Ann introduced the meeting and gave a reminder of the Autumn Social meal on November the 23rd in the Castleton Village Hall 7.30pm.
Keith passed on a request from Hope Parish Council for involvement with a photo project centred on places all over the world called Hope. Contact Keith if interested.
Presentation for the evening by local photographer and club member Karen Frenkel.
Karen entertained us for over an hour with a huge variety of sunsets, sunrises, rainbows and misty mornings. From sunshine and rain to snow or frost, there was a Peak District photo to captivate the audience. Occasionally there would be photos of seascapes, particularly at sunset and these were often in places Karen has walked and camped in Scotland. This website cannot do justice to the wonderful evening so I’ll just say “thankyou Karen” on behalf of the audience.
A month left to sign up and pay for the winter meal (23rd November).
First presenter for the evening was long term member Ian Stanyon and “Edale Mountain Rescue”
Ian has been a member of the mountain rescue for some years and used a combination of video and photographs to explain the vital role that these highly professional volunteers play. Covering a wide range of tasks from training and fund raising, to rescuing trapped or fallen climbers, the images were at times dramatic and always enthralling. Water rescues, hang glider rescues, the use of search dogs and even sheep retrieval all helped to make it a fascinating presentation.
Our second presenter was Wayne Hallam who gave us photographs on 3 distinct themes.
First was a selection of manipulated imagery such as the photo shown on the left.
Next came a range of wonderful shots taken around the High Peak, many of them being gorgeous sunsets or sunrises.
Lastly and by no means least was a sample of action shots taken at cricket matches which displayed a level of skill that many photographers (like me) can only dream of.
Another committee member, closed the evening with a warm thankyou to our 2 presenters and a well deserved round of applause.
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).
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.
1. Dean and Lynda at Edwardian day in Castleton
2. Graham Currey at Portrait night
3. Yorkshire Sculpture Park
4. Eiger Monch and Jungfrau – Switzerland
5. Hard Days Night Hotel – Paul McCartney suite.
6. Hepworth Gallery
7 Thiepval Memorial – The Somme.
8 Lauterbrunnen Valley – Switzerland.
9 Raging Bull – Commonwealth Games Birmingham
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.
