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These reports appear in the Northumberland Gazette.
The judges for Alnwick and District Camera Club’s latest projected digital image competition were club members Laine Baker, Sue Baker and Gerry Simpson. The set subject for this competition was People and the entries included a wide range of portraits and group pictures both in colour and monochrome. For the first time, all of the images had been posted on the club website so that every member could have the chance to consider the pictures beforehand.
Each judge awarded from two to five points for each picture so that a maximum score would be fifteen and a minimum six. Out of the forty two entries, two were awarded the full fifteen points. These were The Fear in my Mother’s Eyes, a superb, touching monochrome portrait by Micheal Mundy and, by contrast, Daddy’s Girl, a joyful and vibrant colour portrait by Margaret Whittaker. Three entries were each awarded fourteen points. John Thompson’s finely composed portrait of Jim, Ian Atkinson’s colourful and atmospheric picture of a Train Driver and Richard Stent’s fascinating monochrome image entitled Gathering Crowd, Place George Pompidou, Paris, all fell into this category. A further eleven entries were awarded between eleven and thirteen points, all creditable scores, reflecting the high overall standard achieved.
This was the first time that a competition had been judged in this way at the club and Laine, Sue and Gerry are to be congratulated on the success of the evening.
An interesting gallery of prints was presented by Peter Carter and Roger Black. Peter’s excellent pictures covered a wide variety of subjects ranging from the Bluebell Railway to Mount Vesuvius but with an emphasis on architecture in various forms. Roger’s atmospheric landscapes and seascapes taken on a family holiday on the Isle of Lewis showed what a fine location this is for photographers.
Report by David Carter
Alnwick and District Camera Club welcomed Peter Dixon from Whickham Photographic Club to give another of his excellent presentations under the title Printer’s Pie. Peter concentrated on monochrome images and spoke about the quality that can now be achieved with digital printing which until recently had been considered very much the poor cousin of darkroom work. His pictures clearly showed that digital printing is very much an art, involving a good understanding of photographic techniques in order to achieve a full range of tonality in monochrome prints. This was demonstrated by a superb sequence of landscape pictures with dramatic skies.
Peter went on to show an impressive array of prints of subjects ranging from portraits to urban landscapes. Like many successful photographers, he likes to work on specific projects and these included sequences on graveyard statuary, church interiors and still life compositions taken at Beamish Museum.
Derelict buildings hold a particular attraction for Peter and he goes to great lengths to capture the images that he wants. He even takes along his own props to add to the scenes, often to the puzzlement of those around him. The resulting pictures are remarkable with wonderful use of light and carefully considered composition producing prints of the highest quality.
Peter’s enthusiasm and lively sense of humour came across with every picture. This is a man who obviously enjoys his photography and so did his audience.
Peter was ably assisted by his fellow club member, John Race, who not only set out Peter’s pictures but also contributed his own anecdotes and comments.
Report by David Carter
There was a good attendance at Alnwick and District Camera Club for a presentation by two club members, Judith Snaith and Andrew Mackie.
Judith started off proceedings with a series of pictures taken at the club’s Wednesday Wanders. These are informal summer evening meetings held at various locations throughout the county where members meet, enjoy a stroll in beautiful surroundings, and sometimes even take photographs! Actually, many fine pictures have resulted from these meetings including some notable competition winners. Judith’s pictures captured the camaraderie and fun of these highly enjoyable occasions.
By contrast, Andrew’s presentation concentrated on the production of panoramic landscapes.
These involve taking a large number of images which are then pasted together digitally to produce large and detailed prints of high quality. A tripod is an essential accessory when taking a series of images that should overlap by about 25%. It is important to choose a calm day when the lighting is even and constant. If clouds are moving across the sky it is almost impossible to fit the images together successfully.
Andrew demonstrated the process of assembling and merging images using Photoshop software. It can be quite a time consuming process to produce a convincing final picture but Andrew ably demonstrated the principles, showing a panorama in various stages of completion. If anyone needed convincing that the effort was worthwhile they only had to see the gallery of superb mounted panoramic prints that Andrew had put on display.
Report by David Carter
The Club welcomed George Ledger from Hexham as our judge for the evening. The competition was entitled 'Three of a Kind' and this year differed from previous years in that the prints were mixed colour and monochrome, Interestingly enough out of 17 entries only three were monochrome yet two of those were highly commended and placed 4th.
Perhaps a sign of watching costs I noted that eight entries were A4 size while the rest were A3 size and apart from one, all other awards were won by the A3 sized prints.
