News

This is the section for news about the Club and it's members.

Also for news that might benefit the members.

So if you've found a great local spot for photography and can bear to share it let me know.

Or if you've won an award and want to shout about it...let me know

tdashford@gmail.com

St Peter and Lucifer were at the gates admiring the clouds when the subject got onto photography. They couldn't agree whether Heaven or Hell had the best photographers so they decided to arrange a photo contest.

St Peter rubbed his hands with glee and Lucifer demanded to know why he was looking so smug. "Well," said St Peter, "in Heaven we have all the best photographers"

Lucifer slowly raised his head, grinned and replied "Ah, but we have all the judges..."

Top ten reasons to date a photographer
1) They work well in the dark
2) They’re used to funny smells
3) They make things develop
4) They work well on many settings
5) They know how to focus
6) They can make big things look small and small things look big
7) They work well from many different angles
8 ) They zoom in and out. And in and out and in and out and in and out...
9) They shoot in many different locations
10) They can find the beauty in anything
- Anonymous

I've recently taken some photos in a nudist colony.Unfortunately all of my shots suffered from indecent exposure.

NEWS

The second evening of this season's critique sessions was held on February 21st and was well attended by over 40 members and three guests. Most attendees brought work to be examined and some excellent images were presented by all, particularly from very recent members of the club. Florence in particular must be one to watch! We all gain from these sessions by learning new tips and techniques, picking up new ideas, and by having unbiased critique of our work in more depth than a competition judge has the time to give. First-time attendee Mathew was thrown in at the deep end to describe his group's work and did an excellent job, particularly as he knew nobody at the club!

Newton Abbot Club did very well at the Digital projected Images Competition held in Exeter on Sunday 19th February, coming third in a hard fought battle with 50 clubs from the South-West. Nine members from Newton had images to be judged, and our top entries were Chris Marsham's "Antarctic Magic" with 14 points out of 15, and Paula Graham's "Chaffinch on teasel" with 13 points. Our overall mark of 220 points put us 3 points behind Devizes in 2nd place and 12 points behind winners Plymouth. This is our best result since we won in 2008.

Our latest exhibition at Stover Country Park was very well received and we look forward to our next one, coming soon!

Our speakers for the 14th February were the 'Devon 11'. Eleven photographers with very different styles showing their work with 5 prints and 5 digital images each. We were treated to a fine display of top images (including many award winners) covering Nature, Wildlife, Abstract, Creative, Portraiture and Landscape, each photographer having a recognisable and individual style.

The Photographic Alliance of Great Britain held the Great British Cup Open section on 11th February and Newton Abbot came 14th out of aprox 140 clubs. This was the highest score by a club from the Western area of Great Britain with club member Gordon Aspland gaining an outstanding average for his 3 images, "Camel Estuary", "Street singers" and "Tango dancers".

The 12th February saw the PAGB Nature section of the GB Cup and here we managed a creditable 22nd place out of 124 clubs entered. This was a vast improvement from 2011 when we managed 45th. Top images were from Philip Gill with 15 points (the maximum) for his "grey seal pup", 14 points to Chris Marsham for his "Antarctic magic" and 13 points for new member Richard Garvey-Williams for his "sparring hippos"

Prize winner

Huge congratulations to Club Chairman Christopher Marsham who won the Wildlife section of The Independent Traveller and Wanderlust competition on 3rd February. With a prize of a trip to Columbia for Chris and a partner  it was certainly worth entering. Chris made the finals last year so perseverance paid off. His winning image will be in The Independent  on Friday 10th February.

Presidents' night at the club on Feb 7th featured a talk by prize-winning photographers David and Mary Cantrille. A large selection of their wildlife and travel photographs were on display by this Dorset-based husband and wife team who will be part of the judging panel for our International Salon. David also had two images in the final of the Wanderlust Wildlife competition but was pipped to the post by Chris Marsham (see above).

The Club managed a respectable 5th place in a competition run by Advanced Photographer magazine. Our heat-winning image was taken by Paula Graham and will be featured in March's edition of the magazine, and is shown further-on in this News letter.

