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In Focus

The Bulletin of Bedford Camera Club – December 2011 www.bedfordcameraclub.co.uk Editor Martin Nellist

10 Glebe Road

Ampthill

Bedford

MK45 2TH

Tel: 01525 403417

Email: martin.nellist@ntlworld.com

Next issue April 2012

Closing date for copy Tuesday 28th

February 2012.

Contents President’s Message ....................................................... 1 Editorial ......................................................................... 2 Can You Help? ............................................................... 2 Notes from a Novice ...................................................... 2 Snippets from the EAF ................................................... 4 Club Photographic Weekend, 30

th September - 2

nd

October........................................................................... 4 'The Beautiful Light' by Jane Goodall, 11

th October 2011

....................................................................................... 5 Ampthill Photographic Festival, 15

th October 2011. ...... 5

Competition 'Open' 18th

October 2011 ........................... 5 'Be your own judge' with Stan Searle, 25

th October 2011

....................................................................................... 6 'Images of India' by David Steel, 1

st November 2011 .... 6

The Bedfordshire Invitation Inter-Club Competition, 28th

October 2011 .................................................................. 6 Philip Lepper Memorial Trophy, 8

th November 2011 .... 7

Autumn Deer Walk, 22nd

October 2011 ......................... 7 The Life of a local Press Photographer, 15

th November

2011. .............................................................................. 8 Selections for The 3-way Battle – .................................. 9

Selection for the Cambridge Digital Inter-Club

Competition ................................................................... 9 A Photoshop Tip ............................................................ 9 Church notices! .............................................................. 9

President’s Message

We have had a terrific start to

the new season. We have

followed on smoothly from our

summer activities and already

experienced a variety of events

which I hope you all have

enjoyed. Not only has our

membership been greatly

enhanced by so many new

members to whom I extend a

very warm welcome but each

of our meetings has seen record attendances.

The Camera Club Weekend in Leek was, as usual, very

successful. Mike Olney had not only found superb

accommodation, but made sure that we weren’t at a loss

for places to visit. The Roaches were clearly visible

from the Hotel and provided a magnificent viewpoint for

both sunrise and sunset. Dovedale and the Peak District

proved popular as did the Tram Museum at Crich. I can

highly recommend a Camera Club weekend away. Not

only do we get to see some wonderful countryside but it

is always a very sociable event and an opportunity to get

to know fellow members.

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It was great to see a record number of members turn out

to support our St Albans ‘Points of View’ competition in

October. BCC members seemed to be everywhere in

spite of it being a normal busy Sunday in the town. As

you will realise, competitions, both Internal and

External, are now coming thick and fast. It is great to

see so many of our new members taking part in these

events and providing a challenge to any complacency.

Of course our big event for 2012 is the Annual

Exhibition in April. This year we will be holding it at the

Harpur Suite in the middle of town for 2 full days -

Friday and Saturday 20th

and 21st April. A half-day

setting up on April 19th

will be followed by the

Presentation Evening at which I am pleased to say that

Dave Hodgson will once again be presenting the

trophies. In due course there will be more details and

requests for help in all sorts of areas. Our activities

already have commitments from the ‘Times and Citizen’

and ‘Michael Peters’. With the site in the middle of town

and publicity in The Times and Citizen, this is a high

profile opportunity for BCC. We will be hoping for

record footfall at this occasion as well as the usual

superb images on display to the public. I hope you will

all be able to support us in some way over that weekend.

Inevitably the next few months are going to be very busy

for BCC, so I would like to take this opportunity to wish

you all a very peaceful and Happy Christmas as well as a

healthy and prosperous New Year.

Diana Moss

Editorial

As Diana says the opening weeks of the Winter season

have been very busy but fruitful. A great deal of work

has been put into ironing out problems with

competitions and with selections for the external

competitions. John Pegram has developed and brought

into use a database whereby we can keep track of

competition images and David Hogg has introduced a

system for projecting an image of a print whilst it is on

the judge's easel. This had some teething problems but is

proving to be a huge step forward.

Although I was supposed to be helping with re-

development of the Club website, I found myself out of

my depth and have instead enjoyed watching the project

speed along led by Ian Whiting with useful input from

other Committee members but particularly David Hogg,

John Pegram and Diana. The refurbished website will be

very good.

