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

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)

Thursday’s Meeting

Instead of the advertised speaker we have Martin Edwards who will be presenting a talk called “Film Photography in the Digital Age' and is about the resurgence in interest in analogue techniques now that digital photography is mainstream. He will also be bringing some of the camera’s he uses to take his images. If you’d like to visit his website and see some of his work then you can go here.

 

 

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10x10

Now if your a member of the club you probably looked at the title of next weeks meeting and wondered just what the hell it meant. I suppose that we really should explain it to you although it really is very simple. All we want is for some of you to volunteer to show around 10 images that you’ve taken and give a little talk about them. Ideally the talk and showing the images should last about 10 minutes. Hence the title 10x10. If you don’t feel like talking then maybe you could just show us the pictures. Please don’t be shy about this, after all you put your images up on Flickr for people to admire so why not put them up on the screen at the club, sit back and enjoy the “ooh’s”, “ahh’s” and “Wow’s” as each image is shown!

You can either bring the pictures in on a memory stick or, preferably, send them in via Dropbox. Go on give it a go you know you want to.

Frogs, Snakes & Light Painting

We had a bit of a gap in our programme as our scheduled speaker had to cancel. Luckily for us club members Angi Nelson & Myk Garton offered to fill it for us. So instead of having to sit quietly and listen & look at someone else’s images we had a practical night.

Now practical nights can be a bit of a hit or miss affair. Sometimes we don’t get many people attending. Other times we get nearly every club member turn up. This Thursday was definitely one of  those times that nearly everyone turned up! Angi supplied us with various Frogs, Snakes & Reptiles plus a load of props & studio lights whilst Myk took charge of the Light Painting side of things.

After setting up the tables, props & animals Angi and her daughter with the aid of Richard Price gave those that wanted to stay inside and take images of the animals advice and help with the settings on their camera’s if they wanted or needed it.

Whilst all that was happening Myk Garton & Kevin Spiers took a group of members to the park across the road so they could create some Light Painting Images.

If your interested in seeing more images created on Thursday night then you can go to our Flickr Group where they are gradually being added by club members.

Frog Image copyright Michelle Lou. Light Painting Image copyright AJA Photography

Everything was going really well, until the splash….

We started the day at Woodchester Mansion which is an unfinished Gothic style mansion. A great place inside and some wonderful grounds to walk around and take pictures. The front of the mansion is mostly complete but unfortunately they seemed to think that the addition of a huge, white, 30 foot long marquee outside the entrance would be a good idea. That kind of ruined the chances of getting any good shots of the house as the back was covered in scaffolding and you could see the marquee from the side of the house as well. Cloning things out from between tree branches isn’t my idea of fun so I quickly dismissed even taking a shot.

I had a nice long walk around the Orange route with Rich as we were going to find the boathouse and see if we could get a decent shot or two of it. As we were walking down from the house we bumped into Christine and found that her day wasn’t going to well. She’d removed the SD card from her camera the night before for some reason and had forgotten to replace it. So no pictures for her and a totally wasted trip out. As we continued on the Orange route we kind of missed a turn when a couple of cows decided to object to our presence. Which led to us taking a two mile round trip around a couple of lakes instead of only having to walk about 500 yards from the house to the boathouse! Next time I’m definitely bringing a jar of mustard to threaten the cows with.

When we got back to the mansion to our dismay the tea room had already shut and we were forced to endure a dry wait for the minibus to take us back up to the car park. The less said about that journey the better if only for the fact I want to forget that at one point the van was leaning over at 45 degrees when the driver had to reverse and went up on the bank. When we got up to the car park we found Myk & Angi waiting for us. It seemed that everyone else had decided to call it a day and gone home. We were also treated to a great display from the local Glider club as the flight path in to land went directly above the car park.

