Castleton & Hope Valley Photographic Society

The Anniversary meeting began with a brief history of the society written by founder and President Ray Fowler (unfortunately not well enough to attend) read by Keith Brown.

Following the introduction and brief history of the clubs origins we were pleased to have a presentation by Honorary Life Member and Guardian Photographer Denis Thorpe.

Many of you will know that Denis donated a print of his well known photograph “Ribble Head Viaduct” as a raffle prize to help raise money for the society. In a remarkable piece of “happenstance” the winning ticket belonged to Ray Fowler!

Another of the photographs that Denis used to introduce his presentation was taken in 1954 of a young racing driver (Roger Thorpe) seen below both in the car and sat enjoying the presentation.

Three important founder members of the society were also present for the anniversary, thankyou Sheila, Norman and Hazel.

Hazel was nominated by Sheila and Norman to say a few words and then Norman joined Hazel to cut the celebratory cake.

An equally important part of the evening was a presentation by Roger Moore all about the origins of the Year Book. First begun in 2013 the year book has evolved from the first manually assembled copy to its current sophisticated digital format assembled by Roger and then printed by Blurb.

Another part of the evening that was almost as important was the “cake break” with a chance to mingle and chat. Many thanks to Margaret and Keith for all the organisation that went into making the evening a success.

Our Chair Ann started the meeting with a big thankyou to Keith Brown who is standing down from the committee in 2024. Keith has been a very active member for 20 years and carried out key roles throughout that time. Currently Keith is programme secretary which is a pivotal role in the society and to that end he already has an outline for the 2024 programme, furthermore he is offering to work alongside the new post holder for 2024. Hopefully by January a new programme secretary will have taken up this generous offer of help and guidance.

In the coming months there are numerous events for members;

Monday August 14th will see members exploring Bugsworth Canal Basin (meet 6pm) with the possibility of a chat and a pub meal afterwards.

Saturday September 9th is our coffee morning in Hope Old School, the exhibition (currently in Bradwell Church) will be on display, hot drinks, cake and a raffle will also feature. If you can provide a cake or a raffle prize please email Margaret@Drabble.org.uk

Thursday September 14th will be the clubs 20th anniversary and we are hoping to have a Dennis Thorpe presentation as well as a talk by some of the clubs founder members. There will also be a display of photos from the many year books, the drawing of the winner ticket of the Dennis Thorpe print and of course plenty of refreshments with time to chat.

Thursday November 23rd we are holding a social gathering/celebration and supper in Castleton Methodist Hall with catering by Jo’s Pantry more details will be emailed shortly.

Guest Speakers – Judy and Mike Smith

Judy and Mike have been catching up on their travels post pandemic so they had a lot of fantastic photos from both hot and cold climates.

They also brought along some of their prints so that the members could see the images close up.

A lovely evening from two great photographers and very entertaining speakers

This is an annual event as many of you know and each year the members that turn up to take part are given an hour or so to take photographs on a particular theme. This year our chair asked them to take photos to convey the idea of TWENTY. Ann gave no other information (after all it is the club’s 20th anniversary) but asked that the participants arrive back by 8pm with 5 photos on their SD card ready to hand them over for collection and display.

After a cuppa and a chat everyone reassembled and each group of images was displayed in the order members had handed them in. After several viewings of each folder Ann asked on the next run through for a show of hands of each members favourite.

The collection that had the most votes belonged to Joan Clough (a round of applause and a box of chocolates were her reward).

Three venues at which a print of each photo is on display with it’s title:-

St Peters in Hope 24/6/23 to 1/7/23 St Barnabas in Bradwell 5/8/23 to 12/8/23 Village Hall Hope Saturday 9/9/23 only

General Category

Theme Category (Beatles)

This term we are setting a challenge for students at the Chorus Trust Schools.

Can you take a photograph that captures the idea of “Altered Reality”? The club used a similar theme (Impressions of Reality) for its exhibition in 2022 and you will find a link to some photos from club members below this introduction. Try and be imaginative and creative but what the club would most like from young photographers is to have a go. As this is a digital photographic competition it does not matter whether you are using a camera or a phone, the file size will have to be limited to enable us to upload the photos onto the website.

The club will evaluate all the photos and place them in one of three 3 categories – GOOD – VERY GOOD -EXCELLENT

This month the focus is on the annual exhibition which will be in St Peter’s Church Hope starting on Saturday 24th June 12-4pm. With that in mind Ashley Franklin (AshleyFranklin.co.uk) was the guest at the meeting and reviewed the submissions, offering valuable tips on how the photographs could be improved. Ashley also selected his favourite photos and later in the year there will be a chance to present the photographers in each of the two categories with certificates and also to award the Dennis Thorpe trophy and the Catherine cup.

There is a list of the photographs and photographers at the bottom of the page and here are two photos of Ashley talking about his choices in each category.

A webpage cannot do justice to these excellent photographs, you need to see the printed version but the images below give you an idea of the creativity of the photographers.

• General category 
• 1st “Hot and Cold” Steve Elliott
• 2nd “Four faces” Keith Brown
• 3rd “Solitary vigil” John Sampson
• Highly commended “Light portal” Stephen Elliott
• Commended “Lilac-breasted roller” John Sampson
• Commended “Check your mirror” Ann Smith
• Commended “Afterglow on Stanage” Stephen Elliott
• Themed category Beatles song titles
• 1st “Help” Wayne Hallam
• 2nd “Here comes the sun” Nick Chalkley
• 3rd “Mind games” Wayne Hallam
• Highly commended “I want to hold your hand” John Sampson
• Commended “Watching Rainbows” David Allwood

Ann concluded the evening with thanks to Ashley, congratulations to all the photographers and a reminder that the meeting on July 13th is the “scavenger hunt”.

