First an urgent message which you will also receive by email: the meeting on 15th November will be ZOOM ONLY(unexpected delays with work in the Duke of Wellington mean that we cannot use the room tomorrow).
To my regret I had to miss Ron Henry’s presentation on 18th October (I am so sorry Ron). Ron is one of my predecessors as club president (and held that role more than once!), and of course now our life-president-emeritus. Ron presented what is possible to do with AV – those of us who did summer school had the benefit of Ron’s teaching a few months ago on how to make a great AV and added to experience his past presentations it is no surprise that the feedback bouncing through the whatsapp group was hugely complimentary and appreciative of Ron’s work and his ever professional presenting skills. Thank you Ron!!
On Tuesday 25th October David Woodthorpe judged our Nature competition (which I had to attend from abroad). Nature is traditionally a strong element in GCC and tonight was no exception with many great images on show. David had a tough task and he clearly knows nature, often supplying information about the wildlife that was not immediately obvious or known to the rest of us.
Peter Maguire won with “Female Orange Tip Butterfly”, Jim Meikle’s “Life on the edge” kittiwakes came second and Kamran Chohdry’s “A small world of colours” was third – and well done to them! They were closely followed by a raft (14) of highly commended and commended images by several other members and rightly so. A very interesting evening and lots of material for our external competition selection team. Have a look on the results section of the website – they merit a long and detailed look.
The 1st November saw a talk by Alf Myers about street photography. Alf is a very accomplished street photographer and described his modus operandi: Smile (a lot!), act naturally and blend in to the background/crowd, slowly work your way around a subject to achieve the actual desired angle or composition or let a subject person walk into the shot. He talked about the legal side, how to deal with a person who did not like being photographed (smile again!, and delete if that is requested).
It was inspiring and many of us will have a go, having seen the potential artistry of street photography.
Last Tuesday David Ord judged our colour print competition. What a joy to be back to real prints, judged in the pub. As usual the digital versions were shown simultaneously on the big screen in the pub (and transmitted over zoom). The ability to see both at the same time was instruction in itself: quite a few of the images showed quite poorly on screen whilst being stunning in print. David said there wasn’t a poor print in the box. At a risk of bias on my part, David judged in a very competent and balanced manner and the evening became a great showcase of our prints.
My “outback sculpted by water” won (an image taken through the thick window of a commercial aeroplane), Tim Watkinson’s “Winter afternoon arrival, York” came second and Arjun Nambiar’s “Bamboo impression I” was third. David awarded his maximum permissible of 15 images with commended and highly commended; again testament to the high standard of work. The prints were judged – not the PDI equivalent versions on the website!
Idse