Paignton Zoo Exhibition Prize-Winner

The winner of the draw at our Exhibition in January was James Squire from Torquay, seen on the left receiving his prize print of Philip Gill's "Barn Owl" from Club Publicity Officer Chris Brown. On the right he receives two free tickets to the zoo plus an animal adoption pack from Samantha Branch, the zoo's Marketing Manager. Many thanks to all those who entered. The most popular choice was "Portrait of a Leopard,Kenya" taken by Richard Garvey-Wiliams

The fourth monthly club competition was held on 24th January with a slightly reduced entry, probably due to the themed nature of this months competition. This didn't detract from the quality of the work entered and the judge for the evening, Keith Monroe from Paignton, had a hard job in hand.

Congratulations go to Jo Clayton who won Gold for her Print 'Teamwork' in the cooperation section.  Richard Garvey-Williams who won Gold for his amazing reflection of a moth in the DPI section, and Chris Marsham who won Gold for his reflection of Bruges in DPI.

January 17th was an in-club demo evening on the wonders of Photoshop, and how various club members put their work together. These evenings are very useful for beginners to Photoshop, but also serve to remind more experienced members what they've forgotten!

January 10th saw three club members speaking about their photography and interests. Alex showed us part of a huge collection of late19th-early 20th century photos connected with his family, and it was interesting to note how exposure times had changed from 1870 onwards. Phil eventually got to show us his ARPS panel and talked about his interests in Natural History, and Mark took us scuba diving. All-in-all a very different and entertaining evening.

Our 70th Anniversary Exhibition at Paignton Zoo got under way with the official opening by top photographer David Clapp.

The Exhibition runs from 7th-22nd January and entry to the exhibition is free (normal Zoo admission charges apply)

Top photographer and journalist David Clapp opens the Exhibition	Club Chairman Chris Marsham with the Zoo's Phil Knowling and David Clapp	The Zoo's foyer with exhibition stands
	Two of the Club's longest serving members, Geoff and Jean Ashworth, cut the 70th Anniversary cake

After entering the Advanced Photographer Magazine competition for the last 7 months, the club has a winner with Paula Graham's picture "An Exceptional Winter" (shown here) which has won the Creative Winter section for the club and will be published in the March edition of the magazine. A number of club members will now be able to go to Epson's hq and have a day of advanced printing techniques with top print workers and photographers from around the country, and try to win a host of Epson goodies for the club. Congrats to Paula who has entered every round of the competition, and whose hard work has finally paid off with this picture.

Congratulations to Richard Taylor on getting his first half-page picture spread in The Western Morning News on Monday, 12th December. See more of Richard's images on his Flickr page on our Flickr site Richard now tells me he had three half-page spreads of his photos in one week, so multiple congrats!

The 13th of December saw us half-way through the season, and the club is closed now until 3rd January. 42 members attended the last night of the half-season with 24 images entered into the triptych competition. 3rd place went to Rowland White with his architectural images, 2nd to Pete Browning with images of the stunt motorcycle riders from the Devon County Show, and 1st place to Trevor Ashford with his 3 stages of a Clematis flower altered with the Fractalius filter. Mulled wine and food were followed by the raffle with 7 prizes up for grabs. Thanks to Phil Gill, Jo Clayton, Jude Yates and Chris Marsham for donating some of the prizes. Apologies to those members who wanted to know where their images had come in the triptych judging, but unfortunately the totals got lost somewhere during the evening...it must have been the mulled wine!!

Please remember the new rules for the monthly competitions, and checkout the "For Sale" page for some new items.

The committee would like to wish all past, present and future members a very happy Christmas and a peaceful New Year.

Round three of the internal club competition was held on 6th December.Again a heavy entry meant only two DPIs were entered per person. Gold awards for prints went to: Alan Boothman with his incredibly detailed "Miami Open", Mark Shuttleworth with "Edge of the World" and Paula Graham with "Mondrian Museum". The DPI gold awards were for: "Defiance" from Philip Gill, "Sweet and Sour" from Mark Shuttleworth, "Bonus Lake" from Keith Choules, and "Thurlestone rocks" by Richard Garvey-Williams.

The first round of the South Devon league was held at the club on 29th November. This was the print section, with 14 prints from each of the 4 clubs up for judging. Judge Brian Galbreith had a hard job on his hands, but finally picked Newton Abbot's Christina Burton with her 'Mandrill' as the overall winner, with Philip Gill from Newton in third place with his 'Puffin with sandeels'. John Wickett from Exmouth was second with 'The dinosaur's tail'. We go in to the DPI section at Exmouth on 20th April with:Exmouth in first place on 215 points, Newton Abbot in 2nd with 206,Crediton 3rd with 191 and Dawlish &Teignmouth 4th with 178 points.

