Hello to all readers, our last two presentations have been excellent. Boyd Harris talked of his climbing and trekking adventures in the Himalayas over the past few years alongside his photographic skills of his visits. Justin Garner gave an insight to how he lights his subjects in great depth. When we look at his images he showed us that much of what we see doesn’t just happen, it was an eye opener ! His last visit was by way of ZOOM but this one was live and very well presented.
December’s calendar shows only one presentation on DEC. 6TH. that of Kevin Pigney who will give us his Passion for Wildlife. The following week, we hold our Christmas Social which includes Quizzes, a raffle accompanied by a Hot Pot Supper. We break for Christmas and re-start on JAN 3rd. with Justin Mimms on ZOOM on Nature Landscapes and Wildlife .
As we say goodbye to 2023, may I wish everyone Season’s Greetings and a Happy and Healthy New Year in 2024.
Many thanks to all members for their entries of prints and DPIs for the Creatures and Plants of the World Competition; it would appear to be a considerable amount to choose from! Good luck to all and to the judge!
Notices
Lens for sale
From: Mr Wayne Collins
I have a Sigma AF 150 – 500mm EOS F/5-6.3 APO-DG-OS-HSM lens with Canon mount that I wish to sell. A case and hood is included with the lens.
I bought it 8 years ago but have not used it very much: it is in very good condition.
If anyone wishes to test it in my garden on their camera, they are welcome to come along.
Given its condition I believe £300 is reasonable for it but open to negotiation. (MPB £449).
Email: wsmcollins@sky.com
My mobile number is 07811300975
If you are interested, please contact Wayne directly.
Programme for 2024/25 season
We are currently planning the 24/25 season and if any member has any suggestions, ideas and/or thoughts please get in touch; don’t forget it’s your club and you may want a talk/presentation on a particular topic – so now is the time to say!
As you will remember Bispham have pulled out, this year, due to various reasons so we will be battling against some odds! Still, we have some excellent photographs so good luck to all!
Reminder: 7.30pm start; venue – Methodist Church Hall on Queensway, Poulton FY6 7ST. So, no meeting scheduled in the Arts Centre. We would suggest you get there by 7.15 to ensure a seat; parking in Booths Car Park, which, we believe, is free from 6pm or 7pm, but please check that out when parking!
Garstang Victorian Christmas festival
As per last year we have had an email from Julie from the Garstang Victoria Festival committee asking if anyone in the camera club would be interested in taking voluntary pictures throughout the evening for them.
The event is being held on Monday 4th and Tuesday 5th December, 6pm – 9pm.
Julie says “We don’t want an official photographer, we would just like some photos we are able to use for future posts on our Facebook page to show the evenings events and atmosphere.
We would like pictures of the stalls attending, entertainment and a few of the Christmas grotto, we expect some of the councillors and organisers to be wearing Victorian outfits so a few snaps of them would also be great.
Ideally the type of photos would be fun, but we would be grateful of any style. Ideally just roaming around the evening snapping away. We may use the photos to advertise the event in future years.”
So, if we take images, edit them accordingly, then send them to me, Mike, (I would suggest 6/8 ish as a maximum each), I’ll forward them on to Julie.
I think this will give some publicity to the club, as well as a good opportunity to hone our skills!
Anyway, if anyone has any suggestions or comments, we could chat about them on 8th November during our next meeting.
Christmas get-together
Just a reminder that our Christmas get-together is on Wednesday 13th December. Freda is now coordinating and beginning to collect names! Open to all members and their respective wives/husbands/partners etc! I think we have over 20 so far – please support the club and there will be quizzes and prizes!
The menu will be a Hot Pot or an equivalent vegetarian Hot Pot plus a choice of 3 sweets, all cooked and served, as usual, by the excellent Betty and her team; all for the princely sum of £13 pp.
Also, we will need, please, some prizes for the raffle – any donations will be very gratefully received!
Calendars for 2025
The Arts Centre Committee said: “Provisionally, it was decided to repeat the exercise next year and we need to contact the Camera club. (That’s us!). It was agreed to keep the photographs within the Garstang area as there were plenty of sales outlets in the town.
Lewis and I have sent the following email to them.
