Exmouth Photo Group

WCPF Council Meeting, Held at Elizabeth Hall, Exmouth- Saturday 1st March 2008 - Exmouth Photo Group to present their work in the afternoon.

 

Another lovely day dawned, when around 90 of the region’s photographers chose to abandon their cameras and tripods in favour of sitting in a hall all day.

 

There were three attractions, though!  The first was the closing date for the Members’ Exhibition.  Hand delivering an entry saves a big postage bill – and the anti-room set aside to collect this entry quickly started to pile up with portfolio cases, slide boxes and CDs.

 

This year, the work of cataloguing the huge entry has been divided between several people, instead of falling on just one poor soul’s shoulders!  This sharing of the workload will continue in the future, and will make the job much easier for future Exhibition Secretaries.

 

Next, the Council Meeting was held, where attendees were appraised of problems that have been solved and events which are being planned.  Please see enclosed Council Meeting Minutes for full details of these.

 

A lunch break followed and everyone took the opportunity to look at the short-listed entries for the Knightshayes Trophy competition.  Brian Galbraith has come up with a really nifty way of displaying this huge body of work to best advantage, involving upended tables, picture hooks, ½ ”nylon tape and small bulldog-clips!  If you want to know just what this system looks like – you’ll just have to come to next year’s competition and see this patented system for yourselves!!

 

President Barrie Bluer judged the Knightshaye Trophy after the lunch break – but again, I won’t go into details here, as Brian Galbraith gives a fulsome report.  Don’t forget, the website www.wcpf.org.uk carries pictures and more details of both the Council Meeting and the Knightshaye Trophy competition.

 

Exmouth Photo Group members hosted the Council Meeting – and a big thank-you must be extended to their members, Ann Stredwick, Mike and Norma Davey, Mo Martin, Clare Morris and Terry Ward, who efficiently took on many tasks, including the catering.

 

Sheila Haycox, Brian Ward, Dave McHutchison and John Perriam were the members who produced no fewer than eleven audiovisual sequences for the afternoon’s “entertainment”.

 

Sheila and I started the ball rolling with the promised presentation of the Ilsington WCPF Members’ 75th Anniversary weekend in November.  Photographs taken by participants over the weekend were brought together with a voice over introduction, background music, and a voice-over pay-off - showing just what goes on at one of these events – and the sort of photographs that can be achieved.

 

There then followed a wonderful variety of sequences from this very prolific club.  Dave’s showed his ‘Falconry at Dunrobin Castle’, ‘Seabirds of the Farne Islands’ and ‘Curling’.  Brian Ward presented his ‘Mythic Gardens’ and ‘India.’

 

Sheila and John combined on a few sequences – but probably the most challenging was when they invited the members of EPG to each provide two images – on any subject – and they (Sheila and John) would create a sequence!

 

Amazingly, they did!  A caricature YKS News bulletin – complete with two presenters, a running strap at the bottom of the screen, with “latest news” showing – and a very witty script, which encompassed all the images, without it sounding at all contrived.  Hats off to you two!  Excellent!!

 

The audience thoroughly enjoyed their spoof “Judging Competition” a tongue-in-cheek AV, where the usual contradictory comments judges are infamous for, were trotted out, accompanied by a variety of photographs!  The audience, who seemed to have had similar experiences within their clubs on competition nights, really empathised with this!

 

John then proved that you don’t need good weather to take good pictures.  His ‘Rain’ sequence featured Brighton Pier on a typical, wet summers day!  Well saturated images – and a well saturated photographer, I guess!

 

Finally, Sheila showcased a ‘work in progress’ – an AV of a balloon flight, with some very complicated transitions involving the balloon (or envelope as we must now refer to them!) inflating, and drifting across the landscape, complete with its shadow!

 

Stunning photography from all – with some very appropriate music or voice-over commentary where appropriate.  In all, the presentation lasted just over an hour – but passed in a flash – and represented months of work from everyone.

 

Well done EPG – and thank you all for such an enjoyable end to a very full and entertaining day.