Summer Social Event | 7 August 2022 |
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Visit to Burnham on Sea Lighthouse | 29 July 2022 |
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Out & About with the Club | |
During the summer break the club is still very active. Members have been visiting a variety of places to enjoy taking photographs together & visiting new places. The latest trip was to Clevedon Pier to photograph the Sunset 0n 30 June. "A small group of 3 went to Clevedon Pier on Thursday evening. During June and July the sun sets at the end of the pier, so a trip was planned to coincide with the high tide last week and the best day according to the weather forecast was Thursday. We arrived at Clevedon and watched bands of heavy rain roll in from the direction of Wales and it seemed that photography was not on the cards until 30 minutes before sunset there was a break in the rain and clouds as we all rushed to get out our cameras set up and we were treated to amazing light and colours as the sun set." CW Photos by Caroline Wright & Sue Wadman ![]() ![]()
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![]() ![]() 10 members met up to photograph the wildlife, birds and invertebrates found at this Wiltshire Wildlife Trust site near Wylye. We were guided by our very own Tim Tapley who shared not only his extensive knowledge of the species found there, but also how to best photograph them. He spent much of the morning helping us to explore the small bugs and insects found on the main path that runs through the site. With his help we found an array of small insects that we would usually have walked past. It was a fantastic experience and I for one have certainly discovered a whole new view of wildlife. We finished the visit with a trip to the Kingfisher Cafe for lunch and cakes.CW
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Photos below by Dave Gray- Thick-legged Flower Beetle, Red-tipped Clearwing Moths, Four-spot Chaser | |
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Club AGM and Presentation of Trophies | 17 May 2022 |
Members met at the Devizes Sports Club for the AGM with others able to see the proceedings from their own homes via Zoom. Business moved on very quickly, last year’s minutes were approved and the reports from committee members had already been circulated. |
Ladies versus the Gents or 'Annual Battle of the Sexes!' | 10 May 2022 |
The penultimate meeting of the season was the annual battle between the Ladies and Gents of the club but of course it was not competitive at all was it? To make it fair, the club organises that a Lady and a Gent both do the judging and this year it was long –standing friends of the club Adrian Herring ARPS DPAGB and Vanessa Herring LRPS who took on the challenge. The judges did not know who had taken any of the 60 images so there was no bias and they did not confer so it was not until the actual competition that they knew what the other had scored. Vanessa said that she was looking for harmony, mood and something different. Being very experienced judges they mostly made similar comments and scores with each of them awarding points out of 10. The team captains were Caroline Wright for the Ladies and Gerald Clarke for the Gents and each selected 30 images. There were limits on the number of entries from each member and some images had to be new to club competitions. Images taken by members in the Beginners and intermediate sections had 2 bonus points added to their score. Adrian and Vanessa gave their comments on each image and then awarded the points. Frank Collins then did the maths and read out the combined scores together with any bonuses. After the first 30 images the Gents were well ahead having gained 3 perfect 20’s and a total of 270 points against the Ladies 224 points. Nature subjects seemed to be the high scorers with 3 out of the top 4 being birds or mammals. ‘Chaffinch Dispute’ by David Wilkinson LRPS, ‘Jewel in the Winter’ by Dave Gray and ‘Red Squirrel’ by Hilary Tapley all gained a 10 from both judges. Frank thanked Adrian and Vanessa for giving such constructive feedback and Adrian concluded that they had both enjoyed looking at such superb range of images. Thanks also go to Battle secretary Dave Gray for organising the competition, captains Caroline and Gerald, Frank for the scoring and Dave Eagle for all the technical knowhow with the projection and setting up Zoom for those who could not attend in person. PM |
Print & PI of the Year Competition | 3 May 2022 |
For the last competition of the 2021-22 season all the images that have gained a 1st, 2nd or 3rd place are judged and the winners in each section are awarded the Print or PI of the year trophies. |
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After the break came the Projected Images starting with the Beginners section. Eddy liked the way the fungi was lit in the image ‘Common Puffball in Savernake Forest’ by Peter Evans. An image of a familiar bird was in second place ‘Solitary Rook’ was by Richard Jones. In the Intermediate section Richard Blackbourne won the trophy for an image of a White-faced Scops owl titled ‘Owl in the Grass’. Second place went to an unusual cityscape ‘Office Block at Sunset’ by David Evans. Lastly came the judge’s choice in the Advanced section. Another landscape by Robert Harvey was the winner – this time ‘Roman Fort, Hardknott Pass’. In second place was ‘Blackbird in a Sunbeam’ by Tim Pier. |
