Castleton & Hope Valley Photographic Society

Overall C&HVPS  did remarkably well for such a relatively small club, as we punched well above our weight. Les Nixon’s superb image got through to the semi-final round, before being knocked out when a handful of images were selected to go ‘head to head’ in the final round.

Our final club score was further elevated, as Steve Elliott’s ‘Alien’ light painting image got through to one to one of the later middle rounds, when by then 2/3rds of the DPI images had been eliminated. When Sheffield PS send us the club scores I’ll update the website.

Reaching Out by Les Nixon

Alien by Steve Elliott

Missed it by Ian Ord

Street advertising by Ian Stanyon

Phantom Trees by Kate Brown

Roger Moore’s infra-red DPI: The Great Ridge from Hollowford

was selected in the event of a tiebreak between two clubs – but we didn’t get to the tiebreak stage.

Ann, our bubbly and enthusiastic Chairman, through the medium of our website, would like to thank Steve Elliot for organising a hugely enjoyable and highly successful ‘hands-on’ workshop light-painting evening. Steve is a long-term member of our club, and is justifiably famous both throughout the Hope Valley and afar, for his spectacular landscape images. However, Steve has another string to his many photographic bows, and is now building up a reputation for his light-painting images.

Steve had been asked to give a workshop to members, so he could pass on light-painting tips and experience he’s gained. A goodly percentage of C&HVPS members assembled, with cameras and tripods, under clear skies, at Hope Sports Club on a chilly March evening. Steve had clearly devoted considerable time and effort in preparing for his workshop, bringing a range of equipment he uses when he creates light-painting images. Including various shapes of Perspex light-wands, LED lights, whisks to encompass wire wool (which is ignited and spun around – outdoors only!), LED torches capable of producing different coloured light beams, etc.

Those who were new to light-painting were fascinated to watch and learn from Steve, as he patiently and methodically illustrated how members should set up their cameras, as he demonstrated the equipment he’d either made or bought. The first part of the workshop evening was held indoors, then members trooped outside to the sports field, set up their cameras and tripods and stood fascinated as Steve whirled lights and burning wire-wool around, allowing members to capture the earlier indoor and then outdoor images illustrated at the bottom of this webpage.

Upon returning indoors, Alan Hinchcliffe, who also has expertise in light-painting set up a ‘light-wand’ he’d made. Which when photographed using a long exposure or ‘live composite mode’ displayed the name of our photographic society in coloured lights. Many thanks to Jessica, who stood stock still both indoors and outdoor, as Steve whirled lights around, allowing members to practice the art of light-painting. A selection of these images are shown below:

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This meeting was really all about our popular and highly respected Past President – the late Peter Harrison. Here’s a selection of Peter’s images – transcribed from transparencies into digital format by Ray Fowler. Details covering the evening are shown after the selection of Peter’s images shown below:

Ann opened the meeting by welcoming members and the significant numbers of guests from Castleton and around. Ann announced that next month’s meeting (Thursday April 13^th) would be split into two groups. The first group would meet at Treak Cavern at 1900. However, as the approach to Treak Cavern is steep some members may wish to join the second group at our normal venue at 1930. There Ian & Christine will show DPI’s of the images they took during their recent visit to Myanmar.

Ian S then announced that there were three events, which should be of interest to members. 1 An opportunity to photograph contestants in the exiting knockout competition: the Howard Street Duel. 2 A photography day with Parkour Athletes, to meet these athletes for part or the whole day at Parkhill flats, Sheffield. 3 An opportunity to photograph indoor and outdoor dance workshops in Leeds. Please contact Ian S for further information.

The main event of the evening was a tribute to Peter, with a celebration of Peter’s life and photography. Peter & Ray were founder members of our photographic society.

Ray had made arrangements to access 6,000+ of Peter’s photographs (in transparency format) to gradually digitise and file the images for posterity. And to give Peter’s family and Castleton Historical Society access to scanned in versions of Peter’s images – taken over 50 years. Hence the significant number of visitors to our meeting.

The evening was broken into three parts: 1 Ray’s presentation of a number of scanned in images Peter had taken over many years. 2 A short presentation by one of Peter’s daughter, Vicky, using some of the images Ray had scanned into a digital format. This led to many of the family and other locals from Castleton discussing the images, and reminiscing, as the DPI’s were projected on the screen. 3 Ray had carefully selected some of Peter’s images, turning them into a representation of one of Peter’s famous quizzes. For many years Peter’s quizzes had been one of the highlights of our annual Christmas parties.

