NEXT MEETING
Wednesday, 16th February 2022 – 8:00-10:00 PM
LOCATION: HYBRID – Online & In Person at the Bell Inn
The World of a Wildlife Photographer – A presentation by David Boag.
David Boag is a wildlife photographer and author/photographer of eighteen published books. Over the years he has taught photography both to photographic degree and wildlife illustration students and he has been requested to teach many courses; he thinks this is because his style is to make everything easy and achievable. You can find out more about David from his website here: David Boag (naturalfocus.co.uk) and you can find out more about Wednesday evening’s presentation on our website here.
David will be delivering his talk ONLINE. Members and guests are welcome to join either Online or In Person, where some of us will be at our usual meeting place: upstairs at The Bell Inn, Hampton.
Members do not need to Register: the zoom link will be sent to them automatically on the day of the event.
Non-members need to sign up and pay a fee either through Eventbrite – link here – or via Meetup – link here. The zoom link will be sent on the day of the meeting to those who have signed up and paid.
We hope many of you will come along tonight, either Online or In Person, to what promises to be an entertaining and informative lecture.
LAST MONTH’S MEETING
Wednesday, 19th January 2022 – 8:00-10:00 PM
Evaluation of Prints for Exhibition and Competition
Jay Charnock FRPS very kindly led a ‘round table’ discussion in the upstairs room at The Bell Inn, when she reviewed some of our members’ prints and gave us advice on what to look for in our Exhibition work and in any competition which we might enter. Jay picked up on some strengths and weaknesses and gave us hints and tips to help us improve. After the break, she showed us some of her own work as examples.
We are not generally a competitive Club although we like to take part in the occasional SPA competition; we also enjoy our Annual Exhibitions in the Hampton and Teddington Libraries, when Covid permits! – hopefully, our next Exhibition (13th May 2022 – see below) will be better than ever!
Some of Jay’s pointers are appended at the bottom of this e-mail.
2022 FUTURE MEETINGS
Wednesday, 16th March 2022 – 8:00-10:00 PM
LOCATION: IN PERSON
Annual General Meeting and Picture Sharing
Our AGM will be held as above at The Bell Inn and will follow the usual format of a Chairman’s Report, Treasurer’s Report and Election of Officers for next year. It is, however, a very important meeting as we need to have an open discussion about the future direction of HHPS.
Like many other Clubs and Societies, our membership numbers have been falling; sadly, we lost Peter Beardow and Martin Pearson in 2021, other members have moved away from the immediate area, and we have failed to attract new members during the pandemic. This is despite having advertised via posters, websites, Facebook pages and media such as Arts Richmond, and having opened our events up to “all comers” on zoom.
Unlike many Clubs & Societies, our financial position is strong.
The Committee is concerned that the current model is no longer viable for a number of reasons including the difficulty of engaging high-profile speakers to talk to such a small audience and, from a committee perspective, the benefits (rewards) in relation to the inputs (contributions) required.
We do not seek an immediate solution (might be nice!) but there are other models and options for keeping the Society alive which we can use or adapt to suit our circumstances. We have had some thoughts and suggestions on these, but we wish (and need) to open these discussions to all Club Members. The AGM seems the right time to do this.
Wednesday, 20th April 2022 – 8:00-10:00 PM
LOCATION: IN PERSON at The Bell Inn, Hampton
Picture Selection for the SPA ICC PDI (Translated that is Surrey Photographic Association Inter Club Competition Projected Digital Image/s!)
Although we are not a competitive club in terms of competing against each other, we do enjoy the occasional Inter Club Competition and have entered the SPA ICC PDI Competition twice, or is it three times, now. While our scores on those occasions put us in the lower quartile, the second time round we rose by three places and had fun both selecting images and at the event: can we do better this time?
The Competitions page of the SPA Website here sets out the Rules, which we will send out in due course and discuss with you at the AGM – but please think about your best digital images for selection – so that we can rise even further in the SPA table!
A fun and challenging evening choosing our Society’s entry and at the judging day on 14th May for those able to be there!
Members do not need to register, but we will need to gauge interest by the end of March. We need a minimum of four people to enter the “Open” class and three for the specialist “Nature” class. But the more photographers and the better range of photographs we have, the better. A dropbox for your images will be sent out in advance of the meeting, which will speed the selection process.
Fundamentally this evening is for Members, but Non-members and guests are welcome to come along. As a Non-member you will not be able to enter pictures, but you can always join the Society and become a member, in which case you will be able to! A fee of £3.50 is payable on the door for Non-Members and Guests.
HHPS 2022 PRINT EXHIBITION – 13th May to 27th June 2022
The Teddington and Hampton Libraries have kindly agreed to hold our 2022 Print Exhibition in the Teddington Library from Friday 13th May for three weeks, followed by a further three weeks in the Hampton Library after that, i.e. from Monday 6th June until Monday 27th June. Everyone – dust down your cameras and let’s put on our usual excellent quality show of varied images and panels!
HHPS WEBSITE
The “Photographer of the Month” feature has been replaced by a ‘Theme of the Month.’ Our first ‘Theme of the Month’ on the subject of Christmas attracted entries from six Members and you can see the images here: Theme of the Month – Hampton Hill Photographic Society (hamptonhillps.org.uk)
Our theme for February is ‘Valentines’ and we look forward to our members’ wonderful creative images. Suggested themes from your Committee for March and April respectively are ‘Spring’ and ‘Easter’ – but we look to you for suggestions, which we can then discuss at the next meeting.
OTHER EVENTS
Keep an eye on the Surrey Photographic Association | Facebook pages for information which may be going on in the area, for local club Exhibitions and talks.
SPA 2020 Biennial Exhibition – CANCELLED
The SPA 2020 Exhibition was postponed to April this year due to Covid but has now been cancelled because of over-running refurbishment works at Guildford House Gallery. We’ll give you an update when we know more about the next SPA Biennial Exhibition.
And finally
POINTS FROM JAY CHARNOCK ABOUT PRINTING AND MOUNTING FOR EXHIBITION AND COMPETITION
· Jay emphasized the importance of the presentation and use of mounts but pointed out that a photo flush with the edges of a backing board (no border) is acceptable though does not usually show the photo off as well.
· Mounts of any colour are acceptable though off-white and cream are the most common these days. She recommended not using brilliant white because, when brightly lit, the eye of the viewer will be drawn to the mount and distract from the photo.
· She said generous sized mounts are visually more pleasing than narrow ones and more complimentary to the photo.
· The 40 x 50 cm standard sized mounts for competitions may seem a bit big for some photos but if an image is not very sharp (or has any imperfections) it will be better not to print it too big anyway as that would make it even less sharp.
· She advised not putting a photo in the middle of a mount as the bottom is likely to be obscured by an easel or label but placing it higher up.
· A square photo can be mounted high up in a rectangular mount placed the ‘portrait’ way up, leaving a wide bottom edge.
· The photo’s presentation can also be enhanced by adding a keyline and/or white border around it.
· She brought some of her prints including some to demonstrate how panels and triptychs should look.
· She also said that a blue sky can sometimes look too bright and recommends decreasing it in post production.
· Some judges dislike even numbers, e.g. two things as the main subjects, and consider three, for example, more pleasing to the eye.
Do not hesitate to get in touch if you need us!
Judy, Secretary