The Annual Exhibition also promises to be very good. It

will be more work than usual but the organiser, Alan

Horn, is making sure that the work is shared and due

weight given to members' ideas.

As usual this issue is mainly concerned with the

reporting of Club meetings but I am pleased to have had

original submissions from Moira McAneny and Tony

Beaumont. Moira completes her account of the

successful summer evenings led by Mike Clifton and

Tony describes the Deer Walk that he and John Holt

won in the first Club Raffle of the season.

The closing date for the next issue is 28th

February 2012.

I am happy to take submissions in longhand but prefer

Word documents in 10 point Times New Roman. My

thanks to contributors to this issue and to Diana, John

Holt, Simon, Marilyn and Vaughan for proof reading,

and to Piers Hemy, way up in the Black Isle, north of

Inverness, for continuing to be our printer.

Martin Nellist

Can You Help? I have been asked by the Meetings Organiser of the Bedford Branch of Parkinson’s UK to represent Bedford Camera Club by giving a talk on 4th May next year. As Bedford Camera Club was established in 1906 I intend to make my presentation as a visual historic representation of Bedfordshire using pictures taken by BCC members. I am therefore looking for any prints of the Bedford area with mostly older prints that would help give my talk a certain nostalgic charm. I will need some of local places of interest, for example, Wrest Park, Stewartby Chimneys and the Cardington Hangers. Any old scenes from the Bedford area showing shop fronts, transport, fashion and general work or leisure taking place that the audience would be able to identify with would also be ideal. This is a visual experience so I do not intend to make this a technical talk but will drop in comments about darkrooms and chemicals and the move from the Box Brownie to the most up to date digital cameras. So if you can help with a print of interest, old or current, I would be most grateful. I hope I have given an idea of what I am trying to put together and will make every effort to make this an entertaining event for those attending. I will be starting to compile the prints from February onwards so I would be pleased to know at this stage what anyone can let me have so I can chase up any gaps in history. I can be contacted on 01525 712809 or pr1@btinternet.com Thank you in advance. Peter Robinson

Notes from a Novice

Continuing on from the September “In Focus” our next

trip out was to Southwold on Saturday 13th

August.

Eleven members attended. I’d been watching the

weather forecast all week and it didn’t look too good for

our day but I had an optimistic mind. I rode to

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Southwold with Diana and Barry leaving Bedford at

7.30am and arriving in the Pier Car Park at 9.40am. The

day was drab and dreary and a heavy drizzle was falling

when we arrived. No sooner had we parked the car, than

Alan Horn and Mike Clifton arrived and so we started

off by going to the Pier Cafe for a hot drink and to wait

for the others. Tony Brooks and his friend along with

Steve Ridgeway arrived next and then Peter Symonds

one of our newest members.

Later in the day we were to meet up with Marilyn and

Vaughan Southgate for lunch. Anyway we all split up

and I decided to go down to the left of the pier. By now

it was a really heavy drizzle and although I had a

waterproof on I knew it was going to get more

uncomfortable as the day went on. Seaside places seem

so miserable when it’s raining. I walked along by the

beach huts some padlocked up and others sheltering

families who were optimistic that the weather would

turn out nice and were going to be there when it did! At

one point I stepped into a veranda of one of the beach

huts to rearrange my equipment!! My camera

equipment, as I hadn’t got it quite right in the car park.

In doing so got a rather funny look from a passerby.

Anyway now I felt comfortable, I started to walk

towards the pier where I could see several people with

umbrellas up, raincoat hoods on and heads down. This

was August, the height of the summer. Men were fishing

off the end of the pier but there was nothing exciting to

take.

By now it was time to take shelter so I stood under one

of the roofed parts of the pier watching the Lowestoft

Lifeboat going through its practice paces in rescuing a

man in an inflatable dingy. I was joined by an elderly

gentleman who was keen to tell me where he’d come

from, what he’d done yesterday and what he was doing

today. He was full of stories about his grandchildren but

once the rain eased off we said our goodbyes and went

on our way. Departing from the pier I made my way to

the harbour to see if there was anything interesting to

photograph. I was to meet the others at 12.30 to 1.00pm

at The Sole Bay Arms, so I had to make it snappy. When

I reached the harbour it was even more depressing; I had

walked so fast that my waterproof was wet inside as well

as out and to top it all didn’t even get my camera out. So

that seemed a complete waste of time!