A group of us (Kate, Keith, Jason, Erica and Ian S) visited the NEMPF exhibition in Nottinghamshire over the weekend to look at some pretty spectacular photographs and also to find out a bit more about what our society could do entering images in future exhibitions. 

The standard of photography is very high and the winners of the various categories (both print and Digital) are of the highest calibre.  Images submitted to the exhibition first needed to be judged as suitable for hanging and once selected were then considered for the various awards and commendations.  Where would our members photographs sit?  Well we certainly have a good enough standard to get photos through the initial suitability selection.  The standard of the winners is very high and we would have our work cut out to win awards, however, it is not beyond our members’ capabilities to produce the standard of image to push for these accolades.

We aim to select images from CHVPS members for entering in the next annual exhibition later this year.  We will be putting together some guidelines for members to consider once we have details of entry requirements and categories.  Hopefully members will get to see the exhibition but if not we may rent a copy of the official DVD from this year’s competition for us to look at either on a club evening or one of the informal evenings?  If anybody would like to find out more then get in touch with Jason or Ian S.

Take a look at http://www.nempf.org/

Chill winds and bitterly cold Hope Valley weather greeted members as they assembled for our 13th AGM on 12th January 2017. We remembered that our 89 year old founder member and President, Peter Harrison, passed away last year. Our new President, Ray Fowler, formally appointed at this AGM, is assembling a digital record of the best of the 6,000+ transparency images Peter snapped. A fitting historical record of Peter’s work, who was (amongst other offices) was also the President of Castleton’s Historical Society.

2016 was the second year that Kate Brown has presided as Chairman of C&HVPS. Kate’s a talented photographer and has steered our photo society with significant skill over the past 12 months – despite the fact that Kate is suffering a challenging illness. Ann Smith, formally took the reins of office as Kate handed over to our 14th Chairman. Ann has a bubbly personality and her past photographic presentations to members have always been interesting, illuminating and fun!

Secretary Jason, President Ray & Chairman Kate concentrating on AGM formalities:

Past Chairman  Kate welcomes our new Chairman Ann:

Keith Brown takes notes as hands are raised in favour of Ann being our Chairman  for 2017:

Then ‘prize-giving’ time, as President Ray presents certificates to the winners of our 2016 Annual Competition (only some of the winners are shown below):

Following the formalities Ann gave us a presentation of the images she’d taken during December 2106. A tricky ask, as Ann took a photo every day; but December proved to be full of mist and rain. Here’s three of the images from the many images Ann present that evening:

A good turn out again; not quite the violent storm of the last meeting. The availability of oven baked pizza, a drink and social are continuing to prove popular and of course all club members are welcome to join us on this fun and informative evening.

The evening was broken into two halves; firstly we were entertained to a collection of images put forward by members Nick, Janis, Alison, Ian S, and Steve with many different interpretations on the theme of creative lighting.

After a short interlude, Nick introduced us to a practical demonstration using off camera flash. Thank you Nick for entertaining us with the whys, the wherefores and the pitfalls of flash photography.

In response to a request from the pizza team, the challenge for the next informal evening is ‘Pizza Night’, where members will be given the opportunity to take and develop creative photographs for the purpose of promoting the business

First the admin – if you are looking for details for our forthcoming Christmas party, click here:  http://www.hopevalleyphotosociety.co.uk/?page_id=1723

And now to details of our meeting, where everyone enjoyed a new style of evening at the club when members were asked to submit 5 pictures on a theme of their choice. We had an excellent response and a variety of themes were submitted, from 14 members, making for a very enjoyable evening.

The themes were projected in alphabetical order of title and the identity of the authors remained anonymous until after the break. The three Chairman: Past (Jason ) Present (Kate) and Future (Ann), were asked to make comments but sadly Kate was dismayed to miss the meeting, but it had been strongly suggested, by Weston Park Hospital, that she stay with them overnight! Kate’s husband Keith stood in for her.Here’s one example of each of the five images submitted by:

Autumn by Jason Dietsch

Back(s) in Indochina by Ian Ord

Charolais Cows by Alison Johnson

Daylight Robbery at Silverton by Ray Fowler

Grandchildren by Pat Fowler

Infra Red Landscapes by Roger Moore

Landscapes by Les Nixon

Light Painting by Steve Elliott

Macclesfield Salt Mill by Janis Ibbotson

Portmeirion by Keith Brown

Waterfalls as Watercolours by Erica Dietsch

Wonders of Nature by Ian Stanyon

Yorkshire Sculpture Park by Kate Brown

After the break the authors names were revealed and they made their own comments on their choice of themes and photographs. Steve Elliott surprised everyone and we were delighted when he offered to demonstrate his stunning Light Paintings to the club next season. Thank you to all the authors; to Ann and Jason for their comments and to Alan for projecting the photographs.

