Xmas Bash

TENBY AND DISTRICT CAMERA CLUB

A very happy and melodious Christmas party was held on Thursday 19^th December bringing to close another successful year in the life of the camera club.

The evening started with the Tenby Male Voice Choir leading us all in the singing of Christmas Carol’s. This was then followed by a number of songs from the choir’s expansive repertoire, during the choir member’s short break, Paul Vallero one of the choir’s soloists sang a wonderful piece from the musical ‘Les Miserable’.

An extensive buffet was prepared by club members Mike Rowe and Charlie Kidd supported by both their wives Carol and Pauline. Donna McKay and Andrew Weaver gave members a chance to win wonderful prizes in the Christmas raffle. Members also took part in a Festive Quiz – University Challenge has nothing to worry about.

The choir continued to entertain those present with more Carol’s and songs to round off a most memorable evening.

The committee wishes to thank all the members and guest who supported the evening and wish you all a Happy and Prosperous photographic New Year.

   The next meeting of the camera club will be on Thursday 9^th January 2014 with the judging of the 2^nd open competition.

READING PHOTOGRAPHS

TENBY AND DISTRICT CAMERA CLUB

The chairman Roy Packer gave a very warm welcome to the guest speaker for the 12^th December club meeting. Mr Rob Mitchell, no stranger to the club, Rob was here in April 2012 judging the clubs landscapes/seascapes competition.

Rob Mitchell lives and works in Swansea, lecturing at Swansea Metropolitan University a position he has held since 1984. He also runs his own photographic business ‘Penumbraphotos.com’. Tonight was not about judging but about ‘Reading Photographs’. How we read to get more from them, and leaving ourselves with more questions than answers.

Rob opened his talk with the following statement “To enhance your appreciation of photography, it is necessary to development the skills to make careful visual analysis”. He explained that the general vocabulary used in photography is divided into three topics, descriptive, visual and composition. Using these topics the talk expanded into describing photographs with a list of sub titles such as abstract, content, expressive and geometric shapes, Rob explained some of these sub titles with an image and asked members what they could see, what is it, what made you think that? The visual elements, again was explained with sub titles ranging from focus, natural or artificial lighting, shape, repetition and space. Once again an image was shown for members to comment on, with Rob asking “If you could touch the surface of the photograph – how would it feel”. The last topic was composition of the photograph, the angle point where you take the picture from, the background, balance and central focus; again using an image the arrangements or structure of the photograph was explained.

To conclude this very interesting talk on ‘Reading photographs’ Rob finished his talk with these words “Explore your own personal interpretations and that there is no one correct answer when interpreting a work of art”.

Macro Mini Comp

TENBY AND DISTRICT CAMERA CLUB

The second mini competition of the 2013-2014 winter programme held on Thursday 5^th December with the theme being ‘Macro’ saw 26 images being submitted and judged by the club members. The winning image was ‘9-Hawker in Flight’ and the winning photographer Paul Richards, 2^nd place was awarded to Roy Packer with his ‘Red Eyed Frog’. There was a variation of subject matter ranging from insects, plants to various animals and this led to close marking of the first six images.

Following the judging and a coffee break, Harry Gardner an experienced and talented club member spoke to the 30 members present on his panoramic views of Tenby and how since he decided to concentrate on putting his images onto canvas how his business had improved. The chairman thanked Harry for giving members an oversight into his business. The chairman reminded members that the club Christmas party is on 19^th December.

12^th December – Reading photograph’s a talk by Rob Mitchell MA and the handing in of the 2^nd open prints and images.                     

 

Location Lighting with Graham Harries

TENBY AND DISTRICT CAMERA CLUB

The thought of setting up a home studio with lighting can seem a scary prospect; the clubs guest speaker Thursday 28^th November was Graham Harries who with his wife Jane travelled from Llanelli to dispel all the myths about location lighting.