On my way back I met Alan, Peter and Mike and we

walked back to the Sole Bay Arms together. We all

managed to sit together but with all the camera bags and

equipment, didn’t have a lot of leg room. Service was

rather slow as it was pretty packed in there but it gave us

time to talk before eating. On leaving we arranged to

meet at the pier at 4.00pm. Once outside again the

weather had changed completely. The sun was shining

and it was really quite warm. I decided to go and look

around St Edmunds church and managed a few pleasing

shots of the outside with blue sky! Inside it was really

interesting and I took quite some time trying out taking

the stained glass window above the alter. So now that

the sun had come out, I went back down to the beach

and what a transformation, people were walking along

the prom, swimming in the sea and sitting on the sand

with their ice creams. I sat for a while soaking up the sun

and drying off my damp anorak and took countless

images of the sea hitting the groynes. Somehow, 4.00pm

came around all too soon and I met the others for a drink

and a chat before coming home feeling quite tired after

an extremely enjoyable day out.

Our next summer meeting was on 16th

August at Box

End, Kempston where we were to photograph some

water boarders and skiers. What was going to be only a

10 minute journey for me took 35 minutes because gas

maintenance repairs had closed the road before the twin

bridges at Oakley and we were diverted through

Pavenham and Stevington. Box End was buzzing with

youngsters, and opportunities to get some good shots

were plentiful. Some of the youngsters really excelled

themselves by performing somersaults whilst being

pulled round by a tow rope contraption. Although you

thought you’d captured a brilliant shot when they were

doing this, when looking back at the images sometimes

you just couldn’t make out what this mass was in the air

with arms and legs sprawled. So it really was a case of

practising the composition and although I captured what

I thought were one or two good shots, they were nothing

to what I saw from other members. For example I

thought Claire’s water skier was excellent. However, it

was a good evening and afterwards we had an enjoyable

social drink and chat at The Prince of Wales at

Bromham.

The photographing of Cople Village was our next

evening venture (23rd

August) and Barrie, if you’re

reading this, the light was not good at all. As we had a

lot to get through, we met at 6.00pm at the Five Bells car

park and were given a list of interesting features to

possibly photograph. These varied from ‘The Onion

Shed’ and The Bier House (next to the church and which

is where they used to put the coffins before the funeral

service) to views from the church bell tower and

dwellings in the village. I seem to remember a few years

ago vowing never to go up a church tower again. I just

hate going up those narrow stairs, in the dark and hoping

not to meet someone coming down! Refreshments this

evening were at the Five Bells, the only pub in the

village. Any reasonable images taken on this evening

were possibly going to be presented to the Landlord for

display on his walls.

The 30th

August saw our first Photoshop Workshop

taken by Geoff Stone from the Rushden Camera Club .

Although I found the evening interesting, I got left

behind at the start and found that downloading images to

be used during the evening by passing around a memory

stick, broke concentration on listening to the talker.

Having Photoshop 7 also put me at a disadvantage as the

evening was mostly geared around the CS Series. In the

end I sat and listened, and didn’t actually feel as though

I had learnt anything from the evening. The second

Photoshop session was run by John Pegram and Steve

Ridgeway and, once again, I missed a section of John's

explanation while downloading an image from a

memory stick. I wonder, if we have anymore Photoshop

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workshops, would it be better to email the image to

those attending to save time on the actual evening. You

have to let Mike know you are going, so it shouldn’t be a

problem. Anyone not receiving emails could still

download on the actual evening . It’s just a thought to

perhaps bear in mind for future workshops. Workshop 3

was run by Steve Ridgway and, although too advanced

for me at this moment of time, I found it very interesting

to listen to.

Not being available for the twilight evening I cannot

comment on how it faired but our end of the summer

dinner at The Prince of Wales, Bromham was excellent.

I think about 27 attended, sitting down at 7.30pm to a

truly magnificent three course meal. I sat with Claire,

Steve and David and had a really enjoyable evening’s

conversation. Once again, thank you all for making the

club what it is today.

