Creative comp

TENBY AND DISTRICT CAMERA CLUB

The vice chairman Neil Thomas gave a warm welcome to Jan Cawley EFIAPS HON.FWPF who was the invited judge for the evening of the creative competition held on Thursday 6^th March at the St Florence community hall. Sadly only 10 prints and 13 digital images were entered in this competition, but nevertheless Jan gave an excellent critique, firstly on the prints with subjects ranging from the seaside, alphabet pasta, otters feeding, dogs heads photo shopped onto human bodies, all in the creative mode. The winning print was a monochrome image ‘Birkenau’ showing the railway lines that brought the Hungarian Jews to within a few yards of the gas chambers. The creative talent of Roy Packer who transformed the clouds into images of those pour souls was justly awarded 20 points, in second place Harry Gardiner with his beach print ‘Oh we do Like’ and third place Dave Bolton with his print ‘Who let the dogs out’.

Following a short break allowing members to view the prints, Jan continued her judging of digital images, once again the creative talents of members shone through. Again Roy Packer and his creative talent using Photoshop and Lightroom produced the winning image ‘Puppet Masters Wheelchair’ with Harry Gardiner receiving second place with his image ‘cobblers Nightmare’ and in third place Charles Kidd with his ‘Land of the Giants’. The overall winner was Roy Packers ‘Birkenau’. Jan concluded the evening with a selection of her own images, many that had won medals in the various shows, explaining to members how and why she changed an image from colour to black and white, whether to saturate and distort to give the desired effect, how she sharpened some images and cropped and blurred others. Before saying goodnight Jan reminded the members that competitions are fun and should not be taken seriously, each judge has a different opinion, what has a low mark tonight – elsewhere will be judged higher.

              

20^th March – Camera club AGM

An evening with Chris Warren Also news of THE ACE OF CLUBS competition

TENBY AND DISTRICT CAMERA CLUB

The Tenby and District Camera club were entertained on Thursday 20^th February to ‘An evening with Chris Warren’. Chris delivered a presentation for the advanced novice, covering many of the topics he had spoken about in his previous talk to members.

The Ace of Clubs competition was held on Saturday 22^nd February at the Selwyn Samuel Centre, Llanelli, the host club being the Llanelli Photographic Society. 18 clubs from South Wales enter this prestigious competition. There are 3 rounds with each club submitting 10 images for round one and 10 images for round two; after the second round the Tenby and District club were in fourth place, which meant the club was in the final round of the eight top clubs. A further 15 images had to be selected from the clubs pool of 30 images, from this selection the club was placed 2^nd with 176 points, the ‘In Focus’ group gaining 184 points. Both Tenby and District Camera club and the In Focus group will now represent Wales at the Photographic Alliance of Great Britain competition to be held later this year.

Congratulations to Charlie Kidd who represented the club at Llanelli and had the task of selecting the images.

   

        

Thursday 27^th Febuary  Photographing live music and events with Graham Harries

Landscape comp

TENBY AND DISTRICT CAMERA CLUB

The chairman Roy Packer gave a very warm welcome to Mr Rob Mitchell MA, who made a return to the club on Thursday 13^th February to judge the 22 print images and 31 digital images in the landscape competition.

Rob who lives and works in Swansea, lecturing in photography at the Swansea Metropolitan University and will be retiring from his teaching post at the end of this term.

Rob explained to members before showing the prints, that he would be looking for technique, the rule of thirds, horizontal lines, he also explained that it was important for the photographer to name his image and that the interpretation of that title matched the photograph. Taking a closer look at these creative weapons to use to compose more artful images, straight, horizontal lines are calming and draw attention left to right across the frame, vertical lines accentuate height while diagonal lines create visual energy. Circles contain information and can be used to hold the viewers attention, squares and rectangles are solid and create visuals stasis, while triangles are more dynamic creating a sense of energy and finally the rule of thirds, a tried and trusted photographic technique. The rule states that the main subject should be positioned in one of four points where imaginary vertical and horizontal lines, drawn at third intervals, intersect. The reason it works is by positioning the subject in one of these points, it emphasises the wider area; so drawing the viewers attention to objects in the part of the scene.

The 22 print images of landscapes and seascapes showed the beauty of Pembrokeshire, Iceland, France and the Yorkshire Dales. The winning print was an image called ‘Scour Hole’ by Paul Richards with Peter Bierbrach being awarded second place with ‘Foreshore Lights’ and third place Dylan Harries ‘The Copse’.

