ANNUAL MONO COMPETITION 2015

An evening that I thought was going to start as The Good Old Days, with the judge taking to the stage with his impression of Leonard Sachs with his mutton chop sideburns and mustache, threatening do a song and dance act, to telling jokes, when the Underneath The Arches print was put up, I thought he was going to grab hold of Andy and do a Flanagan and Allen routine. With mainly ourselves singing Down At The Old Bull and Bush at the end. Apologies to anyone under fifty, The Good Old days was a television show that created the old time musicals.

However, the evening turned out to be like the radio 4 show Just A Minute with the the judge talking about the prints without hesitation, repetition or deviation, well only to tell one of his "jokes"

The prints were mainly those seen in the last year in various competitions, it is always interesting to see images that have done well when judged by the club to only crash and burn when marked by an outside judge and vice versa.

Two people only entered one print, I was not impressed, especially as one of them won and the other person got a highly commended. You know who you are, next time please consider the rest of us who have to work hard to produce enough images to give ourselves a fighting chance of success.

I have to apologise to Dave for my writing, as he was having trouble reading the titles on the stickers. He assures me that he is not dyslexic. I do write them in block capitals, as my "real writing" is impossible to decipher. However, I mainly blame the authors of the prints, as I have mentioned before I like to keep my titles simple normally down to one or two words. This makes it easier and quicker to write the stickers at the end of the evening, when you are faced with titles that have got ten or more words in the title it takes time and remember we have to be out at ten o' clock.

The next couple of weeks we have colour prints, I might have a word with the judge to only reward the prints with titles of one or two words ( I might stand a chance of winning).

Title - Railway Station

DIGITAL IMAGES

FEBRUARY 2015

Winning Images of February 2015

PRELIMINARY

1st Waterbucks

by John Purvis

2nd A Walk on The Beach

by John Hastings.

3rd The Willow at Sunset

by John Hastings 

H.C. Team U.S.A.

by John Hastings

H.C. Down The Pub

by Steve Ingall

INTERMEDIATE

1st Chrysanthemum Drops

by Andy Taylor

2nd Stormy Morning at Freshwater Bay

by Richard Saville

3rd A Lake District View

by David Lund

H.C. Eurasian Lynx
by David Lund

H.C. A Countryside Couple

by Colin Smith

H.C. Austrian Alps

by Joe Travasso

H.C. Beach Tree

by Ann Fenegan

ADVANCED

1st Sunrise in Thorpe Bay

by Brian Clark

2nd Tower Bridge and Shard

by Brian Clark

3rd Red Backed Shrike With Grasshopper

by Reg Mellis

MONTHLY PRINT FEBRUARY 2015

It is always a good idea to deal with the most important business of the evening straight away, this week it was who was going to make the tea for the next two weeks while Alf was away on holiday. Personally I think he is a bit of a light weight, for the three years that Jim and myself made the tea we did not have a holiday. We could live with that, but the most hurtful thing was that unlike our predecessors in the job, we did not get a bouquet of flowers when we retired. The job did have it's perks, if we timed it right  and the teas and coffees were laid out before the break, we got the pick of the biscuits, also if  you gave the speaker/judge plenty of biscuits we got the ones he/she left,however, Bernie soon sussed this however, and we lost out.

Again the images were all of a good quality. the wildlife ones provoked the usual debate 

as to whether they were in the wild or captivity, well the big cat did not all that happy to me and looked pretty angry.

The image of the house on top of the cliff provoked plenty of comments. Jim said he did not fancy being the postman on that round, I would not want to be the milkman, you walk up the hill because your float wont make it, only to find a note saying no milk to-day thank you.  

Thanks to Howard & John for their precise comments and summing up of the images, but more importantly tips on how to improve them.

I like they way John asks the question would such and such improve the image, although this week he surprised himself by not only asking but answering the question on one of the images. Well done to Andy when scoring the advanced class, after a couple of false starts he soon worked out when John had finished commenting, as he does like to hesitate before making his final comment.

Looking forward to next week when the grass will look the look the right colour what ever tone of grey it is, even if the judge query it you can always say it's an infra red image.

