Following judging on Sunday and the Judge’s review yesterday the results of the Annual DPI competitions are available here

Three members of the Wilmslow Guild Photographic Society, had their prints accepted in the Members Exhibition of the 72^nd Southport National Open Exhibition of Photography and displayed in the beautiful setting of Wayfarers Arcade in Southport.  Southport has long been a leading National Photographic Exhibition and the overall quality of entry was very high, with 504 entrants submitting over 4000 entries in total this year.

The Photographic Society was especially pleased that Barbara Cook’s print ‘Together’ came first in the Open Colour print section, winning the Golden Jubilee Trophy. Her print ‘Snow Urchin’ did very well in the exhibition and won a Ribbon award. Barbara also had her print ‘Marta’ accepted.

The two other successful members with print acceptances were Les Stringer, with his print ‘Young Monks’ and Margaret Green with ‘Mont Blanc’.  The Society thanked Margaret for co-ordinating our entries and also organising a Society visit to Southport to view the exhibition.

left to right: Margaret Green, Les Stringer and Barbara Cook

Results from this and previous competitions are available here

Another enjoyable evening viewing another set of top notch images.

Hold your breath for the results of the Photographer of the Year Competition to be announced at our next meeting – the final scores are VERY tight – reflecting the high quality of entries in all this years comps.

We have Peter R to thank for suggesting the next two themes, as usual you can enter images for either or both  themes. Resizing the images to 1600 x 1200 pixels is not critical for the Project Group but necessary if you want to use them for club competition purposes.

The interpretation is up to you, both subjects lend themselves to using either observed or contrived (sorry created) pictures.

1. Broken

2. Clashing Colour

Bill Salkeld

Results from this and previous competitions are available here

Photographer of the Year results have also been updated Photographer of The Year 2018-19

The Themes!

1. Illustrate a favourite photographic tip or technique.   As much as an exercise for yourself in before/after or with/without or ?? The idea of this is to show others something which they may not normally consider doing. It might consist of several frames outlining a photographic process or include some screen grabs if post processing forms part of it.
2. Looking Up. (or a View from Below, in the same spirit, and the opposite of, the theme from last November). This should get us all out and about!

Bill Salkeld.

Another excellent set of entries for our recent Print competition – Open Colour & Conceptual/Fine art. Some really excellent entries in a challenging Part 2.

Results from this and previous competitions are available here

Photographer of the Year results have also been updated Photographer of The Year 2018-19

Next meeting, Friday 15th February 2019 at 7.30pm.

The themes are:

1.  ’Smoke’  or something similar commonly referred to as smoke be it water vapour, a smoker vaping, a car exhaust or whatever. It doesn’t need to be the main subject as long as ‘smoke’ is clearly visible within the picture. 

2. We had to resort to the cards for this,  ‘Photograph a watch or other gadget the style of a glossy magazine  advert’.

This is a good one for a wet day, lighting, impact and sharpness being key requirements to consider. 

As ever the interpretation is up to you.

Bill Salkeld

The next meeting will be on Friday 18th January at 7.30 pm.

We will be looking at the themes of:

1.      High key
2.      Natural History, macro.

Further provisional dates are Fridays the 15th February, 15th March & 26th April

Bill Salkeld

Following the shoot and show night, for the next meeting we will go back to the conventional format.  The date has yet to be fixed but hopefully it will be mid-late January.

For anyone who has shot images on the Edward Weston pepper theme and was unable to get to the meeting, or for those who did attend and have reprocessed any images, if you bring them along, we should be able to find time to show them.

In the meantime, we have two new themes for the next meeting.

1. High key
2. Natural history, macro

The interpretation is down to you!

Merry Christmas

Bill Salkeld

Another excellent set of entries for our recent DPI competition – Open Mono & Food/Product

Results from this and previous competitions are available here

The next meeting will be on Friday 14 December at 7:30pm

For this meeting the plan is to do something a little different and have a practical ‘Shoot and Show’ evening.

The theme will be based on the well known 1927 image by Edward Weston ‘Pepper No 30’.

The aim will be to produce pictures similar to, or in the style/spirit of the one linked below attached during the first half of the evening and then process and show them in the second half.

It’s not a competition, it’s about learning and enjoying your photography.

Ideally you will need to bring:

1.  A misshapen fruit or vegetable (the first challenge). If not available bring anything else photographically interesting which is within the spirit of the evening.
2. Camera with suitable lenses etc.
3. Tripod
4.  Some form of lighting, e.g. flash, table lamps, LED torches  or ? Reflectors will be useful.
5. Laptop and suitable software.

Do not worry if you cannot bring all on the list, the club has a laptop and some table lamps available and I’m sure that members will be happy to help each other out.  

Bill Salkeld

Link to wikipedia   Pepper no 30

Our competition year got off to a great start with a good number of high quality entries in “Open Colour” & “Portrait” categories

Results are available here

The next meeting will be on Friday, 16th November 2018 at 7.30pm.

The chosen subjects are-

1. ‘Autumn’.   Deliberately vague so as to include all the usual wonderful colours or any other interpretation you wish to put on it. 
2. ‘A view from above’. Your own interpretation.

As before,  you can enter either or both sections  with the aim to have enough material to do about a five minute presentation.

If you have any general photographic queries or problems bring them along and we should be able to discuss them.

Bill Salkeld

Congratulations to David Royle on winning the Photographer of the Year award for 2017-18.  David has had a number of very close near misses in the competition over the last few years, so it was good to see him win it this year. The trophy was dedicated to the memory of Dave Griffiths, our former chairman and excellent photographer.  We were very pleased to have Geraldine presenting the trophy in Dave’s memory.