“In principle we agree but will need to discuss it with our members.
However, we note you wanted photos of Garstang again. The issue here may be getting sufficient photos of the right quality and composition within the relatively small area of Garstang. Can we suggest you expand the area to cover Garstang and District (Arts Society) Our suggestion would be South of Lancaster to the North of Preston, as far East as Trough of Bowland and West to the coast.
We are happy to discuss this with you after you have a chance to consider this suggestion.”
We await a reply, but will, of course, keep you all updated.
Up and coming programme of events
November 8th– Justin Garner – ‘The lighting behind the image.’
November 15th– 4 Way Battle – 7.30pm start; venue – Methodist Church Hall on Queensway,Poulton FY6 7ST. So, no meeting scheduled in the Arts Centre.
November 22nd– Gordon Watson – ‘Iceland in winter’.
November 29th– Creatures and Plants of the World Competition – judged by Sheila Giles DPAGB AV-AFIAP.
Many thanks to Stan for his time and trouble in putting together a cracking image critiquing presentation. We’re sure everyone got something from it.
Notices
Website and Facebook – many thanks to Tim and Rhona, respectively, for keeping these sites updated with the winning images from the Events Cup.
4 way battle: attached is the scoring sheet for our images that we have sent in.
The first column is the image title, followed by the author’s name. The third column represents the average committee score for each image and the next column represents the average score from the club ‘judging’ from Wednesday evening.
We’ve left the final column for the score from the actual judge on the night. It will be very interesting to compare the scores.
Unfortunately, it’s been confirmed that the competition will not be zoomed so therefore we’ll need to chat about who’s going and car sharing; we can discuss this over our next couple of meetings. So, there will be no actual meeting in the Arts Centre on that Wednesday, 15th November.
Extractsfrom the Minutes of the Meeting of the Executive Committee of Garstang & District Arts Society held on Tuesday 17th October 2023
The Plein Air painting competition will be held on Saturday 7th September 2024.
The Calendars are selling well and the remaining stock should go during the Craft fair. Provisionally, it was decided to repeat the exercise next year and Muriel was hopeful that many of this year’s sponsors would be happy to do so again. We need to contact the Camera club. (That’s us!). It was agreed to keep the photographs within the Garstang area as there were plenty of sales outlets in the town.
Victorian Evenings. It was decided to open on both evenings and to only serve mulled wine and mince pies.
Christmas
Just a gentle reminder that our Christmas get-together is on Wednesday 13th December – all details yet to be finalised but Freda is now coordinating and beginning to collect names! Open to all members and their respective wives/husbands/partners etc!
Creatures and Plants of the World Competition
Last date for entry is Wednesday 1st November, prints and digital images.
Up and coming programme of events
November 1st– Boyd Harris – ‘Failure & success in the Himalayas.’
November 8th– Justin Garner – ‘The lighting behind the image.’
November 15th– 4 Way Battle – 7.30pm start; venue – Methodist Church Hall on Queensway, Poulton FY6 7ST. So, no meeting scheduled in the Arts Centre.
November 22nd– Gordon Watson – ‘Iceland in winter’.
November 29th– Creatures and Plants of the World Competition – judged by Sheila Giles DPAGB AV-AFIAP
Events Cup: we thought the judge, Nicki Greenwood, provided lots of very good constructive criticisms of the images submitted and many encouraging comments so, all in all, lots of very good decisions. Congratulations to those who were in the top echelons and we hope that the overall process has given inspiration to everyone.
Notices
Alteration to the programme
January 31st 2024 – we did have Trevor Davenport (Ainsdale Sand Dunes) on ‘Insects & Nature Photography’ booked for that date, however and very sadly Trevor has cancer so Michael has booked Richard Davis for that spot and he will be covering a variety of topics in mostly Mono style.
Website
Don’t forget, to submit your images to be shown under the ‘members galleries.’
The 4 Way Battle (between us, North Fylde Photographic Society, Lytham St. Annes PS and Poulton PS) is on Wednesday 15th November starting at 7.30pm. The venue is the Methodist Church Hall on Queensway in Poulton.
