Castleton & Hope Valley Photographic Society

Firstly, if you’ve forgotten that on Good Friday evening it’s our AV night at Losehill Hall. Look at the header on or website (above) to refresh your memory. Without doubt it’s going to be a great night, with an opportunity to see AV’s from some of the most talented photographers in our club: K & K, Steve,  etc., etc. Contact Keith or me (Ian) to secure your places, as quite genuinely I’m nervous that the theatre at YHA’s Losehill Hall will be filled to capacity – or more!

 Secondly, we are now members of North East Midland’s Photographic Federation (NEMPF). Along with third party insurance, we can draw upon a huge range and number of talented photographers. Kate & Keith are working hard to secure some of these talented photographers to present their work to us at club meeting later on in our continuing programme. The committee are also working hard to  find some new and interesting places to visit for social/photographic days and evenings. So if you have any ideas please contact Kate.

Thirdly, our meeting in May will also include members handing in their three images. So start looking for your best images (mix and match to suit your best images) depicting ‘General’, ‘Streetscene’ themes & ‘Monochrome’. We’ll be announcing further details soon. Your competition images can be in portrait or landscape format, A3 or A4 . But no A3+ sizes this year please as Ray & his cohorts will be mounting these exhibition prints for later display on our newly bought display boards.

If you couldn’t attend the March meeting, you missed a visual feast and lots of information, as we had our Middle East expats Paul McGreavy and Wendy Butler who’ve returned hot foot from their time in Oman. Wendy spent the first half of the evening showing us how she combined her love of  painting (using mixed media) with photography, using ‘Irfan View’.

I was really looking forward to this presentation, as when I was assembling images for Roger Moore and the 2014 YearBook and opened Wendy’s submission I was metaphorically speaking, blown away by the image Wendy had submitted.  And now I know how Wendy turned her two different artistic talents into the image. Which led me to ask Wendy & Paul to visit us, so Christine & I could see more of her work. I can’t relate how Wendy used Irfan View, as I was too captivated to take notes. But three of Wendy’s images, incorporated into this post will speak louder than my words.

Then Paul, who admitted to being fascinated by desserts and the Middle East since he’d read Seven Pillars of Wisdom when he was a youngster, gave us his presentation. Some time ago Paul was given the opportunity to work in the Oman and Paul grasped this opportunity with both hands.

Paul’s talks about Oman, his travels around the country, and of course the people, held everyone’s attention. If you weren’t at the meeting you’ll just have to take my word – but you missed some great images and a fascinating talk.

 

 

 

February’s meeting was a very successful members’ meeting looking at images relating to Street Scenes. 11 members submitted 118 images for appraisal and there were plenty of interesting comments from club members! All the images were well received and the evening went very quickly. These images were from….

Hazel Watson “Bikes”.

Les Nixon “Bus”

Roger Moore “couple”

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Announcements on the evening included reminding members about the AV night on Friday 25 March 2016 at 7.30pm at YHA Losehill Hall, Castleton. Roger Moore showed us examples and spoke about the new 2015 Year Book available via Ian Ord on email. Kate also told the club about the Inter Club Digital Knockout Competition at St Luke’s Church, Sheffield, on Saturday 2 April, 7.15 for 7.30pm and whether we want to enter this year. The general feeling from the club was yes we do want to enter and the committee will select an entry from the submitted entries.

Images by Kate Brown     

This was the club’s first meeting of 2016, I’ll post a copy of the coming year’s programme on the website in the next few days. It was also Jason’s last meeting of 2015 as chairman and (following AGM formalities) Kate’s new year as chairman. Jason covered the many highlights of his year and handed over to President Peter, who conducted the AGM.

The most relevant points discussed during the AGM covered the fact that the committee felt that: 1. The club should now have third party insurance; 2. That members should consider the club being affiliated, through the North & East Midlands Photographic Federation (N&EMPF) organisation with the Photographic Alliance of Great Britain (PAGB). Membership gives third party insurance cover at a discount, and significantly lower than is available on the open market. Affiliation also means that we have access to a range of talented photographers and speakers, who will not charge fees, instead only charging travelling expenses, when they make a presentation to our club. In addition we can obtain CD’s for use at club meetings; attend various meetings organised though the PAGB; enter into regional competitions; obtain advice and apply for photographic qualifications; etc. Members considered the proposal and voted to accept the committee’s recommendations.

