For the review of the second half of our 2016 – 2017 season, once again the object of the exercise is to include everything in as few words as possible. That means I will miss out all sorts of things that should be included. So, any comments,  personal opinions, and raves welcome.

Gill Marsh did well in the Annual Exhibition with “Kite Flying”.

January to May and beyond

Our practical evenings included, table top photography, a couple of portrait evenings, plus two members of Ovation Dance as our models. They proved to be not only excellent dancers but excellent models as well. I expect to see some fine images of them cropping up in our competitions next year. For Audio Visuals, we had an evening of help and advice about putting our own AVs together. Then we had our AV competition, and showed the current winners of the UK national AV contests. Other competitions included three monthly comps These were judged by Prof Bob Ryan, Sandy Cox, and Beryl Heaton respectively. The Bernard Hinton, which is a Swindon parks comp, together with a series competition, and a creative competition were judged by our members. The John Evans competition subject of local images was judged on the night by the Mayor. Our Mayor proved to be not only an excellent judge, but an entertaining speaker as well. If you were looking for images open to international photographers the London Salon and the Bristol Salon fulfilled that need easily. The London Salon deals with photographs of more artistic merit, while the Bristol Salon has sections covering all kinds of photography. Justin Quinnell gave an excellent talk on pinhole photography. In case you are unsure these cameras are like the original lens free cameras that started photography on its long and interesting journey. Local duo, Albanese Videography gave us an inspirational evening about using the video button on our cameras. They also showed that taking good photographs with your mobile phone can match those taken with a DSLR. David Gamm spoke on, and showed some wonderful landscapes. Our president Chris, provided a great presidents evening. Once again, our 8 x 10 evening was very successful. This involves eight members talking for ten minutes on any subject they like, as long as it has a connection to photography. The judges for our two annual exhibition evenings were Leo Rich and John Tilsley.  Both excellent and renown photographers themselves as well as being in high demand for judging, not only in clubs, but nationally. The season ended with our prizegiving evening, and celebrations of all of the wonderful photographs our members had produced in the last year.

Terry Walters did well in the Annual Exhibition with “Rainbow Run”

 

And I nearly forgot, Ann Cook gave a talk called “Granny goes to Glastonbury”. Ann lives in the same village as Michael Eavis who runs the Glastonbury Festival, and has been invited there for the last thirty years as a photographer. She is a people and travel photographer who photographs the folks who attend the festival regularly,  and give it that special atmosphere away from the music stars.

But that is not all. This year has seen a really good summer evening programme, and all thanks to Kate for that. At the time of writing there is one left to go. So please enjoy, it will all start again very soon.