Were back! After a summer of warm sunny days and great photography opportunities both in our own area and abroad we met again on Wednesday 3rd September for our season opener of summertime and Ashbourne Show photographs showing what we had pointed our cameras at since last season ended in May.
Ashbourne Show was a great success, perhaps even better in terms of footfall through the tent. We were pleased to see a good number of visitors and more especially those who felt inspired to join us for our new season. Those new members were welcomed at our first meeting. We have also been invited by the Heritage Centre in the museum at the town hall to exhibit some of our work and discuss involvement with the team there so we can display some of our images throughout the year.
The first meeting was the usual get together with our new members and the rest of the Club to show some of the images we had taken over the summer. It was good to meet everyone again and discuss the forthcoming year which celebrates our anniversary, but more of this later. It was also a pleasure to welcome back a member who has spent two years in Australia back to our meetings armed, he says, with over 18000 new images! Watch this space!
The regular cycle of meetings started with a talk by a regular guest, Steven Fairbrother with a presentation entitled Full Monty 3. He presented a whole mix of images from his work in Product Advertising and some agency work. Images which shed light on an area of Photography not always open to members, but which uses some ideas and techniques for our own photographs. His own personal interests outside his work were shown in Landscapes, some Weddings and events. Very topical were his images of trains in this the 200th year of the railway.
The next meeting was a demonstration by our own, very experienced photographer, Rob Sample, to help demystify some of the techniques modern photo software has to offer in these days of AI. With so many products available, not an easy task, but Rob did manage to show members of all skill levels some of the things that these products can do. Very welcome to us all, especially those wishing to extend their knowledge of image preparation for our competitions and to improve their own photographs they consider entering.
Our first competition, Abstract, proved to be a difficult topic in more ways than one! Certainly this has provoked some thoughtful and animated discussion about what exactly Abstract is and means. The Judge, David Graham, was very complimentary about the standard and imagination of our submissions. He found it extremely difficult to make his decisions and award of marks. It was clear that Abstract, as in this form of Art, presents difficulty in the understanding and meaning of Abstract. The Print winner was David Slade with Snaking and our projected image winner was Peter Edge with Individuality.
Congratulations to both of them. Below are some Abstract images, what do you as a reader think? What is your idea of Abstract as an art form?
So, September comes and goes. October is an important month for us. Watch this space for details. You can keep an eye on the club at the Heritage Centre, come and visit our new displays.
Be back next month with more news, thanks for reading.
