Club Meeting, Vice Chairs Challenge - Tuesday 19th November 2019.

          

On Tuesday 19th November, Joint Vice-Chair Sue Dawson and Roseanne Robinson presented the members’ response to
their first challenge of the season. Members had been asked to submit four different types of images of trees and on the
evening were requested to explain why and how they had chosen their selection. But first, to open the evening Sue gave
a short presentation explaining competitions within the Northern Counties Photographic Federation. The process can be
a mystery to some members, she said, and her aim was to clarify the process by which entries are selected and why club
members should be encouraged to take part.

Then, on to the challenge itself which attracted entries from 16 members and included not only standard shots of trees
but images with an alternative take on the subject. Included were fungi growing on decaying wood and bark, wrecked
rally cars engulfed by undergrowth, glorious golden autumnal leaves, exotic acorns, textured Giant Redwood, silver birch,
Eucalyptus bark, skeletal trees against snow and sunset, a wooden bookcase complete with books and wooden carvings,
a silver woodland created in infra-red and a canopy of woodland taken from above. We saw shots taken at many locations
including Gibside, Routin Linn, Bolam Lake, Derbyshire and abroad, some which had been captured using some unusual
techniques; vertical camera movement which gives the illusion of levitation, multiple exposure shots, dramatic zoom
images, abstract and infra-red effects, as well as images in low key pastels, using painterly effects and slow shutter
photography, which possessed a dreamlike quality.

An interesting discussion followed on the question of how members felt about photographic manipulation. With so much
creative photography software available, multiple exposures apps, and Smartphone apps to create artistic versions, is it
photography? The general consensus was that it should not be compulsory to focus on the in-house opinion of competition
judges, on the expected, or to use competition ‘rules’ as a marker dictating what photographs you take. It was agreed that
one should try something different, to get past the usual and start to take ones own version of a subject. Someone said
that intentional camera movement is artistic, adding that most impressionist painters from the past were ridiculed for
their work at the time. The general consensus was that phone photographers may not know what results they are going
to achieve whereas camera users know what they want, and strive to achieve best results using their expertise. So, will
iPhone be the photography of the future? It was decided that it depends on what you are taking the photograph for, the
effect you want, or whether you want to enlarge or print the image; agreeing that there is space for everyone!

Sue thanked everyone for an interesting discussion and for submitting so many entries to the challenge and hoped that
the next one will be just as successfully supported, after which coffee was enjoyed.

Steph.