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Latest from the lakes

Day 3

Last nights beer festival went OK and Angie likes chocolate stout. Adrian is now officially responsible for the weather he has a cloud that follows him. We all went to the seaside today nice and sunny. Chinese tonight. Can you have a collection for my bail money. I was innocent they were looking for some bloke called Duncan disorderly c u soon, Duncan

Day 2

Rain and then it started raining and they say it might rain later went out took photos got wet . Model didn't turn up so i stood in i don't think Jeff can take much more. chips and beer last night got up in the night and got lost in the dark , visited quite a few people in the dark. When i got up mark had gone home. Lost me boots this morning and me glasses see u soon

Day 1

up at 5 sunrise on the lake still out 12 hours later it is really good here except for all the tourist.

Adrian has had the first slap from the barmaid ha ha set him up well. Big Adrian makes a good cave troll under a bridge and Ruth likes playing charades its tipping down this morning looks like an early pub day going shopping there must be a Lego shop somewhere.

Some good images being produced after Angie gave us a tour of the lakes yesterday. Jeff from bath wants to know if i have got an off switch ha ha ha.ha ha ha .ha ha ha.ha ha ha see you soon .. The werwolf

Guess who from?........and yes it is edited!!!

New Website, Blog & Forum!!

The move to our new home on the internet is drawing closer. There really is only a few things left to do and we'll be leaving all this behind!

We're redesigning the website to have a fantastic easy to follow look with everything our members need all in one place. you'll be able to find competition rules, see who is on the committee, what's coming up at the next meeting and lots more. 

As well as the website the Blog will be moving over to a new home as well and it'll be easy to access as it will be part of the website! And even if I do say so it looks bloody fantastic!

But wait there's MORE!!!

We've created a brand new Forum where you can all go and chat! Finally instead of only being able to post messages & ask questions on Flickr  you will be able to talk to fellow club members on our own dedicated forum which is also part of our brand new amazing website!

When will it be ready? Hopefully by the end of this week. One of the main things holding it us is Kevin still hasn't sent me a picture that I'm waiting for so maybe you would all like to yell at him for me and get him to send it over!

More publicity for Reflex

The RE:CREATE photography exhibition by Reflex Camera Club has got an official listing on the Create Centre website in the "Events and Exhibitions" section.

http://www.createbristol.org/events.htm
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A Day in the Life - Knowle West Media Centre

Today, Ruth and myself attended the Knowle West Media Centre as representatives of Reflex Camera Club. We took part in a project called Truth About Youth. This is what it was all about....

The "Truth About Youth" project is run to teach photography skills, studio work, Photoshop and building a portfolio but it's also helping young people aged 16 – 25 years deal with the challenges of growing up in a culture that has widespread negative perceptions of youth. By linking with older people in the community and developing an intergenerational project we hoped to create opportunities for these two disperate groups to talk to one another, sharing both photography skills and experiences.

photo : myk garton

On the morning we talked about the Reflex Camera Club and Flickr and how we became involved. We shared some of our work with the group and talked about why we joined and what we got out of it.

Afterwards we went out with members of the group into the local community and tried to create a 'Day in the Life' style series of photos about a particular place together.

Once back at the Media Centre we had chance to view everyone's images and discuss the day's events.

All in all.....a very good public relations exercise.

Dates

Here are a few dates that you might need for the coming weeks.

Sunday 30th September - A Light Painting session aimed at beginners who would like to learn more about this subject. Ever wondered what Light Painting is all about and what settings to use on your camera? Things such as using Bulb mode, remote control, zoom burst, light trails, double exposures, light writing, back flash silhouettes as well as capturing an orb, a dome and a wire wool spin.Well here's your chance to find out
This session will start at 7pm on Sunday 30th September at the Cumberland Basin. Car Parking details will follow soon

Also, this is the cut-off date for submitting your images to the Reflex RE:CREATE exhibition.

Saturday 13th October - From 10:00am......Setting up the RE:CREATE exhibition at the Create Centre and a photoshoot at the Lifeskills centre whilst we're there. All Reflex members are invited to take part.

Monday 15th October - The RE:CREATE exhibition begins. For 10 weeks up until Christmas around 30 images submitted by members of Reflex will be on display in the Cafe Gallery at the Create Centre. Please spread the word.

