Meetings - Wincanton Camera Club

Opening meeting

After the summer break the new season commenced with a low key meeting on September 14. Greetings were exchanged, and we were pleased to get another year of club photography under way.

As the WCPF members' print and digitally projected image exhibitions have just taken place it seemed to be a good time to view a cd containing the images from those exhibitions. As always, this produced a lively debate as to the merits, or otherwise, of the selected photographs. We were pretty much in agreement, however, that those images awarded medals and commendations were definitely the pick of the crop and deserving of their status.

Mike Bolton

September 28 saw the return to the club of Mike Bolton, to give an illustrated talk entitled, "Funny, it used to be here".

Mike is a keen documenter of his local area and its history. He's delivered some very interesting talks to us before and this evening was no exception. The theme was how places change over time, and the manner in which they do so. We had a tour of various parts of the UK (particularly the south-west), with some diversions overseas. Your correspondent was particularly interested by the changes wrought to the small village of Imber, on the Salisbury Plain, which was commandeered by the military during World War II. The population was evacuated in a matter of days, never to return. This event had an interesting parallel in Germany, where Mike showed us a similar village that had suffered the same fate.

Many thanks, Mike, for a fascinating and stimulating evening.

Internal competition; Perspective

The club held its first competition of the new season on Wednesday, 12 October, with the subject of "Perspective". This proved to be quite a challenging topic which members interpreted in the literal as well as the imaginative. Brian Tarling judged, offering constructive thoughts on the images placed before him. We thank him and look forward to seeing him again when he judges our interclub competition with Gillingham.

In the print category, top honours were shared by Rob Cochran, with a photograph of Salisbury Cathedral cloisters, and Tony Cole, who showed a dramatic view of the Lloyds Building. In the projected image section, Tony Cole retained pole position with 'Morning Coffee', closely followed by Michael Antony's 'Stairwell'.

The individual scores awarded by Brian can be seen here. The images themselves are now available to view in their gallery.

Bradford Abbas Shield

October 25 saw seven of us make the journey to Sherborne/Bradford Abbas Camera Club to represent our club in the five-way competition between ourselves, our hosts, South Petherton, Yeovil and the Yeo Group.

A good turnout from all clubs of about fifty people saw an impressive collection of images, with each club submitting five prints and five projected images. These were judged thoughtfully by Sid Jones, from Dorchester Camera Club.

Four prints were awarded a maximum score of 20 points, including "A splash of colour" by our own Rob Cochran. After the print judging was complete things were looking good for us, as we were in the lead by 4 points from Yeovil CC. After a coffee break, the contest was resumed with the projected images and here things didn't go quite so well for us. Our best effort, Jim Eastaugh's "Lunch break", garnered 19 points, but Yeovil had a particularly strong set with two entries being awarded a 20 point maximum.

This meant that when the final scores were tallied Yeovil CC had overtaken us, and they were crowned winners by 182 points to 180, with Wincanton in second place. Congratulations to Yeovil, and thanks to all the other clubs for an enjoyable evening, particularly Sherborne/Bradford Abbas for being such good hosts.

The final scores are shown below. Click here to see all our entries.

A splash of colour, by Rob Cochran


Lunch break, by Jim Eastaugh

Audio-visual tutorial

On 9 November a number of us gathered to receive a tutorial from Jim Eastaugh on the production of an audio-visual (AV) presentation. For the uninitiated, an AV presentation involves the assembing of a sequence of photographs synchronised with an audio soundtrack. This would normally link the pictures with a sympathetic piece of music, but it could just as easily be photos with a voiceover; it all depends on the photographer's preference.

Jim is our most experienced AV producer, and he showed us how he uses his chosen software, Pictures to Exe, to assemble the sequence of images and synchronise the music. He uses the Audacity program (free to download) to edit his soundtracks.

Should you prefer, ProShow Gold is also available (not free), and this option enables you to combine the audio and the visual in one program.

There was quite a lot to take in, but there are dvds available from Barry Beckham to take you through all the processes involved, should anyone wish to have a go themselves.

Having shown us how it's done, Jim then ran a couple of his sequences  so that we could appreciate the end result of all this work. Thank you Jim.

Kingswood Salver

Club chairman Tony Cole writes;

Jim Eastaugh and I attended the Kingswood Salver Competition at Exeter on Saturday 12 November. 23 clubs submitted entries. The judge, Margaret Salisbury, made comments regarding both the individual images and the manner in which the five prints were presented. She was looking for good quality prints, but she also took into account the way in which the prints in a panel related one to another. After viewing each set, and after a period of deliberation, Margaret then announced the three entries which she commended, followed by the first, second and third places.

Unfortunately the Wincanton entry was not in this first six and, as no marks are awarded, it is not possible to say how we fared. Jim and I were in agreement that the best entry missed the final selection, although the first and second placed entries were certainly worthy of being in the first three. We were impressed by the care with which the images had been selected in some entries, so that an excellent balance on either side of the central image was achieved. The winning entry by the Phoenix Photographic Group can be seen on the WCPF website.

Our entry received favourable comments and we felt that it held its own.

Perspective competition with Gillingham

Wincanton Camera Club was hosted by their Gillingham counterparts for the annual inter-club competition with the subject of 'Perspective'. After the first round of prints, both clubs were level pegging, with Roger Lush and Michael Anthony leading the scoring for Wincanton by both achieving maximum points. The projected image round saw Wincanton draw ahead with Michael Anthony again in the vanguard this time with Tony Cole, so that victory was achieved by a margin of five points. The judge, Norman Carey, gave a carefully considered critique on each of the images displayed. Many thanks to Gillingham for a very enjoyable evening.