Something about a giraffe?

November 21st saw the visit to the club of acclaimed wildlife photographer, Andy Rouse. 185 members from numerous photographic clubs in the South-West were treated to a fabulous two hours of photographs from Andy's travels around the world with often hilarious commentary. We were privileged to have a speaker with Andy's pedigree come to the club,and even more privileged to see some of his newest work, which was truly astounding. I think everyone left with the ambition to improve their wildlife photography, and to try some of his techniques. To see more of Andy's work go to  www.andyrouse.co.uk

November 15th saw the first round of the Master Photographer Competition. The interest in this competition was seriously underestimated and saw 30 members enter 3 prints each over 4 categories. As the score sheet only expected 20 entries, it became impossible to get a result on the evening so Gordon has taken the voting slips home to do an accurate count (and to get a Cartographer to decipher some of the hieroglyphics!) Overall there were some very impressive images, and it was gratifying to see so many new members entering.Results are on the Master Photographer page on this website.

Amazingly we had 52 members and one guest on this evening, the highest number of members ever attending a club night. Everyone seemed to enjoy the evening, and we look forward to part two of this competition in March,2012. Interestingly, last weeks club night which was the critique of the WCPF also-rans collection, only attracted 39 members which was the lowest total of members this season. Perhaps we'd rather see the WCPF winners?

There are only a few tickets left for Andy Rouse next Monday, so if you haven't got yours yet, ring me NOW. 01803 812779

Round two of the club competition was held on 1st November with Clive Figes judging. Another very heavy entry meant that yet again, the third digital entry was omitted from the judging. Clive gave some very helpful critiques, but emphasized that it was only his opinion how the entries were marked.

Gold awards went to the following prints:

'Loitering' by Alan Boothman

'Orchid Study' by Christina Burton

'Street Singers Lincoln' by Gordon Aspland

And Gold for the following DPI's

'Barbican by night' by Christina Burton

'Chaffinch and Teazel' by Paula Graham

'Four in a bed' by new member Mike Last.

Well done to all, particularly Christina with 3 golds from the first two competitions.

A very enjoyable evening was had by over 40 club members on 25th October with the visit of guest speaker Andy Beel. Andy's talk was all about the Ethiopia that we don't see on the news. What made it particularly interesting was that Andy only showed prints, in A3 and A2 sizes, and they were all in black and white (or slightly toned). Exceptional portraits and candid shots gave way to religious shots and people at work or school, and Andy was not shy about passing on tips to improve our black and white photography.

It also made a refreshing change to be in the main hall of the Courtenay Centre, and although we might have looked a little lost in there, it gave us room to breathe and spread out which is not so possible in our normal meeting room.

 Newton Abbot strike again

 The four-way battle between Ivybridge, Kingsbridge,  Plymouth and Newton Abbot was held at Ivybridge on 18th October.We just pipped Plymouth to the shield by scoring 356 points to Plymouth's 351, whilst Ivybridge scored 314 and Kingsbridge 311.

Paula Graham scored 2x 27s with '3 abreast' and 'Racing on the beach'. Geoff Ashworth scored a 27 with 'Watching' and Phil Gill scored 2x 25s with 'River Dart in flood' and 'Barn Owl hunting at dawn'.

Newton Abbot Chairman, Chris Marsham, receives the  

Shield from Keith Miller Chairman of Ivybridge club.                               

The critique evening on 11th October was a great success with 42 members attending and 3 prospective members.Most brought 2 images to be examined and it is gratifying to see that new members (and our 3 prospects) brought work for the first time. Indeed, when it came for the time to pick the most interesting work from each of the 7 tables set up, new members work got the best showing. Well done to: Sue M, Alex G, Richard G-W, Pippa T, John H, Mike L, Roy B, Martin T, Ruth T, Wendy S and Mary who are all new to the club and had their work brought to everyone's attention. (My apologies if I missed anyone)

The Club's first competition of the season was held on the 4th October and a huge entry was received for this.Time constraints meant that all digital images numbered '3' had to be omitted. Judge Barrie Bluer had some excellent images to choose from and had to invent a new category of 'almost'  to avoid having a vast number of HCs. Full results will appear on the Internal Competitions page, but the following all won Gold:

Prints: Christina Burton for "Mandrill"

