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

Practical Night

The practical night last night seemed to be a success. After splitting into two groups (outdoor and indoor) we set about demonstrating some light painting techniques. Light painting has been done for many years even before the digital age but it is now being taken to the next level with some fantastic images being created.Last night was about showing what fun it can be and how it can add a whole new dimension to taking pictures. Not only did members get a privileged glimpse at some of the tools used to create shapes such as orbs, domes, double domes and other effects, but also participate in creating images.Whether you were outside spinning wire wool or indoors making a man-o-fire, everyone seemed to enjoy it.

 

The priceless thing for me was after spinning the first orb, the first time the image appears on the back of the camera and you hear a “Wow” from nearly everyone. Great.

This was written by Richard Price but he had a bit of trouble posting it.
I’d like to add a great big thank you to Richard Price, Kevin Spiers, Myk Garton and everyone else who helped set this fantastic evening up. I was gutted to miss it but I’m really glad it was such a success. If I missed you off the names that helped I’m sorry and if you really want me to add you to it just let me know.

Practical Night

 

Some interesting talks last night on Lightroom, personal workflow and F stops. We even learnt a new highly technical phrase to use when talking about the built in Light meter on our camera’s; The pointy slidey thing. I for one will be using it as often as possible.

Thanks to Rich Price, Dan Thomas and Kev Spiers for giving the talks. Also thank you to Arthur Belton and Ian Coombs for giving the picture mounting demo’s.

If you have something interesting to say on any aspect of photography or want to demonstrate a technique you like then get in touch. We’re always looking out for people to do this kind of thing on practical night’s. Or if you have something you would like to see explained or want to practice a technique. Let us know.

The Other Ones

(c) Alison Davies

Sorry for the delay in updating the Blog and if some of the writing seems to make less sense than normal you'll have to forgive me. 

Last Thursday we had a practical night and it was great to see so many people coming along and enjoying themselves. There were some great pictures taken of the band and Rich's macro demo went down a storm as well. 

Don't forget if you took pictures please send them in via email, Dropbox or bring in on a memory stick or CD.

The band gave up their free time and we asked them to come along. So its only fair that they get something out of it. 

The next meeting is a guest speaker David Southwell who will be giving us a presentation on using HDR and other techniques. Unfortunately the website I have for him no longer exists.

Practical Evening

The next meeting brings us another practical evening and as usual your encouraged to bring along your camera and take part. As well as a macro demonstration we’ll have someone available to talk to you about using and getting more out of Flickr. You can also ask any photography related questions and we’ll try our best to give you an answer. But lets get on to the main event of Thursday which will be a studio shoot with a band. We supply the lights, backdrop, musicians and even a smoke machine. You just turn up with your camera and get the most out of the evening.
Ask questions, mingle and talk with everyone. As well as it being a chance to learn some new techniques or ask questions, treat it as a social event. If you’ve not been coming to the club for long or just haven’t managed to be at many of the meetings it’s a great opportunity to get to know everyone. Although I can guarantee by the end of the evening I still won’t remember everyone’s name.

There are only two things we would like you to do if you turn up on Thursday.
The first is, if you take pictures of the band then please email, Dropbox or bring them in on a memory stick so that we can let them have copies. They are giving their time up, for free, for us. They didn’t ask us if we wanted to take pictures of them, we asked them to come along. So play fair and lets pay them back for their time by giving them the photo’s.

The second thing? That’s easy, come along and have fun, enjoy yourself and take some great pictures!

Practical Night

Last night was our second practical night of the year. We had demonstrations on editing
using various different pieces of software, Macro Photography, mount board cutting and how
the different apertures affect the depth of field and we also tackled a lot of question's. Although how to add
zombies to a graveyard photo was probably the most original one of the night. It was a great evening
and everyone who attended said they had learned something new. Which was exactly what we
hoped would happen.

The feedback we had was great and we’re already planning the next practical night in February.

Cutting mount board

What's new

Unless someone just poked your eyes out you will notice that over on the left of your screen is a new addition to the Blog. We now have a Facebook page. If you scroll down a little bit more you will also notice that there is a section called "You might like....". What someone has dug your eyes out with a spoon! At least that explains why no one has commented on it yet. Anyway, inside that section you will find links to a whole page dedicated to the various Exhibitions & Salon's around the country, listed in month order. Our very own Dominique compiled it for you all so a big thank you goes out to her for doing such a fantastic job. Also there's a link for "Where to go and What to do!" that page is still being worked on but all the information that is being used was collated by Hanneke. I've been a bit slow to put up the information but I am doing it slowly.

Anyway tonight's the practical night so bring along your camera's, questions, laptops and anything else you want to use or learn about. We're going to try our best to impart as much knowledge as possible to you all. So please do make sure you come along. If you think tonight would be a waste of time for you then come along, help out and share some wisdom with those of us less fortunate one's.