What an excellent judge George Ledger is as he went into the evening by laying down the accepted guidelines for this type of competition. He stated that not only had the prints to be good of themselves but that they all had to work together as a panel.
Each print was accorded a fulsome description as to its qualities, both good and not so good.
He was not afraid to point out the strengths and weaknesses of the prints and panel giving hints on how they might be improved, although he had to admit that with some he could offer little or no comment as they were so good. He emphasised that the authors should enjoy their prints and loved the dynamics and lead lines of some prints.
The awards started with the first prints from the box when he awarded a Commended to Dave Dixon for Little churches of Northumberland.
Commended went to Jane Coltman for One evening at Dunstanburgh; an evening I unfortunately missed !! She captured the beautiful evening light at the Castle including a full rainbow, which she admitted could not have captured without borrowing Doug Ross's wide angle lens.
Highly commended went to John Thompson with some highly unusual mounting of Casualty of war monochrome images from the National Memorial. But as George said 'it works'.
4th place went to Richard Stent, who entered a superb set of darkroom monochrome prints of the Reichstag, Berlin.
3rd place was awarded to Ian Atkinson with as George put it, a romantic, ethereal and understated set of prints showing the Onion Domes of Moscow. Thank you Photoshop.
2nd place was given to Kevin Murray for another set of faultless images of Garden birds. We get so used to Kevin's work that we forget how good they are and it takes an outside judge to remind us.
1st place went to Gerry Simpson who had with his fine eye, noticed a bank of Boris's bikes on a recent visit to London set in their stands. I would guess most people would have passed by with no awareness of how they could make an excellent abstract panel, full of colour and form.
Report by Ian Atkinson
Members met for the first time in 2012 on a dark and stormy evening. Our guest speaker and club member Ian Cartwright FRPS whisked us half way across the world as he talked about his recent visits to the Lembae straights and Raja Ampat in Indonesia.
His special interest is underwater photography at the highest level and we were treated to images of the most exotic and flamboyant fish, sea slugs, octopuses, shrimps and sea urchins. Some of these could camouflage themselves, mimic others and change shape. We saw shrimps that could punch, fish that could poison you and all accompanied by Ian's extensive knowledge of their names and habits.
Raja Ampat is known for its coral and large variety of fish. He talked of the soft corals which could pump themselves up for filtration feeding and others that only came out at night. He had many images of Bat fish, Sweet lips and Jack fish. His camera work was able to encompass sea horses as small as 4mms to manta rays of 12 feet and upwards.
His last images dazzled us with an array of beautiful sunsets. But, we had to come back to Alnwick and a torrential downpour and gale force winds.
Report by Ian Atkinson
Last April a group of photographers from Alnwick CC visited Durham PS and this evening Durham returned the compliment and provided us with a programme of first class photography, techniques, inspiration and enjoyment.
The Durham group was headed by their President, David Trout, who introduced the four visitors making presentations.
Joe Brabban demonstrated his approach to creating pictures from images which usually end up in the bin. This was a real insight into the magic of Photoshop and generated many appreciative comments. Joe also presented a gallery of his prints which further underlined his skill as a photographer.
Joanne Grey enjoyed her first experience of talking about her photography to ‘strangers’ and showed many unusual images caught at work as well as on holiday. She also brought an array of prints which were much enjoyed.
Neil Maugham is predominantly a monochrome worker who revels in photographing people in many different situations – the strangest of which, a Victorian Gents, caused much laughter. Neil’s ability to obtain Press passes enables him to find locations to which the rest of us would rarely have access and he makes full use of his opportunities to produce splendid images.
The final presenter was John Horner whose fine landscapes are gathered from all corners of the British Isles and many places abroad. He uses a full arsenal of photographic technique as well as a broad range of on-camera filters and keeps post processing to a minimum.
The evening was full of good photography and good humour, one consequence of which was a great and willing sharing of ideas about the How, the Where and the Wow! of taking pictures.
Report by John Thompson
Alnwick and District Camera Club’s latest projected image competition was for sets of three pictures. By way of an experiment, this competition was judged by members votes, with a show of hands after each group of three pictures was projected on the screen. After a first round of voting to achieve a short list of potential winners, a second round of voting selected one set as ‘best in show’. The overall winner was a beautiful set of images of glassware by Alastair Cochrane entitled Sea Forms. A close runner up was Ian Atkinson’s fine set of pictures of Northumberland Harbours.
At the end of judging, each photographer was given the opportunity to talk about their own pictures and how they had selected them as a group.This was then followed by a general discussion of the pictures which gave the audience a chance to say what had influenced their votes.