We all headed, literally across the road to the car park at Coaley Peak, which is a popular hang gliding spot. After capturing a few shots of the sunset we moved up to a more secluded part of the picnic area to do a little bit of light painting. That went really well but it seems we won’t be buying our wire wool at B&Q again as it lasted all of about 10 seconds once it was lit. After a little bit of discussion we decided to head through Dursley, via a fantastic fish & chip shop, to Purton Hulks. Where the plan was to go and do some light painting down amongst the decaying hulls of the boats. We arrived and promptly set off down the towpath to find a suitable spot. Stopping at one of the Hulks we set up and had a bit of fun with lasers, sparklers and various kid’s toys! If you’ve had a go at light painting before you know what I mean. We moved on again to another hulk and created some images  there. Then we had a great idea. Lets go back to the car park and spin some orbs & wool spin off the bridge over the canal! Great, what could possibly go wrong? So we start to set up and Angi decides to go down the tow path a little and try a different angle towards the bridge. She spots some steps going down to what, in the moonlight, looks like a solid piece of concrete. Unfortunately it was just algae covered water! Splash in she went, camera, tripod and mobile phone. Right up to her neck! Now on the bridge Rich was heard to say, bloody hell Angi you’ve scared the birds and spoilt the reflections! Myk jokingly said “It’s only Angie falling in”. Then we heard a HELP! And it was “Oh shit she has!”. Rich & Myk helped her out and I got my camera (I can’t see anything wrong with my priorities). As you can see from the picture she tried to take half the canal home in her shoe.

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.

R.O.C. Round 1 Results

There were some fantastic images entered for Round 1 of our Open Competition. Thanks to everyone that entered and a special thank you to Matt Roach for his excellent judging and taking the time to go through all the entries & giving good constructive comments on each and every one. Especially as there were so many of them. If you want to see some of Matt’s photography then you can visit his Flickr ‘stream by going here.

All the winners are shown below. As usual clicking on the pictures should take you to that picture on the persons Flickr ‘stream. If they don’t have a Flickr account then it takes you to that picture on the clubs Flickr ‘stream. Clicking on their name will either take you to their Flickr ‘stream or their website, if they have one.

1st Place Print: Fairy Fireworks by Rich Price	1st Place DPI: A Couple of Couples by Mark Stone
2nd Place Print: Heading Home by Ruth Doyle	2nd Place DPI: Carnival Joy by Simon Xu
3rd Place Print: Brave heart by Ian Coombs	3rd Place DPI: Flowers by Adrian Cook
Highly Commended Print: Waterfall by Antony Beezer	Highly Commended DPI: Relaxing in the Sun by David Jones
Highly Commended Print: Sharing by Julie Coombs	Highly Commended DPI: Shelter from the Rain by David Jones
Highly Commended Print: I only have eyes for you by Theresa Driscoll	Highly Commended DPI: Smith & Son by Eddie House
Highly Commended Print: Going Alone by Nathan Williams	Highly Commended DPI: Occupation by Ian Coombs
Unfortunately I do not currently have a digital version of the image.
Highly Commended Print: Sit and Stay by Alison Davies

 

 

Congratulations to all the winners and thanks to everyone that took part.

Open your eyes

Last nights meeting was superb. Not only did we get to see some fantastic photography by Simon Caplan but there was literally “no room at the inn!”.

Simon got the evening off to a great start by explaining just what he hopes to achieve when he takes a photograph but instead of trying to make it sound all arty and full of technobabble he did it in an easy to follow and uncomplicated way. The words were punctuated by some wonderful images which when they appeared on the screen made you stop, look and then think “hang on a minute. I’ve seen that a million times! Why didn’t I take that photograph?”. His images are full of the little details, symmetry and colours that hundreds of people will walk past every single day and not even notice. It really does make you wonder how you could be so blind, How you’ve never really looked at your surroundings.

I’ve actually had emails from a few club members saying how much they enjoyed the evening. That’s never happened before, so I can say if you get the chance, take a look at his work and listen to what he has to say.

Just a quick note about the room. We are aware of the problems we are having at the moment and are exploring our options.

Mpix Results

I’m pleased to say Barrie Tovey & Ian Coombs both had acceptances into the Mpix Competition this year. Barrie had two pictures accepted, Red Kite Stoop and Torso. Whilst Ian had one acceptance called “Well I Like It”. But it meant he’s managed a life long ambition of having a rat picture actually get into an exhibition.