The Guild Photographic Society restarts on Wednesday 19th September with a welcome meeting.

Some dates:  

Wilmslow Art Trail at the Guild – Friday 5th, Saturday 6th and  Sunday 7th October

Project Group meetings: Fridays 5th October,  16th November and 14th December

The Digital Imaging Group of the RPS is hosting 2 talks on Sunday 16^th September in Frodsham.  There is a charge for the talks which can be found through the link below.

Speakers:

• Paul Gallagher – The B&W Digital Darkroom
• Michael Pilkington – Successful Colour Printing Every Time

For more info click here: RPS talks

WGPS Project Group – Theme for the Summer Break

Rather than set a Summer theme, and bearing in mind that we have several ‘Genres’ to concentrate on for the next seasons club competitions (i.e. Industrial heritage, Portrait, long exposure, Conceptual/fine art(??), A day in the life, Food/product) I thought that we have enough to concentrate on already.

However, taking the Genres, holidays, day trips, personal projects etc all into consideration we could open the new seasons first meeting with the theme,

  May to September, my dozen favourite images.

The mix and match, or not, as the case may be, as usual is up to you.

Have a good Summer

Bill Salkeld

The results from Competition 6
and the subsequent Photographer of the Year positions are now available

Congratulations especially to David Royle, Les Stringer & Michael Hilton – but also to everyone for the high standard of entries this year.

Last Friday’s meeting  saw a wide variety of images from those present and others who were unable to attend. The Multiple Exposure theme was most interesting with in camera double and multiple exposures (depends on the camera model), post processing overlays, panorama stitches and photo stacking all appearing. The long term unusual and humorous themes also had us laughing. Amusing images are welcome at any time.

The next themes are,

1. Gritty Monochrome. Interpret this as gritty/grainy/noisy images made in camera or PP. They will lack fine detail therefore rely on shape and form, they could easily be, as in film days a tiny portion of an image which has been greatly enlarged. Monochrome does not necessarily mean Black and white, it can be any colour (and white?)
2. ‘Take a self portrait in the style of a well-known photographer’.  (Drawn from the theme card pack)   Time now to study the books or the internet to find something suitable to recreate. You don’t have to stop at one attempt but please include a copy of the original to add to the interest.  

Its up to you now. 

Bill Salkeld

The results from Competition 4 & 5
and the subsequent Photographer of the Year positions are now available

Apologies for the delay!

The next meeting is Friday 20th April and the themes are- 

1. Multiple exposures ,(on one frame) Can be either done in camera or post processing. Any subject. This may well involve discovering more about your camera and processing techniques. 

David Lewis found an interesting article:  multiple exposures

2. Unexpected findings. This may well be a discarded item dropped on a street or beach , something which is quite clearly out of place from its normal environment.  Or ??? 

We are looking for something beyond a straight record shot so some creativity is needed to make it stand out. This is the sort of subject that would lend itself to be captured by a phone.

3.Long term project, Amusing and unusual signs. Show us what you have come across over the last few months. 

Bill Salkeld

We had 15 members at last Fridays meeting, the themes appearing to be popular. 

On the theme of Control Dial /Menu  explorations we saw examples of amazing high ISO results from a modern DSLR, video clips, and various Art/Creative/ scene modes from different brands of camera. David Higton will be reviewing a selection of these at the next members evening. 

We hope to use a variation of the theme in the next few months. The Backlit Close up theme was also very popular with flowers being a strong subject. What came over to me once again is that we have some gifted club members who are not all interested in entering competitions. There were a variety of very good entries.

The next meeting will be on Friday 9th March at 7.30pm

The subjects are-

1. White on White.

We had to resort to the theme cards for this one –

2. Pick your favourite Bond theme tune and illustrate it.Slight variations are acceptable as long as there is a recognisable connection to a James Bond film title/tune.

As usual you can enter either or both themes , aiming to make a presentation of around 5-8 minutes. 

Running for a longer term is the theme Amusing and unusual signs, which we will look at in April

Bill Salkeld

‘Open Mono’ was relatively straightforward but the theme of ‘Intentional Camera Movement’ was a challenge both for our members and our Judge.

The competition results are available here.

POTY latest positions here

WGPS Project Group Update.

Friday last saw a good turnout of members. The Christmas theme drew aside variety of images including food, family groups, retail mania, post Xmas walks and even a few with religious connections.  Recreating an image from a magazine produced some star images,  from Pam with portraits of a friend reproduced from a ten year old magazine article. From Stuart, a reproduced Nikon advert  and from Mary, (who was at home poorly) an iPhone advert using new skills she has recently acquired, see attached images  .   My thanks to all who attended and contributed, it made for an interesting evening.

The next meeting is on Friday 9th February  at 7.30 pm in a room yet to be allocated.

There are two subjects, you can enter images for either or both. The first one may go against the grain for some, but its only for once and besides that’s what we do!

1. Control Dial/Menu Explorations. The subject is completely open, the idea is for you to get to know and use the least utilised or unused modes/programs on your camera. These will vary depending on the model and can be marked as Art, Scene, panorama etc and can produce some novel effects. These effects not be to your liking straight out of the camera but they may provide a basis for further post processing. It will be interesting to see what camera manufacturers have  built into their models.  The special effects are usually produced as a jpg but if you shoot RAW and JPG together you should get a ‘proper’ file as well as a modified image. From what I saw at the introduction on Friday night most of you will not need to use Auto or PASM modes for this theme.

2. Back lit close up. Inspired by some of the prints from last week’s competition.  No fixed subject but words coming out on Friday included  flowers, foliage, leaves, sliced fruit, glass, lightbox, window light, tracing paper etc. It’s up to you!

Please get in touch if you need further details.

Bill Salkeld