News
Report: Rose Bowl Round 3
9 February 2012
Last Thursday evening saw us playing host to Leighton Buzzard Photographic Club & Maidenhead Camera Club in the third and final round of this years Rose Bowl competition.
The weather wasn't particularly kind to us on the night as the threat of snow turned into a reality and by the time the evening started the snow was falling quite quickly and laying. Thankfully the judge was already there before the snow began and the competition was able to go ahead.
Report: Practical Session / Panasonic Store
2 February 2012
The club was split last night but not quite in the way you might imagine. Members who attended the usual meeting were treated to a couple of practical sessions, one led by Simon Raynor which looked at studio portraiture and how to use the clubs lights and the other was led by Stephen Miller and looked at still life and producing monochrome fine art style images.
Report: Internal Competition Round 4 - Set Subject: Should Have Deleted It
26 January 2012
Nice to see the Tickford Centre was packed for another fun filled evening and the judge didn't fail to deliver either. To be fair he really didn't have his work cut out for him this evening!
The strange set subject certainly got the creative juices of our members flowing and we saw a wide variety of interpretations of the theme, ranging from the true accidents to the seriously set-up shot.
Report: Internal Competition - Phil Atkinson Versatility Trophy
19 January 2012
Well hopefully those of you who turned out to see the inaugural running of this competition will agree with me that it was a great success? Certainly Clive did a tremendous job in assembling the collective entries into the five individual rounds of the competition and Nigel performed the task of judge for the evening with great aplombe. It was a great evening and a lot of fun to participate in and to watch.
Rosebowl Inter-club Competition - Round 2
16 January 2012
Round 2 of the Rosebowl competition was hosted by Hemel Hempstead PS on 16 Jan 2012 and judged by Alan Colegrave. SMR attended on behalf of New City.
There was a good selection of images with strong entries from all four teams. The competition was very tight but New City eventually came out on top with 260 points, followed by XRR (256), St Albans (255) and Hemel (252).
Report: Annual Dinner
12 January 2012
Annual dinner, not to be confused of course with a Christmas dinner, mainly because it's in January! Last Thursday saw a return visit to the Cock Hotel in Stony Stratford following last years successful annual dinner and those members who turned out hopefully weren't disappointed with the spread laid on by the folks at the Cock. Even finding out at the last minute that we were to share the hall with another party didn't dampen the spirits.
Report: Annual Quiz Evening
5 January 2012
Once again big thanks must go to Iain Morrison for setting the questions once again, I think you might have excelled yourself this year! The quiz night is an annual occurance and is normally the first night back after the Christmas break.
A good number of members turned out to make this a really interesting evening, we even saw a new face in the crowd!
Report: Practical Session - Christmas Special @ Great Linford Church
15 December 2011
The evening was well attended and the church, churchyard and 4 models provided plenty of opportunities for a range of practical activity. Members seemed to enjoy the opportunities that the varied background environment offered for images over our regular venue. For members inside the church it was a good opportunity to share techniques on using Speedlight Flash or High ISOs to get portrait or detail images, inside a low light environment.
Report: Internal Competition Round 3 - Open Subject
08 December 2011
The internal competition season continues unabated, picking up speed last night with the second 'open' round of the season. The judge was Alan Taberer from Weston Turville (Imagez Camera Club). Presented with 29 prints and 50 digital projections he really had his work cut out in judging the diverse range of images presented to him, especially as he prefers to judge the images without previewing them first!
Report: Victoria Lamburn – Impressions Milton Keynes
01 December 2011
Victoria Lamburn spent two and a half years photographing the English new city of Milton Keynes: its people, landscape and architecture, traversing the entire 34 square miles of the city area in that time and recording everyday life and scenes. In the end she took some 6500 photos, most of which are unpublishable but a good 1000 are at least reasonable, the best ended up in her book "Impression Milton Keynes".
Report: Skills Share Evening - Digital Workflow
24 November 2011
First of all a very big thank you to Darren for volunteering to share his knowledge of Lightroom with us.
The initial intention was to split the evening into two parts with Darren taking us through the basics of Digital Workflow and Lightroom in the first half and then powering up our laptops in the second half for a bit of hand's on usage. Like most evenings however time ran away with us and we didn't manage to have as much 'hands on' time as I'd hoped for.