This is obviously a ‘club’ night so we originally asked if it will be available via zoom, then we could watch the battle from the Arts Centre. However, they are now saying “doubt if we will have the technical capability to support a Zoom broadcast” but we still await a definitive answer!
So, plan B! – this will be car-sharing; we will let you all know the proposal if and when it becomes a necessity.
If we don’t have a zoom connection and travel there by car then there will be no meeting at the Arts Centre that evening.
Creatures and Plants of the World Competition
Last date for entry is Wednesday 1st November, prints and digital images.
Up and coming programme of events
October 25th – Members Evening – Image feedback from Stan and also, he will present the 20 images chosen for the 4 Way Battle; plus, other images!
November 1st – Boyd Harris – ‘Failure & success in the Himalayas.
November 8th – Justin Garner – ‘The lighting behind the image’.
Welcome to the Club’s report , I hope it makes interesting reading.
During the early part of our new season in which we welcome a small number of “new recruits”, worthy of note are two of the presentations. The first one gave Harry Emmett the floor to give us his experiences in gaining the entry level of the Credit award of the Photographic Alliance of Great Britain. Quite a lengthy and intricate process in which one of our members decided to follow him and have a go…..maybe ! Very good luck.
Garry Cook gave us, in soccer parlance, an evening in two halves. The first half gave us his interesting view on street photography and some of it’s difficulties one can encounter. He followed on after the break giving us a Journalistic Tour of Israel. Quite an eye opener given it’s closeness to the previous Saturday’s world news.
November’s programme is as follows: :-
Nov. 1st. Failure and Success in the Himalayas
.. 8th Justin Garner shows the Lighting Behind the Image
.. 15th. Inter Club Competition between Garstang/Poulton.N. Fylde and Lytham. This takes place at Poulton.
.. 22nd. Iceland in Winter by Gordon Watson.
Dec, 6th Kevin Pigney shows his Passion for Wildlife.
I do hope that since my last report there have been ample opportunities in capturing the Autumn Colours. Don’t let the camera hibernate for the next few months, keep it “well oiled”
Very early newsletter this week as both Lewis and I are away.
Scams
We’re sure everyone is very alert to scams but a couple of members have chatted to us about receiving emails from other members asking them to open an attachment which, it is claimed, is important. It is very likely that if you open the attachment, you will have, in all likelihood, been hacked.
We don’t supply members emails to anyone unless we are specially asked to. So, please, just delete unless you are absolutely sure.
If you are unsure and want any assistance, email in to us at our usual address and we will try to help out.
Notices
Website – Members Galleries
Don’t forget, we are now asking members to submit up to 6 images of their own that they wish to be shown under the ‘members galleries’.
A warm sunny day beckons – time to get that camera out, dust it down, charge the battery, take some photographs and then possibly send them to info@garstangcameraclub.co.uk ready for Stan to critique – see below!
Don’t forget, autumn is creeping in as well – more opportunities!
From Michael: Amazon – Tuesday 10th and Wednesday 11th, big prime day discounts on cameras and goods; maybe interesting!
Notices
Image Critiquing
Image critiquing for the ‘members evening’ on 25th October.
Stan is ‘in-the-chair’ this time and will look and give his thoughts and opinions.
Theme is ‘Open;’ any image taken recently if poss; if not historical ones can be submitted.
3 ish images per member.
All images submitted and shown will be anonymous.
Deadline date: Images in by Wednesday 18th October.
If the images have been edited, if possible, please send in the original unedited image – no problems if you cannot.”
Please send your images to the usual email address: info@garstangcameraclub.co.uk and the subject – Image Feedback.
Or if the images exceed the email limit, please send them via Wetransfer.
Great to see that some members have already sent in some images! But more needed; don’t be shy!
Website – Members Galleries
We are now asking members to submit up to 6 images of their own that they wish to be shown under the ‘members galleries’.
You can submit up to 6 images and please send them directly to Tim at timflesher@btinternet.com
All images to be jpeg, in sRGB colour space with a maximum image size of 1600 pixels (wide) x 1200 pixels (high), maximum file size 2 MB; no more than 2MB as this will help keep website storage down.
Thanks to those members who have managed to send some photographs in and many thanks to Tim for putting them on our website.