I gave a pen-portrait of our income and expenditure for the year, making comparisons with the previous financial year. I recommended that annual subscriptions be increased by £2 p.a. to £24 and that visitor’s fees be raised from £3 to £4. It is hoped that the increased income will allow us (over time) to purchase a new projector. As the club’s projector doesn’t do justice to our images – the difference between the images on the computer screen and those projected are startling!

Our chairman for 2016, Kate,  gave a short introductory speech and reminded members that the window for members to submit their 2105 YearBook image to Roger Moore is soon to close. Instructions on how to pass these images to either Roger or me are shown at the header of this website. Keith ran through the programme for 2016, and reminded members that if they wanted to submit up to five compressed (1-1.5Mb) images covering the theme of street-scenes, email them to him, or pass them over via a memory stick. These images will be shown during February’s meeting and will gave an ideal opportunity for feedback, prior to this year’s annual competition. This year’s themes are Street-scenes, General and Monochrome (B&W). Then our new chairman Kate showed a range of images she’d taken over the past year – four examples are incorporated within this web-post

 

Our Chairman, Jason opened the meeting by welcoming everyone and covered the following:

• The next informal evening will be at The Angler’s Rest. David Allwood will announce the date of the evening in the near future, but it’s likely to be Jan or Feb 2016. The theme will be ‘Weather’, so start looking for weather images. Our last theme evening at the Angler’s Rest was ‘Movement’. Check out a selection of these images by clicking here: http://www.hopevalleyphotosociety.co.uk/?p=1265
• We are going to continue with the tradition of having a YearBook covering a favourite image taken by (hopefully) each member during the current year. Roger Moore will send an email to each member in the near future. I’ll place instructions on our website. Members should think about the image they’d like to have in the 2015 YearBook. The deadline for submitting your favourite image (preferably taken during 2015) is 17^th January 2016;
• This year’s Christmas party will be on 10^th December 2015, at the YHA’s Losehill Hall, Castleton Road, It’s a fantastic location, set in the grounds of a palatial old hall. I’ve shown the menu at the bottom of this post. So if you haven’t submitted your order, print out the menu and send your order to Erica;
• Ian Stanyon has volunteered to dress the Christmas tree at Castleton with small Christmas tags; with each tag containing a printed image submitted by many  C&HVPS members. Make sure you checkout the tree and Ian’s hard work;
• Equally, why don’t you checkout the display of member’s images Ray Fowler has put in the Evelyn Medical Centre, Marsh Lane, Hope. Ray’s mounted these images on our new 120 degree six sided display board;
• Sheffield PS is holding an exhibition at Sheffield’s Winter Gardens. The exhibition finishes on 15^th November – so there’s not much time left;
• The Rotary Club of Hope Valley is holding a Grand Christmas Charity Concert at Hope Valley College on the evening of Friday 27^th Tickets are £10 each. Contact Keith Brown for tickets or further information.

Our Chairman, Jason opened the meeting by welcoming everyone and covered the following:

• Sheffield City Council have organised a Cityscapes photography day, commencing at 1000 Saturday 10^th This may be an opportunity to prepare for taking some Streetscene images for our 2016 competition! Contact Ian Stanyon for further details.
• Ray Fowler will be arranging for some of the print images, loaned by him to by members, to be displayed for one week at Hope’s Evelyn Medical Centre. Ray will use our newly purchased boards to display these mainly A3 printed images. There’s a possibility that these boards and printed images will then be displayed in Hathersage’s Medical Centre.
• A new venue for our 2015 Christmas Party – Losehill Hall – set midway between Hope and Castleton! A few weeks ago I (Ian O) met the manager, Alistair and ‘sounded out’ the venue, facilities, price options, menu options, etc. Later Jason and Erica visited so that they could approve the venue and facilities. In the near future Erica will email all members giving further details, including a menu with choices (including vegetarian options).
• Roger has once again kindly agreed to compile and format script, etc., to enable us to have yet another YearBook. There’ll be a slight change to this year’s format to further improve the visual impact. The ‘landscape’ format of the book will favour this format, but don’t let this put you off from submitting your entry in a ‘portrait’ format. It’s hoped that each member will submit an image taken in 2015 OR members could use the image they used for our New York – C&HVPS photo exchange (I have a database of all of these images).
• If you’d like an updated head and shoulders passport style photograph to be used for the upcoming Yearbook OR if you are a new member and I don’t have a copy of your photograph, please email this image to me. In the near future Jason will arrange for an email, giving detailed information, to be sent to all members.