After the coffee break Rob gave his critique and scores to the digital images with many of them showing Pembrokeshire’s magnificent coastline. The winning image was ‘In the Cool of the Night’ by Gary Jenkins who also took second place with ‘Last Colours of Autumns’ and third place to Liz Wallis with ‘Devils Claw Viewpoint.

Rob was asked to choose an overall winner for the evening and Paul Richards with his ‘Scour Hole’ was awarded the accolade.

Thursday 20^th February – An evening with Chris Warren and handing of 3^rd Open.

                     

  

Thursday 27^th February – Photographing live music and events with Graham Harries

Paul Richards Norway

TENBY AND DISTRICT CAMERA CLUB

Paul Richards an accomplished nature photographer was brought up in rural Wales where is love of nature began, following 20 years in countryside management, he now devotes his time to photography, running courses and giving talks on nature photography. Back in 2012 Paul had planned a trip to Norway and Sweden in his camper van; the 3 weeks that he and his partner Liz, who is also a photographer planned in 2013 turned into a 10 week adventure. The camera club were entertained on Thursday 6^th February to their trip with the evening being called ‘To Have an Adventure – a Memory in Photographs’.

On arriving in the Artic circle they drove on the RV17 one of the finest coastal roads, an exciting 650km long stretch of road between Steinkjer in the south and Bodo in the north. Norway is home to an impressive number of species of birds in particular the Blue Throat Divers and Sea Eagles, images were also shown of the Artic Fox and Fox puppies – sadly these have been in decline due to the over hunting around the turn of the century, with approximately 150 breeding pairs being recorded to date. Sweden is a land of incredible contrast, home to a vast array of landscapes, from dense pine forests, craggy mountains to rolling hills, all this was portrayed in the images shown.

Norway and Sweden lies north of the Artic Circle which means immense contrasts in seasons, that is temperatures, darkness and light. This was shown to club members in the form of an audio visual presentation called ‘Norway – Land of Midnight Sun’.

The chairman thanked Paul and Liz for an exciting and memorable evening enhanced by the wonderful images shown.

                

Thursday 13^th February – Judging of Landscape entries and handing in of Creative images.

                    

                                                                         

Thursday 20^th February – An evening with Chris Warren and handing in of 3^rd Open.

 

60 Iconic Images Of Pembrokeshire by Chris Warren

TENBY AND DISTRICT CAMERA CLUB

The chairman opened the club evening asking Charlie Kidd to give the results and show the images of the clubs entries in the W.P.F Memorial trophy competition. From the 24 Welsh clubs that entered, Tenby and District came a very credible fourth with Gary Jenkins image ‘Tipping Point’ gaining 19 points.

Our guest speaker needed no introduction to the members, as Chris Warren, a commercial photographer has been a club member for many a year. Tonight Chris was talking and showing images of his commission for the Pembrokeshire National Park, “60 iconic images of Pembrokeshire”. He took the images in the Autumn of 2012, but before showing members the images he explained what pre-planning had to be carried out following receipt of his brief. Planning – what view points and where, planning a working route, working out best times of day, was it to be a sunrise or sunset shot? The times for the beach and harbours – tide in or out? And finally the weather forecast.

His introduction to the 60 images started with a few statistics, such as the Pembrokeshire National Park being the only coastal path in Britain with an area of 243 square miles and was created in 1952.

The tour around the Park was in bite size sections starting from Amroth along the south coast taking in Saundersfoot, Tenby, Manorbier, Freshwater East to the Green Bridge. Chris gave interesting facts and history on many of the locations. His commission took in a range of locations and while the coastline is spectacular, the woodlands, hills, and the waterway is equally spectacular. His images showed just that, the inland waterway of Carew, Cresswell Quay and up to Llangwm, the Milford Haven Waterway with stunning images of Angle Bay, Thorn Island, Dale and Watwick Bay. The contrasting differences in coastline, and scenery from the north to the south of the County was evident when the images of St Brides, Haroldston Chins, Solva, St Davids and north to Abereiddi and Strumble Head were projected, leaving the audience spell bound. Chris then took us inland to the hills with images of Carn Igili, Pontfaen Woods, Castell Henllys and finishing at Pentre Ifan.

Photographing the Park in its 60^th year was a dream commission Chris stated and was proud to be part of a project recording this magical and fascinating world class landscape for generations of people to come.

Many of the images were published in the National Park paper Coast to Coast, Wales Online and in the local papers, and with some of the images being displayed on the National Park vehicles.

The chairman thanked Chris for a most interesting evening.

All 60 images can be seen at the National Park offices, Llanion Park, Pembroke Dock.

6^th February – A Journey through Norway – a talk by Paul Richards

13^th February – Judging of Landscape entries and hand in of Creative images