New Project
The idea is for each member to develop a photographic ‘theme’ over the next 11 months and present their ‘findings’ – good, bad or ugly (what went right and what didn’t!), – at the first meeting in 2024 which will be on September 4th.
Now, we fully appreciate that not everyone likes to present from the front and chat about their topic so you would be more than welcome to put everything on a USB stick and chat from the ‘floor’ so to speak!
Ok, so what theme? Well, that’s completely up to you! A few ideas below to get you thinking and maybe spark an idea! The idea is to pick a theme and experiment from there!
One thought could be that you team up with another member and work together and produce a joint project – only an idea.
Possible themes/ideas/suggestions – usage of a tripod and/or handheld:
Getting to grips with your camera; shooting on automatic, then aperture priority, then shutter speed priority, then even on manual, collecting examples as you go along. Experimenting with depth of field, focus and exposure compensation.
Flowers/Forest/Woodland – perhaps, woodland scenes (Bluebells) and detailed shots.
Water and reflective photography – canals, rivers, sea, puddles! – using long exposure?
Food
Landscapes and seascapes – possibly to include sun rises and sets; again, using long exposure?
Weather, storms, clouds, rainbows
Travel
Macro
Monochrome
Cityscapes/Urban life
Architecture
Sports
Nature and wildlife
Minimalistic
Mobile only images
These are just a few ideas; you may, of course, develop you own theme or combine some together, your choice!
The whole idea is for everyone to have a go and develop ‘what you want to get out of photography,’ learn from the experience and hopefully learn from others!
Please have a chat with us over the next couple of meetings and ask any questions. Please don’t forget this is your club to experiment, learn and most importantly have FUN!
We hope you will join in and, don’t forget, if everything goes pear-shaped – that’s learning!
Up and coming programme of events
October 11th – Garry Cook – ‘Street Photography and a project in Israel.
October 18th – Events Cup Competition, judged by Nicki Greenwood
October 25th – Members Evening – Image feedback from Stan – see above – plus Stan will presentthe 20 images chosen for the 4 Way Battle; plus, other images!
November 1st– Boyd Harris – ‘Failure & success in the Himalayas.
November 1st– Creatures and Plants of the World Competition – last date for entry.
November 8th– Justin Garner – ‘The lighting behind the image’.
Thanks to all who managed to spare the time to visit the Arts Centre for our coffee morning on Saturday; we had a fairly busy time and raised nearly £100 for the club coffers!
So, many thanks to Rhona, Sue and Robin for giving up their time and for the hard work in helping to make the morning a success.
Notices
Fylde 4 Way Battle: Last reminder!
Give the image a title
Do not include your competition number
Do not include the image number
Images to be jpeg, in sRGB colour space with a maximum image size of 1600 pixels (wide) x 1200 pixels (high), maximum file size 2 MB
Submit a maximum of 6 images
Send to Stan by email stanley.pearson@talktalk.net
Include your name in the email
Do not send by WeTransfer
Stan and his team will then review all images submitted and choose the 20 to be entered.
Images for consideration need to be to Stan by Wednesday 4th October.
Image Critiquing
Image critiquing for the members evening on 25th October.
Stan will look, present and comment.
Theme = ‘Open;’ any image taken recently if poss.
3 ish images per member.
All images submitted and shown will be anonymous.
Deadline date: Images in by Wednesday 18th October.
If the images have been edited, if possible, please send in the original unedited image – no problems if you cannot.”
Please send your images to the usual email address: info@garstangcameraclub.co.uk and the subject – Image Feedback.
Or if the images exceed the email limit, please send them via Wetransfer.
Website – Members Galleries
As mentioned in a previous newsletter all the images have been deleted and we are now asking members to submit up to 6 images of their own that they wish to be shown under the ‘members galleries’.
All images to be jpeg, in sRGB colour space with a maximum image size of 1600 pixels (wide) x 1200 pixels (high), maximum file size 2 MB; no more than 2MB as this will help keep website storage down. Thanks.
New Project
We have given considerable thought, over the last few weeks, for this ‘seasons’ project – this is to carry on from the success of 12 – in – 12 from last season.