             Janet Buckley  for "Early morning in Alesund-Sptzbergen

             Philip Gill      for  "Common Blue"

             Trevor Ashford  for  "Belly Dancers"

DPI:     Alan Boothman  for  "Feliciano Lopez"

            Chris Marsham  for  "Holiday Snaps"

            Meg Pickup   for  "Stable fly on Calendula

             Paula Graham  for  "PomPom"

Sadly we have to report the death of Paul Stevens at the age of 92. Paul was a legendary photographer in the South Devon area with a life long interest in all aspects of the craft. He was still attending the Club until our last meeting of the previous season and we looked forward to seeing him again this season. So keen was he that he was a member of Newton Abbot, Torbay and Paignton Camera Clubs and had been for 60 years...a total of 180 years of camera club meetings! He leaves a vast portfolio of photographs which have been split between the three clubs, and our portion will eventually enter our archives.

The Club Outings season got under way with a visit to the Town Criers competition in Newton Abbot on 10th September. Mark Shuttleworth writes 

"Always a fascinating event, this year was no exception.  Fabulous costumes, colourful (in every sense) characters and lots of opportunity for candids - both the competitors and the crowds.  Although start of season and lightly attended, it got the outings season off to a good start."

Mark also writes about a very special trip to a Preston Manor Quarry on Monday, 3rd October, limited to 8 places.

"In a first for the club, we arranged through Sibelco to visit their South Acre and White Pit quarries at the Preston Manor site between Kingsteignton and Chudleigh Knighton.  Devon Ball Clay Quarries Manager, Richard Giles, couldn't have been more helpful and constructive in helping us organise the trip.  
Richard also put two dedicated landrovers at our disposal for the afternoon.  These were driven by our wonderfully helpful and informative guides Steve Eddy and Darrin Hewins.  Both put themselves at our beck and call, taxi-ing us wherever we wanted to go (and stop).  They also provided a mine (sorry) of information about the quarry, it's history (from 30 million years ago to yesterday) and its operation.
The biggest problem in the event was dragging the photographers away from each awesome photographic opportunity so that we could move on to another one.  Three hours flew by.  In that time, I suspect we took three to four thousand images between eight of us.
Without exception we were all blown away by the novel image potential and very impressed by how willing the Sibelco staff were to put themselves out for us.  We planned to finish at 17:30 with an option to stretch to 18:00 "if it was interesting".  We had to drag ourselves away at 18:30 so that poor Steve and Darrin could go home and get their dinner.
By way of thanks, we shall be collecting some of the images together to give to Sibelco for use around their offices, on internal leaflets and perhaps their safety calendar etc.
So, an excellent outing all round.  We will be planning another - probably in the spring - so watch this space as places are limited and believe me they will go fast next time."

Chris Brown writes about the Autumn Steam Gala on 30th September

"Six members of the club took part last week in our third outing to theWest Somerset Railway. The occasion was the railway's Autumn Steam Gala when eight different steam locomotives were running, including some rarities visiting from other preserved lines. An intensive timetable was in operation and photographic opportunities were many during the day,
enhanced by the warm and sunny conditions. Full advantage was taken of the magnificent scenery through which the trains travel. Plans are already afoot for our next visit to the line in March 2012."

The first Western Counties Photographic Federation (WCPF) Members Projected Image Competition was held on 4th September in Exeter, and congratulations to Paula Graham who not only calibrated the projector and laptop to the highest standard, but also took the photos on the day and found time to win Gold for her image "Flat racing on beach", and a ribbon for "Second Glance" in the General section. Alan Boothman took a ribbon for "Escape" and Lynn Buckley a VHC for "Northern Winter". In the 'Creative' section Alan took a ribbon for "Slide Guitar Action" and a VHC for "Musicians Hall of Fame". In the 'Nature' section Paula took a ribbon for "Dalmatian Pelican and Catch"

For the past 3 or 4 years the Club has been saving to purchase new equipment and during the summer after much consideration, the money was spent. We now have a top-quality Canon projector and a laptop that enables us to project in HD and at 1400 x 1050 dpi. Along with a new screen, and specialised competition software for the laptop, the difference between our old equipment and the new is vast and many favourable comments have been heard. Plaudits must go to Alan and Paula for the time spent in calibrating and setting up the equipment to the highest standard. Incidentally, Paula is now on the Executive committee of the WCPF as the DPIC secretary, a testament to her projection skills.