Moira McAneny

Snippets from the EAF

At our welcome evening on 4th

October we were shown

a recorded presentation of the majority of the accepted

images from the 2011 EAF Exhibition. If you enjoyed

these images then you can see the best of them again in

the autumn edition of the EAF Bulletin which is now

available on the EAF website.

EAF Exhibition You will be able to see the 2012 EAF Exhibition at the

Gibberd Gallery in Harlow between Saturday 5th

May

(presentation of awards) and Friday 18th

May (closed on

Saturday 12th

May). If you wish to enter your prints and

projected images they need to be with the collectors

(usually Stan Searle for BCC) by Sunday 11th

March

2012. Entry forms will be ready for collection at this

year’s EAF Championships meeting on Sunday 12

February 2012. The information will also be available on

the EAF Website from the beginning of next year and I

have no doubt that Stan will keep us informed. The best

prints and projected images from the Exhibition will go

forward for selection for the PAGB’s Inter-Federation

Competition and Exhibition 2012. This will be the last

year that John Currant will curate the EAF Exhibition

and finding a replacement will not be easy.

Judges Seminar I guess that members who enter the monthly PDI

competitions and sometimes feel that the judging is

somewhat wanting, will be pleased to know that on

Sunday, 4th

December the EAF is holding a seminar for

judges in which two eminent PAGB judges will discuss

the problems of judging resulting from the digital

revolution.

Panel Competition The EAF bulletin also reports a competition, held in

May by Upminster Camera Club and in memory of

former EAF stalwart Dennis Mickleburgh, for the best

panel of six prints on a theme. I hope that this issue of

'In Focus' reaches you before we hold our own non-

competitive panel evening on 6th

December.

PAGB Club Print Championships 2011 Congratulations to Cambridge CC and Beyond Group

who both got into the top five of the PAGB

Championships at Connah’s Quay on 22nd

October 2011.

Cambridge CC were 4th

and Beyond Group 5th

. This is

the first time that the EAF has had two clubs so highly

placed in that Championship and the two clubs were

delighted.

Exhibition of Historic Photographic

Equipment Hertford and District Camera Club (HDCC) is holding a

major seven-week event – running from November 5th

to December 24th

, 2011 – to celebrate its Sixtieth

Anniversary. Entitled “Snapshots in Time: 60 Years

of Photography at Hertford and District Camera

Club”, this exhibition of photographs and equipment at

Hertford Museum will show some of the work of the

Club's members over the last 60 years, and will trace the

changes in photographic equipment over a longer period,

through a broad display of iconic cameras and other

historic items.

Martin Nellist

Club Photographic Weekend, 30th

September - 2nd

October.

Once again Mike Olney managed to arrange some

clement weather for this Staffordshire weekend. On the

Friday, Hilary and I headed for the Biddulph Grange

Garden, a NT property close to Stoke. Then we joined

13 members and spouses gathered at The Three

Horseshoes Inn & Country Hotel, Blackshaw Moor,

Leek and enjoyed an excellent dinner. The hotel is

immediately adjacent to the famous rock outcrop of the

Roaches and Tittesworth Reservoir and the early arrivals

had already been out seeking images before dinner. This

did not deter four hardy souls from rising at 5.30am to

seek more. They returned for an excellent breakfast with

the rest of us and then we all dispersed to find more

subjects. Hilary and I headed for Wetton and walked

down the western side of the Manifold Valley to Ilam

and back on the eastern side. Alan and Ann Woodward

went to Trentham Gardens near Stoke and Joy and John

Pegram went to the mill and steam railway in the

Churnet Valley.

Sunday morning was overcast and not so good for the

early risers. Another congenial breakfast before we all

dispersed for more sightseeing and, for most of us, the

drive home. Many thanks to Mike Olney for finding

another excellent venue well placed as a base to explore

the many attractions of the southern Peak District.

Martin Nellist.

