District and Chris Upton with his talk “The End of the Mine” . Thoresby Colliery, the last pit in Nottinghamshire, closed in July 2015 bringing to an end over 900 years of mining in the county. This presentation will tell the story of how a project came about to shoot this event and the resulting exhibition, AV, book and extensive publicity.
There will also be a talk on Macro and Nature by guest speaker Roger Hance and many other interesting speakers. (See Programme on the website.)
The usual competitions will take place and themes and dates can be found on the website. Of course, there will be Open options and “Winner on the night.”
Chenxi our external competitions secretary, explained about the Rosebowl competition and asked for your best photographs to be sent to him for selection for entries. We won this competition two years ago and it would be nice to win it again.
Chenxi explained that we are hoping the Chiltern Images Exhibition will go ahead this year and if it is not possible to use a hall it would be carried out digitally.
Chenxi then gave all a guided tour of the web site with updates, and he asked people to pay attention to the rules for competitions as some have changed. He then gave a step by step instruction on resizing your images. All this is available on the web page under Competitions.
Alan a member of Imagez and now a club judge said that during contact with other clubs our website was praised for its layout ,information and the fact it is kept live throughout the summer with blogs, and photographs from members,.
After tea break various members showed their Summer projects. Sue had worked on a sunflower changing its colour and adding some text, a new project for her. Kathy showed interesting and abstract canal reflections in mono, Jan shared on lovely window reflections, and a Sparrow hawk that had landed in her garden.
Mike, Chris, and Laurence had explored various parts of Buckinghamshire and displayed beautiful images of Windmills, Landscapes and a Red Kite.
David shared a project he called “Then and Now”. He used a photographic history book of Aylesbury to identify four areas featured in the book, and to take updated pictures from the same viewpoint. It was fascinating to see some of changes and kept us all very interested.
David Gibbs also went with a historical theme and showed photos of Turville where he was born. He shared images of his home, his grandfather who had been a Bodger working with green wood to make chair legs. He also had images of buildings in Turville that had been used in the making of The Vicar of Dibley and Goodnight Mr. Tom. David ended by telling us “The Story of Sleeping girl of Turville.” It was a true tale of a young lady Emma Sadler who fell asleep for years. People visited her as the story grew but she never woke up for nine years. No-one really knew why she slept. When she did wake up she was able to continue her life.
It was a very entertaining evening and a good start to the Winter season.
Next week September 15th Imagez Critique night.
Carol Haines