 

Red Kite Stoop, Barrie Tovey	Well I Like It, Ian Coombs
Torso, Barrie Tovey

Debbie Young

Last night we had a great talk by Debbie Young. Despite some technical problems (the laptop is currently in the middle of the road on fire after being doused in petrol!) it went well. It was great to see some of the equipment she used in her underwater photography and I know quite a few of you enjoyed looking at her photographs especially the street photography.

I’d just like to take this opportunity to thank Debbie for coming along and giving us a great presentation.

Welcome to Reflex

The new season is just about to start. This Thursday the 1st September is the start of the new club season for us. Normally we would of had a break during the summer. But this year we gave all of our members the chance to take part in our 13 Weeks of Summer photography course. Now that course is over and we’re gearing up for a fantastic season of Guest Speakers, practical nights, competitions and photography. So if you’ve been thinking of joining a photography club or just want to find somewhere that can give you help & advice from friendly people who aren’t out to sale you anything come along to one of our Thursday night meetings. You’ll be made to feel welcome and we don’t care what camera you use or your photographic abilities. The only thing we insist is that you enjoy taking photographs.

If you want to find out more then visit our website. Where you can find out more information.

12 Months with Reflex

 

If you were there at last weeks meeting not only did you get a surprise when you walked through the door into the room you would of heard Kevin talk about something we would love to get you involved in. That something is what we’re going to call 12 Months with Reflex.

The plan is to arrange a day out taking photographs once a month with club members. Why are we making a bit of a fuss about it? Because we want you to get involved. Not just by coming along to take pictures but by helping to organise the trips. We would like 12 of you to take one step forward and volunteer to organise one of the trips each month. It’s not difficult really. All you have to do is say where you want to go and take photographs. Easy isn’t it! Pick a month and a date, pick a location then just tell everyone that’s where and when we’re going. The we’re not looking for highly organised coach trips or anything like that. Just somewhere that you can wander around and take pictures.

If you need inspiration you can take a look at the Bristol Flickr Walk Group to see some of the photographs that have been taken when a group of photographers from the Bristol Area, who are all on Flickr, have got together and wandered around taking pictures. Or you can look at this thread in our Flickr Group that lists lots of places you could use as your location.

If you feel up to the challenge then let Mark or Kevin know on a Thursday night or you can email Mark at the usual club address.

Deliberately mess it up.

If you came along to last nights meeting you would of been sat there bored, listening to me tell you how to edit your photographs, but wait a minute. I didn’t tell you how to do it. I showed you how I would edit three of my pictures and hopefully started you thinking what you could do to your own work to make it stand out a little.  I didn’t want any of you going away from last nights meeting thinking you had to do exactly what I said. I desperately wanted you NOT to do that and I really hope I succeeded.

I honestly think that everyone should take the pictures they want and edit them (or not) however they want to. They are after all your pictures. But I also think that if you do want to process your pictures you should try and make them the best they could be. If no one else likes what you’ve done to a picture, who cares! As long as your happy with it that’s what counts. But you have to admit it’s nice when someone tells you they like what you’ve created.

You may take something, look at it on the back of the camera and think “well that’s crap”, but I hope that the last two weeks have shown you that no matter how bad it looks on the camera screen it can be turned into a good picture with just a little bit of work. Now that’s not to say that you shouldn’t try and take the best photograph possible and get as much as possible right in camera, but if something goes wrong or you forget to change a setting because your in a hurry then its not the end of the world.

If I can create the picture on the right from the total mess on the left there’s no reason you can’t either! I guess what I’m trying to get you to understand is don’t be afraid to try doing something different when your editing your pictures. See what you can get out of the ones you think are beyond hope. You never know what you’ll get.

13 Weeks of Summer, Processing your Photographs

We’ve just finished the first half of our 13 Weeks of Summer course. That’s all the camera and picture taking done. Now we’re about to embark on the mysterious and secretive art of Processing and Editing your pictures. This is where quite a lot of people get stuck. They put their photographs on the computer and just sit there staring at the screen wondering what to do next. To get us started we asked you all what software you used to edit your pictures and I’m glad to say not a single person said Microsoft Paint! So armed with our list of software we are going to attempt the impossible and try to give you all a taste of how you can edit a picture in most if not all of the editing suites.