The idea is for each member to develop a photographic ‘theme’ over the next 11 months and present their ‘findings’ – good, bad or ugly (what went right and what didn’t!), – at the first meeting in 2024 which will be on September 4th.
Now, we fully appreciate that not everyone likes to present from the front and chat about their topic so you would be more than welcome to put everything on a USB stick and chat from the ‘floor’ so to speak!
Ok, so what theme? Well, that’s completely up to you! A few ideas below to get you thinking and maybe spark an idea! The idea is to pick a theme and experiment from there!
One thought could be that you team up with another member and work together and produce a joint project – only an idea.
Possible themes/ideas/suggestions – usage of a tripod and/or handheld:
Getting to grips with your camera; shooting on automatic, then aperture priority, then shutter speed priority, then even on manual, collecting examples as you go along. Experimenting with depth of field, focus and exposure compensation.
Flowers/Forest/Woodland – perhaps, woodland scenes (Bluebells) and detailed shots.
Water and reflective photography – canals, rivers, sea, puddles!
Food
Landscapes and seascapes – possibly to include sun rises and sets
Weather, storms, clouds, rainbows
Travel
Macro
Monochrome
Cityscapes/Urban life
Architecture
Sports
Nature and wildlife
Minimalistic
Mobile only images
These are just a few ideas; you may, of course, develop you own theme or combine some together, your choice!
The whole idea is for everyone to have a go and develop ‘what you want to get out of photography,’ learn from the experience and hopefully learn from others!
Please have a chat with us over the next couple of meetings and ask any questions. Please don’t forget this is your club to experiment, learn and most importantly have FUN!
We hope you will join in and, don’t forget, if everything goes pear-shaped – that’s learning!
Up and coming programme of events
October 4th – Harry Emmett – Towards CPAGB (The Credit award of the Photographic Alliance of Great Britain) – Prints.
October 11th – Garry Cook – ‘Street Photography and a project in Israel.
October 18th – Events Cup Competition, judged by Nicki Greenwood
October 25th – Members Evening – Image feedback from Stan – see above – plus Stan will present the 20 images chosen for the 4 Way Battle.
Hello readers, here we are at the start of our new year. During the summer, the weather has been very mixed with more rain that shine. We completed our Events programme with the Garstang ashow, again half and half, rain am and shine pm.
Our first meeting on Sept 6th was a very busy one with various presentations but no new members ! Happily, we have had a sprinkling of new blood in the past few weeks, but we still have room for more. Do come along and see what we are about, We have every level of competence within the club, all we ask is a modicum of enthusiasm, skills will come later to whatever level you want. We are a very friendly club whose members will gladly pass on their expertise.
During this month our programme is as follows, and at this point, I have to mention that our Photographer of the Year, John Moxham has let go of the reins of Programme Secretary and we have to thank him for his splendid efforts over the past years. Thank you John. Michael Orr has now gripped the reins and this augurs well for the future. Thank you Michael, we are n safe hands again.
October 4th. Harry Emmett……….Towards gaining a photographic qualification.
.. 11th. Garry Cook………………Street photography and a project in Israel
.. 18th. Judging of our first competition, the Events Cup by Nicki Greenwood.
.. 25th. Member’s Evening. ( various activities )
and in case of a late Focus:
November 1st. Boyd Harris …………….Failure and Success in the Himalayas.(some of our members may remember Sir. John Hunts expedition in ’53 when Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tensing topped out in early June )
Let’s hope for a colourful Autumn, after all, our area can be beautiful given the right conditions.
Massive thanks to Maurice for his organisation and planning which seamlessly helped us hang 66 prints in total.
Lewis and I would also like to offer our thanks to Sue and Adrian for their sterling efforts!
Sad news. You may remember that the club, via Michael, tried to organise a trip to Southport Dunes last spring with Trevor Davenport, but it didn’t go ahead because of the very dry weather at the time. Michael also booked him to give us a talk, in January, on Insects and nature photography.
Michael has received an email from him saying he is facing a very uncertain few months having been diagnosed with an aggressive cancer requiring extensive treatment and he wanted to express his disappointment at probably not being able to present to our members. I know, probably, that none of us knew Trevor, but very gloomy news nevertheless.