Images by Les Nixon DPAGB BPE4*

Kate, Ian S and Erica made the following announcements:

Arrangements will be made to allow members of our club to enter the NEMPF 2017 competition. Images from the 2016 competition can be viewed at the NEMPF exhibition at: Patchings Art Centre, Calverton between 7 Jan 2017 & 19th Feb 2017.

Rules for the 2017 competition are posted on our website under the following link: http://www.hopevalleyphotosociety.co.uk/?page_id=1709 these rules will be displayed in the first line of our website’s menu bar until the date of handing in competition entries.

The next meeting on Nov 10th will be 5 Pictures on a Theme – These will be images taken by members, following the theme shown above. The five pictures must be related to each other in some way. Please give the set of five images a Title.   We want the authors to remain anonymous so please do not put your name on the filename, just the order you would like them projected and then the title. e.g. (a) Autumn in Castleton, (b) Winter in the Hope Valley., etc.

Kate, Ann and Jason (or their nominees) will make comments on the images. After all the sets have been shown Kate will reveal the names of the authors who will be invited to tell us something about the pictures if they wish to do so.   Submit digital files (not prints) to Keith either on memory stick, CD or by email (Max 1 mb per image) keithbrownfrps@btinternet.com. If this is not possible please bring your images on the night with each image filename correctly annotated as above. If you have any questions please contact Keith by email or phone – 01433 621072.

 
Ian S announced that the next informal meeting of members will be held at the Angler’s Rest Bamford on the evening of 15^th November. The theme will be ‘Creative lighting’. Click on this link if you’d like to see images from the last informal meeting: http://www.hopevalleyphotosociety.co.uk/?p=1693

Erica gave details of the Christmas dinner, to be held at The Rising Sun on 8^th December – members and their partners are eligible to celebrate this party – please send Erica your orders by or on 10^th November, as Erica needs to send orders to the Rising Sun by November 11^th. (Note from Ian O – I’ll pop the full details onto the website in the near future.)

Les Nixon DPAGB BPE4* then entertained us to his presentation entitled: ‘A Golden Ticket – 11,000 miles in 6 weeks’.

The surprise (for me – and others) being that all of these images were all transparencies (shown on a 25 year-old projector) taken 52 years ago, when Les and his wife drove an incredible 11,000 miles around the USA in a hire car. Les & his wife made their epic drive around the States in summer 1964, starting and finishing at New York, visiting a huge number of national monuments and national parks en-route. Les told us that when the agent for the car hire company checked the hire car’s mileage on return of the hire car, he nearly passed out!

We’ve all seen and enjoyed seeing Les’s DPI’s and competition prints in the recent past, and all members know that Les is a highly skilled photographer, with a real eye for a picture. But what many of us didn’t know that Les had already developed his photographic technical skills and his eye for a picture over 52 years ago.

Sadly I can’t show you my favourite picture, taken by Les at 0600 from a tent in Monument Valley, at the height of a storm. Two lightening strikes fell each side of a mesa, with low glowering clouds lit by the lightening, and the mesas silhouetted against the stormy sky. A testament to Les’s skills are that he took this using Kodak 25 ASA film – I doubt that given 100 attempts on my modern digital camera I could have produced an image with 5% of the quality or visual impact of Les’s image.

Filling the Frame – September 2016

A good turnout as usual with members and guests alike braving the violent thunderstorm and spouting drains to look at ‘Filling the frame’ images for the evening. Pretty much everybody enjoyed devouring the pizzas available from the travelling pizza oven, even those who turned up later could not avoid eating one.

The evening was split into two halves as usual looking at a range of photographs from the club’s members Alison, Janis, Ian S, Sue, Nick and David and the opportunity to offer critique, a useful tool to see how images could be shown differently.

There was the usual vote to select the next theme; after some discussion and modification the next meeting’s theme is to be: ‘Using light in the image’. This could be flash, natural light or any other way in which the author could use light to enhance their image.

All society members and their guests are welcome to join in this low key, fun evening over a pizza and a drink accompanied by lovely images and general banter and gossip.