The evening was completed by a joint gallery of prints from Dawn Groves and Kevin Murray - Kevin with some superb animal and bird pictures and Dawn with a varied gallery of excellent images including some fine monochrome prints.
Report by David Carter
There was a capacity audience at the Playhouse for Alnwick and District Camera Club’s annual event. This year’s speaker, Joe Cornish, is acknowledged as one of today’s foremost landscape photographers and his presentation fully lived up to his reputation.
In the first part of his talk, entitled The Life of a Landscape Photographer, Joe spoke in depth about his philosophy of photography, illustrating this with a wide ranging display of superb pictures. He sees this as a way of exploring the world around him, taking in aspects of history, art and science, as part of an ongoing learning process. Photography is obviously a serious business for Joe but it is also an enjoyable one that has taken him to many wonderful parts of the world. His landscapes range from the icy wildernesses of Alaska to the more mundane but no less interesting and challenging industrial landscapes close to his home in North Yorkshire. To achieve Joe’s level of success requires a thorough command of photographic technique coupled with an innate artistic ability and the determination to deliver the type of pictures that his customers require. For the most part, he works with large format cameras in order to achieve the quality required when working for such bodies as the National Trust. This means that he often needs to carry heavy cameras and tripods up mountains and over miles of rugged terrain to achieve his objectives. This is not an easy life but Joe obviously relishes it.
In the second part of his talk, entitled Sources of Inspiration, the audience was treated to a further display of breathtaking photographs accompanied by a fascinating commentary, analysing the pictures in interesting and revealing ways. Joe talked about his attitude to composition, emphasising the importance of mood, rhythm and colour in capturing atmosphere. This was a entertaining and inspirational masterclass in photography, delivered with passion, modesty and a gentle sense of humour that engaged the audience throughout a memorable evening.
Report by David Carter
Alnwick and District Camera Club’s latest members’ night was devoted to discussing techniques for producing photographic images and audio visual presentations.
Christine Sindall started off proceedings by talking about her distinctive personal gallery of photographs. She explained that her pictures were about communication through the medium of photography. Many of her pictures expressed Christian themes, including some beautiful prints of hands that formed part of a series dealing with aspects of the Crucifixion. Other pictures aimed to provide a focus to aid those needing to explore their own feelings.
John Thompson then introduced his gallery of pictures taken at the National Memorial Arboretum. These thoughtful and sensitive images shared a common feeling with many of Christine’s pictures. John’s colour prints illustrated wider aspects of the memorial site while his monochrome prints concentrated on the superb sculpture, which used serving soldiers as models. He had chosen a square format for displaying all of his prints which were relatively small in size but big in impact.
Jane Coltman then led a series of demonstrations and discussions on digital manipulation of pictures using Photoshop software. This was very much an interactive session with questions and comment from the audience and plenty of useful hints and tips on offer.
Finally Gerry Simpson demonstrated the basics of producing audio visual presentations using PicturesToExe software.
Report by David Carter
There was a full house at Alnwick and District Camera Club for its print knockout competition.
This is a popular annual event where the audience votes on members’ pictures until all but four winning entries are eliminated. Such evenings are always conducted in a friendly, good-humoured atmosphere but there is a serious purpose in helping members to appreciate the difficult task that visiting judges undertake in choosing between very different pictures, each with their own merits.
The evening was conducted by vice chairman John Thompson who started by showing the prints that made up the club’s winning entry at the interclub competition held in Blyth on the 3rd November. He highlighted some of the elements in these pictures that had made them so successful and gave good advice to those considering entering such competitions in the future.
The seventy six prints entered for the knockout covered a wide range of subjects, both in colour and monochrome, and voting was lively and sometimes extremely close. However, four fine prints took the winning places. In fourth place was Bridge Span, by Doug Ross, a well composed monochrome image taken from a dramatic angle, while in third place was another excellent architectural picture, this time in colour, entitled British Museum, by Gerry Simpson. Ian Atkinson’s subtle high key colour picture of the Domes of New Maiden Convent in Moscow took second place but Barry Robertson’s beautifully printed monochrome image of Sarah’s Hands was a worthy winner of first place.
Report by David Carter
Royal Photographic Society presentations at Alnwick and District Camera Club are always special occasions and the latest, by Steven Le Prevost was no exception. Steven, who is based in Guernsey, has a world wide reputation for his creative photography. He claims that his aim is to challenge the fundamentals and boundaries of known photography and his presentation demonstrated the lengths to which he has gone to achieve this.
