December 22nd 2020 – Christmas Party

Well, December 22nd should have been our Christmas party night.  Normally we all take something to eat and drink to share, and have a photo quiz.  Sometimes we’ve taken some of our prints, or albums or photo books to have a look at and chat about.

Obviously, this year it wasn’t possible.  So we met on Zoom as we have been doing since the restrictions began back in March.  We all sat in front of our screens with a glass in hand and a mince pie.  We did still have our quiz and below you will see the images that were presented for us to try to work out.  The images were of things taken from unusual angles, or local places from a different perspective, etc.  Some you may find easy, others a bit more difficult.

Clicking on the image will reveal more which may or may not make it easier.

If you want to drop us an email with what you think they might be, please do and we’ll let you know if you’re right.

As ever, if you would like to get involved with the club just get in touch through the contact page.

Latest update . . .

The club has continued to meet every 2 weeks – on Zoom – since the start of the lockdown. We have shorter than usual meetings, but they include the images from the challenge set the previous session. We have had a variety of challenges and some really good images to show.

We have had one outing to a wildlife park where we were able to socially distance, but at least get to chat ‘in the flesh’ so to speak. We spent an hour or so looking for more detailed shots in the park, as we have been there in the past.

We are hoping to have a further 2 events where we can meet up safely. One is related to a forest area near one of our members and we are hoping to go there as the leaves begin to change colour. Autumn is always such a beautiful time of year, so it will provide an ideal opportunity for us. We are further hoping to have another go at doing some night sky / night landscape photography also, a little further down the line and before the end of the year.

Some of our challenge images will appear in the gallery over the next week or so. Please keep coming back and check-up on what our members have been up to.

If you would like to know more about the club, please drop us a line by going to the ‘Contact’ section and we’ll get back to you.

Craft Fair – St Stephen’s Church, Willington

The club has a stall at the annual St Stephen’s Church craft fair in Willington. The fair is from 10:00 a.m. until 4:00 p.m. on Friday 15th and Saturday 16th, 1:00 p.m. until 4:00 p.m. on Sunday 17th of November.

There are lots of different crafts represented and refreshments available. The Photography Club have a stall. Come along and speak to some of the members about the club and find out from them what its all about. Maybe even buy a photo from us, but we’d be delighted to get a chance to chat with you.

We look forward to seeing you there.

September 2019 – New Venue

This month’s meeting was held at the Willington Cricket Club for the first time. The good thing about meeting here is the more relaxed atmosphere and where as at our previous venue we had a one hour booking which we were expected to keep fairly near to (although there were times we over-ran without any problem). In our new venue we did not feel rushed. Indeed it lasted around two hours.

There are a number of benefits to the new venue. Not least being the fact we were able to make a cup of tea or coffee and have a biscuit. This helped the relaxed nature of the evening.

There were a number of topics discussed, not least the upcoming craft fair at St Stephen’s church in Willington – Friday 15th to Sunday 17th of November – as well as discussions about possible exhibitions. We hope to have our first exhibition in the Willington library throughout November.

We also discussed the use of basic camera controls and how to use and understand the histogram on the cameras we have.

Why not come along and join us at our next meeting – you will be most welcome. Check out the calendar for the date.

May 2019 – Techniques

Our meeting on 21st May was an opportunity to revisit some techniques we’d spoken about before and look at something that turned out to be new to most members.  New in as much as some had heard about them, but not really read or thought much about them.

The two topics we revisited was to do with Exposure basics – the exposure triangle and inter-relationship between ISO, Aperture and Shutter Speed – and filters, primarily for digital – grey graduated filters, neutral density and polarising filters.  These two topics were refreshers for some, but new to other members.

The topic that was new, in one way or another, was that of Low-Key and High-Key images.  When reading around the topic there seems to be slight variations in describing these two techniques.  Some will say that just having a black or very dark background is Low-Key while others feel that the whole image needs to be dark.  Similarly for High-Key, a white or very light background, to the whole image exhibiting a very light nature across the entirety.

An example used of Low-Key:

Low-key colour

Low-key monochrome

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

An example of High-Key used:

High-Key colour

High-Key monochrome

 

November 2018 – Gary Lintern

We were fortunate to have Gary Lintern as our guest speaker on Tuesday 20th November.  He is based in Weardale, Chair of the North Pennines Astronomy Society and Director of the North Pennines Observatory

His passion is astro-landscape photographer and he showed us some wonderful images, many taken relatively local to us.  He also passed on numerous tips for taking such images.

I think we are likely to be trying to arrange an outing to have a go ourselves, so keep an eye on the website for some images of our first foray into such photography!

Would you be interested in joining us?  Leave a reply below.

July 2017 Part 2 – Wetland Shoot

The second of our reviews for our July meeting was from a shoot that we did at a wetland park.  We had the services of two local young ladies to help us try our hand at taking portraits in an environmental setting.  Neither of the girls are professional models and none of our group are that experienced at directing models, so we all learned on the hoof so to speak.  What is probably evident from some of the images below is that we all had a good time and even produced the odd decent picture !

It had been raining for a couple of days beforehand and on the day itself.  I went up to the park at around 4:00 p.m. to see how it looked and if the ground was going to be unsuitable.  In the event, it was fine.  We were also lucky with the weather as it stopped raining around the same time I went up there and when we gathered the sun even came out !

If you would like to join us, check out the Monthly Meeting section which will give you all the information about when, where and what.  You will see that we try to learn from each other and cover a variety of topics and also have some sessions learning different tricks using Photoshop in the school’s IT suite.  While not everyone has Photoshop, some of the things we do can be translated into other image editing software.

The club is for anyone interested in photography whether you’re a beginner or professional.  Come and see for yourself – you’ll be most welcome.

July 2017 part 1 – Church Shoot

This month we spent time reviewing images from two outings we had.  This one has the images from a church shoot we did one evening.  We had thought we would be okay with the light as it was late June, but wouldn’t you know it, it had been an overcast day and evening.  Never mind, members enjoyed the experience and produced some interesting shots.

My personal favourite from these was the shot of the door with the cobwebs on the wall.  I liked it so much I took the liberty of playing with it and converted it to a black and white image which it lends itself to, producing an atmospheric shot.

Why not come and join us and share your experience and favourite topics to shoot. If you’re just beginning to get interested in photography there are plenty willing to help you.  Our members range from the very new to those with many years experience; from simple bridge type cameras to professional level DSLR.  Interests are diverse – from underwater photography to abstracts.  Something for everyone.  Check out the Monthly Meetings section – we’d love to see you !