Saturday 27th October - The Bristol Zombie Walk 2012. The route has not been published yet, but as soon as I find out, I'll let you know.

Helping out with the RE:CREATE exhibition

As was mentioned at last night's club meeting, we need a few people to help us set up the exhibition at The Create Centre from 10am on Saturday 13th October. Meet up at the cafe gallery.

You may want to bring your own food and drink as the cafe itself will not be open.

Also, we (Reflex Club members) have been given permission to use the Lifeskills Centre (within the Create building) to do a club photoshoot session on the same day.

Lifeskills is an interactive safety education centre, built as a realistic village.  Have a look at the photos on their website to see what they have to offer in terms of doing a photoshoot. Maybe some of you could pursuade a few models to come along and help out?

http://www.lifeskills-bristol.org.uk/?page_id=236

Some of you members have been there before and know how good this place is.

Please can you announce your interest on the Flickr group thread for all to see.

Thanks.

Myk

The RE:CREATE Exhibition

Poster designed by MG/BS4

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Well folks, things are now well underway regarding the RE:CREATE photographic exhibition being held by Reflex Camera Club next month at the Create Centre here in Bristol.

26 club members are due to take part and there is still time for four more members to join in. The exhibition will run for ten weeks up until Christmas.

Images need to be submitted by the end of the month as that will give us 14 days to print and frame them ready for the opening day of the exhibition on Monday 15th October.

Please send them in the highest resolution (size) possible to myk1960@hotmail.co.uk or directly to the club's Dropbox. Please name them RECREATE with your name attached.

Frame size is 12x10 and your print will be resized to print at 10x8. Please get in touch with me (Myk Garton) if you require any further information

What a start to the new season at Reflex

Bristol Pride 2012 by Myk Garton
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Well the new season at Reflex Camera Club really got off to a fantastic start last night (Thursday 6th) with probably the highest attendance ever seen.......somewhere around 55 people turning up to see what others had been photographing over the summer break. Many new faces in the crowd too which is always good to see.

The night began with Kev outlining the main meetings coming up over the next nine months and then we had the pleasure of seeing what some of the club members had been photographing over the past three months. Some excellent images were shown, along with some very odd ones by you know who.

Next week we have the first of our club Tutorials -  Everything you need to know about entering (Reflex) competitions

The 2012-13 Season Begins on Thursday 6th September

Just a few more days and the 2012-13 season for Reflex Camera Club begins.

Club membership is growing and so our programme has been increased accordingly. This year will see many new things going on and plenty of club member participation.

Week 1 will see members showing us what they've been up to over the summer break.

Members have the chance to bring in between 10 - 15 digital images to represent what they've been photographing over the Summer Break. Don't be shy go on bring in some pictures and let us see what you've been doing. There's a free cup of tea or coffee at the half time break for the most embarrassing picture of Ian!

A full programme list can be found on the website.

http://www.reflexcc.org.uk/prog.html

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This week and Next week

Well last Thursday was a real treat. What a fantastic show of images from wildlife photography to water-babes and model shoots - all under water. A real inspiration into a niche of photography that is still relatively uncrowded.

This week however there will be no meeting as the venue is once again without key holder. Next meeting will be on September 6th. Show and tell from your summer escapades.

Mark O'Grady

After yet another fantastic informative talk/slideshow entitled "The History of Photography - Part 2" at last Thursday's club meeting we move on to another club member. This week it's the turn of Mark O'Grady. If you've not seen much of Mark's work then you are in for a treat. During his talk you'll get to see images ranging from stunning landscapes through to stunning models....and all shot in Mark's unique style.

And just to whet your appetite, go and have a look at Mark's website:

http://www.aspectratiophotography.com/

You really don't want to miss this one !!

Reflex Photographic Exhibition

The "REFLEX RE-CREATE" Exhibition at The Cafe Gallery, The Create Centre, Bristol

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Reflex Camera Club will be holding a photographic exhibition at the Create centre for 10 weeks beginning on Monday 15th October and going through to Friday 21st December.

A new gallery wall has been installed in the cafe area and will be viewed by most people visiting the building.

The theme will based upon Green issues such as Recycling, Restoring, Reusing, Reclaiming, Recreating etc. etc.

The title of the exhibition combines the words RE and CREATE (the name of the venue) to create the word RECREATE. (How clever is that?)

