Annual General Meeting.
The AGM on Friday 25th April ran very smoothly. Nothing untoward happened. I was pleased to see so members attend. We managed to get photos of the presentations and awards. These are below.
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Summer Programme
With the indoor season coming to a close its time again for another Summer Programme. Martyn has again produced an excellent mixture of things to do. All members and their wives/husbands/partners are welcome to join but please let Martyn know at least one week in advance if you wish to attend. There are walks./strolls on Friday evenings with a pub meal to follow, some Sunday walks and events, in fact something for you all. Please come along, I have uploaded the programme to this site.
Project Evening Friday 18th April.
Yet again another good evening. Peter Kilminster entertained us with his innovative AV's, which were thought provoking and something different. It was good to see the inclusion of his family and how he approached a way of showing off family events. Peter Anderson gave a fascinating talk and did an excellent job of getting across to members his experiences whilst travelling in Vietnam and then on to China for the Dong. His enthusiasm for the countries and its people came across. Well done to you both.
The evening was another example of good projects from our members, I never cease to be amazed at what can be done.
Monday 16 June – Friday 20 June 2008 The Ammerdown Centre, Radstock, near Bath Residential: £299 Non-residential £199 Course leader: Bryan Webb
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Getting More out of your Digital Camera If you enjoy taking photographs, own a digital camera and want to learn how to get more out of it, then this could be the course for you! The course will include demonstrations, group work and tutorials. It will focus both on good photographic practice – making full use of the beautiful environment provided by Ammerdown – and on simple image editing and manipulation using PC notebooks. Exchanging ideas, The tutor, Bryan Webb, is an active digital photographer and an experienced leader of courses in digital photography for adults of all ages. Coming from an art and design background – including the Royal College of Art – he is very open to the artistic interpretation of digital photography. Participants will need to bring their own digital camera with its instruction manual. Either a tripod or monopod will also be essential. Owning a laptop is not necessary, as Bryan will make suitable PC Notebooks available during the course. However, if you have your own PC notebook running Adobe Photoshop Elements Versions 3, 4, 5, or 6, do please bring it with you. A supplementary advice sheet is available from the Ammerdown Centre to provide full details about cameras, tripods, PC Notebooks and the course software. For more information, including a map and travel tips, visit www.ammerdown.org, email centre@ammerdown.org |
South Devon League Digital Competition
The SDPL Digital Competition was held on Friday 11th April at Exmouth. Members from Crediton, Dawlish & Teignmouth and Newton Abbot also attended. It was a well fought battle judged by Nigel Cheffers-Heard who entertained us with his remarks admirably. At half time Newton Abbot were winning by 1 points but I am pleased to say at the end of the competition we pulled ahead and managed to win by 12 points. Even though Newton Abbot beat us by 6 points in the Print Battle we managed to claim victory overall and gain the Trophy.
The overall winning image was from Newton Abbot, produced by Paula Graham called What A Picture; 2nd was from Exmouth by Lucilla Phelps called Penguin and 3rd was also from Exmouth by Paul Hepple called Parallel Lives. Congratulations to them all.
South Devon League Print Battle
This battle hosted by Newton Abbot was held on 4th December between Newton Abbot, Crediton, Dawlish & Teignmouth plus ourselves. It was a very close run competition with Newton Abbot just pipping us to first place. Dawlish and Teignmouth being third and Crediton fourth. The points collected for this event will go towards the Digital Competition we are hosting on the 11th April.
Devon Print and Digitally Projected Image Battle
Organisation is well under way and this battle is to be held on the 17th May 2008 at Budleigh Salterton Public Hall. Nigel Cheffers-Heard has accepted the task of adjudicating on the day. He will view all the work in the afternoon. The Hall will open at 4.30 for visitors to view the work. Judging takes place at 6 p.m. There will be a buffet half way through the evening as well as a raffle.
It will be an all day event for us, being the hosts, as we will have to set the hall up, organise food, raffles etc. etc. plus boards will have to be collected from Dawlish who have kindly offered to lend their boards for the occasion. We will need plenty of helpers for the day especially as 14 Clubs from Devon have agreed to enter. Please support your club and join us for the evening. Tickets are £3.50 which includes a plated buffet and tea/coffee. Helpers will be required from 12 o'clock onwards. Please contact Sheila.
Competition No. 5
Competition No. 5 was held on Friday 4th April and the judge was Chris Marsham from Newton Abbot Photographic Club who did an excellent job giving comments on the 46 Prints Entries and 10 Slide Entries. This competition being the final one for the season.
Placed images are on the Members Competition No. 5 page .