Score summary:
Prints:          Wincanton 165     Gillingham 165
Projected:     Wincanton 168     Gillingham 163
Total:           Wincanton 333     Gillingham 328

   
Rue de Siege, by Michael Anthony (L), and Morning Coffee, by Tony Cole (R)

Both images scored maximum points

Internal competition; Open

The final meeting of 2011 took place on December 7 when the club met for the second internal competition of the season. There was no specific theme this time, the competition being Open. The event was well supported with members submitting a good number of photographs on a wide range of subjects, ranging from the Red Arrows in full flight to a traditional fish and chip shop (by the way that's two different photographs, not one picture of the Red Arrows going for a fish and chip supper!).

The images were scrutinised by judge Bill Aven, from Warminster Camera Club, who made some very helpful remarks on all the photographs. His favourite in the print section was Storm Brewing, Malham Cove by Rob Cochran, a beautifully composed landscape, which gained maximum points. There were joint honours in the projected image section, with maximum points being awarded to Lachlan Fraser's Argyll Autumn (shown right, above), a study of autumnal leaves in the foreground of a burn in full torrent, and Amanda White's Stonehurst Stillness (shown right, below), a peaceful lakeside boathouse in Nova Scotia, Canada. These two images neatly bookended the projected images, being shown first and last respectively in this part of the competition.

The scores for each photograph can be seen here, and a gallery of the images is now available and can be seen by clicking on either of the photos to the right.

After the competition members were treated to an imaginative audio-visual sequence entitled Trash the Dress, composed by Amanda White, showing models in wedding dresses photographed in unusual and unlikely locations, with background music by Lady Gaga.

Wildlife photography

On January 11th we met to have part 1 of a discussion about the issues surrounding the photographing of animals, particularly in the wild.

It's not something many of us have turned our hand to in a meaningful way, but some tutorial viewing showed us that it need not be as difficult, and need not require massive expenditure on super-duper telephoto lenses, as perhaps was imagined. Knowledge of the subject is the most important thing, probably followed by a deep reservoir of patience!

We saw how it was possible to photograph native British species such as red deer and badgers, provided one's prepared to make the effort in inclement weather or at unsocial hours. What shutter speed and aperture should be used? A medium to wide aperture (anything from about f2.8 to f8) at about 1/250 sec is a good starting point, adjusting ISO speed to suit the light levels, when photographing mammals.

There was information regarding insect photography too. A macro lens is desirable here, but failing that extension tubes are a good (relatively inexpensive) alternative. A good time to be out and about searching for insects to photograph would be early morning. Apparently insects like a lie-in; they don't become active until the temperature rises above about 11°C. Until then they can be found on their overnight roosts. It's a good idea to avoid letting your shadow fall on the insects; this can startle them, causing them to fly away.

Tripods are useful if you are using big, heavy lenses, or in low light conditions. It's probably better to go handheld when chasing things like butterflies, increasing ISO if necessary to obtain a fast enough shutter speed.

Part 2 of this topic occupied us on January 25, with particular emphasis given to bird photography. As might be imagined, given their size and movement, birds present some different problems for the photographer.

A tripod is pretty much essential for bird photography. If you start by photographing garden birds, a lens with a zoom range up to 400mm will be most useful, using wideish apertures (f4 or 5.6) and shutter speeds of 1/500 sec or faster. Once you move out into the wild things start to get a bit more complicated, and expensive! Longer lenses, such as 500 or 600mm may well be necessary here, perhaps even with a tele-converter as well, to be able to photograph from a reasonable distance, and a fixed or portable hide may be needed to get those professional-looking images that we all admire. Birds on the wing will probably require shutter speeds of 1/1000 - 1/2000 sec, with the widest aperture your lens can provide.

Finally, it should be stressed that when photographing wildlife the welfare of the creature must come first. No photo is worth distressing the animal. Bear in mind, too, that a licence may be required to photograph some threatened or endangered species, and in certain locations.

How did you do that? Photoshop techniques

On February 8 we met to discuss Photoshop/Elements techniques. Roger Lush took the lead with a demonstration of his raw file conversion methods. Questions from those gathered led to a demonstration of split-raw processing (two different conversions from the same raw file to cater for extreme differences in the brightest and darkest parts of the image, since you ask), quickly followed by requests for information about dodging and burning. Roger was into his stride by now, following up with a tutorial on perspective correction.

I think it's fair to say that we all ended the evening with more Photoshop knowledge than we started it, so thanks go to Roger for his help to the rest of us.

Audio-visual evening with Gillingham

On February 17 we had an addition to our usual schedule. We travelled to the Gillingham Photo Group for a meeting devoted to the audio visual presentation. Chairman Tony Cole writes:

Several members of the club visited our friends at the Gillingham club for an AV evening. It was a very varied and interesting session, which included six presentations by Gillingham and two by Wincanton. It was particularly interesting to see the very different approaches adopted by the creators, which varied from very considerable use of fades, zooms, spinnning images etc., and those which kept this treatment to a minimum.

The themes covered a trip round a section of the Birmingham canal ring, the restoration of a canal, a seascape sequence, London buildings, our own Roger Lush's "Somerset through the Seasons", and a taste of beautiful alpine scenery from Jim Eastaugh.

Thank you to the Gillingham Photo Group for hosting the evening.