For next week all you need to bring along is yourself, a notepad & pen and make sure your brains are plugged in as, unfortunately, it’s going to be more talking than doing for the first week. We’ll be starting at the basics with how to take your pictures off of your camera and put them onto your computer. Also the age old argument of RAW vs. JPG will get an airing. There’s lots of other subjects being covered on Thursday including, workflow, suggestions on file structure, colour space, metadata and keywords.

Don’t worry if you think it’s all going to be technical and far too complicated to understand. It will be explained in easy to understand English and not Technobabble!

Back in the Day

 

This was the club in 2008. Three years later we now have over 45 men & women that regularly come along to meetings. From 10 year old children to 60+ grandparents. They range in ability from some that have only just started to those that have been taking photographs for most of their lives.

I’ve been going through the club’s laptop to see what pictures are on it in case there is anything that I can use to blackmail club members. Unfortunately, for me, there isn’t but I have discovered some photographs from the 2008 prize giving and for the lottery funding which we successfully applied for in that year and if you’d like to see them just go here.

From Right to Left; Joe Scudamore; David Walters; Roy Williams; Kevin Spiers; Alec Williams; Steve Hallam; Pete Tomlinson; Rosie Tomlinson; Theresa Driscoll; Ian Coombs; Larry Whetton; Arthur Belton; and unfortunately I don’t know the names of the last two people.

From hot houses to wetlands

Well, Skomer failed for a second time thanks to the weather but that didn't deter 5 of us from getting out and about. Barrie, Rich, Kev, Simon and Me all set off to a Butterfly hot house in Swindon. After sweating it in the heat we went out the back to see the Otters and Mearcats. Cafe for lunch then where? Well the weather was supposed to get better so we decided to travel to Ham Wall in Somerset, only 70 miles up the road! High hopes to see lots of wild fowl........

I don't think they had been told the weather was going to improve as they were all hiding in the reeds. So after a stroll from one hide to the next we decided to call it a day. On the way back to the car we did catch glimpse of the illusive Bittern.

Quick refuel at the pub and off home. Enroute via Wells another spur of the moment stop to catch a bit of good sky and idea that will I'm sure raise a smile. Finally back home for a well earnt rest.

Red Hot Fun

Hanneke and I went a bit insane last night and went out with some of the Bristol Flickr Group to try out Light Painting and Wire wool spinning.

Wondering just how close my camera was to get this shot? Well if you visit this picture you can see my camera by the pillar on the left and the one on the right is Hanneke’s. Luckily for us they didn’t melt. Yes that was red hot metal flying around. I found out the hard way just how hot it was during this shot when a piece bounced off the pillar, straight through the gap and hit me on the top of my head. Good job I didn’t have enough hair for it to stick to!

So what do you think? Reckon we could do this in the Langton’s Car Park?!!!!!

Skomer 2011

The day started at Burger King in Bristol at 5 am. Kev, Rich, Ian, Simon and me all bleary eyed but eager. A three hour car journey in front of us to get to Martins Haven for the ferry to Skomer. First stop Haverfordwest at 07:30 for a McDonalds breakfast, egg and bacon Mcmuffin for me, TWO for Kevin FB. 30 minutes and a couple of wrong turns later and we arrived at Martins Haven. At this point we were all a bit scepticle as to whether the ferry would cross due to the high winds. The cloud was breaking and it looked like it was going to brighten up but the winds remained. The parking attendant assured us the ferry was still crossing so we grabbed our gear and set off to the ticket kiosk next to the cove. From here we could see the sea, and my god it was quite a swell. The pilot of the boat made his way to the beach past the queue and said he would go out and see what it was like first before he took anyone. Once enough tickets were sold for the first boat full (40) they stopped until we heard from the pilot. Whilst waiting in the howling wind we watched while the sea came rolloing in. Then it clouded over once more and the rain started. What on earth were we thinking of? We continues to watch as the boat pulled out of the sheltered cove, up over the rollers and the bow smacking down in the following trough. We were all looking at each other not saying a word, we didn't have to. The boat disappeared around the headland and we waited. 10 minutes later over the crackle of the radio we the the words we had at first been dreading but were probably quite relieved to to hear, "No go, getting battered by a force 6 here".