Graham is a member of the Llanelli Photographic Society and has a photography business in his home town. The evening began with images showing the flavour and techniques that Graham uses on his shoots, ranging from landscapes to bizarre items. He explained to members that he carried out a 365 project, that meant taking a photograph every day for a whole year, and at present he is doing a self portrait project, one image a day. The content and techniques were outstanding. Recently Graham has been appointed the events photographer for the Scarlet’s Rugby team.

We were shown various essential accessories to use, the camera set ups – he went on to say that there are no fixed rules for setting your camera up for studio portraiture, but there are settings that will ensure better quality shots. To begin with choose the lowest ISO setting on your camera, next set the white balance to flash to ensure accurate colours and tones, it’s best to shoot in manual mode, as this enables you to specify both shutter speed and aperture. Graham explained and demonstrated using his wife as the model, the use of a soft box, white umbrella and various highlight reflectors, Graham’s philosophy was why pay out a lot of money on certain items and accessories when you can get away with using for instance a large white sheet of polystyrene board as a reflector, or fork out for an almost life size soft box, the choice is yours. He finished the evening showing how easy it is to set up a simple but effective lighting unit for perfect portraits. To conclude the evening members were shown several images where lighting had been used to its full potential to bring the best out of the image and its location.

Images of Graham’s work can be seen on his web site at gphotography.org.uk

5^th December – Mini competition - Macro

12^th December – Reading Photographs a talk by Rob Mitchell and hand in of 2^nd open images.

PANELS comp

TENBY AND DISTRICT CAMERA CLUB Once again the club welcomed the ever popular Leigh Woolford AWPF, EFIAP a member of the Gwynfa Camera club. Leigh travelled from his home in Pontypridd to judge the evening of ‘Panels’, he explained to members what was required by the Welsh Photographic Federation for acceptance; and that judging is very subjective, which is why selection panels comprise of three people, you sometimes get disagreements among the panel, with one selector giving 2 and another awarding a top score of 5. Distinctions are normally judged by a panel of five assessors and a chairman. From is own experiences he told members that some images won’t do very well with certain judges and do better with others. It’s always going to be like that. In his judging of the 7 print panels, Leigh again explained that judges needed to give a feel of what the photographer intended and then pointed out that it’s a personal opinion. Positive criticism was given to all images, helping the person to improve their work. The topic of images ranged from Lions in Africa, to surfing at Manorbier, garden flowers to hot rods at Pendine, but the winning panel for the print section was Roy Packer’s ‘Dalmation Pelicans’ – a strong panel, interesting subject, beautiful colours and top quality W.P.F standard, Paul Richards in second place with ‘Life of the Hare’ and Liz Wallace 3rd Place with ‘Eagles in Norway’. Following a coffee break Leigh continued judging the eight digital projected images. He went on to say that panels can sometimes be quite poor and you know your going to disappoint the photographer, but you have to know there is room for improvement. The standard of the photography and the overall technical standard of images were good, and he gave advice on how to improve your success rate. First place was awarded to Roy Packer with his monochrome panel titled ‘Kids of Gambia’ in second place Gary Jenkins ‘Kingfishers’ and third place Paul Richards ‘Mellow Yellow’. 28th November – Location Lighting – talk by Graham Harries 5th December – Mini competition – Macro.

BLACK & White comp

TENBY AND DISTRICT CAMERA CLUB Despite the brilliance of modern digital cameras and the stunningly life like colour they can give, black and white images are as popular as ever. Why? Who Knows! Maybe their classic looks reminds us of a simpler age, maybe paradoxically they convey honesty when their true colours are removed, or maybe things just look better in black and white. Judging took place at the club meeting on Thursday 14th November when Roy Thomas a member of the Neath Camera Club travelled the M4 corridor to judge the black and white print and digital images. Roy was critical of the title of images he was judging as some images were mono and some even with a sepia tone. What ever the reason, if you want to work in black and white you need to know how best to achieve these effects. Whether you are shooting in black and white or converting your full colour pictures into black and white. Roy went onto say what pictures work in black and white or mono? Because black and white makes your pictures look more worthy, try setting yourself a photo project, like shooting your town or village. A mono conversion can turn mundane, everyday pictures into a timeless comment on your works. Because black and white images can have their lighting worked a lot harder than colour ones, it’s possible to shoot in virtually any light and still end up with an atmospheric picture. If you have bad weather – just think mono. Roy’s judging of the 23 print images awarded 1st place to Roy Packer, 2nd place Bob Lineker and 3rd place Charlie Kidd. From the 34 digital images submitted Roy awarded 1st place to Roy Packer, 2nd place Paul Richards and 3rd Place Gill McKay. 28th November – Talk by Graham Harries – Location lighting