The main event of the evening was an exhibition of some 90 digital images and 6 printed images. Jason, Kate and Keith gave an appraisal of the images. The evening gave an opportunity for our most accomplished photographers to share (up to 6) of their favourite images. Whilst aspiring members who haven’t such experience or technical skills were able to receive positive feedback and advice on the images shown.

I thought I would share this here as an example of how things are moving on. they are not meant to be particularly good examples of photography, more a representation of a new way of thinking about photography and how technology keeps changing and how we need to keep re-evaluating how we think about photography.

 

you can read more about the lytro Illum here and see some better examples from more accomplished photographers than myself by following this link here

 

We had a fairly informal evening sharing a glass and some photo’s at the Angler’s Rest on Monday. the discussion was lively and i know i took a lot from the evening with new angles and techniques. here are the images we studied all taken by our own members.

Jason gave details of one of two potential dates for a visit to Yorkshire Sculpture Park, when the leaves will be turning from greens to rich reds and golds. The  dates dates on offer are either 3^rd or 10^th October. Please contact Jason, giving him your preferred date and also if you’d be prepared to share your car with other members.

Last Monday’s evening at the Angler’s Rest, organized by David Allwood, was another success, where a group of members shared images of musical instruments and talked generally about photography. I’ll put these images on our website in the near future. The next social evening where members can meet, share images and discuss photography will be Monday November 2^nd at The Anglers Rest. The theme will be ‘movement’ and various ways of expressing speed, blurring of images, etc., to create the best artistic effect. 

David, Ian S, Bea, Alison, Erica, Kate & Nick, showed members their images in a ‘Beat the Clock format – with the ‘gong’ sounding after 10 minutes. David ‘s theme covered ‘Street scenes”; Ian’s thee covered the deciption of movement and speed;Bea showed 90 images all taken in her house or garden.

 

 

 

Alison showed images of her holiday in Botswana; Kate treated us to a selection of images she’d taken on a ‘photographic day out in Liverpool; Erica covered images taken in and around Monterey in California.

 

 

 

 

 

Nick showed us images of concerts he’d attended. Often taking images in very low light at ISO 12,000. Then Nick played us an extract of his favourite group – Girls band – leaving us with the impression that Nick’s a middle aged groupie!

I’m deeply saddened to announce the sad loss of Catherine, a past member of our Photographic Society. Catherine was the much loved wife of club member David, and mother to her young sons Robert & Freddie. Catherine lost her battle with a long illness on the morning of Friday 4th September. Our thoughts go with  David, Robert & Freddie, along with Catherine’s sister Erica, Jason and the family.

Catherine’s funeral is to be held at 11.30.a.m on Wednesday 16th September at Hathersage Church of England Church (the one on the hill near the school) . Catherine requested that people DO NOT wear black – she wants the service to be a Thanks Giving and Celebration service not a memorial service.

Catherine requested NO flowers from friends, she would like people to consider giving a donation instead. Parking is going to be restricted at the church so if possible please can people park elsewhere in the village and walk up to the Church either via Baulk Lane or via Church Bank.

The service is to be followed by Tea and Cake, which will be held at Hathersage Memorial Hall (next to the swimming pool and opposite the main car park). Catherine requested that people bring cake – she did not want this to be a catered event and believed that her family and friends would be able to supply cake.

It is with deep regret that we have to pass on the sad news of the death of Pauline Payne. Pauline, a resident of Castleton, had been an active member of our photographic society for many years. Pauline had been receiving care in Ashgate Hospice, where she had been fighting a long illness. Our thoughts go with the family, Barbara & Sheila.

Pauline’s funeral will be held at 1400, Wednesday 2nd September at Castleton’s Methodist Church