Archived Items
6th July 2020
Summer is upon us and with it Thornbury Camera Club’s Summer programme of photographic trips. On this occasion some members of the club visited Frampton on Severn to take photographs (while maintaining social distancing). Afterwards the group visited the Bell where (still maintaining social distancing) they refreshed themselves with a glass or two.
Meanwhile the rest of the club met again using Zoom (to guarantee social distancing) from their living rooms, dining rooms, studies and who knows what other rooms which might offer an internet connection. On this occasion Brian McBride talked about his approach to monochrome images.
Brian started by asking the question “Why Monochrome rather than colour?” Effectively it comes down to what is important in the image. A photograph of a red telephone box requires colour because that is the point of the picture.
Brian used both Lightroom and Photoshop to illustrate his talk in which he used three different images to show how he goes about retouching images and balancing the tones of grey in the image. Throughout the presentation other members suggested alternative ways of approaching the subjects. Members of the group gained a lot from Brian’s demonstrations whether or not they chose to take part in the discussions.
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Summer is upon us and with it Thornbury Camera Club’s Summer programme of photographic trips. On this occasion some members of the club visited Frampton on Severn to take photographs (while maintaining social distancing). Afterwards the group visited the Bell where (still maintaining social distancing) they refreshed themselves with a glass or two.
Meanwhile the rest of the club met again using Zoom (to guarantee social distancing) from their living rooms, dining rooms, studies and who knows what other rooms which might offer an internet connection. On this occasion Brian McBride talked about his approach to monochrome images.
Brian started by asking the question “Why Monochrome rather than colour?” Effectively it comes down to what is important in the image. A photograph of a red telephone box requires colour because that is the point of the picture.
Brian used both Lightroom and Photoshop to illustrate his talk in which he used three different images to show how he goes about retouching images and balancing the tones of grey in the image. Throughout the presentation other members suggested alternative ways of approaching the subjects. Members of the group gained a lot from Brian’s demonstrations whether or not they chose to take part in the discussions.
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29th June 2020
Once again Thornbury Camera Club met on line using “Zoom”. Thirty two members joined the meeting including one who joined from Alabama in the USA. Perhaps the club is going global!
For this meeting we had a guest speaker, Di Wilkins (ARPS), who joined us from her home in Exeter. Di is an old friend of the club. She has visited on several occasions and has given talks albeit under more normal conditions. She described how, following COVID-19 lockdown, she set herself the challenge of taking a photograph every day. This portfolio of images was the result. Most were of flowers from her garden and photographed in her studio (also in the garden).
Di is a painter as well as a photographer and the impressionistic style of many of her pictures reflected this. She produced “still life” images, fairly close up and often using a piece of black Perspex as a reflector. Sometimes the flowers were alone, sometimes in groups. She used vases and different backdrops to vary the effect.
She has also been experimenting with Photoshop to produce abstract “twirled” images this abstracts the colour and loses much of the shape. The effect sometimes looks like a Christmas bauble all ready for the Tree.
Her talk was completed with a number of wildlife images from the Florida everglades; alligators, manatees and lots of birds.
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22nd June 2020
Andy Gillingham, secretary of Thornbury Camera Club, together with his wife Kay, has travelled round much of Britain with his camera. This evening he took us on a “Zoom” trip round Britain with photographs taken over the last ten years: “Around Britain with a Caravan”.
Starting from home, his trip took us round the coast of the West Country to Porlock, Penzance and Plymouth Sound. We then travelled along the south coast to Paignton, Brownsea Island and Brighton. The journey then turned north through Suffolk, Lincolnshire, Yorkshire and Northumberland. A brief trip across the border to Edinburgh was followed by the trip home down the west coast stopping at Blackpool and taking a diversion into Wales to visit Llandudno, Conwy and Tenby.
Throughout the trip, Andy was concerned with the people he met. Throughout the trip there were pubs and cafes where people used to congregate and will again after COVID-19 has become a distant memory.
In Paignton it was bikers riding for charity. In Sidmouth it was folk musicians singing Elvis Presley. In Brighton it was simply the locals being themselves. Whitby has its Goth festivals and, further north, near Durham, the open air museum at Beamish introduced more costumed characters to the mix.
On the latter part of the trip, the sculpture “Another Place” by Sir Antony Gormley provided a rather different view of the people who occupy Britain.
It was a whistle stop tour round the coast of Britain meeting interesting characters. I’m sure several club members were adding names to their list of places to visit once lockdown is over.
