May 2010

6th April
Members' Evening

The evening was to be a truly members' evening. Three of our members who at different time had visited Scotland and we were to see there different approach to the subject. First to go was Norman and Joyce. Their trips were largely made in the summer months and their photographs reflected more a holiday style of photography. In addition to landscapes we saw shots of Highland games and the inevitable bagpipe player. We visited Iona and Tobermory with its brightly coloured houses. We saw some close ups of building features, Gretna Green, Oban and Skye. All accompanied by humorous comments on their trips. This was followed by Alec Mahood whose trips tended to take place in the winter months. In Alec's pictures we saw the more wild aspects of the scenery. We were shown many of the 'popular' scenes and some rarer locations. Present were many colourful dawns and sunsets. Close ups were not missed with studies of rocks and beaches. Needless to say Alec's pictures included a few stags and highland cattle. An interesting evening showing different approaches to photography.


13th April
Series Six Competition

Our Judge, David Wood ARPS, DPAGB of Beckenham CC, began the evening by recalling how he first came to Wets Wickham back in the 1960’s. He recounted how by the 1970’s audio visual shows had become the thing and how he persuaded his club to run a competition using much fewer shots and no sound which became Series Six. West Wickham adopted the same idea and have made it an annual competition ever since. David said that in his judging he would primarily looking for a common link between the shots, a story line, a theme rather than judging individual pictures. This he certainly did as he worked his way through the sixteen entries. He made comment on his preference that each picture in a sequence should be the same format, landscape or portrait. In some sequences he suggested the images might have worked better if presented in a different order. Some sequences were criticised for lack of sharpness and others where he had difficulty in reconciling the title with the images presented. David then selected two sequences for his final choice. It was the cheeky way in which Hilary Walker’s sequence ‘Courting Mandarin Ducks’ ended with the male duck scuttling away after doing the deed which swayed David’s Choice. A Honourable Mention was awarded to Tony Deller for his series entitled ‘The Shooting of Queen Victoria’, a sequence taken during the filming of the ‘Young Victoria’ at Greenwich.


Wednesday 14th April
Croydon Centenary Competition at Croydon.

Once again the Society entered the Croydon Camera Club's Centenary Competition. Notice of the date and rules came rather late causing the selection process to be rather rushed. Possibly for the same reason only six clubs took part. The Judge was Steve Lawrenson. Each club had to put up four digital images and four prints none of which were to be by the same author. Our highest scoring image was Vic Tokarski's 'Top Floor, 30 St Mary Axe' with a score of 9.5 points. The winners were Beckenham P.S. with 71.5 points with West Wickham coming last with 65 points. Whilst we came last our score was quite respectable being only 9% below the winning score.


Saturday 17th April
Outing to Sevenoaks Wildlife Centre.

Ten members braved the beautiful weather to met up at the Wildfowl centre at 10:00 am, among them some of our newest members. After the obligatory coffee it was felt that the best plan was to split up and meet back at the centre at an agreed time to go to lunch at a nearby Harvester. During the morning there was quite a bit of activity to be seen from the hides but it was much quieter in the afternoon. It was also notable how quite it was without the constant stream of aircraft heading for Heathrow and Gatwick thanks to the Icelandic volcano.

During the chat over lunch the feeling was that every one had enjoyed themselves and three members
went back for a couple of hours in the afternoon. All in all it would make a nice stroll around the reserve for anyone on a sunny day.



My thanks to Mike and Norman for their help in preparing this report.


20th April
From Black Sea to Baltic.

Our speaker, Keith Evans FRPS, DPAGB, began his talk by showing a map of the journey his audience would be taking that evening. He also said that the first half of the talk travelling from the Balck Sea Coast through Romania, Czechoslovakia and Hungary were taken in the 1980’s when the communist regime was still in power. Those of the second half when travelling through Russia, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania were taken in the early2000’s. We begin at Constanta, in a hotel normally reserved for the communist hierarchy. We are also introduced to Keith’s ‘minder’ an attractive young women who is to ensure the itinerary is kept. On our way through Romania we visit Transylvania and see some of the historic buildings. On to Hungary and Budapest where we are told that no tall buildings are permitted. We cross the border into Czechoslovakia and on to Prague. All these photos we are told were taken on Kodachrome 25. The later pictures used in the second half of the talk were taken on Fuji Provira film. After tea we continue our journey starting in Moscow. We are shown the many historic buildings, now beautifully restored to their pre communist splendour. Our journey now continues along the canals built by Stalin using slave labour in the 1930’s. We head North along the Volga, crossing some of the largest lakes in Europe to reach St Petersburg. Our tour of this famous town includes the Hermitage, as grand a palace as anywhere. By comparison the remaining part of the trip was a bit of a letdown. An excellent evening with our speaker conjuring up facts and figures without reference to any notes.


27th April
Finals Day.

At 20:15 it was realised our judge for the evening was not going to show and this was confirmed by a quick phone call, our Judge had got his dates muddled! No judge and what to do? A small ad hoc sub committee led by Bob the Chair decided to do our in house judging but thought this would not be appropriate for the Finals. As the digital entries for the Set Subject, Circles, was already loaded on the computer, it was agreed to show them and let the members be the judge. The top four would be presented to the judge next week along with the prints. This would shorten judging time for the Set Subject which would enable next week's judge to also do our finals' judging. And so it was. The digital entry of 33 images was shown and members were asked to just comment on each image. At first there was some reluctance but as members warmed, the comments got more vociferous. After a slightly later than usual tea break, the images were gone through again this time all the members present were asked to call out a score between 0 and 10 with no half points. After a faltering start, members got the idea and the scores were received quite quickly. Surprisingly, some very low scores were called out including a couple of '0s'. The selected four to go on to next week's competition were 'Pennies from Heaven', 'Lime', 'Thread Circles' and 'Circles in Hand'. The chat afterwards suggested members had thoroughly enjoyed the evening and some were suggesting we introduce a competition run on these lines. We shall see.