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Congratulations to all those who won this seasons trophies which will be presented at the AGM. Well done to all members whose excellent images were in this competition making it difficult for the judge to pick his winners. Eddy was thanked for giving his judging and his detailed comments on all the entries. PM Full results See the award winning images in the Galleries |
How to present your images as an Audio-Visual Sequence | 26 April 2022 |
Club members were given an inspiring insight into the making of AV’s by Ian Bateman FRPS MPAGB AV-AFIAP APAGB. AV’s can be as simple as a series of still images set to music or can be much more complicated withanimated images, music and recorded dialogue that combine to tell a story. |
Shooting Commercially off the Beaten Track. | 19 April |
The presentation was given on Zoom by James McCormick who is one of the professional photographers from Mc2 Photography. James explained the pressure of being on an assignment as a commercial photographer as he is obliged to aquire the images the client has requested. |
Devizes CC v Frome Wessex Photographic – Inter-club Battle | |
![]() Final scores were Devizes CC 505 points v Frome Wessex Photographic 529 points. The competion was held on Zoom and the judge was John Tilsley ARPS APAGB DPAGB Well done to Dave Eagle, whose monochrome image titled ‘Tidal’ was our only 20 pointer of the night - Battle Secretary Dave Gray Other Devizes entries that scored highly were - Golden Rays on the River Kennet by Bridget Codrington - 19 points Kingfisher with a Catch by David Wilkinson LRPS - 19 points Llyn Dau at Sunrise by Robert Harvey ARPS EFIAP - 18 points Feeding Time by Robin Gregory - 18 points Sunrise at Turf Fen by Sue Wadman - 18 Points Limbo by Pam Mullings - 18 points Moor Crichel Avenue by Caroline Wright - 18 points Common Blue in Morning Dew by Tim Tapley - 18 points Many Congratulations to Frome Wessex for their winning score. |
Open Projected Image Competition 3 | |
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Capture the Moment | 5 April 2022 |
The presentation tonight was on Zoom and Mike Bennett LRPS, DPAGB, EFIAP, BPE3 gave his thoughts on his approach to photography. Mike likes to challenge himself and he says he ‘will have a go’ at any photographic genre. We saw some of his interesting sport images where he got shots of the action on the field and track. One of the challenges he set himself was to get nature images of birds and butterflies in flight and he showed some well caught images. He likes to set himself projects and has photographed the smoked fish industry near Grimsby where he lives, the casting of iron, an old railway and many more local industries. |
Animals on the Edge: Reporting from the Frontline of Extinction | 29 March 2022 |
It was great to have a ‘live’ speaker once again and wildlife photo-journalist Chris Weston said it was good to see am audience once more. Chris is passionate about turning the tide in the battle against the extinction of critically endangered animals. His book ‘Animals on the Edge’ was published 10 years ago but sadly in many cases little has changed to bring red listed animals back from the brink. |
Open Print Competition No 2 | 22 March 2022 |
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Two in the Bush | 15 March 2022 |
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Creative and Close-up/Macro Competitions | 8 March 2022 |
There were 2 very different competitions for Colin Harrison FRPS FIPF FBPE MFIAP MPAGB EFIAP/d3 MPSA GPSA AWPF APAGB to give his comments and judgement on this evening. Colin is a very experienced judge with a string of distinctions to his name and has judged many club, national and international competitions on a variety of subjects. Full results All the awarded images can be seen in the Galleries. |
'Britain's Best Landscapes and How to Photograph Them’ | 1 March 2022 |
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Digital Projected Image Competition | |
DPIC is the Western Counties annual ‘Digital Projected Image Competition’, and in this year’s competition, Devizes came 24th= out of 51 clubs entering. The scoring is by 3 judges, who give each image a mark out of 5, giving a maximum mark for any image of 15 points. This year, we managed a total of 191 points from our entry of 18 images. For comparison, the winners, Bristol Photographic Society scored 223 points, and the bottom club scored 169 points. Hence we came firmly in the middle of the pack. |
Street and Architecture Photography | 22 February 2022 |
Club members enjoyed a very interesting presentation by Ian Howard using Zoom from his home in Kent. Ian’s advice to photographers was ‘develop your own style’ and ‘look for something different’. |
Annual Landscape Print & Projected Image Competitions | 15 February 2022 |