All members of Reflex Camera Club are hereby invited to submit one image towards the exhibition. This must be an 8x10 landscape or portrait sized print in colour or monochrome. This will be displayed in a 10x12 black frame. The aim is to make the exhibition look as professional as possible in order to promote Reflex Camera Club in the best possible way. These will need to be ready two weeks prior to the start date.....so by the end of September.

There will be a cost involved for each member taking part and that should be no more than £4. This will cover the price of a frame and a print, which is yours to keep after the exhibition has finished. Any surplus money will be used for promotional purposes such as Camera Club advertising, a comments book and other printing/photocopying etc.

I've calculated we can hang 20 landscape and 10 portrait images making a total of 30 in the exhibition altogether.

We have 25 members already offering to take part, so we are still looking for 5 more members to join in.

We will operate a first come, first serve basis.

For more info please read the dedicated thread on the Reflex Camera Club Flickr Group Discussion Page http://www.flickr.com/groups/reflexcc/discuss/72157630070686287/

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Events around the Bristol area during August

There are plenty of photographic opportunities coming up over the next few weeks and here are just a few of the major ones......


Bristol Balloon Fiesta on 9/10/11/12 August - (Night Glows 9 & 11)  http://www.bristolballoonfiesta.co.uk/

Summer Classics Vehicle Show at Easter Compton on 11/12 August http://www.summer-classics.co.uk/

Avon Valley Railway & Brislington P+R Bus Rally on 12 August http://www.avonvalleyrailway.org/events/vintage-bus-rally

See No Evil, Nelson Street on 13/14/15/16/17/18/19 August http://www.seenoevilbristol.co.uk/

Bristol Bike Show, Corn St on 18 August http://www.thebristolbikeshow.co.uk/

Bristol Doors Open Day (at selected venues ) on 8 Sept http://www.bristoldoorsopenday.org/

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6 Weeks of Summer

We wish we had six weeks of summer weather but hey ho. Instead we entitle our summer tuition course this to make you feel like you've had one!

Well Thursday saw the tuition draw to a close and what a great 6 weeks it was. Thanks to everyone who attended the turn out was great (30 - 40 each week). We covered everything from Exposure basics through lens techniques to histograms and RAW vs JPG (I won't be doing that again).

It was really enjoyable and I received some great feedback from members on the tuition and content. We hope you all enjoyed it and possibly learned something if only one little nugget it would be worth it.

Time to get learning

Our summer educational programme got off to a great start last Thursday with a session all about the exposure triangle, aperture, ISO and shutter speed. We had a great turn out and Im sure that most members learned something that evening.

This week is all about lens and focus where we will be exploring various types of lenses, lens compression, auto versus manual focus, focus points and modes. Hope to see you all there.

Photo marathon Results

Hi Julie sent me a load of information for the results of the Photo marathon. The important bits are reproduced below along with a short piece written by her. She also sent me a table that she’d obviously spent a while working on that showed everyone's results all nice and neat. Trouble is the way that Blogger & the software we use to write the Blog posts works I can’t put the table up without spending a helluva long time transposing it by hand. So you probably won’t get to see that. Anyway here’s what Julie had to say..

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Good afternoon all, I hope you enjoyed looking through the photos last night it certainly was interesting to see how creative you all are when put under pressure like that.

I know I mentioned how close the voting was but I thought you might like to see the individual results you scored for each category. These are in the grid below and the overall winners are shown below in a 1^st 2^nd 3^rd ranking for each category. Once again congratulations to everyone who got some points, you all rose to the challenge admirably.

(as I said in the opening part of this post I’m afraid I can’t post the nice neat table she worked on for you all to see your individual scores)

Category: Street Sign

1^st Mark O’Grady (5 points)

2^nd Sally Coombs & Mark Stone (4 points)

3^rd Debbie Duncombe, Eddie House & Hanneke Ter Veen (3 points)

Category: Door

1^st Alison Davies (6 points)

2^nd Eddie House (5 points)

3^rd Hanneke Ter Veen & Mark O’Grady (4 points)

Category: Shadow

1^st Mark O’Grady (10 points)

2^nd Richard Price (7 points)

3^rd Ian Coombs (6 points)

Category: Gate

1^st Joe Scudamore (6 points)

2^nd Simon Xu (5 points)

3^rd Debbie Duncombe & Mark Stone (4 points)