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'The Beautiful Light' by Jane

Goodall, 11th

October 2011

This was more than usually an evening of two halves -

both of them excellent. In the first part, Jane Goodall

showed us high quality landscape prints and our

enjoyment was enhanced by the first use of David

Hogg's system for projecting, onto the big screen, an

image of the print on the easel. Most but not all of Jane's

pictures were coastal landscapes. She likes the way the

sea is always changing in appearance and height up the

shore and that it wipes the shore clean twice a day. Most

of her pictures are taken at the end or beginning of the

day and in light which requires a tripod and mirror lock-

up to achieve the long exposures needed for small

apertures. Often in better light she uses neutral density

filters to extend the exposures to blur the moving parts

of image such as the sea. She also uses graduated filters.

To apply this extreme approach, she uses a stopwatch to

check long exposures and wears a headlamp to find her

way in the dark, including finding her way back to her

GPS-marked car. In addition to prints mounted on 40x50

card in camera club convention, she also brought along

A2 versions of some the prints. These were fantastic; my

favourite was of a desert sand dune with a cliff like

edge.

In the second half of the evening Jane used AV

sequences to show us examples of the 'family

photoshoots' from which she provides clients with

printed 'photobooks'. Anglesey Abbey, a National Trust

property near Cambridge, provided good backgrounds to

the shoots but Jane emphasised the use of large apertures

to put the backgrounds out of focus. She also advised us

to ask parents to dress all members of the families in

similar muted clothing. Jane had given us a varied and

fascinating evening.

Martin Nellist

Ampthill Photographic Festival, 15th

October 2011.

Ampthill and District Camera Club organised this event

to help raise funds for the rebuilding of Parkside Hall. It

also helped raise public awareness of what is still a

relatively young club. The centrepieces were an

exhibition of the Club's best prints from past years and a

series of AV's which included more ADCC exhibition

images but also sequences on Ampthill architecture,

Ampthill Great Park, events that had taken place during

the Summer, and a family photoshoot which used

Ampthill Great Park as the backdrop. A large home-

framed back-projection screen allowed the AVs to be

shown without either dimming the lights or having a

visible projection beam .

Additional attractions included tuition sessions on

camera operation and portraiture and a series of

competitions. Most effective of these was that which

invited pupils from local middle school to submit their

'Favourite Photo' as a print which ADCC mounted and

judged. The clever part was not just to pick a winner or

winners but to award a large number of 'Gold Stars'

which were presented by the Deputy Mayor at the

opening ceremony. This ensured a large audience of

parents each paying a very welcome £2.50 entrance fee.

Other competitions for children were to spot the

difference between two large prints and to find 'Wally'.

For the grown-ups there was a chance to guess the order

in which a judge had placed eight exhibition prints.

Martin Nellist

Competition 'Open' 18th

October 2011

Although the new system of simultaneously projecting

an image of a print while it is on the easel being

discussed by a judge is clearly a big step forward, it is,

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understandably, not without its teething problems. This,

particularly, when its originator, David Hogg, was

unable to come to this evening. All credit to Matthew

Rowntree and Steve Ridgway who calmly tweaked the

system while the first few prints were on the easel.

However problems with the projection of the PDI entries

using the new Di Centra software were not so easily

solved. Almost all of the projected images were more or

less cropped, a problem which affected the portrait

format entries most.

Throughout all these teething troubles, Derek Larkin

calmly continued judging. For every image he provided

an analysis which sought to explain why it either had or

did not have appeal. He was particularly interested in

identifying elements, often quite small, which lifted the

image above the ordinary. Not having a computer

himself, he was not familiar with simple digital

manipulations which would have improved some of the

images but his comments were perceptive nevertheless.

They were also commendably brief as was necessary on

an evening when there were a large number of entries.

Results in the print competition were

1st Drops and Ripples Peter Robinson 22 points

2nd

At the Waterhole John Pegram 21 points

3rd

Chapel Window Diana Moss 20 points

3rd

Reflected Lily Martin Nellist 20 points

and in the PDI competition were

1st Riding the Storm Jim Burnett 22 points

2nd

Inside the Sagrada

Familia

Steve Ridgway 21 points

3rd

Rule Brittania Claire

Boardman

20 points

Martin Nellist

'Be your own judge' with Stan Searle,

25th

October 2011

Eight prints were passed in turn to eight tables of five to

six members who awarded a consensus score out of ten.

Alan Woodward collected the scores and Stan entered

them onto a large chart from which he could identify

how the prints were ranked overall and which tables had

been more or less generous to particular prints. He used

these results to initiate a discussion on the individual

prints.