That was that. Back up to car and on to plan B. What was plan B. Oh we didn't have one, bugger.

Ok back to Haverfordwest Information centre pick up some leaflets and back to Mcdonalds to discuss. With more caffiene inside us we decided to head for llanelli to the Wild fowl and wetlands trust there. We arrived there at about midday and walked the entire site. Plenty of bird shots were taken with Damselflies and lizards to boot. Ian may well have been converted, as self confessed Damdelfly hater, he thoroughly enjoyed the challenge of getting a good Damselfly shot. After doing the wild bird section where we shot Damselflies and lizards because the birds were just too easy we went on to the captive section. Here the birds are much more challenging so we concentrated on this (honest). By the time we finished here it was about 5PM and general concensus was that it wasn't bad but not as good as Slimbridge.

From here we felt perhaps a visit to Ogmore-on-sea was in order to maybe get some beach and sky shots. Arrived here about 6PM and the tide was in, so not much beach there. Not our day. Never the less we still got down onto the little bit of beach and hpefully got some useable shots.

After this it was around 7PM and we were all knackered so felt it was time to head home. Back to Burger King for about 8 ish.

Even though we were up at 5am, had a 3 hour journey, got soaked waiting a a queue, to then drive back to a wetlands centre that wasn't as good as one we could have gone to 30 minutes from home and then go to get some beach shots when the tide was in. We still enjoyed ourselves. It was a day when things were just against us, but we made the best of it and visited places we normally wouldn't have. In the process we enjoyed ourselves had a laugh and Simon was able to catch up on his sleep in the car.

How would you have done it?

I have to say I was pleasantly surprised last night. That has to be one of the most well attended AGM’s we’ve ever had! Now come on admit it. You lot didn’t realise it was the AGM and that’s why you turned up! But it was great to see so many of you and even better that you actually made suggestions, asked questions and put across your views on the running of the club. So on behalf of the Committee I’d like to thank all of you for being there and making this last season one of the best ones we’ve had in ages.

OK so now I have a question for you. Feel free to email me your thoughts on it or drag me to one side at a meeting. It’s a very simple question, nothing too taxing for a Friday. All I want to know is…..

Would you have changed anything we’ve done over the last season?

It’s not a trick question. We’re not going to come around to your house with baseball bats if you didn’t like something. We honestly want to know if you would have done anything differently to how it happened. I’m not just talking about at meetings, if you think this Blog needs to be written differently, the email needs to change or Hanneke needs to stop obsessing about chocolate. Anything at all, no matter how big or how small, tell us. You don’t have to come up with a solution to it, although that would be great, just let us know what it was that you would have changed. So if you didn’t like something but aren’t sure what would be better that’s fine. It might take us a while longer to figure out a new way to do it but we’ll have a go.

Thanks Arthur

Last night Arthur Belton performed his last official duties as Programme Secretary. He’s been doing that job for at least the last 10 years! Every season he’s faithfully negotiated dates with speakers and wrestled with the need to keep the programme varied and interesting to everyone. I’m coming up to the end of my second season at the club and during that time I can honestly say there has only been 3 speakers that I didn’t like any of their work or subject matter (yes 2 of them did involve trains).
So I hope you’ll all join me in thanking Arthur for his superb work in keeping us fickle folk entertained over the years and we hope you’ll enjoy all that extra free time your going to have now.

Arthurs retirement from the committee means that we now have a new Programme Secretary, Hanneke Ter Veen. She’s spent the last year learning the ropes from Arthur and we’re expecting a great season of fantastic speakers and wonderfully planned events. Not that we’d ever put her under any pressure of course, but we’re working on forfeits if a speaker fails to live up to expectations!