The judge for the Annual Landscape Competition was the very experienced and well-travelled John Tilsley ARPS DPAGB APAGB who has visited the club on many occasions as a judge and a speaker. John explained that when judging images, he likes to get an emotional response and then secondly he looks at the technical quality. John went into detail about what he liked about each image and then in some cases pointed out some of the flaws such as sensor spots and the white lines around objects from over sharpening which might help others avoid the same issues. |
Underwater Photography - from swimming pools to sharks | 8 February 2022 |
We were delighted to welcome David Keep ARPS MPAGB FBPE EFIAP who gave a presentation on his underwater photography. David had been an experienced diver as well as a photographer for many years when he was persuaded to try underwater photography. He was rather disappointed with his first efforts but after taking a course with an expert, he persevered and overcame the many difficulties found taking photographs when diving in deep water. |
The Photographic Alliance of Great Britain GB Cup Competitions | |
The PAGB GB Cup competitions were judged last weekend, and we now have our scores. As you might guess from the title, these competitions are open to clubs throughout the country. There are two separate competitions, Open and Nature, and for each one, we were allowed to enter 24 images, with the best 12 counting towards the club’s overall score. Overall, there were fewer clubs entering than in previous years, presumably a reflection of the toll Covid has taken. In the GB Cup Open, Devizes gained 124 points from our 12 best images, which put us in the lower middle of the final table, finishing 55th= out of 87 clubs competing. However, in the Nature competition, we gained 133 points, and came a creditable 23rd out of 77 clubs competing. |
Visual Storytelling | 1 February 2022 |
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Monochrome PI Competition | 25 January 2022 |
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Themed Lightbox evening - 'Winter Light' | 18 January 2022 |
Members met up via Zoom to discuss their images on the theme of Winter Light. Those that sent in images were invited to talk as each image was shown, about how and why they took the photographs. Other members could then discuss the good points and perhaps gently suggest what could be done to improve the image. |
The Use of Natural Light in Landscape Photography | 11 January 2022 |
The club was treated to a very interesting presentation by Nigel Forster via Zoom. Nigel was a landscape architect and environmentalist with a love for climbing mountains and photography but during a ‘mid-life crisis’ decided to become a full time photographer. Not so easy as it seemed but after an initial steep learning curve has developed a successful commercial business as well as his photography workshops. |
Projected Image League | 4 January 2022 |
The first meeting of 2022 and once again Zoom technology came into good use for the club’s Annual Projected Image Competition as members could see all the entered sets and score each set from their own home and even see the final result! |
Christmas Knock Out Competition | 21 December 2021 |
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Making the Most of Focal Lengths and Ratios | 14 December 2021 |
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Open Print Competition 01 | 7 December 2021 |
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'Nobody' | 30 November 2021 |
The presentation by Bristol photographer Mike Martin AWPF AFIAP has an intriguing title. On his last visit to the club Mike showed his impressive portraits but this time he showed images without any people at all - or if any did appear they were anonymous ‘nobodies’! |
Out of the Dark | 23 November 2021 |
The club welcomed Simon Caplan LRPS back to the club to (in his words) 'throw a little light on the art of still life photography’. The recent lockdown restrictions meant that Simon has spent more time in his garage ‘studio’ and was able to further develop his still life techniques. |
Competition 2 - Open Projected Images | 16 November 2021 |
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Studio Evening | 9 November 2021 |
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Members Success | |
Many congratulations to club member David Wilkinson who has just gained his LRPS or Licentiate of The Royal Photographic Society. This is an internationally recognised qualification for which David had to submit 10 images which reflected his ability as a photographer. David has achieved a very high standard of wildlife photography and since he joined the club has progressed from Beginner to Advanced level. Below are some of David's recent winning images. |
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Landscape Group Trip to Martinsell Hill | 7 November 2021 |
The first Landscape Group outing of the 2021-22 year saw six members assemble at 6.30am on Martinsell Hill, Pewsey, to see the sun rise over its eastern ramparts. Despite a not particularly good weather forecast, the sky did produce some fine sunrise colours, and later, some good low angled sun to light the hillside. |
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Whatever Next | 2 November 2021 |
The presentation by Frome photographer Richard Price tracked his journey exploring a variety of techniques from macro to astro! |