Third Open and Carmarthen Five Way Battle

TENBY AND DISTRICT CAMERA CLUB

Roy Packer club chairman opened the club meeting on Thursday 13^th March and welcomed guests and the judge for the evening Mr Ed Cloutman. After a short introduction Ed went on to give his critique of the18 prints submitted in the clubs 3^rd Open Competition. The winning print ‘Dipper with Prey’ by Paul Richards was described by the judge as technically a perfect print and a fantastic print of the bird in its natural environment. Paul also secured second place with his print named ‘Kingfisher Strike’ and 3^rd Place was Dylan Harries with his landscape ‘Mineral Lake’.

After a short interval Ed went on to judge the 24 digital images submitted, wildlife again took pride of place when Roy Packer’s image ‘Jumping Squirrel’ was declared the winner, the judge telling members that this was an excellent example of capturing a sharp image of a creature on the move. The image of the ‘Lone Fresia’ by Dylan Harries came second with Dave Bolton’s ‘Bike Race’ awarded third place.

        

The Five Way Battle – projected image competition was held Thursday evening 13^th March at the Bethany Chapel, Priory Street, Carmarthen. This competition is between 5 photographic clubs each submitting 8 images. The clubs taking part this year were Amman Valley, Cardigan, Carmarthen, New Quay and Tenby and District Camera club. Charles Kidd the external competition secretary selected the images for Tenby and was successful in winning the event with 146 points from a total of 160, 2^nd place was Carmarthen club with 141 points. Two images submitted gained a maximum of 20 points ‘The Greedy One’ – Neil Thomas and ‘Kingfishers Are It’ – Paul Richards and one image gaining 19 points ‘Porlock Weir’ – Gary Jenkins. Congratulations to all members whose images were used in the competition.

               

27^th March – Journey Through India with Roy packer.

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.