The ever popular Nigel McCall

TENBY AND DISTRICT CAMERA CLUB The guest speaker at the club meeting held on Thursday 7th November was the ever popular Nigel McCall from Carmarthen. The chairman introduced the evening by telling members that Nigel had recently won the urban view Category of the annual, ‘Take a View’ photographer of the year award. His winning image was a hypnotising cloud of starlings captured above Carmarthen at dusk. Nigel’s talk on this his third visit to the club was on the Falkland Islands, Wildlife and Landscape. The talk began, explaining the logistics of the journey, leaving Brize Norton R.A.F base, flying to the Ascension Island and then on to the Falkland Islands, a journey time of 18 hours. With over 700 islands making up the Falkland’s which equates to approximately two thirds of the land mass of Wales. The main mode of transport is small light aircraft and boats, while on the islands a 4 x 4 vehicle is essential. Nigel’s journey started in Darwin before moving on to San Carlos where there is a cemetery for British Forces and also the Argentines he visited Goose Green, Carcass Island where Nigel showed us the abundance of bird life such as, the Crested Caracara, Austral Thrush, Flightless Steamer Duck, Kelp Geese, Cobbs Wren. He then transported us to West Point Island by boat where once again the bird life was a photographer’s dream, the Black Browed Albatross, the bird most people visit this location to see. Pebble Island was the next island to visit, a twenty minute flight where sheep farming is the main employer, farming at fifty two degrees south of the equator is never easy, but nevertheless there is approximately eighty eight family farms on the Falkland Islands. We were also shown images of Southern Rock Hopper Penguins and King Penguins at Volunteer Point before a 40 minute flight to Seal Lion Island. The island is a relatively flat plateau with perpendicular cliff’s, Nigel showed images of Killer Whales hunting for Penguins, Elephant Seals, Gentoo and Magellanic Penguins. Nigel’s talk ended back at Stanley with images of some of the interesting buildings such as Jubilee Villas built in 1887 for Queen Victoria’s diamond jubilee, Government House built in 1840 and the Whale Bone Arch made from the jaw bones of two Blue Whales, built in 1933 to commemorate the centenary of British rule in the islands. Nigel answered many questions following his most interesting and informative talk. 14th November – Judging black and white images 21st November – Judging of panels

‘More than Mountains’ with Tom Dodd

TENBY AND DISTRICT CAMERA CLUB At the meeting on Thursday 31st October, Neil Thomas Vice Chairman thanked the three club members who travelled to Connah’s Quay to represent the club at the P.A.G.B. inter club print championships held on Saturday 26th October. He then introduced the speaker for the evening, Tom Dodd who travelled from Blaenau Ffestinog and was supported by his two grandchildren. Tom’s theme for the evening was ‘More than Mountains’, before showing any images Tom told members he remembered visiting Tenby as a child with his dad who worked for the bus company Western Welsh. He is a native of Abergavenny and then moved to North Wales where he was employed in the outdoor leisure industry leading parties of young people into the mountains. “I have always been taking photographs, but I guess my interest in mountains and landscape started with my work”. He told us he is is a ‘Permajet’ sponsored lecturer and gives many talks around England and Wales. His images of the Mountains were spectacular, taken in the French Alps, Switzerland, Nepal, Greenland and of course the Snowdonian National Park. Tom explained that a lot of his early images were taken as slides, which was then scanned and the print produced. His interest goes beyond the mountains, he describes his work as a large format of social photography, where his images managed to capture people in their social context without being heavy handed; this was evident in the portraits of people from Katmandu, the street scenes of Belfast and the small grocers shop in Abergavenny. Before the coffee break Tom told members “Our photography should be documentive in addition to the images we take for competition, every picture tells a story”. Tom continued to show images of birds and insects, flowers, family images and close ups; and saying to the audience that “composition and arrangement of your images is important and to shoot what you love, marry photography with something you are passionate about”. Neil Thomas thanked Tom for a wonderful and light hearted talk and hoped that he would return to club in 2014. 7th November – Falkland Islands – Wildlife and Landscapes – talk by Nigel McCall 14th November – Judging of Black and White images