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15th June 2020
The Zoom conferencing service again hosted Thornbury Camera Club’s latest meeting. Thirty members connected from their living rooms, bedrooms, offices and dining rooms in order to watch and listen to Dean Packer give another talk about Photoshop.
On request from members, Dean spent this meeting describing the very basic tools in Photoshop and how they can be used to enhance (or rescue) an image. The fundamental concepts of Photoshop lie in layers and masks. Layers contain the images, or parts of images which will make up the final picture. Masks allow particular parts of individual layers to be selected.
Dean used real world examples in his demonstrations; all of which were performed “live” with Dean’s computer screen copied to everyone so they could see exactly what he was doing. In one demonstration he showed two similar images of a family group. In one, everyone was smiling… except one! In the second image the figure who had been scowling was smiling. Dean showed how to transfer the head from one image to other so that everyone was smiling.
In other examples he replaced a blank sky and took several versions of a street scene and selected features from each scene to create a final picture.
In the discussion which followed, it was clear that members appreciated the insights and it is possible that there may be further meetings looking at other software (despite rumours, Photoshop is not everything!)
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The results for the 3 way Battle held on 16th September were as follows:
Thornbury 464 points
Crossbow 446 points
Sodbury and Yate also 446 points
Several of our members gained a maximum score of 20 points so special congratulations to them.
Janet has sent a flyer to the membership containing our entry,
the photographers and the individual scores.
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The competition rules have been updated in the competition page
Following on from discussions at a recent club meeting there is a link HERE to an article in Amateur Photographer regarding the Law and Street Photography
Mark Hayward has shared with us a post processing site that he uses which is now free to download.
It can be found at http://www.dl-c.com/ - link HERE - (Digital Light and Colour)
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Oz Parfitt recently showed us how he used his images to fill text. His notes on this can be
found on the Tips and Tricks page HERE
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Following on from Simon Riches' recent talk on 'What catches the eye in DPIC,
Rob England has found 3 links on what judges look for in competitions. They can be found
in the Tips and Tricks page HERE
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Rob England has found 3 links on what judges look for in competitions. They can be found
in the Tips and Tricks page HERE
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3 Way Battle Results for 2018
The results of the 3 Way Battle were:
Thornbury 396 Points
Sodbury and Yate 384 Points
Crossbow 377 Points
A link to our entry is HERE
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Updates for this season regarding competitions
There will be no beginners pdi competition (Just one competition for all)
and
The 3 year restriction has been lifted for competition entries
Also, please note the new sizes for pdi competition images for the coming year
- 1600px wide x 1200px high (max)
If you need help with resizing, there is a link to Steve Wells' powerpoint
presentation HERE
There will be no beginners pdi competition (Just one competition for all)
and
The 3 year restriction has been lifted for competition entries
Also, please note the new sizes for pdi competition images for the coming year
- 1600px wide x 1200px high (max)
If you need help with resizing, there is a link to Steve Wells' powerpoint
presentation HERE
George Collett has obtained his CPAGB. The pictures and details can be seen in the
May newsletter update. Congratulations to George.
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3 Way Battle Results for 2017
The results of the 3 Way Battle were:
Thornbury 400 Points
Crossbow 386 Points
Sodbury and Yate 379 Points
Congratulations to George Collett, Janet Oxenham, Andy Gillingham and Simon Riches
who each scored 18 points for one of their pictures.
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Ian Cook's notes on his talk on Photoshop Elements 13 can be found HERE
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Simon Riches gave us a talk on how to mount prints. A link to his talk can be found HERE
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The results for the 3 Way Battle in September 2016 were:
Sodbury and Yate 449
Thornbury 441
Crossbow 428
Congratulations to Sodbury and Yate!
Below are the 3 pictures from TCC members that received the maximum of 20 points each. You can enlarge on the pictures by clicking on them
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Sunlight Through the Window by Janet Oxenham
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Historic Laycock by George Collett
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Lily by Barbara Gibbons
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Barrian Cup 2016
The Barrian Cup was held on Saturday 11th June in Barry. Congratulations to George Collett and Peter Howarth who both scored 19 out of 20 (pictures below). Out of a total of 26 clubs, Gwynfa Camera Club were the winners with 96 points. Thornbury scored 86 points placing us around the middle of the competition.
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Old Boats by Peter Howarth.
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Hunting Buzzard by George Collett
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Click on pictures to enlarge
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DPIC Results 2016
To see results and the winning pictures click HERE