Category: Commercial Vehicle

1^st Hanneke Ter Veen (7 points)

2^nd Mark O’Grady (5 points)

3^rd Maurice Iles (4 points)

Category: Open

1^st Mark O’Grady (18 points)

2^nd Ian Coombs & Maurice Thompson (3 points)

3^rd Steve Hallam , Theresa Driscoll & Wendy O’Brien (2 points)

Overall Winner

1^st Mark O’Grady (21 points for his Open Category entry)

2^nd Alison Davies (6 points for her Door Category entry)

3^rd Mark O’Grady (5 points for his Shadow Category entry)

Awards

Well I had my eyes well and truly opened with the Skittles  match during last weeks awards, I am not exagerating when I say I genuinely feared for my life sitting next to the alley, how there weren't holes made in the floor I will never know :)

It was a great turn out with most of the club coming along for the social meet and  Im sure we managed to stink the club out with garlic too :) Thankyou Alison for arranging the food for us all.

The award winners -

 Winner of the tickets to Fairford - Michelle Donohoue

Novice of the year  - Julie Coombs

 Print photographer of the year - Richard Price

 DPI photographer of the year - Angi Nelson

John Hankin Shield Best Print - Mark O'Grady

Stan Scantlebury Shield Best DPI - Angi Nelson

 Photographer of the Year - Richard Price

Now we are entering the summer months and the committee plus a few extra members have put together a programme to keep us occuppied whilst those other lucky few are away in pursuit of summer sunshine abroad. This week we start with Barry taking us through images he has judged for other clubs.

Social and prize giving this Thursday

 Last weeks super fun practical meeting resulted around 40+ of us descending on the streets of the St Annes area in a bid to get photographs to fit the 5 themes we were left by Ruth. The local people were seriously disturbed by us geeky camera carrying brigade and I hear there were a few funny remarks made. Although a few locals were game to helping us out as you will see in the images in a couple of weeks, even the wildlife and teddy bears came out to play and we were treat to a nice sunset as well. I cant wait to see the results. Many thanks to Julie Coombs for helping to arrange the photo rally.

 We have one sneak peek image, taken on the same evening, Myk must have taken an extra card along I think.

This week we have yet another evening of fun scheduelled, but not at the school as per usual, this time we are meeting at the Langton court pub for a night of skittles and prize giving. There will be food provided to give you that extra little bit of energy to play hard at skittles.

Summer is here - image below by Alison Davies

I hope you have all had a chance to get and about in this gorgeous weather with your cameras. I see Andro and Myk certainly managed to capture a lovely sunset at Clevedon and another group of us were out photographing in the beautiful evening light yesterday in south Gloucestershire.  So dont think you have to go out on your own, if you want to team up with others from the group then do shout up at the meetings, or on the Flickr or facebook pages.

Image below by Andro

Results for the John Hankin and Stan Scantlebury shields

This week we had a guest  judge from the Yate and Sodbury club along, to judge entries for the John Hankin shield (prints) and Stan scantlebury shield ( projected image). Members were asked to enter two of their best entries from this last years open competitions to be considered in each section.
 There were lots of lovely varied images and I am sure our judge had a hard time choosing his favourites.

If the photographer has a Flickr Account their name links to it. The picture also links to that picture on Flickr (or wherever they have it online) No link or picture means they haven’t put it online or haven’t let me know where I can find it to link to.

                                                        John Hankin shield (prints)                                      
                                                                 1st Place                                                                                 
                                               Extravagant lifestyle by Mark O Grady 

  

                                                                 2nd Place
                                                           Punk by Angi Nelson

3rd place

Escaping the dentists chair by Mark O Grady

Highly commended

Bicep by Barrie Tovey

                                


                                               Stan Scantlebury shield (projected image)
                                                                            1st place
                                                     Valentines bridge by Angi Nelson
                                                                              

2nd Place

Frosty Snipe by Richard Johnson

3rd Place

Alfi reflection by Eddie House

Highly commended

Jaws by Roy Williams

Dont forget to bring your camera and a spare memory card for this weeks photo marathon fun. Arrive early if you can and dress for the weather as we will be outdoors.

