12th October: An Evening with Guest Speaker Chris Shepherd – Looking Local

“As photographers we often suffer from Locational Myopia constantly wishing we were in some exotic location” Chris Shepherd

Many thanks to Chris for his inspiring talk last night.  Chris took us on his personal journey in photography, sharing his approach and philosophy with which he produces his wonderful images.   We journeyed with him from his local Roding Valley Nature Reserve and rural surrounds to the Essex coastal areas – a visual feast peppered with historical and technical information and amusing anecdotes.   Chris returns to his favourite locations through the seasons dealing with the challenges that weather and changing light can bring.   With Epping Forest almost on his doorstep Chris alluded to a quote from David Ward’s book – ‘when shooting woodland be aware of the three C’s – Chaos, Contrast, and Complexity’ – undoubtedly applicable to more than just woodland.

Chris’ mantra is “Take a look, look again and again. Make the most of what is there.”  And if ‘there’ is the garden, outside the front door, rural, coastal or urban opportunity,  that is very good advice.

Once again, thank you Chris for a stimulating and enjoyable evening.

https://www.shepherdpics.com/

Thanks to everyone who came along to support the evening and enjoy Chris’ talk.

We look forward to next week’s print competition, the first of the season, judged by Martin Patten at the Guide Headquarters.

 

 

 

5th October: Projected Image Competition #2, judged by Amanda Wright

Many thanks to Amanda Wright, Ealing and Hampshire House, who judged our second projected image competition tonight.

In the Beginners’ section, congratulations go to Wai Cheung for his winning image “Daisy Daze”; to Marcus Ornstein for his first competitive entry “Anish Kapoor’s Chicago Mirror Ball” which was joint second with Wai’s “Daisy Couple”.

In a bumper Promoted (Open) section, John Draper’s “Green Eyes” was the overall winner;  20s went to Julia Wainwright’s “Heron Night Fishing”, “Jackal Pups Keeping Watch and “Young Fox in the Meadow”; Dave Martin’s “Ikebana Soetsu” and “Mycena Fungi in Hitch Woods”;  Ian Roberts “Little Owl Stare”.  Amanda gave seven images 19 points and these were by John, Julia and Ian, Peter Elton, Alan Colegrave and Avril Candler (x2). There were also seven 18s: John (x2), Avril, Ian, Alan Colegrave and Alan Graham (x2).  Congratulations to John and the high scorers.

Many thanks to everyone who entered the competition and supported the evening.  Special thanks to Amanda for her inciteful and helpful judging.

All the images may be seen on Facebook.

 

25th September: A Meet-Up at Harrow Bowls Club

The Harrow Bowls Club had their final match of the season on 25 September and Wai Cheung, Julia Wainwright, Ian Roberts and Peter Keeble were there to record it. This involved photographing the grounds maintenance team, with their equipment laid out (like our layout challenge from the summer).

A group photograph of all 40 members of the two teams due to play followed, providing useful experience in this area. Our ‘team’ were then left to their own devices to capture athletic poses and reactions to near misses for the rest of the afternoon, trying to avoid each other appearing in the backgrounds, cameras to eye.

We will be presenting the club with a selection of the best images, and several may appear in our competitions in the near future.

Many thanks to Harrow Bowls Club for the photographic opportunity.