Many thanks to Julia for her engrossing and informative talk last night.  Peppered with some amazing images we journeyed with her through the regions of Chile including Santiago and Chilean Patagonia.  This was a trip that required intricate planning, with interlinking travel plans – internal flights – road trips to cover each of the three main regions  but the dry region of the Atacama Desert had other ideas – it was a time of flood! and access was not possible.  Something every hardy traveller needs – resourcefulness and determination – so Julia and her partner Ian Roberts were undaunted.  We enjoyed Santiago’s eclectic mix of architecture and the vibrant street art described as ‘outside galleries of Urban art’.  Wildlife in abundance from Andean condors, caracara ‘varieties’, herons, vultures, southern lapwings, to Darwin’s Rhea, pygmy owls, dwarf armadillos, guanacos, pumas and so much more!

After this breath-taking Chilean odyssey, the second half of the evening was devoted to the ‘fabulous Falklands’ and indeed they are. We were taken to Volunteers Point for King Penguins, Sealion Island – Elephant Seals and Gentoos, into the Fjords and on to Pebble Island with its Falklands War memorials.  Animal behavioural shots – body-surfing Gentoos, chick chases (adults checking the chicks belong to them!), seals in moult and territorial fights;  Bleaker Island’s Imperial Cormorant, Rock Hopper penguins that ‘bound’ rather than waddle…..an amazing shot of an Elephant Seal walking on its flippers – just one of the stand-out images.

So, many thanks again to Julia for a great evening, much appreciated by us all.

Next week we look forward to a talk (over Zoom) by Peter Benson ARPS AWPF CPAGB BPE3* on ‘Photography on the Darkside’.

We look forward to seeing you ‘there’.

Very many thanks to Mark for leading our first meeting of 2022 with an interactive critique using images from a previous Chilterns Hundred competition, followed in the second half,  with a selection from last year’s CACC Mobile Photography competition.

We were briefed to think about each image based on quality, imaginative/creativity and impact as it appeared on screen and score  – 2 (bad), 3 (okay) or 4 (good) before we discussed each one in turn.  This threw up a number of  issues such as improving composition with a different crop, removing extraneous artefacts or converting to monochrome.

As we repeated the exercise with the Mobile Photography images Mark explained the limitations/technical issues around phone camera sensors, compression (banding) and pixilation that post-processing cannot always overcome.

It was a fun and informative evening and leaves us with a helpful way of assessing our own images with a critical eye – we may even believe we have a 5 – whatever a judge may think!

Next week we host a Rosebowl round between Oxford, Park Street, Wantage and ourselves.

In the meantime, have a good week and keep safe.