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.