Although this was a useful and enjoyable exercise, I feel

that it would have been more relevant if based on recent

high-quality inkjet prints rather than those produced by

outdated processes and quality standards. I also disagree

with the total debunking of the performance of judges

and of accepted rules of composition. My experience has

been that since the introduction of digital imaging there

has been a step change in the quality needed for prints

for external and internal competition. Success in these

competitions is not quite the lottery implied in the

discussion. We really do need to up our game if we are

to compete successfully in Inter-club competitions.

Although I accept that rules of composition may be

broken, they are a very reliable guide. They provide an

excellent basis from which to begin to work out why it is

you instinctively like or dislike an image. These

criticisms apart, Stan did an excellent job of organising

the evening and of causing us to think about the

problems of judging.

Martin Nellist

'Images of India' by David Steel, 1st

November 2011

This was 'Images of India' with a difference. It featured

photographs taken by David and his wife, Françoise, in a

triangle of three towns in central India including Delhi,

Puni and Agra, home of the Taj Mahal. David had

brought along some excellent prints of the trip but the

talk was based on a PDI presentation put together using

'Menu Maker', Pics-to-Exe and Photodex Presenter. This

enabled David to present the images in separate sections

and if necessary to tailor the lecture to the time

available.

Usually a talk on India follows chronological order

whereas David was able to identify certain topics. One

section focussed on motor-cycles and their unusual

cargoes, another on lorries and buses loaded with

passengers literally hanging on by their fingernails, and

a third on three-wheeler tuk-tuks. There was a section on

the cows which frequent traffic-full streets apparently

attracted by the fumes! We saw how women's clothing

had retained style, tradition and colour whereas men had

swapped to jeans and tee-shirts. In contrast we also saw

the finery at a traditional wedding. Finally we saw some

of the wonderful architecture of the Taj Mahal and the

nearby minaret. On several occasions during this

comprehensive tour, David would explain how relatively

straightforward manipulations in Photoshop could

greatly improve an image, particularly for printing.

David will be judging the print entries in our 2012

Exhibition so his views on producing a good print were

worth noting.

Martin Nellist

The Bedfordshire Invitation Inter-

Club Competition, 28th

October 2011 I am afraid that my news is not good news. In fact, it

wasn’t a good evening all round, apart from meeting

some of the Letchworth home team, (as we arrived quite

early) and of course the company of the other BCC

Members. I would like to thank them for being there and

to Bruce Deacon for driving us.

Six of us went to Letchworth to witness Daphne Hanson

judge the Bedfordshire Invitation Inter-Club

Competition. We came last in the competition, last in the

raffle and we nearly left Stan behind.

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I can only say that all of our six images have done well

in previous competitions and two in particular seemed to

suffer from the projection, as they appeared quite dark.

We knew we were on a sticky wicket when the winning

PDI from our last Annual Exhibition only scored 14/20.

However we know that photography is very subjective,

as was reinforced by our 'Be Your Own Judge' evening

last week.

Daphne seemed to enjoy most of the ‘Natural History’

images, several of which she gave 20/20. One in

particular wasn’t even a bird on a stick but a head and

neck of a ‘Shag’ which wasn’t feeding, drinking, flying,

mating or fighting, at least one of which I thought was a

necessity to make a winning image. That said,

technically it was extremely good. It would appear that

we are not taking photographs of the right subject

matter, as eight 'Cherry’ tomatoes and two 'Beef’

tomatoes on a bed of lettuce scored quite a respectable

mark, compared to some of our images.

Daphne also seemed to like portraits, particularly of a

man without his shirt, showing off his muscles and

performing some sort of martial art. She certainly

commented on his muscles.

On a positive note, Shillington were placed 14th out of

16 last year and won it this year, a clear 10 points ahead

of Biggleswade who came second.

Congratulations to both Clubs. I would also like to thank

Letchworth for hosting the event, which was a good

evening, despite our lack of success.

So Members, you know what is required for us to

improve our position. We need more images from YOU,

OUR CLUB MEMBERS, so that we have a larger

database entry to choose from. I would be very pleased

to receive your images.

And a suggestion for the next Members' Evening, it’s

shirts off chaps so that we can photograph your muscles!