Not like the real thing

MONTHLY PRINT

FEBRUARY 2015

First of all welcome to our two new members, we all look forward to sharing your photographic journey with us.

Well done to Howard for his impersonation of Lin, including the banter, that suit was made to measure, o/k, the tailor might have got his centimeters and inches confused. but we wore our sleeves on the short side that summer.

Thanks to Dick for his comments on all the prints, without hesitation, deviation or repetition or waffle. You would have been proud Sylvia. In fact at one point the scorers were so enthralled with his comments on one print that they forgot to vote on the one in front of them, although I did hear some gentle snoring from their direction.

I must apologise for the cheesy smell coming from my table, as we did not have the key pads this week so I had to take my shoes and socks to count the scores.

As usual we were presented with great images from all classes. Over the years we have seen various objects dropped in water,(other liquids are available). From Oxo cubes, (other stock cubes are available), to Strawberries, other berried fruits are available. It is the first time that I have seen a pair of  false teeth pictured dropped in water, without Steradent, other denture, o/k I'll shut up.

That was the last of the monthly competitions for this year, time to start thinking about the six mono prints and six colour prints you want to enter for the annual competitions.

 

Drowning Dentures

MONTHLY PRINT

February 2015

Winning Images of February 2015

ADVANCED

1st Victoria Dock

by Brian Clark

2nd London At Night

by Brian Clark

3rd R.I.P.

by Kevin Sykes

INTERMEDIATE

1st Aushwitz

by Colin Smith

2nd Wild Peruvian Coypu in Prague

by Richard Saville

3rd Gulls Taking Five

By Eric Morley

Highly Commended Tiger Butterfly (Mileneae messatis)

by Andy Taylor

Open Day

A very successful day yesterday with a steady stream of people through the door to see our exhibition and workshops.

There were some very good images on display from all sections of the club.

George Kaim drew a lot of attention with his display and instruction of Infra red photography as did Andy Taylor with practical demonstrations of the power of Photoshop Elements.

 The studio set ups by Howard King, Jeff and Sarah Oliver was very impressive, giving visitors and members the opportunity to pose with Eric Morley's Douglas motorbike.

The day also had the bonus of giving members time to chat which is something we get very little time to do on our normal club nights.

All in all a great day which produced a few potential new members and is something that we will definitely repeat in the future.

Well done and thank you to all the people that came and helped set up and take down the exhibition etc. It would have been impossible to achieve without the many hands that made light work.

Dave Wilcox  (Chairman)

MEMBERS EVENING

JEFF OLIVER WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHY

We are blessed with having a talented group of photographers with a wide diversity of specialisations. That is why our member's evenings are always so good plus the fact that they all have good communication skills.   

That is why Tuesday night was again, a top evening.

Jeff took us from his humble beginnings as Wedding Photographer. When he said on his first wedding that he decided to charge as he went along I thought what a good idea, knowing how expensive weddings could be, the bride and groom could say that's it, no pictures we have reached our maximum budget. Then I realised he was talking about his batteries. Then he went on to say he had photographed four weddings for a family, I heard Sylvia say "Oh Four Weddings and a funeral", What a good idea, you could be like the NHS, from the cradle to the grave photographic services. Funny how your rarely see anyone taking pictures at a funeral, you could get the corpse to give a wave as the curtains close.

Wedding photography has certainly come along way since I got married, well it was nearly 40yrs ago. There was always the standard shots, from the Bride with her Father, bridesmaids with the bride, the bride & groom, the in-laws etc. right through to the group photo. Now when we look at our group photo, we go, he's dead, she's gone, they are no longer with us, what ever happened to them, didn't realise he was gay.

They say Behind every great man is a great woman, Sarah is certainly behind Jeff, you could actually see her in a couple of pictures. 

They work as team Sarah's Bonnie Parker to Jeff's Clyde Barrow shooting their way through a couple's big day. Oh dear.

I was disappointed that there was no Big Fat Gypsy Wedding photos, I would have thought that with all those Irish weddings, (funny that they were all called Murphy) you would have got a contact.

I'm looking forward to seeing your first underwater wedding Jeff and the first free fall, you should not have trouble floating the veil, but would like to see how you position your lights for that one. 

   

    

They don't do weddings like this anymore. Thankfully