Oh and a word of advice for anyone planning to get married - remember your glasses :)

and be careful nobody videos you on your wedding night :)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kevs/7229546874/

AGM, Tom Sage and practical session

Lots of things going on with Reflex at the moment, many of which were summed up in last weeks annual general meeting. It looks like the club committee and members have been hard at work behind the scenes with planning and organising the future of the club. If you didnt make it to the meeting (like me - slapped wrists) then please take the time to read our newsletter which outlines a few changes that we all have to look forward to. As a result of feedback from members there are all sorts of new ideas being implemented, offering us a great deal of variety over the year and even more opportunities to get stuck in and participate rather than just sitting in chairs.

This week we are back to our normal meeting day of Thursday and we are expecting a presentation by Tom Sage, a photographer who worked with the Press association on Fleet street for 15 years and then moved on to work with hot air balloons. It should be interesting to hear his experiences of press photography.

We have a little advance info regarding the meeting in two weeks time on May 24th, this will be our last practical session of the season, now at the moment its all top secret and all Ive been told is that we need to bring our cameras and an empty memory card. We will be venturing outside the walls of the school, so you softie southerners will likely need big furry boots, winter coats, hats, gloves scarves ( ha - waiting for the retaliative abuse ). Oh and apparently it would help if we could all be at the club for 7pm that evening, ready to brave the weather by 7:15.

Congratulations to Mark O Grady who has had a print accepted in the London Salon exhibition on his first ever entry, its great to see our members doing well.
Mark o Gradys flickr

Aperture – part 2: It’s all about depth of field

So you’ve promised to only use aperture priority and have been practicing day and night? J Then you’ll have noticed that your depth of field is also affected by something other than the size of the opening on your camera. Have you guessed it?

Distance from subject

Your distance from your subject also has a dramatic effect on the depth of field – the closer you are to your subject, the shallower the depth of field. Why? Well it’s all about converging angles – translation – you don’t need to worry, although if you want to find out more it’s just a google away.
So let’s add that to the rule we established in the last post:

The smaller the number and the closer you are to the subject,
the shorter the depth of field.

 

and of course the reverse is true:

The larger the number and the further you are from the subject,
the longer the depth of field.

Aperture numbers

You’ll remember from the last post that setting the aperture involves choosing a number, such as 5.6 or 8. These numbers are know as f-stops and one ‘stop’ will increase / decrease the amount of light entering the camera by 2 or ½ respectively; which will also affect the shutter speed you can achieve. We’re not going to go into the theory right now, but just remember that when we say ‘f-stop’ or show a number such as f5.6, we’re referring to the aperture number.

But why does it matter?

I can hear you screaming ‘but why does it matter?’ at this point, so let’s look at some real world examples.

When shooting landscapes, you generally want lots / all the scene in focus, so pick a high number for your aperture – anything from f8 – f16.


With macro, you want very little in focus to blur the background and concentrate on the details. Get close to your subject and use a low aperture, from f1.4 – f4.


For portraiture, you’re generally looking at the middle of the scale. If you’re in the studio with a backdrop, the ‘magic’ f-stop is f8 to get all your subject in focus. If you’re outdoors, put your subject away from the background and shoot in the f5.6 range to get the subject in focus and the background blurred. And of course, getting closer to your subject will shorten that depth of field even more.

Get to it!

 

So there you have it – switch to aperture priority and start practicing. There’s no better way to understand aperture than seeing the results!


Provided by Danny T Photography.

Roy who?

After 20 years of being our competition secretary we finally realised that Roy’s pictures always won so we’ve given him the boot. Well ok maybe not but I had to look long and hard to find a picture that summed up the skill and mastery he has over his camera.

It’s been a great 20 years mate and I’m sure you’d still do a much better job than that long haired hippy bloke whose taking over from you!

Everyone in the club want’s me to pass on our thanks for all the effort (I did try not to laugh when I wrote that bit) you’ve put in over the years but at least this gives you more time to concentrate on your heckling from the back of the room.

Those of you hoping to read about our AGM will have to wait until the newsletter goes out later today or tomorrow to find out about all our plans for the coming season.

New Blogger alert!

Warning to all you regulars, Mark has let me loose on the blogger and discovered immediate proof that I am indeed a blonde, not a redhead! I'm Angi, the  person responsable for all those images of frogs, snakes and other scaley beasties. Lots of you know me already, but if you dont then come and say hi at one of the meetings, I promise I won't bite - I leave that to the snakes......