Claire Boardman

Philip Lepper Memorial Trophy, 8th

November 2011

This year the challenge was to produce three PDIs, one a

Landscape, one a Seascape and one a Skyscape. Thirty-

seven members entered a total of 111 images, which

provided quite a task for our judge, Colin Southgate

FRPS, who, at short notice, was standing in for Eric

Saul. Fortunately Colin arrived early and so had an

opportunity to preview all the images. He commented

that they were all of high quality but that he would

endeavour to use as wide a range in marking as possible.

As is usual with Colin his comments were perceptive

and amusing and there was general agreement that the

evening was very enjoyable. Some credit for this must

go to David Hogg for his pre-meeting preparation and

the slick use of the new Di Centra software. In spite of

the wide range in marking, Simon Bray and David Hogg

tied for first place with 57 points each and must share

the Philip Lepper shield for a year.

David Hogg

Skyscape Pastel colours of dusk 20

Seascape Ragged Welsh coastline 19

Landscape Austrian Vista 18

Simon Bray Skyscape Massachusetts Bay 19

Seascape Sunset 19

Landscape Jasper Township 19

Alan Horn, 56 and Diana Moss, 54 were second and

third respectively. The following images were awarded

the maximum 20 points.

Skyscape - Pastel colours of dusk by David Hogg

Seascape - Au Bord De La Mer by Vaughan Southgate

Seascape - Durdle Door by Martin Nellist

Martin Nellist

Autumn Deer Walk, 22nd

October

2011

John Holt and I were the lucky winners of a raffle prize

kindly donated by Woburn Estates to take part in an

Autumn Deer Walk. These walks are a new venture for

Woburn. Previously only Staff and family were allowed

this privilege that coincides with the deer-rutting season.

On 22nd

October, twenty-four participants were given a

briefing by Callum and introduced to his 2 assistants.

He gave a brief history of the Deer Park. One of the

previous Dukes decided that he wanted to collect as

many deer species as possible and at one point there

were 40 species within the Park. Not all the

introductions were successful and some of the species

did not survive the change in environment and died of

disease or failed to breed successfully. The lack of

suitable management also took its toll during both World

Wars and the high maintenance costs of running the park

has resulted in the number of species now numbering

just nine. Despite this, Woburn is generally recognised

as being one of the best facilities in the world. Breeding

animals are exported to many countries and a good

example is the Pere David breed, which has been

brought back from the brink of extinction.

We were split into 2 groups and made our way

separately around the Park led by either Callum or one

of his assistants. At first we had a job finding the deer

but with our guide’s expert knowledge we soon made

contact. I had the impression that we would be able to

get a lot closer to the deer but when they saw twelve

people approaching them they tended to trot away. All

around us we could hear the calls of the male deer and it

soon became clear which species were making the calls.

Red deer stags sounded like cows, Sika squeaked and

Water Deer barked. We did witness a few clashes

between male deer but in the main they had sorted out

their harems as the rutting season this year was earlier

and shorter.

8

When the light faded we walked back to the Tea Room

where we had a welcome soup and home made bread

followed by scones with jam and cream. An interesting

day and we learned a lot about the management of the

Park. I had not appreciated that they have to manage the

grass areas by fertilising and slitting the ground each

year, quite an expensive and time consuming job. We

were also told that they had lost 4 stags in the rut this

year which is about average. Two stags died when they

locked horns and drowned in the lake, one stag died of

an injury during a fight and another died when they had

to dart 2 stags when they also locked horns, it had a

heart attack caused by the stress. They are also

experiencing increased amounts of poaching and also,

more sickening, people coming from as far as Yorkshire

and using Lurcher type dogs to chase and kill deer, not

for their meat, but for sport.

Tony Beaumont

Chinese Water Deer and Roe Deer

Red Deer Stag

Red Deer Fighting

Pere David Deer

The Life of a local Press

Photographer, 15th

November 2011.

As it turned out, this was the life of two local

photographers, June Essex and Tracey Goodacre who

are the only photographers working for The

Bedfordshire Times and Citizen and the Biggleswade

Chronicle. June and Tracey operate on a shift system

which allows them to provide a 24/7 service. The pair

formed an effective double act, seamlessly taking over

from each other as they discussed the photographs that

they had chosen to show us. Without exception these

were excellent images covering a wide range of subjects.

