Roger won the prize last year and he suggested the theme of ‘Shadows’.

We had entries giving a wide variety of interpretations of this theme in both colour and black and whiite. There were landscapes, ancient buildings, still lifes, nature and architecture, amongst others.

Unlike other competitions in our Club year we do not have an external judge for this competition but members attending the meeting are the judges. Each member is given a scoring sheet and each entry is displayed to the room while people enter their marks for each photo.

Linda was a clear winner of the compeition with a stunning black and white print depicting shadows cast by a pair of garden chairs. Roger came second with a photo of a shadow of an insect and William came third with a print of a landscape with mists and shadows.

Roger presented the trophy to Linda, who gets to nominate next year’s theme.

This was a fun and friendly evening and we look forward to hearing what we’ve got to line up for next January!

We asked him, in advance, what the curriculum for the session would be and gave us this information:

• Layers & Layer masks
• Levels & simple colour correction with use of the histogram
• High Pass method of sharpening
• Advanced Method of Dodging & Burning using layers
• Black & White conversion from colour using the Channel Mixer and exploding some crappy myths that exist with this method of working

(We were not entirely sure what all of the terminology of the last item actually meant but we assumed it was technical jargon in common use by seasoned photographers )

Anyway, we had a very stimulating evening being shown all about Layers and how PhotoShop can be used to perform miracles on even the most unpromising material. Brian showed us many examples of the techniques he used to correct and transform digital images and he answered our many questions with skill and patience.

Brian is the author of many ‘how to’ papers which available for download here.

Thanks, Brian, for being such a knowledgeable source of information on this often challenging topic!

In the first part of our meeting we all brought in photos that the club had never seen before and everyone had to guess who the photographer was. Hence ‘Spot the Snapper’. This was very entertaining as some members brought in stuff that they had taken 20+ years ago, well before the age of digital.

After the break, where we consumed all of the aforementioned mince pies, we viewed an audio-visual presentation put together by Gillian to showcase many of the x-ray images that we took at the workshop we attended in November. Here it is on YouTube:

Thanks to everyone for a very fun and friendly meeting, and especial thanks to Betty for her lovely pies.

See you next year!

Judge Jim Eastaugh

This Tuesday evening we held our annual Black & White competition with the winner being awarded the coveted Iris Overton Memorial Cup.

Members submitted a total of 45 mounted black and white prints, covering subject matter as diverse as trains and boats to trees and turbines,architecture and birds to poppies and pandas. Our judge for the evening was Jim Eastaugh of Wincanton Camera Club who passed a very critical eye over each print, pointing out what he liked and didn’t like and commenting on the quality of both the printing and mounting.

Jim likes to see an interesting combination of light and texture with the composition showing an appropriate level of detail and contrast. As he viewed the prints one by one he selected a short-list of nine prints which he considered the most worthy of merit. From this nine he selected a first, second and third and two highly commended. The winners were:

1 Brian C.

Brian receives the Iris Overton Cup from Jim Eastaugh

2 William

3 Brian H

Highly commended: William and Brian C.

Congratulations to the winners, who were up against some very stiff competition, and thanks also to Jim for being such a fair and informative judge. A highly enjoyable evening!

On Tuesday evening we were treated to a super presentation of images taken by member Brian H. on a tour of ancient Germany. Here’s his account of the trip:

‘A year ago I went on an archaeology holiday/study tour, ‘Roman Germany’, staying at Köln, Mainz, Trier and Aachen and exploring the Rhine frontier between Roman Gaul and ‘free Germany’, an area of major strategic importance from the 1st century BC onwards. 

The strong military presence guaranteed peace and prosperity, demonstrated by the wealthy villas and rich towns.
The citizens of Köln enjoyed all the luxuries of Roman town life as we saw from the many Roman remains and fine display of high quality Roman glass for which Köln was famous. 

A boat trip on the Rhine took us to Mainz.  There in the Taunus Mountains we saw the military control of the frontier with the ‘Limes’, a continuous bank, ditch and palisade stretching for 550 km, and visited a reconstructed fort and watchtower (a feature of German archaeology).

Onwards to Trier – Urbs opulentissima – which became the imperial capital with monumental buildings as befitted its status, and with wealthy villas in the countryside.Aachen, with its natural hot springs was used by Celts and Romans. 

The fifth century AD saw the decline of the Roman Empire; Christianity was a new feature.  The Franks settled here and their king, Charlemagne, made Aachen his capital.  He built a great palace and chapel with the Emperor’s throne used in the coronation of German kings and queens for the next 500 years. It was a stimulating trip, with a tasty Roman meal as well! ‘

This was a fascinating talk and we enjoyed looking at the many illustrative images, some of which are shown here. Thanks, Brian – we’re looking forward to hearing about your next exciting adventure!

