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Good Morning All Last week at the club we held a studio evening organized by Derek Smith, it was a very successful evening with Jade Alexandra modeling for us. A big thanks to Derek and Jade for a very good night. There is a report on our website. This Wednesday 1st May, we are holding the AGM and presentation night, and I found the above photograph that had been in a local paper in the early 1990’s of the trophy winners that year (I think it’s 1993) from left to right, Echlin Molyneax, Kevin Adlard, Roger Taylor and myself (I did have hair once). It would be good to see as many of you as possible attending the AGM. Harry is now accepting entries for the next PDI competition, with the categories of "Coastal" and "Open". It was agreed at the committee meeting that to keep competition entry numbers manageable you can send in six entries but nominate one with an R to be dropped from the competition in the event of too many entries. I have booked the Royal Oak (Splash) at Little Cawthorpe for Friday 5th July 7.30, if you could let me know ASAP if you would like to attend our annual meal, they would like to know numbers and a £5 deposit from each person attending. For newer members partners are invited as well. Regards Graham

It was our annual studio night, and it was a real pleasure to welcome Jade Alexandra as our model to our club room. With LED lighting, and a selection of backgrounds, our model Jade freely posed in front of the cameras. Many of our members had never worked in a studio style setting with a model before, and it was a great learning experience, not only working with the constant lighting, a model, and working around the individual camera settings. I felt that the evening was a great success, one of our best such evenings, with lots of laughter, and a steep learning curve for many of our members. Jade was a totally professional model throughout the event, and I’m sure that many of our members will have some great images from the evening. Thank you, Jade, and members for what I felt was a delightful evening.

Good Morning All Last week we held our monthly competition, print subject – Weather and Open, member Paul Malley was the judge for the evening. We started with the Open where the standard was so high no one got less than 17 out of 20, then Weather category after the break, where Paul made it clear he wanted to see the weather in action rather than what it had done, that said not all photographs fitted the subject but the standard of photographs was very high again. Thank you to Paul Malley for judging and making it a very interesting night, the results are on the website. This week, Wednesday 24th April, Derek is running a studio night, you will need to bring your cameras along for this one and a flash gun as well if you have one. There is an extra charge of £5 on top of the normal £2 to pay towards the cost of the model. I took the portrait above on the last studio night. Don’t forget to take your project photographs, numbers. Regards Graham

A print competition was held last night with the categories of “Weather”, and “Open”. The judge for the evening was our very own knowledgeable, yet amiable Paul Malley, in judging the “Open” category he gave excellent critique, with feedback on the prints submitted. Selecting 7 prints as “hold backs” Paul had quite a task in selecting the highest placed prints. After the break, Paul began judging the “weather” category, he immediately made an executive decision to only apply the highest points to prints that depicted the weather as it was happening, rather than the after effects of weather, such as snow, or frost on the ground. The standard of submitted prints was extremely high, by simply viewing these prints it was obvious that our club photography has definitely improved over the last few years, and this is reflected in better performances in external competitions. A well deserved thanks to Dave Turner in organising the competition, Paul Malley for his judging, and considered opinions, lastly but definitely not least Dave Mann for the refreshments. Overall, it was a great evening, the website Competition page has been updated with the score sheets, and the top 3 placed images. The 1st placed “A Pause for Thought – Alan” in the "Open" category, and “Evening Storm Rolling in” from the "Weather" category images are displayed on here.

On Sunday April 14th the Lincolnshire Photographic Association held the ‘Fosters Colour Challenge’ at Nettleham Village Hall. 13 clubs from around Lincolnshire took part in the competition and the day was well attended with 3 members from Louth making the journey to represent our club. The Foster Colour Challenge allows for a club to enter 5 coloured prints (plus 1 tiebreaker). There are 5 rounds where the judge for the day eliminates some of the prints. The prints that are eliminated in the first round, score 1 point, second round 2 points, and so on up to round 5 and these prints gain 5 points. The judge then awards one print, the one they consider the ‘Best in Show’, one extra point is then given and that print gains 6 points. The club with the most points at the end wins the trophy; the 6th print comes into play if there is a tie. On the day Carol McNiven Young FRPS EFIAP/s BPE5* DPAGB undertook the judging in an excellent and consider way, with the final results ending in a tie between Cleethorpes and Grimsby both have 23 points. Following the viewing of the tie breaker images Grimsby took 1st place and was awarded the trophy. Cleethorpes was then 2nd with 23 points, Scunthorpe came 3rd with 19 points and then we, Louth came 4th with 17 points. Coming 4th on the day was a very good showing but the best was to come as our Tony Gaskins was awarded the ‘Best In Show’ and gained an additional point for the excellent image ’ Moon Bell’. Well done and congratulation to Tony on his achievement and well done to Louth PS for coming 4th out of 13 clubs.