Chris gave a few commended and highly commended awards - for the Colour Prints Paul Hepple got a commended for his Defiance and Dave McHutchison for his Backstroke; Highly Commended was given to St Michaels, Otterton by Paul Hepple and The Swim Meet by Dave McHutchison. In the Mono section a commended was given to Escape from the Eye by Hugh Davies and Highly Commended for Old Lorry by Caroline Ovens. In the Slides Seawally by Joe Radgick got a commended and Chapel on the Lake by Sheila got a Highly Commended.
Brian announced the overall results for the season's five competitions Slides, Colour Prints and Mono Prints. The Overall winner for the Slides was Martyn Shepherd with Sheila coming second and Brian third. In the Mono Print section Sheila came first, Tom Gordon second and Charles St Johnston third. The Colour Prints was won by Sheila with Paul Hepple coming second and Tom Gordon third. Well done all winners.
Horseshoe Trophy Hosted by Lyme Bay Photographic ClubThe Horsehoe Trophy was held on Thursday 27th March at Lyme Regis Golf Club. This year's event was hosted by Lyme Bay Photographic Club and other clubs taking part were Sidmouth, Chard, Honiton and Exmouth Photo Group. This year the set subjects were: Landscape; Maritime; Moving Water; Sport and Open. The evening went well, a good venue and good food. Several of our members attended. Chard came 3rd, Sidmouth 2nd and we managed to be 1st getting to keep the Trophy. Here is John getting the Trophy from the judge Sid Jones who came from Dorchester Camera Club. Peter Kilminster did well getting two 1st's and also managed to get a Certificate for the Best Overall Print with his Boat Reflections. We did well with our entries - in the Print Section the Landscape entered by Sheila of Lake Bled came 1st; Peter Kilminster got 1st for his Boat Reflections in the Maritime section; Peter also got a 1st for his Waterfall at Eden in the Moving Water section and Dave's Butterfly in the Sport section came 2nd. In the Open section John Perriam's Surfer came 2nd. Slides: In the Landscape section Sheila got 2nd with Lake Bled; Brian's Two Blue Boats came 1st in the Maritime section; Sheila got a 1st with her Horse Jumping in the Sports section and Martyn's Eye at Night got a 3rd. |
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Next year the event will be hosted by Sidmouth and the subjects will be: Transport; Body Parts; Song Titles; Patterns in Nature and an Open section. So get cracking, take some images for these subjects. We will need Prints and Slides.
Panels Competition
The annual panels competition was held on Friday 14th March. There were six slide entries, 10 colour print panels and only 3 mono entries. The judge was Max Danby who competently judged the panels. He was particular about the panels having a theme and hanging well together. The evening went well being the first time the downstairs hall was used. We were able to hang all the panels around the room giving the judge a good opportunity to view the work easily.
Brian Ward came 1st in the Slide section with his Mines of Bottalack with Joe Radgick coming 2nd with Waiting for Summer and Sheila Haycox 3rd with Durdle Door Beach Scenes.
John Perriam came 1st in the Colour Print section with his panel of Late Evening Peak Hill, Dave McHutchison coming 2nd with his panel called The Swim Meet and Sheila Haycox 3rd with a panel called HMS Victory.
Sheila Haycox came 1st with her panel called Landlord's Pride and Joy, Norma Davey's panel of Morning Mist Clearing was 2nd and Mike Davey came 3rd with his panel called The Palm House, Bicton Gardens.
WCPF Council Meeting
The WCPF Council Meeting held at Elizabeth Hall, Exmouth was hosted by Exmouth Photo Group and with the aid of "our helpers" the day went very well. After the business of the morning the afternoon started with the Knightshayes Trophy. Barrie Bluer, President of the WCPFscrutinised each picture with his own interpretation of 'Spirit of the Place' and congratulated those photographers who had met the criteria. Barrie picked out a handful of prints to talk about and did an excellent job giving us his views on the interpretations. There were 191 print entries and a few slide entries. The overall winner was Martin Howse from Truro who gained the trophy for the third time running, quite an achievement.
Prints section
1st place 'Spirit of the Fells' Martin Howse - Truro CC
2nd place 'Misty Woodlands', Sheila Haycox - Exmouth Photo Group
3rd place 'London Commuters' - Bob Morgan - Cambourne-Redruth CC
Slide Section
1st place, 'Pirits in the Cloisters' - Malcolm Kitto - Dorchester CC
2nd place ' A highland Winter' - Ann Owens - Ivybridge CC
3rd place 'Little Fistral', Paul Craddock - Wadebridge CC
After this, Exmouth showed a selection of AV's starting with a WCPF AV made about the last Landscape weekend created by Ann Owens and Sheila Haycox. This was followed by work from Brian Ward, Dave McHutchison, John Perriam and Sheila Haycox. From the feedback received I think everyone enjoyed the presentations. There was certainly a good mixture.