Breaking the rules of composition seems to be a starting point for Steven who prefers to use a square format for most of his prints. His fascinating still life pictures involve quite mundane objects which are transformed by his inventive use of texture screens and skilful digital manipulation to produce stunning results. Other subjects are treated with similar levels of invention. Nothing is quite what it initially seems and many of his pictures are composites, constructed from images taken from a number of different photographs. The amount of time and effort it takes to produce outstanding pictorial results from such an approach is considerable and may take many hours or even days.
Steven’s enthusiasm and dedication to his art shone throughout this presentation which was delivered with down to earth humour and honesty.There is no doubt that Steven is pushing the concept of photography to its limits and he accepts that this will not be to everyone’s taste. Nevertheless, his superbly printed pictures, using a range of art papers that enhanced the effect of already impressive images, could not fail to impress and this was an evening that challenged everyone to think again about their approach to photography.
Report by David Carter
Alnwick and District Camera Club’s latest print competition was judged by Anne Swearman from Whitley Bay Photographic Society. Anne is a well respected judge and a frequent and welcome visitor to the club. She pointed out that she considers each competition to be an exhibition of members’ work from which she selects winning pictures. However, this hardly reflects the amount of time and effort Anne devoted to this task as she proceeded to talk about each entry in detail with plenty of interesting analysis, encouraging comment and useful advice.
This was an open competition for both colour and monochrome prints so there was a good variety of excellent pictures to enjoy. Commended were The Swan Movement by Sue Baker, Go With the Flow by Gerry Simpson, Owl in the Rafters by Andrew Mackie and They Seem So Young These Days by Jane Coltman while Vixen in the Sun by Andrew Mackie, Panaka Dzong by Ian Atkinson and High Tide at Newbiggin by John Thompson were all highly commended. In fourth place was a fine natural history photograph of a Spotted Flycatcher by Kevin Murray and in third place Jane Coltman’s close up image of the farrier’s art entitled A Change of Shoes. Second place was awarded to John Thompson for a finely judged monochrome image of the National Memorial, entitled A Place for Remembering but overall winner was Sue Baker with The Siren, a most beautiful high key image of a swan in motion.
Report by David Carter
Alnwick and District Camera Club trialled a new approach to judging photographs with an appraisal evening where the audience was encouraged to comment on a series of projected images submitted by members.
The evening was expertly compered by Vice Chairman John Thompson who started by offering useful advice on how to look at pictures and judge their merits in an objective way. He then steered the discussion on a variety of different pictures which elicited an interesting range of constructive and perceptive comments. After each picture had been discussed, its author was then invited to give his or her own comments on how and why the image had been taken.
There is always a concern with such events that people will be reluctant to speak up but this does not seem to apply in the friendly atmosphere of Alnwick Camera Club. As a result, the evening was a victim of its own success and only a limited number of pictures were discussed before time ran out. However, this was an extremely useful experiment which will almost certainly be repeated in the future.
The evening was completed by an excellent gallery of prints by Pat Wood and Peter Downs. Pat’s pictures were largely of atmospheric landscapes both in colour and monochrome while Peter’s miscellany of images included some unusual and interesting flower portraits.
Report by David Carter
There was a good attendance at Alnwick and District Camera Club for the popular projected digital image knockout competition. In this competition, images are projected in pairs and voted on by the audience until all but four winning pictures have been eliminated. Pictures are projected at random and remain anonymous until the winners are announced.
Although this is a light hearted evening with much audience banter, it challenges everyone to think about the pictures on view and to make their own critical assessment. With no set subject, the pictures covered a wide range and it was often necessary to make choices between very different images. In the event, the audience proved to be discerning judges and four fine pictures took the winning places.
Fourth place went to a richly colourful picture of poppies by Laine Baker while, on a similar subject, third place went to a very different atmospheric image of a cornfield with poppies by Sue Baker. Second place was awarded to Dave Dixon for Cooking, a well composed, warm image from Bede’s World in Jarrow but first place was won by Dawn Groves’ Ghost on the Stairs, an atmospheric picture taken at the Penny Lodging House in Berwick.
The first themed members gallery of the year featured a wide range of fine colour and monochrome prints on the subject of the coast.
Report by David Carter
An innovation at Alnwick and District Camera Club this year is a series of presentations that focus on the talents of individual club members. The first two members to take part were Dave Dixon and Richard Stent.
Dave focussed on landscape photography in Northumberland and Scotland both in colour and monochrome with a superb range of pictures from sunrise to sunset and beyond. He discussed the use of wide angle lenses, filters and high dynamic range techniques to capture the effects that he required. Long exposures feature strongly in his work, particularly when dealing with such subjects as moving water. Dave concluded his presentation with a fascinating series of star trail pictures. Exposures of thirty minutes or more may be needed for these images and careful planning and much experience is required to achieve such fine results. Dave also displayed a superb panel of prints all taken on Lindisfarne.