Good Morning All Last week Derek provided an evening dedicated to editing our photographs, I think most of us learnt something from the evening and there is a report on our website. Thank you to Derek for running the evening. This week, Wednesday 17th April, we are holding our monthly print competition, with the categories of "Weather" and "Open" with the judge for the evening being Paul Malley, the weather category should be interesting as all we seem to get is rain these days. The competition prints are now all handed in and a list of entries should have been sent to you a few days ago. The LPA Foster Colour challenge competition is on later today (Sunday) at Nettleham village hall 1.30pm for 2pm if any members would like to go along and see how our club entries fair. Regards Graham

A couple of years ago I helped the Louth Museum to archive a collection of slide images taken around Louth by Harold Jackson. When viewing these images of Louth life from over 40 years ago, it occurred to me how little sometimes we, as photographers, fail to document the built urban environment that we live in. Change is happening every day, sometimes wrought on our towns, and villages, in demolition, urban planning, and economic decline. The loss of major retailers, Woolworth, C&A, Safeway, Debenhams, House of Fraser, and proudly owned local department stores Eve & Ranshaw in Louth, town centre Oldrids in Boston, Scunthorpe, and Gainsborough is evidence of our changing shopping habits. The fishing industry has ceased in many coastal towns, the ports of Grimsby, and Hull have suffered greatly. I well remember living in Lossiemouth, Morayshire, in 1972, and watching the trawlers putting to sea from the busy harbour, I was shocked years later visiting the area on holiday the trawlers had gone, replaced by plastic yachts in the “marina”. With this in mind, I enjoy walking around cities, towns, and villages with a small camera, just taking photos of the world that surrounds us, when it’s gone, it’s gone forever – a way of life, or just a corner shop. Possibly, the photos we take in documenting the world around us may not win any competitions, but I believe that those photos may have more importance in years to come.

Last night at the Club, we had a very informative 'Interactive' evening on the use and functionality of a variety of Software packages. Derek led the evening, displaying a number of pre and post processing images using his favoured Luminar NEO / AI Software, showing us the stages and steps he took along the route to get from a RAW / jpeg starter, to a final saved image. Alongside this, other Software packages for post work included the free FastStone image viewer and the popular Serif Affinity Photo. Although many people use the Photoshop / Elements suite, it was notable that there is a strong crossover between capability and indeed keystrokes between and within these packages. The range of functions shown within the suites included exposure control (both global and local effects), dodge and burn on the background or using a separate layer with a mask, how to effect and control a highlights range and touching on the shadows. Derek also showed how he had formed his own preferences, which provides a unique style. These effects were only the start of the massive range of functions offered by modern packages and the time quickly flew to the break. After the break (thanks Dave), we looked at a number of Member's images which had been supplied as an opportunity to make any changes; some were subtle, others more pronounced, with a general consensus that each had scope for improvement. I must say on a personal note, that one of our newer Members produced a book-worthy image, with colour, tone, contrast, timing, focus and composition of wildlife that I would have been delighted to have in my portfolio; a simple, quick lift to open up in local shadows enhanced this again. We all have different approaches to our workflow, use different kit, have different software to produce images we like, they are for us. No Judge can look at an image and categorically state which Image Software was used. There are lots of different routes through each package to achieve the result you are after. "Why does it take 101 Photographers to change a lightbulb?" "1 to change the bulb and the 100 others to tell you a different way to do it in their software..."

Morning All We spent last week in County Durham visiting many attractions and even having some good weather now an again. Beamish was very busy but a quieter day at Hartlepool Quay which has plenty to see with recreated shops and naval life from 200 years ago, you can also go aboard HMS Trincomalee. High force was in full force and there is a big gap at Sycamore gap, what ever made anyone think it was a good idea to cut down such an iconic tree. Last week at the club there was a local competition, I have looked at the report on our website and there where plenty of good entries again with Paul Malley and Dave Mann judging for the evening. This week, Wednesday 10th April, we are holding a photo editing evening with Derek leading the night, you can bring along a few photos on a memory stick for editing if you wish to do so. The following week is a print competition, Weather and Open. Please send a list of your entries to Dave Turner by midnight this Wednesday and bring your prints along to the club this week to hand in to Dave so he can sort them out ready. Paul Malley will once again be judging for us. Regards Graham