Guy Edwardes Evening
On Friday 22nd, the highlight of the club's indoor season was a visit from Guy Edwardes, a notable landscape and wildlife photographer who has been gaining a name for himself over recent years for his wonderful photographs. His show was absolutely stunning, with every photograph leaving the audience spellbound. Two EPG members will be travelling to Slovenia with Guy in the next few weeks and later this year three members of the club will be joining Guy in Ireland on one of his much sought after “Irish Seabirds” photographic workshops.
Programme Change
April 18th: Peter Kilminster and Peter Anderson's Project Night
WCPF- Digitally Projected Image Competition
The WCPF Inter-club Digitally Projected Image Competitionwas held on the 17 February 2008 at the Village Hall Clyst St Mary. We, as a club, entered this competition which is in its third year. 25 of our best digital images were chosen.
43 clubs from the South West entered so as you can imagine a very busy day, in fact 1075 images were projected. The competition was judged by three judges each being able to give marks from 2 to 5. Marks were generally on the lower side throughout the day, in fact there were no 14 or 15's which is unusual and only 3 images for the entire day got a 13. To get a 10 was good and 9 was an average. We had 4 images which scored 11 and two which scored a 12, one of which had a 5. John Perriam got the one with the 5 for his Bobbin, a derivative and Dave McHutchison got his 12 for a tennis shot.
Newton Abbot came 1st with 267 points, Dorchester 2nd with 250, Bristol 3rd with 249, Sodbury and Yate 4th with 242, Taunton 5th with 241and we came joint 6th with Plymouth, Wadebridge and Warminster with 240 points so well done members but lets produce something even better for next year.
For more information visit: http://www.wcpf.org.uk/
Mix and Match against Exeter Camera Club
We are having another mix and match competition with Exeter but this year it will be digital instead of slides. The venue for this event is at Exeter's meeting place, St Mathews Hall, Topsham and it is to be held on Thursday 31st January at 7.30 p.m.
This is a fun event which has been held between us for the last two years. The idea is for one club to project an image and the other has to "match" that image. The object being to match as near as possible to the image projected as well as having a quality image. Each club selects 50 images to choose from - the last few being very difficult to match. The club that best matches the image then gets to put up the next image. There will be a judge to give comments and award the winner for each match.
All members are invited to attend.
Set Subject
Landscape |
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 1st Sheila Haycox |
2nd Dave McHutchison |
3rd John Wickett |
Sport |
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1st Deve McHutchison |
2nd John Perriam |
3rd Gill Stocker |
Moving Water |
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1st Gill Stocker |
2nd Peter Kilminster |
3rd Dave McHutchison |
Maritime |
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1st Sheila Haycox |
2nd John Perriam |
3rd John Wickett |
International Digital Exchange of Work
The work Edinburgh, Scotland; Johannesburg, South Africa; and Waikato, New Zealand have now been viewed and the evening turned out to be very successful. It was a change and pleasure to see work from various parts of the globe.
A comment from Edinburgh: I'm delighted to say that it was a huge success and when I asked at the end of the meeting "shall we continue with this in the future?" I got a unanimous and enthusiastic "yes please". If you would like to visit their site it's: www.edinburghphotographicsociety.co.uk/CMS/index.php
Comment from New Zealand: This is just to let you know that we screened all your images at our meeting last evening. Everyone was most impressed and are keen to do it again. If you would like to visit their site it's: www.waikatophotosoc.org.nz.
Johannesburg have yet to show their images but their site is: www.jpscameraclub.co.za
There was a lot more said and the opinion was we should include another club in this exchange. Dave also feels we should put all our club's images on to our site with links to the other entries. I think this will be done after all the clubs have seen the images from all other clubs. So it looks very positive, well done Dave.
Our Website
I hope you all feel the new web site is better. I am always trying to improve things and as indicated above have put more into the Members Area for which a password is required. This is for you. If there is anything you would like to see published, please let me know.
The site is also capable of having sub domains. What this will mean is that each member can be given their own page/pages to design as they wish: in effect, your own web site within Exmouth Photo Group. I will give you a "Blank Page" to start with where you can add images, insert text etc. This page can be completely blank or if you would prefer I can make a banner for you similar to the ones used on this site. You will need to have some sort of software to write and insert text. In the past I have used Front Page Express which comes with Microsoft Office or similar. I also used an FTP software to upload the pages. Dave has looked into this matter, and there is a free program called NVU that can be used for creating web site pages and a free FTP program called Filezilla for uploading the pages. However, if you create your page in Front Page Express I could upload for you, but this would mean you sending all your site files to me via email.
If you are interested in doing this and would like to visit me I can give some instructions to help you on your way. Dave can advise on the free software.
WCPF
There are a large amount of things going on within The Western Counties Photographic Federation. They do produce a Newsletter which is well worth reading - I have a copy which you can see at any time. However I do suggest you visit their web site www.wcpf.org.uk which is very comprehensive with information on exhibitions, events, newsletters, etc. etc. Click on their Diary Page.