Hi All,
Congratulations to all those who entered the 3rd PDI competition on Tuesday, although the biggest congratulations must go to the judge Michael Krier ARPS MA(photo) AFIAP for the difficult selection decisions he had to make. I thought the standard was exceptional with so much high quality work from both Open and Novice and with brilliant images from the winners, in fact, if I had seen them in an international exhibition I would not have been surprised. Let’s hope that Sue Vernon considers sending off her singing Robin to next year’s BBC’s Country File Calendar Competition, got to stand a chance.
This week’s early session (7.00 pm) is Tony Gervis FRPS as he continues his journey to make us better photographers. My apologies for last week’s confusion , a senior moment, however a bigger apology to last week’s audience as I was not able to demonstrate simple flash triggers (who would believe that out of the six triggers I had with me every battery would be dead). Just call me Lucky.
The main event of the evening will be a print presentation by Graham Walton DPAGB entitled “Burning in the Shadows”. You may remember him as the judge we had on the 11th December, well now’s the chance for us to judge his work although, to be fair, I suspect we will be impressed. As the title suggests this will almost certainly be mainly black and white prints for which he is well known. It’s just a pity we won’t have our new super impressive print display easel (it’s on order) so those with not so good eyesight make sure you get to the front (or do what I do occasionally and bring some binoculars).
Now for a bit of advanced notice, the following week (5th Feb) we have a member’s practical evening and it’s your chance to get creative and try something new out with your cameras. So far we have a Bring and Buy space in memory of John Dignum who first started it going, so have a look around your kit and consider ‘Do I really need that???, you haven’t used it for???, wouldn’t it be better if you can turn it into cash???’ All you need to do is fill in a little label with your name and asking price and see what happens, the club asks for a donation of 10% from the seller once sold (limited to £20 max). Richard Chapman is setting up a macro table so you can use your cameras up close and personal and perhaps use some of the techniques he demonstrated two weeks ago. John Davidson will be demonstrating how easy it is to cut your own mounts, as well as having standard sizes on sale. We will be having a speedlight portrait studio set and Nigel Taylor is interested in getting members’ portraits so that we can all put names to faces as well as producing membership ID cards. Hopefully other members will help with this area and if anyone wants to be a model or knows someone who would like to be a model (over 18’s) then just let me know. I’m hoping I can persuade someone to put a nature space together. Finally I will be running some still life tables however instead of me bringing along the usual items, I’m throwing it open to members to find something that might work and make an image. We can use a selection of lights from flash to continuous to torch light. Perhaps you would like to get together with a few of your mates and produce a team effort. It’s a challenge so who’s up for it and there might very well be a prize.
Whilst mentioning advanced notice don’t forget that the 4th PDI competition on the 5th March is a set subject of “speed” and time is quickly ticking.
Looks like I have exceeded my 500 words somewhat so time to call it a day for this week.
Hope to see you Tuesday.
Best wishes,
Roger L