Report: Practical Evening - Creative Speedlighting/Strobism
17 November 2011
Group 1 led by Stephen Miller took a look at flash photography in its very simplest form. From the very basic use of the built-in pop up flash, on to the use of Speedlights or third party flashguns. Using a series of his own photographs Stephen took the participants through the various ways of using flash creatively. Much discussion was had and I think all those involved got plenty out of the sessions.
Report: MKPA Lecture at Leighton Buzzard - Ken Lennox
16 November 2011
The event was well attended with members present from all the MKPA clubs and a full house from Leighton Buzzard. I think 5 members from NCPS. An MKPA member who had previously heard press photographer Ken Lennox as guest speaker on a cruise had organised the lecture.
Report: Lecture - Clive Rodgers - A photographers guide to Iceland
10 November 2011
Clive gave a knowledgeable and interesting talk on a photographers guide to Iceland. He began with a brief overview into the geology of Iceland giving an insight into how it was formed. Iceland lies between the two tectonic plates and above hot rock in the Earth's mantle leading to the island being highly geologically active with many volcanoes, geysers and hot springs which presents fantastic opportunities for photography.
Report: Internal Competition Round 2 - Set Subject: Hot \ Cold
03 November 2011
The club's internal competition season continued apace on Thursday night with the first of the three set subject rounds. The set subject rounds are always the hardest to find entries for as not only do you have try to create an image that fits the set subject but you've also got to hope that the judge is on your wavelength and realises what you were trying to portray.
Report: Members' Evening - Image Critique (DPI)
27 October 2011
With 13 images provided by club members, each image was projected for viewing, the owner of the image briefly described what it was they were trying to capture/portray/convey with the image.
A few moments was spent looking at both the good and the bad points of the image and how it might possibly be improved. The discussion/debate was then open the to the audience for few minutes before moving on to the next image.
Issue 51 of e-news from the PAGB
24 October 2011
2 Great News about the GB Cups
3 Results of the Inter Federation PDI Annual Competition.
4/5 Highlights from the PAGB Executive Meeting
6 Warwick – A Personal View by Chris Forster
7/8 Notices and Adverts
9 L&CPU Mentoring Scheme by Christine Widdal
Report: Practical Evening - In Focus
20 October 2011
Four separate talks were given on the subject of focus where various amount of people attended each one. The topics covered were:
Focus Calibration
Jon Anderson and Neil Schofield talked about how to check and calibrate the focus on a camera. Starting with all the various elements involved such as lens, body and camera settings.
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Just Photo
17 October 2011
With the photo club season underway, I am pleased to announce that just photo has re-launched its very latest and improved web site.
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Report: Lecture - Rosemary Hill - Mise-en-scene
13 October 2011
Rosemary gave a very interesting and insightful talk on 'mise-en-scene' which is a French term and originates in the theatre. It refers to elements on the set and aspects of the camera in which the director and designer wish to give an impression of the characters or situation in a scene. The talk included scenes from a Alan Bennett's 'Talking Heads' and several films including Pulp Fiction, American Beauty, Elizabeth, Fargo, Thelma & Louise and The Third Man.
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Report: Skill Share Evening - Getting to know your camera
6 October 2011
The format of the evening was a series of three or four short presentations/talks in the first half and then casual group discussions and 'practicals' in the second.
The presentations in the first half covered the basics of exposure and the function wheel which included:
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Report: Internal Competition Round 1 - Open Subject
29 September 2011
Our judge for the first competition in our new indoor season was John Credland. John is a member at Buckingham club. It is always a pleasure to welcome him to judge for us as we know there will be useful constructive comments delivered in an entertaining style. As the subject of the competition was 'open' there was a large entry with 40 prints and 58 projections to evaluate.
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Report: Practical Session - Ready, Steady, Shoot
22 September 2011
The first practical session of the season got off to a storming start, well done to Stephen for organising it so well.
The general idea was to create a still life set up using nothing but a few 'mystery ingredients' provided by Stephen and selected by way of a lucky dip.
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Report: Lecture - Derek Reay - Pinhole Photography
15 September 2011
After a rather delayed start due to a cock up on my part (so apologies for that and a mega thank-you to my wife for bringing my digital projector from home for us) the evening started with Derek showing us the basics of pinhole photography, also touching on the camera obscura showing us cameras located in places around the UK such as Windsor, Eastrbourne & Port Merion.