27th November: Nature and Open Print Competitions judged by Michael Lurie

Many thanks to Michael Lurie for braving the cold to come and judge our prints last night.

The Open section was son by YC Wei with ‘London Tube’ and his ‘Red Canoe’ was second;  Barry Sampson’s Suffolk Wrecks 1 was third.  Highly commended were ‘A World of His Own’ by Peter Polkinghorne and Avril Candler’s ‘Person of Interest’.  ‘Gazing from the Bridge’ by Mark Buckley-Sharp and ‘Man at Chora 2’ by Judy Buckley-Sharp were commended.  Congratulations all.

Open Print Winner by YC Wei

 

The Nature section was definitely Judith Gimber’s tonight with a first, second and third place  for ‘Feeding Frenzy’, ‘Painted Lady Drinking Nectar’ and ‘Trio of Chatty Puffins’ respectively.  Avril’s ‘Annas Hummingbird Turning’ and YC’s ‘Lion were highly commended.  YC’s ‘Nature, Red in Tooth and Claw’ was commended.  Well done  to Judith and thanks to everyone who entered.

Winning Nature Print by Judith Gimber

 

Thanks again to Michael for his judging and for taking part in the after-discussions which made for a very informative and enjoyable evening.

Next week we are back on Zoom for Projected Open and Triptych competitions which will be judged by Caroline Colegate ARPS APAGB.

In the meantime have a good week and stay warm!

20th November: Talk – The wonders of Antarctica, South Georgia and the Falklands by Harry Kingman

A wonderful evening with Harry Kingman from Kirbymoorside & District Camera Club as we journeyed with him through his photographs and stories to Antarctica, South Georgia and the Falklands.  Full of information and wonderful photographs of penguin colonies, fur seals, elephant seals and the smiley faced Weddell Seals and birds such as the Snowy Sheath Bill, Kelp Gull, Brown Albatross to name just a few.  Not for the faint-hearted cruising this part of the world – a world away but a wonderful experience even second-hand.

Many thanks Harry for an informative, entertaining and engaging evening enjoyed by us all.

Next week we have our Nature and Open Print competitions at Century which will be judged by Michael Lurie.

In the meantime have a good week.

 

 

13th November: “What is Photography in the age of AI?: An exploration” by Mariam Mathew and ‘Photoshop and Generative AI’ by Avril Candler

Very many thanks to Mariam and Avril for a an excellent evening venturing into the world of AI and its application in competitive photography.

Mariam highlighted a number of burgeoning generative AI platforms showing a number of  ‘text to image’ applications including Adobe Firefly.  The latter  is  an integral part of Adobe Photoshop which Avril demonstrated in the second half of the evening.  Mariam showed us how her young students (9-12 years) are developing their text to image skills.    Mariam put us through a quiz  to spot the AI generated images vs the originals.  We weren’t that bad at it either!  Try for yourself – just click the links below.

NBC News Quiz

Google Quiz

Avril’s presentation looked at the ‘legitimate’ use of Generative AI in competitive photography such as ‘Generative Fill’ to remove unwanted artefacts and ‘Generative Expand’ to enhance the composition (we’ve all heard that dreaded phrase ‘x is too tight in the frame’!).  Following those examples she highlighted the unacceptable  AI use (within the competitive photographic world) of  ‘text to image’ – great for illustrative purposes such as birthday/anniversary/Christmas cards………..and even Halloween cards with witches on rooftops…….you had to be there to see it!

The evening was rounded off with a general discussion  and Mark Buckley-Sharp explained the  PAGB stance on the use of AI.

A very topical, fascinating and excellent evening with grateful thanks to Mariam and Avril for their informative, interesting and thoroughly enjoyable presentations.

Next week we are back on Zoom for a talk by Harry Kingman ‘Antarctica’.