Notices
Doug Allan: Doug looks back over his successes and setbacks during 35 years of natural history filmmaking. Part retrospective, the show is also Doug’s perspective on climate change and its impacts on the world’s wild places. What change of emphasis and direction should we now be incorporating in wildlife films?
Just a reminder that this talk is on at The Platform in Morecambe on Tuesday 3rd October at £20 – £23 pp. If anyone wants a lift just email in.
Fylde 4 way battle: this is a camera club competition between us, Poulton Photographic Society, North Fylde Photographic Society and Lytham St Annes Photographic Society. (It should have included Bispham PS, but due to issues with declining membership, they have decided to withdraw from the comp this year).
Event Details
Start time 7.30 pm on Wednesday 15th November at the Methodist Church Hall, Queensway, Poulton-le-Fylde. (Free parking available opposite.)
Judge: Steve Proctor DPAGB BPE5* PPSA
Competition Rules: One Open category only.
20 PDIs (Projected Digital Images) per club with a maximum of THREE per author. Anonymised with image title only. Jpeg in sRGB colour space with a maximum image size of 1600 pixels (wide) x 1200 pixels (high), using filler if necessary. Maximum file size 2 MB.
All elements in an image must be the work of its author.
Stan (and his team) have very kindly offered to organise our entry to this year’s competition.
So, message from Stan below:
Give the image a title
Do not include your competition number
Do not include the image number
Images to be jpeg, in sRGB colour space with a maximum image size of 1600 pixels (wide) x 1200 pixels (high), maximum file size 2 MB
If my maths is correct: we need to enter 20 PDI’s with a maximum of 3 per member so we will need at least 7 members to partake! So PLEASE have a go – you don’t need to enter 6 any number less that that will be ok.
Stan and his team will then review all images submitted and chose the 20 to be entered.
Images for consideration need to be to Stan by Wednesday 4th October.
Bob Robinson Trophy: If you wish to attend this ‘live’ competition and listen to the judges it is on Sunday 8th October, at Elm Bank Conference Centre, Eccles. Starts 10.30am, no cost.
Image Critiquing: On our next October members evening, Wednesday October 25th this will be our second critiquing of members images. Stan has very kindly offered to look and comment on the images this time.
How to send them in:
Reminder: The idea is for any club member to submit a maximum of 3 (ish) images for a constructive critique by Stan and he will guarantee that at least 1, if not 2 images, from each member, will be critiqued.
Theme = ‘Open;’ any image taken recently if poss.
All images submitted and shown will be anonymous.
How to send them in:
In an ideal world please send the images in the form of a DNG file
OR, send them in as a TIFF file
OR if you are struggling send in as a JPEG file, that will be fine.
If members are using Lightroom then in the Export Panel, under File Settings, the image format can be changed to DNG or Tiff.
Deadline date: Images in by Wednesday 18th October.
DNG and TIFF files must be sent in via Wetransfer.
If you are struggling then please ask during next week’s meeting or phone Mike on 07340 314408.
Visit to Morecambe CC (Thursday September 28th) to review images taken on our visit in late August: If you wish to attend in person, no problems, the address is Heysham Library, 396 Heysham Road, Heysham, Morecambe, Lancashire, LA3 2BJ.
There is a small car park to the right of the building and plenty of on-street parking, both on Heysham Road and round the corner on Knowlys Road.
If you wish to ‘attend’ via Zoom the invite is Join Zoom Meeting
Wednesday September 27th – Members Evening; image critiques by John, images from Morecambe CC outing, images from the themed outing in Garstang and other things!
Thursday September 28th – Visit to Morecambe CC; see above.
Saturday September 30th – Coffee mornings (we ‘do’ 4 in total), hosted by us – anything edible please to sell! The coffee mornings we ‘host’ are used to raise funds for the club, so, please, pop in and see us!
Wednesday October 4th – Harry Emmett – Towards CPAGB (The Credit award of the Photographic Alliance of Great Britain) – Prints.
Wednesday October 11th – Garry Cook – ‘Street Photography and a project in Israel.
Wednesday October 18th – Events Cup Competition, judged by Nicki Greenwood.
Garstang Camera Club 