Considerable creative input helped infuse the dullest

topic with interest. All the images were taken with two

battered 5½ year old Nikon D200's augmented with a

few lenses, flashguns, reflectors and a tripod. Images are

uploaded on to the newspaper computers and archived in

an online image store from which they can rapidly be

retrieved for publication or posting on the newspaper

website. This fascinating talk generated a more than

usual number of questions and it was not easy to draw

that first part of the evening to a close.

9

The final 50 minutes of the evening consisted of a

question and answer session arranged by Mike Clifton

with a panel consisting of Diana Moss, Martin Nellist,

John Pegram and David Hogg. Subjects discussed were

sensor cleaning, the pros and cons of RAW, filters in the

digital age, Adobe and sRGB colour spaces and format

options for saving Jpegs in Photoshop. Again the

discussion was not easily drawn to a close so it was

clearly a successful event and one we may repeat.

Martin Nellist

Selections for The 3-way Battle – Letchworth, Biggleswade, and Bedford

At Bedford Nov 29th

2011

PDI’s

1. The Start Martin Nellist

2. Goliath Heron Strike John Pegram

3. Lefkada Alan Horn

4. Anyone For Champagne Claire Boardman

5. Feeding Frenzy Bruce Deacon

6. Tribesman Vaughan Southgate

7. Redbill Oxpeckers and Rhino John Pegram

8. Water Tower Steve Ridgway

9. Rule Britannia Claire Boardman

10. Jostling For Position Bruce Deacon

Prints

1. Roaming In The Gloaming Jim Burnett

2. Windswept Stan Searle

3. Drops and Ripples Peter Robinson

4. Venice Impression Stan Searle

5. Chapel Window Diana Moss

6. At the Waterhole John Pegram

7. Reflected Lily Martin Nellist

8. Hungarian Roundup David Shephard

9. Patterned Beach Martin Nellist

10. First Corner John Pegram

Selection for the Cambridge Digital

Inter-Club Competition January 21st 2012

Monochrome

Open

Water Tower Steve Ridgway

People Rule Britannia Claire

Boardman

Landscape Black Rock Cottage Tommy Babel

Natural

History

Redbill Oxpeckers

and Rhino

John Pegram

Open Jostling For

Position

Bruce Deacon

Reserve Feeding Frenzy Bruce Deacon

A Photoshop Tip

I recently circulated an email that Helen Shanks had

received from nature photographer Bob Brind-Surch,

who will be talking to the Club on 20th

March. This gave

a link to Bob's website, which is worth looking at for the

gallery images alone. However, Bob also provides some

very useful downloads, one of which is do with Focus

Stacking. I had not previously realised how Photoshop's

Photomerge facility (in CS4 and later) could be used to

blend areas of sharp focus in images of an identical

scene taken with successive changes in focus. In

summary, the technique is (1) in Adobe Bridge select the

near-identical files, click on Tools

>Photoshop>Photomerge. (2) On the 'Photomerge'

screen under Layout check 'Auto' (normally checked by

default) and untick 'Blend Images Together'. Press OK.

The images are loaded as a series of aligned layers in a

single file. Crop out any edge differences caused by the

alignment. (3) Select all the layers and then select

Edit>Auto-Blend Layers. On the resulting 'Auto-Blend

Layers' screen check 'Stack Images' and press OK. The

layers will be masked so that the image is 'Focus

Stacked'. Flatten the layers to produce the final image.

Martin Nellist

Church notices!

Ladies, don't forget the rummage sale. It's a chance to

get rid of those things not worth keeping around the

house. Bring your husbands.

Irving Benson and Jessie Carter were married on

October 24th

in the church. So ends a friendship that

began in their schooldays.

Scouts are saving aluminium cans, bottles and other

items to be recycled. Proceeds will be used to cripple

children.

The ladies of the Church have cast off clothing of every

kind. They may be seen in the basement on Friday

afternoon.

Weight-watchers will meet at 7pm at the First

Presbyterian Church. Please use large double door at the

side entrance.

Low Self Esteem Support Group will meet Thursday at

7pm. Please use back door.

Happy Christmas and a prosperous New Year.