Welcome to the 2017-18 Stratford Photo Group Programme

We are pleased to bring you an exciting programme of high quality entertaining speakers; fun internal merit competitions; competitive interclub competitions. In addition we will be developing the Workshop programme, introduced last year, to have wider appeal. It will be aimed at helping improve the skills of new and less experienced photographers and more advanced members too.

We will continue to have all the regular Merit competitions, Critique and Mono Interest Group meetings.

 

The Programme in numbers

  • 5 External speakers
  • 5 Wellesbourne workshop afternoons
  • 5 Bishopton workshop evenings
  • 3 Merit competitions with separate evenings for Prints and DPIs (digital projected images)
  • Annual Panels competition (3 printed images displayed together on a theme). In December, this year, to even out the number of competitive images you need to produce, through the year.
  • Annual Cups evening where the best images in Colour, Monochrome, Nature and Creative compete to hold a trophy for the year. (Novices and Advanced sections and Prints and DPIs)
  • 4 Interclub competitions
  • 2 Critique evenings
  • 2 Mono Interest Group meetings (celebrating the work of the club’s black and white photographers)
  • New this year, we will have a presentation on Audio Videos (AV) by members

 

On a lighter note we also have

  • The “Annual Match That” competition against Evesham and Studley camera clubs
  • Malcolm’s Treasure Hunt, this year we continue with the revised format, with members presenting 10 images all taken on one day
  • Caption Competitions where, by coming up with an amusing caption for a picture, you may win a prize

Bishopton Workshops evening Programme

This year we will hold six workshops at the Bishopton clubhouse, on Tuesday evenings.

The first will be a Beginners' workshop which will provide members the chance to bring their camera to the club and ask questions about settings etc. Other workshops will cover a broad range of subjects including monitor calibration, photo apps and print mounting. We will also cover processing images in some of the most popular software packages (including, but not limited to, Photoshop and Lightroom). Their will be something for advanced Photoshop users too and also how to approach getting a distinction or entering competitions.

One of the advantages we have as a small club, is that we can tailor the workshops to the needs of club members and we will aim to make sure workshops are relevant to all attendees.

 

Wellesbourne Workshops afternoon Programme (Cancelled from 30th November meeting inclusive, until further notice)

Dick Prior ARPS,EFIAP/s,BPE5* will continue to run the Wellesbourne sessions. The purpose is to raise the skill levels of members. These will take place at Wellesbourne Village Hall on alternate Thursdays from 14.00 till 16.00. Please note that there is good (free) parking available.

In particular these sessions will focus on:

  • Composition;
  • Camera Craft;
  • Photo editing skills (Photoshop CC and Elements).

The vehicle for this will be through tutorial/critique sessions where members bring images on a memory stick for consideration by members present. These sessions are open to all members regardless of experience and skill level. Most importantly they will not follow a fixed curriculum but will visit and revisit the 3 main items listed above. Consequently members who join later in the year will still be able to benefit from these sessions.

The first few sessions will focus on Camera craft and will particularly look at camera settings and appropriate lens selection. The principle elements of composition will play a big part in all the critique sessions. The use of photoshop will be introduced at an early stage and for the first part of the year will focus on processing in Camera RAW and will be followed by basic adjustments using adjustment layers. Later in the year (depending on demand) higher level photoshop skills will be introduced.

In early autumn and spring there will be the opportunity to take part in lead field trips which will be followed by review sessions where images will be shared.

There will also be the occasional sessions which will be led by other members with a particular set of skills in areas that members may find useful (e.g. Lightroom, computer skills, iPhoneography, producing greetings cards etc).

The workshops at Wellesbourne will be in addition to the standard programme and so a small charge of £3 will be made to cover the extra costs of room hire. From 26th October 2017 the workshops at Bishopton will be FREE.

 

This year’s speakers

Harish Chavda MPAGB, ARPS

Harish is a top flight Sports photographer based in Birmingham. His lecture, "Sporting Images", will show top notch images from athletics, boxing, equestrian, rugby, water sports etc. The images are taken at some of the major sporting events and iconic venues including the Olympic Stadium.  In the second-half of the evening, Harish will show images from the MPAGB with full explanation.  He will provide the stories behind the images and lots of hints and tips. Members will get a chance to ask questions throughout the lecture.  Also, all the prints are put up for close inspection for benefit of the members during interval and at the end of the lecture.

 

Martin Fry FRPS EFIAP AV-AFIAP BPE3   APAGB

"The Cotswold Lad Returns" - Artist to Excellence a FIAP journey in audio-visual and images. This talk features some outstanding AV’s from the Cotswolds and also from Cornwall in particular the storm on the South Devon/Cornwall coast from 2014.

It also includes some of his award winning images and how he prepares and enters international salons and now has been awarded his EFIAP.

Martin is from Cheltenham and visited us last year to give his excellent talk “Cotswold and Cornish Cream”.  He has gained over 150 awards for both his images and Audio Visuals. He is an Hon life member of Cheltenham Camera Club and a well known lecturer and judge. So we are very honored to have him visit us again for what promises to be a very interesting and entertaining evening.

 

Colin Harrison FRPS FBPE FIPF MPSA MPAGB MFIAP APAGB EFIAP/p

Colin is a member of Cheltenham Camera Club and has gained Fellowships in all the main UK and Irish Photographic bodies, he also has the Platinum qualification in the FIAP. His main interest is in Creative images. He enjoys visiting photo clubs where he is well known for his interesting talks and judging sessions.

We look forward to welcoming Colin to the club to hear his lecture and have him judge our Merit 3 DPIs competition.

 

James Boardman Woodend

James visited us last year and his talk went down extremely well, with many members requesting we get him back this year.

He showed us his excellent Aurora images and a range of Landscape and Wildlife images from all over the world. He is an entertaining speaker, with many interesting anecdotes to accompany his images.

He has been very successful over the past 5 years:-

  • Finalist, section winner and overall winner of Astronomy Photographer of the Year.
  • Finalist with special mention in Travel Photographer of the Year
  • Ditto for Garden Photographer of the Year.
  • Twice featured by NASA on their APOD site.
  • Winner of the Saturday Telegraph Big Picture Competition

He returns this year with a completely new set of images and more interesting stories. An evening to look forward to.

 

Anne Sutcliffe FRPS EFIAP

Anne describes herself as an enthusiastic creative digital photographer. Her images are created with love and attention to detail. Her subjects are varied. Some pictures tell stories and others show images within images.

Anne returns this year to give another of her entertaining and thought provoking talks. We look forward to welcoming her back to Stratford Photo Group with her stunning images and interesting stories.

 

 

If you have any thoughts or suggestions on this or future programmes, please email the Programme Secretary.

By its very nature, a programme like this can be subject to last minute changes due to circumstances beyond our control. We will keep the monthly website programme pages as up to date as possible, so please refer to these frequently, and certainly before travelling.

In addition we have produced a downloadable and printable pdf copy of the programme for the benefit of members. When it changes we will update the issue date so you can check you have the latest version.

PDF copy of programme - 25th January 2018

Michael Robertson-Smith                           Mary Kirkby

Programme Secretary.                               Deputy Programme Secretary