In contrast, Richard’s presentation concentrated on a photographic project at Seaton Delaval Hall that he lead for a group of teenage students who had little or no previous experience of photography. After setting the scene with some excellent monochrome images of his own, Richard then showed a series of pictures taken by the students, mostly using basic cameras and camera phones. The students had been given free range to photograph whatever they liked and the following day were allowed to process their pictures with Photoshop software.
The range of pictures was truly remarkable, and showed imagination and flair that many an experienced photographer would envy. The best results were printed for a school exhibition and may later be exhibited at Seaton Delaval. It certainly reinforced the view that it is the photographer and not the equipment that produces the results.
Report by David Carter
David Richardson from Ryton and District Camera Club was the judge for Alnwick and District Camera Club’s first open projected digital image competition of the season. David is a frequent and welcome visitor to Alnwick and is also a highly respected competition judge.
He praised the club for the high standard of its pictures as he considered each of the sixty nine entries in detail, with plenty of helpful and encouraging comments along the way.
Indian Dancers by Jane Coltman, Bicycle, Italy by Dawn Groves and The Lighthouse by Paul Davis were all commended while Commando Memorial, Spean Bridge by Dave Dixon, Misery (Brown Hare) by Kevin Murray and an untitled picture by Alan Ainsworth were all highly commended.
Mike Christian’s fine atmospheric interior shot entitled Old Smokies was awarded fourth place and an unusual and highly creative portrait of Jenny won third place for Alastair Cochrane. John Thompson’s cleverly conceived image of a child on a railway platform, entitiled Dangerous Playground took second place but first place went to Jane Coltman for a powerful, smoke-wreathed image of The Farrier at work.
The member’s print gallery was shared between Jane Coltman and Ian Cartwright. Jane’s fine sequence of pictures depicted her impressions from a weekend in Poland while Ian’s spectacular, large colour prints were mainly of landscapes ranging from Northumberland to the USA and Papua New Guinea.
Report by David Carter
Members of Alnwick and District Camera Club were pleased to receive a visit from Richard Spiers from Carlisle to give an illustrated talk entitled Painting with Light. Richard is president of the Northern Counties Photographic Federation and has a very busy work schedule so his visit was particularly welcome.
Illustrated with a wide range of pictures, Richard’s presentation was peppered with gems of photographic advice and guidance, all delivered with a great sense of humour that made the evening not only instructive but entertaining. Many of his most salient points were accompanied by ‘before and after’ pictures that graphically demonstrated the wisdom of his advice.
Although Richard embraces the use of digital photography, he prefers to do most of his work at the taking stage of photography rather than in digital manipulation afterwards. He emphasised the importance of correct exposure and careful composition and demonstrated the use of colour with a range of amazing optical illusions to show how we react to different colour combinations.
He crowned his talk with two fine audio visual presentations, one a colourful celebration of the young ladies at Appleby Horse Fair and the other a stunning sequence of Lake District scenes.
The evening was completed by a fine gallery of prints presented by Ian Atkinson and Doug Ross. Ian’s pictures of the people and buildings of Bhutan, show that this is clearly a photographer’s dream, while Doug’s fascinating abstracts entitled Just Rust did just what it said on the tin.
Report by David Carter
David Hall from Gateshead Camera Club is always a welcome visitor to Alnwick and District Camera Club and once again he enthralled members with his latest presentation. David proudly announces that he is ‘non-digital’ but this is hardly an adequate description of his mastery of film and darkroom wizardry. Computers do not figure at any stage in his photography but the amazing range of his work defies description.
Starting off with some fairly conventional but superbly produced monochrome prints of Tyneside industrial scenery, David pointed out that he likes to work to themes and this was one of his favourites. Of course many of his pictures in this category now have a great historic as well as photographic interest.
Next followed a set of atmospheric pinhole camera images of moving water and then some impressive, selectively toned, prints of abandoned cars.
David said that he was not keen on taking people pictures but then demonstrated his mastery of portraiture with a very personal set of pictures of his late mother which captured the essence of old age in a loving and dignified manner.
After this followed an array of superb prints produced by a bewildering range of advanced darkroom techniques. Here is an example of someone who is using what some may consider outdated methods to create work that is at the cutting edge of photography. It is hardly surprising that his pictures are winning international plaudits in alternative photography categories.
This excellent presentation was delivered with an infectious warmth and good humour that gave club members an evening to remember.
Report by David Carter
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