Newsletter - 19th February 2023
Graham Harrison • 19 February 2023

Hi All
Last week we held our print of the year (POTY) competition, a bit early in the year but we have it at this time so prints are ready for the LPA Battle selection and the Foster challenge. It was a very successful night with lots of members present and a new judge to the club Martyn Wrigg from Barton. Derek has put the results on the competition page of the website and written a blog post as well. What I would say is our members entered some excellent prints and to get one held back is not easy never mind being placed. Congratulations to all members who where commended or better and a special mention to Dave Evans for taking the top place in the mono section, with his "Return to the Stables" print, definitely the biggest entry ever, and to Derek Smith with his "Millstones Above Castleton" placing for best print in competition.
A message from Paul Gray
Coming on the back of Wednesday’s Print of the Year competition where we saw a very high standard of entry and the largest number of members attending a meeting for a long time we continue the focus on print competitions with our preparation for the Fosters and LPA Battles competitions. Details of these competitions can be found on the competitions tab of the LPA website.
The first step is to select our club entries. I would encourage you take part and the first step is to email me before the end of this month to let me know you wish to do so. The selection panel will then be in touch Please note all prints have to be 20x16 or 500x400 and that only colour prints are accepted into the Fosters challenge but mono can also be entered in to the Battles.
Paul
This week, Wednesday 22nd February the Sebastião Ribeiro Salgado, Salt of the earth DVD will be shown, Chris did a write up of what to expect in a newsletter a few weeks ago. I will be at work again this week so will miss the evening, have a good night.
The following week, Wednesday 1st March, we are holding a local assignment competition with the categories of "Christmas cards" (taken no more than 25 miles from Louth) and "Open" (no restrictions). If you can send your entries to Harry ASAP please. We judge this competition by members voting or a member judging on the night, with more members now maybe one member judging might work better.
Just noticed the first daffodils are out in flower in our garden, the weather must be mild this year.
Regards Graham
Louth Photographic Society

Good Morning, All We did go to the sand racing again last week, the weather was a bit overcast but as no sky is required for this kind of photography, so good action shots are still possible. Last week at the club we held our monthly competition, of prints, with the categories of "People" and "Open". There was a very good entry with some excellent prints. David Whitehouse came first in the People section with Dave Turner winning the Open section. All the results are on our website under competitions with a blog on the evening as well. This week our Christmas buffet and quiz night will be held. The buffet will be provided for you but feel free to bring a drink along with you (a beer or glass of wine if you wish). Dave Mann will also be providing tea and coffee. Tony is doing a quiz for us all so bring a pen and paper if you remember, Christmas jumpers are optional. Harry will be selling raffle tickets, and if you would like to provide a prize please bring it along and give it to Harry. Regards Graham

A print competition was held last night with the categories of “People”, and “Open”. The judge for the evening was Dane Butler, this was his second time judging with us, and he is showing much more confidence in judging at photographic clubs. In the “People” category there was a wide variety of inventive images of people, from solo portrait style, to street, and groups of people, the highest placed print in this category was the “Pride Celebration (Cologne)” taken by David Whitehouse. In the “Open” category Dane had to judge wildlife, portraits, landscape, macro, and architectural prints, I thought he did a superb job, his choice for the top spot was “Cloud Inversion Summit of Snowdon” by Dave Turner. The website Competition page has been updated with the images, and results.

Good Morning All Last week at the club we viewed the Lincolnshire photographic Associations mono group presentation, Dave Turner who goes to the group talked us through the evening with Chris Birchmore and Richard Hildred talking about their photographs. There is a blog on the evening on our website, but inspired by the evening I thought I had better try a few mono photographs myself. This week, Wednesday 10th December, we will hold our monthly print competition, with the categories of "People" and "Open", to be judged by Dane Butler from Dunholme. There are good number of entries so should be a very good competition. The following week, Wednesday 17th December, is our buffet and quiz night, for new members the buffet will be supplied and anyone who would like to donate a raffle prize please give it to Harry. The evening is for members only. Regards Graham

Last night members were treated to a showing of the LPA (Lincolnshire Photographic Association) Mono Group presentation. Three of our members, Dave Turner, Richard Hildred, and Chris Birchmore are members of the LPA Mono Group. Dave Turner excellently presented this showcase of the Mono Groups work, many of the images presented were stunning, and inspirational. A simple photo of a padlock on a gate took on a different dimension when presented in monochrome, and landscape photography becomes dramatic in monochrome, especially with a moody sky. It was a very interesting, and well attended evening. Thank you to Dave Turner for presenting, and Dave Mann for the refreshments.