This is not as photographically odd as it might sound as the aim is for participating members to wander around Castleton taking photos on a specified theme. The meeting itself involves viewing all the submissions on the screen and evaluating the submitted photos to see who has fulfilled the theme with the greatest accuracy/creativity.

The evening began informally with the collection of prints for the annual exhibition. This year the themed category is for photos inspired by the “Beatles” or a member of the band in the years when they were making music as part of another group or indeed on their own.

Ann introduced the more formal part of the meeting with a reminder of the successful Denis Thorpe exhibition recently staged at the Adventure Cafe in Hope. Denis generously donated a print of his photo of the Ribble Head Viaduct for the club to use in generating funds. Raffle tickets will be on sale at club meetings to give members a chance to win this wonderful print.

Ann broke with the club tradition and announced the theme for next years exhibition “Man at Work”. As usual members can give this theme a wide interpretation to embrace the idea of man/human/men/women. etc.

For 2023 the appraisal of the exhibition will take place on June 8th so if you would like to see some fine prints please come along. Ashley Franklin is our guest for the evening and no doubt he will provide us with an interesting evaluation of the exhibition as well as a fascinating insight into his own work. www.ashleyfranklin.co.uk

The first speaker for the evening was Axel Chatburn who presented images from his Pennine Way Adventures

Many of the miles were done alone and in every kind of “Pennine Weather”. Long car journeys featured in the south most stretches.

Further north wife and children could not be such a major part of the experience but other friends were willing companions.

Axel gave us a fascinating glimpse into a Pennine “journey” much as Alfred Wainwright would have experienced it.

The second speaker of the evening was our previous chair, Keith Brown.

The title for his presentation was “2022 – A Busy Year Of Photography” Keith then showed us a variety of images taken from several trips he had been on in 2022 as well as some images from the two club nights aimed at refining the participants skills in portraiture.

Ann closed the meeting with thanks to our two excellent presenters and a reminder that the next meeting is on June 8th.

I should also remind members to let Roger Moore know if they would like to order a year book and of course that a raffle ticket could be your chance to win a Dennis Thorpe photo for only £5.

This month’s meeting involved two club members sharing their photos and thoughts. Introduced by our new photo society chair Ann Smith.

First up was John Sampson.

Mining for Gold in Burkina Faso.

Here are a couple of images from the huge number that John used to explain the many processes from extraction through processing to the final product. Along the way there were photos of memorable locals, staff and some of the wildlife. Memorable in other ways were the guards and some interesting precautions that had to be taken in such a volatile situation.

Open Pit Mining

Processing Plant At Night

Our next talk was Alison Johnson

Experimenting with an Iphone Camera.

Here are three of the images that were part of the talk

Alison showed numerous images from her travels with stunning landscapes such as this one.

At the end of the evening Ann reminded us that the May meeting was the hand in date for everyone’s exhibition photos.

That evening we will also involve presentations from Axel and our previous chair, Keith.

It’s not many of us that have the photographic skills to have one of our images accepted as an entry to an international competition. But our very own Stephen Elliott had his image of the Salt Cellar on Derwent Edge both accepted and then put forward as a finalist in The International Garden Photographer of the Year 2023. A round trip of three hours climbing up Derwent Edge to take a sunset image, when according to Stephen the  heather was at its most colourful he’s ever seen, paid dividends. Stephen must have walked thousands of miles, with his camera, on these ruggedly beautiful Peak District hills, so he knows where to set up his camera and tripod.  Congratulations Stephen, your skills produced a magnificent image that puts you at the top of the tree in respect of international photographic competitions. 

Because the AGM has now moved to February, this was the last meeting Keith Brown, our excellent, hard working and effective Chair presided this current C&HVPS year. Keith will hand over to our incoming Chair – Ann Smith, at our February 2023 AGM, to be held at our usual venue on Thursday February 9th. After our AGM formalities, Ann will make a presentation entitled “Short Walk – Short Legs”

Keith announced that the N&EMPF Exhibition 2023 is open to all of our members. so here’s a date for your diary, as Ian Stanyon and Keith Brown had some of their prints accepted. The awards were presented at  at Noon on Saturday 7th January. If you’d like to see these N&EMPF prints, they will be on display from Saturday 7th January through to Saturday 11th February in the Barn Gallery (above the café) and the Crew Yard Gallery. Here’s the address: Patchings Art Centre, Oxton Road, Calverton, NG14 6NU.

Keith also announced that after significant work in the background (well done Keith), that our Honorary member – the famous award winning Guardian Photojournalist ‘Dennis Thorpe’, is to present a selection of his stunning prints during opening hours at the ‘Adventure Cafe’, Edale Road, Hope on 14th to 29th March. Reception, to include a finger buffet, on Friday 17^th March – 7 pm doors open 6 30. All being well Denis will join us for the opening and will talk about his prints.

Then Paul Hatt made the first presentation of the evening, breaking his talk down into three sections. The first being images taken on various walks up to Kinder Scout, where Paul is involved with a Moors for the Future conservation project Here’s a selection of the images from the first part of the illustrated talk that Paul presented

After a break we were invited to see images Robert Nicklin had taken when he spent time taking photographs of couples, followed by photographs of families. Robert spent time living with two families, so he could produce a ‘fly on the wall’ record of family life. Robert took these images after being awarded a degree in photography. Robert made his presentation via Zoom, so I apologise for the quality of the photographs, as I simply snapped a selection of his images from straight from the screen.