We gathered for our second meeting at Parkside Academy and welcomed three new members.  We lost one member (in the nicest possible way) as he was moving to around Manchester with his job and we wish him well with that.

We had our usual look at images from the monthly challenge which was to capture Autumn.  We had some really good images to view and you can see them below.

For the rest of the evening we reviewed how we can go about getting a composition in our images.  We looked at the ‘Rule of Thirds’, using lead-in lines, seeing triangles within the image, framing and reflections.  This is one of the foundations of good photography and matters little whether you use a phone camera or the latest, top-end digital SLR.  Of course, the beauty and balance within an image is very much down to the individual and often these guidelines are broken and it is often then that stunning images are created.  However, knowing these guidelines and practicing them can help us to know when they should be broken.

 

 

 

We have said that the Willington Photography Club is for anyone who enjoys taking images regardless of the camera.  To that end, one of our members took his Autumn challenge using his mobile phone and the images below are what he got.  Granted the shot of the leaf was edited to give it the feeling of movement, but it shows that pleasing images can be captured even on a phone.

The phone image of the leaf provided a second use.  Using fully automatic settings can result in images that aren’t quite properly exposed.  The leaf is lying on the ground which should be very dark, almost black in fact.  Here, straight out of the phone, it looks quite grey.  The reason being that historically (and currently as far as we are aware) film and sensors use an 18% grey standard.  Therefore, anything that is black it will over-expose to try to reach the 18% grey, and images with lots of white will under-expose.

Our challenge for the November meeting is to capture something to show late Autumn, which will include Halloween and bonfire night.  Fireworks provide their own challenge when trying to capture them, but more on that next month.

Please let us know what you think or if you want to know more.  Why not come along and join us and share our passion.

The group met 5th November and started by looking at some images that we might use for the banner of this site.  There were several good ideas and others were discussed.  We hope that searching for shots to use as a banner and background will go on throughout the year so we can keep updating these every few months.

Members had asked if we could look at how to hold a camera securely while taking different types of shots.  We started with the basic grip for normal shooting and moved onto ways in which we could hold the camera securely in different situations.  Several members shared their experiences of how they had taken shots when using slow shutter speeds or windy conditions.  We also discussed the use of a tripod and the sort of things to look for when considering a purchase.  Also little tricks to help ensure sharp pictures while using a tripod were discussed.

There was also a brief discussion about how to weather proof a camera while photographing in inclement weather.  This will probably be re-visited again in a future meeting.

The challenge for this month is to encapsulate autumn in a single image.  Not as straightforward as it might seem.