Good Morning All Last week at the club we held a committee meeting, with all committee members in attendance. Harry will once again run the Christmas raffle on our buffet and quiz night, if any member wants to donate a prize, Harry can now accept them, obviously if it's a perishable prize then bringing it in on the night would be better. We are holding a 70th anniversary exhibition next year at the Louth Museum, if any member has local prints that they think may be suitable to put in the exhibition you can bring them to the club any time now. Derek has done a blog on the night with more information. This week, Wednesday 3rd December, we are viewing the LPA mono groups presentation, Dave Turner is a member of the group and will talk us through what the group do and if time allows show us some of his own mono prints. Don't forget to bring your prints along this week for the print competition, with the categories "People" and "Open", to be held the following week, email your titles to Dave Turner in advance please. Regards Graham

We held a Committee meeting last night in place of a regular meeting. The Committee meets twice a year to discuss items pertinent to effective, and smooth running of our Society. The Society celebrates 70 years of continuous operation next year, and we intend to show an exhibition of photographs taken over those years at the Louth Museum. The LPA Battles print competition will be held next year, and consists of 3 rounds held at photographic clubs throughout Lincolnshire, with a final round held at Nettleham. Louth has been drawn to meet with camera clubs in Grantham, and Axholme, and as you can understand this will entail a far amount of travelling. There is a proposal to the LPA which is currently under consideration which would reduce each club entry to 10 prints and for the whole competition to be held at Nettleham in 2027. Our current annual project is “Prime Time”, that is one photo for each month of the year taken with a fixed focal length lens, a prime lens, my choice for this year has been a 45mm lens, which is a full frame 90mm lens. Members show their annual project photos in the January of the following year. The Committee has decided on the project theme for next year as “Water”, which should give members a chance to demonstrate some creativity, as can be seen from the attached image. Our Christmas social event will be held on the 17th December, a buffet will be provided, there will be a quiz, and a raffle, the door entry charge will be £3 for the evening.

Good Morning All Last week at the club we held our PDI of the year, it was a well-attended event and thanks to Harry's organisation skills it all ran very well. Congratulations go to all the subject winners: Pictorial, Harry Kerman, Record, Dave Evans, Portrait, Derek Smith, Photojournalism, David Evans, Landscape, Dave Turner and Natural History, Graham Harrison. The overall winner was Harry Kerman. Well done Harry a great photograph of a White Cosmos. All the top three in each subject are on our website Competition page. Don't forget if you are entering the December print competition, with the categories of "People" and "Open" send your titles to Dave Turner please. The prints need bringing in a week on Wednesday. This week, Wednesday 26th November, we are holding a committee meeting, committee members only for this one please. For newer members we hold two committee meetings a year to organise events and the smooth running of the club. Regards Graham

Last night we held our PDIOTY (PDI of the Year) competition, our judge for the evening was Jorg Malinowski. These annual competitions are an opportunity for members to showcase their best images from the year, some of course from the monthly competitions, as such the competition entries were of an extremely high standard. Jorg performed an excellent job of judging the entries, and the results are all on the website Competition page. Congratulations to Harry Kerman for gaining the title of PDI of the Year with his White Cosmos image.

Good Morning All While we were away the other week we did have a walk around Blackpool. I only took my compact camera which I bought in 2011 but it still works ok and takes decent photographs. It is a Panasonic LX5 which fits in a pocket and is useful now and again. Last week we had mini lectures; photographs we had taken on this year's outings. Four members took part with Richard Hildred filling in with wedding photography from forty odd years ago, a very interesting look at how Richard went about photographing weddings, very different from today with far less photographs been taken. The outings did show we managed to photograph insects and birds on our walks around Red Hill and Rimac. I finished the evening with photographs taken in Somerset and Devon in 2020. This week, Wednesday 19th November, we hold our PDIOTY (PDI of the year) to be judged by Jorj Malinowski of Lincoln. It will be an evening of our best photography and we have just over fifty entries. The NEMPF exhibition acceptances have now been decided, well done to Dave Turner who had two accepted and I managed one acceptance myself. The standard for acceptance is very high, we had four members enter twenty nine PDI'S all together and only three acceptances . We had a lot of near misses, the score required was twelve and we had twelve elevens between us. You will see the exhibition at our club next year. Regards Graham

At our meeting last night members gave a series of mini lectures with 3 members showing images from the club outings to Red Hill, and Rimac. The meeting was completed by Richard Hildred showing some of his early slides. One of the principles of our Society is that we feature workshops, and outings into our annual programme, because the best way to learn photography is to work with other photographers to understand aperture, shutter speed, and ISO. In June at the Red Hill nature reserve the idea was to capture some macro images of the local insect life, and the orchids at this location. Laying, or kneeling in the grass to get close to the insects, or flowers, our members would begin to understand depth of field with using different apertures, each photographer will have his own method of achieving optimum exposure, and sharpness. Personally I tend to use aperture priority mode (A or Av on the mode dial), auto focus, and “rock” gently back and forwards to gain the focus on the subject. At Rimac, members had a lot more latitude to photograph some bird-life, or landscapes. These are some sample images from the Red Hill, and Rimac nature reserves.