(click on a pic to view slideshow)

The Bradford Abbas Shield Five Clubs Competition was held on Tuesday evening and, as ever, provided a lively and entertaining event for all concerned. The competition is conducted between five local camera clubs: South Petherton, Yeovil, Wincanton, Yeo Group and Sherborne Bradford Abbas. Each club can submit five prints and five digital images, each of which is marked out of 20 by the judge. The club that amasses the most points wins the coveted shield, which they retain for a year.

The theme of the competition this year was ‘Wet’ and the judge was Sid Jones of Dorchester Camera Club.

We viewed a wide range of interpretations of the theme, from soaked birds to wet people, rainy streets to sodden fields and raindrops on cobwebs, leaves and a clothes line – amongst others.

Sid was an excellent judge, pointing out the best points of each image and making really helpful comments about how each entry could be improved. There was applause for each entry awarded 20 points and we looked in more detail at these winning images when the competition was over.

The Bradford Abbas Shield was won by Yeovil Camera Club with 182 points out of a possible 200. Second was Wincanton with 180 points, third was Sherborne Bradford Abbas with 172 and fourth and fifth, Yeo Group and South Petherton with 170 and 169 respectively.

Here Laura Pearce is seen receiving the trophy on behalf of Yeovil Camera Club from Sid Jones.

Well done, Yeovil – and many thanks to Sid Jones for a job well done!

Here are some of the highest scoring digital images from all of the clubs:

(click on an image to play a slideshow)

Last Tuesday we were treated to an absolutely brilliant display of underwater photography by Penny and Spike Piddock. The pair, who are members of Dorchester Camera Club, treated us to an evening of amazing photographs taken under the sea in places as local as Portland and as far away as the Maldives. Penny goes in for snorkelling while Spike is a regular diver and they are both expert photographers. We enjoyed watching some amazing audio-visuals as well as stunning slideshows. Penny brought us some of her prize-winning prints to see and they both entertained us with some amusing anecdotes about how they approach photography.

The best way to describe the images is to show some of them here. These images are presented with the permission of Penny and Spike to show them on our website:

(click on a pic to play the slideshow:

:

• Best Colour Print
• Best Black and White Print
• Best Digital Image
• Most Unusual Photograph

Members submitted 19 colour prints, 5 black and white prints and 20 digital images to the competition.

We invited Penny Piddock from Portland to judge our entries and she explained that what she was looking for was what was coming through from the photographer rather than technical perfection. As she commented on each photo she pointed out what she liked and what she thought could be improved and she also made some helpful suggestions for how to mount prints effectively. After narrowing the entries down into a shortlist for each category, she announced the winning entries.  These were:

Best Colour Print -Peter R.

Best Black and White Print – Michael W.

Best Digital Image – Tony F.

Most Unusual Photo – Tony F.

Thanks to Penny for being such an excellent judge, and many congratulations to the winners. Here are some of the beautiful images that were entered into the competition:

Click on a thumbnail to see the image full size.

Last Tuesday we had a very enjoyable evening

We saw about 30 prints and 22 digital images and we had a very friendly and worthwhile exchange of views on what we saw. The consensus of opinion was that the standard of images was very high and that sharing photos in this way was a good way of showing what we had done in front of a (more or less!) friendly audience.

Thanks to all who showed their work.

Here are a view examples of the digital images we talked about:

Brian H.

William

Norman

Roger

Rob Curtis

We had a very entertaining, if not sobering, meeting on Tuesday evening when our guest speaker, Rob Curtis, gave us a talk entitled ‘It’s a Grave Business, Dead Interesting Dorset’.

Rob is a prominent figure in the local history scene, researching local history, giving talks and showing visitors around the local historical landmarks. Dorset has a rich history and Rob is an expert at bringing it to life.

In the talk tonight we had a tour around the graveyards of Dorset, looking at the history of burial rituals, the design of gravestones and memorials and the role of gravestones in charting local historical events. Rob showed us many photographs of local churches, graveyards and memorials, many of which commemorated poignant details of the lives of the people concerned.

Rob also showed how the graveyards illustrated the literary connections with the area, citing Thomas Hardy, Charles Dickens, T E Lawrence and Kenneth Allsop.

Finally, Rob showed us a number of military memorials from conflicts of the 19th century to the present day, including in his narrative some anecdotes from his own military backround.

It was a very informative and entertaining evening and we thank Rob for sharing his research with us. We hope to ask him back again next year.