I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed Thursdays meeting, it was the first mainly "social" meeting I have attended and it was lovely to get the chance to chat to so many members, we are so lucky having such a friendly club. For those that didnt make it, we had a friendly print only competition just for fun with the theme being "local". It was a pleasure to see such a large variety of photographs and quite difficult to choose a favourite 3. Barry did the honours of talking us through each image, offering extra snippets of information regarding the locations featured. Oh and Ian attempted to flood the kitchen :)

There was a great turn out for Myk's photo walk around Bristol yesterday, 29 people turned up despite the windy, wet weather and from what I hear everyone had a great day out. Mark posted a group photo of most who went along on his flickr account which you can see by following the link below.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mark-stone/7124527567/in/pool-reflexcc
 Lots of lovely images have started popping up on our Flickr group aswell, some stunning captures of the Bristol Auto Moto Festival which the guys went along to see whilst taking in the sights of Bristol. If you haven't yet joined the Reflex members Flickr group its certainly worth visiting, it includes various discussions aswell as images -
http://www.flickr.com/groups/reflexcc/

A few of us are visiting the Lake district for a week in September and staying in a large holiday home together. There is space left for one more person, if you are interested then come and see me or Barry at the club this Friday.

If anyone is interested in entering prints into the Cotswold Mono salon competition there are detsils in the link below. Bring your prints along to the meeting on Friday and Barry will take them along to be entered for us all.
http://cotswold-monochrome.co.uk/wordpress/?page_id=935

Don't forget to check out our facebook page, where member Dan is adding updates, links and tutorials as he brings our page to life.
http://www.facebook.com/#!/ReflexCC

Reflex Open Competition Round 4 Results

The results for Round 4 of the ROC were announced at last Thursday’s meeting by guest judge Hillary Britland. I really have to thank Hillary for her superb judging with fantastic detailed comments for every single image that was entered.

If the photographer has a Flickr Account their name links to it. The picture also links to that picture on Flickr (or wherever they have it online) No link or picture means they haven’t put it online or haven’t let me know where I can find it to link to.

1st Place Print Section Bicep by Barrie Tovey	1st Place DPI Distant Thoughts by Sian Perry?
	Image has not been uploaded by me as I don’t have permission from the photographer to do so and they haven’t bothered to upload it to somewhere I can link to.
2nd Place Print Section Beth by Angie Nelson	2nd Place DPI Spring Nymph by Angie Nelson
3rd Place Print Section Petal Drops by Rich Price	3rd Place DPI Foel Tower by Mark Stone
Highly Commended Print Section Punk by Angie Nelson	Highly Commended DPI Eye Then by Roger Gowan
Highly Commended Print Section Fluffy by Richard Price	Highly Commended DPI Zebra Glass by Chris Mclean
Highly Commended Print Section Bugs Eye View by Nathan Williams	Highly Commended DPI Frosty Snipe by Rich Johnson
The Photographer has not bothered to supply me with a link or a digital version of this image.
	Highly Commended DPI Trees by Adrian Cook
	Highly Commended DPI In Song by Richard Price

Outside Exhibitions & Competitions

Today I have a post from long time Reflex member Barrie Tovey. Barrie has taken the time to explain just why it is that he enjoys entering Photographic Exhibitions & Salons.

The reason that I like to enter external Competitions & Salons is that I like the thought that my images are seen by a wider audience.

I get a real buzz from getting an image accepted, because of the number of photographers that enter mean that there can be 100’s if not 1000’s of images submitted, so to get one of mine in must mean that the judge or judges think that it’s worthy. There is normally a cost for entering and I know that there is no monetary gain. All you gain is pride and the knowledge that you’ve created a great image.

So if you want to have a go at putting your images in to an Outside Exhibition or Competition, Print or Digital please talk to me. I’m happy to help you select your entries (if you want me to), though I can’t guarantee that it will get in. Also if you enter as a group you can save on postage by sending all the prints off in the same case.

The “Cotswold Mono” is coming up fast so if your keen to give it a go then please let me know.

I’ve just had 2 images accepted into the Basingstoke Exhibition, one which gained a Commended placing. So I’m pretty pleased at the moment.

Castle Combe Race Track

Great weather, great company and fantastic photo's just about sums up our trip yesterday to Castle Combe Race Track

Around 12 of us made the effort and were rewarded by a brilliant day. We met some very enthusiastic and very friendly petrol heads. Saw some amazing cars and took some amazing pictures.