natural history photographic competition

TENBY AND DISTRICT CAMERA CLUB The judging of the natural history photographic competition on Thursday 24th October was well attended by members for this the first visit to the club of Malcolm Kingswall who travelled from Tredegar. Malcolm told members he was a generalist in photography but his passion was natural history, and was pleased when he first looked at the images, to see the approach, freedom of expression and composition which was refreshing. The standard of photographs and digital images varied, but on the whole the standard was very good. In the print section there were over 20 entries with the subjects varying from sea birds, seal pups, caterpillars, Robins and Gold Finches, a stag, monkeys and fungi. Malcolm gave excellent critiques to every image commenting on both good points and failings of the photographs, good composition but poor contrast of light, strong image poor composition. He went on to say photography in the club is certainly up there with the best in Wales. 3rd place was awarded to Paul Richards for his ‘Pied flycatcher’, 2nd place ‘Tipping Point’, Gary Jenkins and in 1st place ‘The Stag’, Andrew Baxter. Following the coffee break Malcolm then continued his judging of the 32 digital images, once again the subject matter varied from all varieties of birds, Red Kites, Sparrow Hawks, Puffins, Mute Swans, Pheasants, Kingfishers even a Brown Pelican, a Hedgehog, Dragonfly, Bluebells and fungi; once again Malcolm gave constructive and useful comment on the images such as how the light plays on the subject, he continued to say that all images have merit, but of course some are better than others and this was evident in the final placings. Malcolm awarded joint 3rd to three members, Ann Batty, Mike Cullis and Gary Jenkins, in 2nd place Neil Thomas ‘Kingfisher with Catch’ and in 1st place Paul Richards ‘Barn Owl with Prey’. The overall winner of the competition was Andrew Baxter’s image of the ‘Stag’. 31st October – A Talk by Tom Dodd – More than Mountains. 7th November – Nigel McCall – The Falkland Islands – Wildlife and landscapes.

Alan Squires on Macro Photogaphy

TENBY AND DISTRICT CAMERA CLUB The chairman, Roy Packer gave a warm welcome to Alan Squires AWPF a member of the Gwynfor camera club. This is Alan’s second visit to the club to talk about macro photography. He introduced the subject explaining to members that he mainly uses a Nikon D3S camera and a Sigma 105 lens, with various flash guns and other pieces of equipment, such as bellows, focus rail and extension tubes. Alan showed a number of digital images of insects, fungi, flowers and even a wrist watch face. He commented that most people do not look too closely at flowers, they view them as a whole, but a flower viewed through a macro lens is fascinating. Flowers, fungi, insects and spiders are incredible creations of nature and Alan portrayed this in his images even in imperfect and damaged flowers and insects. Following a coffee break members were encouraged to have a go at the work stations Alan had set up. As members moved around Alan was on hand to give advice and helpful tips such as to ask yourself what is the main attraction, Is it the colour, the texture, the shape? Does it look better portrayed alone or in a group? Once you have decided, you can concentrate on that particular element, experimenting with different angles and viewpoints. Alan shoots in manual mode and mostly the camera is hand held, with the occasional use of a tripod. While out in the field, he uses his camera bag to rest his camera on to ensure the sharpness and no camera shake, he advocates using reflectors to even out the light and get detail in shadowed areas. 24th October – Judging of Natural History Competition and hand in of black and white entries. 31st October – More than Mountains talk by Tom Dodd and hand in of panels competition.