My day started at 0500 when I got up and went down to see the Super Yacht Mogambo sailing out of Bristol Harbour along with Mike Garton.

Then we headed up to Castle Combe for the Great Western Sprint. When we arrived there were already lots of fellow club members wandering around and taking pictures.

I’d like to take this opportunity to thank Dan for volunteering to organise this months trip and booking the fabulous weather. If you want to see more pictures from our day out they should be appearing in our Flickr Group over the next few days.

Picture by Ian Combs (all rights reserved, please do not reproduce without written permission)

Club battle against A1

 

As the result was announced at last nights meeting I’m finally able to write about the club battle.

Around 12 of us made the trip down to Weston Super Mare to visit A1 Camera Club and enjoy their hospitality for the evening. Rich & Andro did their best to eat their own  bodyweight in cakes & biscuits and don’t you believe them if they try to say they didn’t. We were made to feel very welcome and our thanks go to everyone at A1 for making us feel at home.

Now on to the competition. Marks were given out of 20 and the first to be judged was the Digital Projected section.

A1 scored a very respectable 251 points and we managed to just beat them with 259! Out of the 30 DPI’s only two scored the maximum 20 points and those were by Ruth Doyle with “Cooling Off” and Mark Stone with “The Eye at Night”.

In the Print section A1 scored 249 and Reflex 262 which gave us an overall win with 521 points to A1’s 500. And there were three prints that scored the maximum 20 points. From A1 Andrew Thompson with “Still” and Reflex’s Richard Price with “Common Blue” & Adrian Cook with “Kilve Beach”

Robin Gregory

At tonight's meeting we have guest speaker Robin Gregory who will show and talk about 200 images and a few audio visual presentations. He will also show how he put together some of his images in Photoshop. The photograph is one of Robins and has been reproduced here with his permission.

Also please don’t forget that tonight is the final entry date for Round 4 of our Open Competition.

R.O.C Round 3 Results

 

First off I’d like to thank Roger Mallison for taking the time to cast his expert eye over and  judge all of the images.

Here are the winners from Round 3 of the Reflex Camera Club Open Competition.

(As usual images link to the image on Flickr (or the creators website) Names link to Flickr or website)

1st Place Digital Projected Image Bubbliness by Angi Nelson	1st Place Print Marie Anne by Ian Coombs
2nd Place Digital Projected Image Eye on the Ball by Richard Price	2nd Place Print Rhossili by Richard Price
3rd Place Digital Projected Image Alfie Reflection by Eddie House	3rd Place Print Very Moorish by Sian Perry
	Yet again hasn’t bothered to send in a digital version
Highly Commended Digital Projected Image Remembrance by Adrian Cook	Highly Commended Print The Beach by Ian Coombs
When he remembers how to switch his computer on I’ll have it…
Highly Commended Digital Projected Image Evening Light by Roy Williams

 

Congratulations to the winners and a huge thank you to everyone that took part.

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It certainly did contain nuts!

Last Thursday the lunatics took over the Asylum and we had Ian Coombs & Rich Price give us a presentation detailing the coach trip they and a few other coach members took to Dunkirk and around Fortress Europe.

It was a trip they will remember for quite some time and the rest of us will probably remember the presentation for a long time as well. They were introduced by Kevin Spiers who was in his best RAF uniform (although he was put on a charge for wearing the wrong tie). After that Rich took centre stage and talked us through the history of the retreat from Dunkirk and some of the harrowing stories from the places they had visited. All accompanied by pictures that he had taken plus some footage that had been taken way back when it actually happened.

After Rich’s bit we had a break and were treated to Bread and Ian’s Home made Plum Jam (so far I haven’t heard of anyone dying from food poisoning but you never know).

The second half of the evening saw Ian giving his talk very much in the style we had expected, some serious bits mixed in with a lot of his usual banter & joke’s. We learnt that his Grandfather had aided in the evacuation from Dunkirk and didn’t get home again for 4 years! The Flags that you see in the background of some of the pictures were from the ship his Grandfather served on.

It was a brilliant night with several club members that weren’t actually taking part in the presentation dressing up in 40’s clothes. If you want to view some of the pictures from the evening then you can take a look at Ian’s & Rich’s Flickr ‘streams by following the links earlier in this post and also at these sets taken by Andro Andrejevic and Mark Stone.