THE WCPF EXECUTIVE. Also - John Palmer. Contents. Diary Dates 3. President s Piece 4. Newton Abbot PC At PAGB Championships 5

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2 THE WCPF EXECUTIVE Because of concerns about publishing details of the Executive Members addresses, phone numbers and addresses in this electronic newsletter, which is now being seen by a far wider audience, it has been decided not to publish these details in this newsletter in future. A Who s Who is appended, and if you need to contact any individual, please consult the latest Directory, or fill in the Contact Us President - Brian Galbraith CPAGB. Vice President - Eddy Lane ARPS : DPAGB Hon Sec - Alan James Treasurer - Paul Kessler LRPS, CPAGB Newsletter Editor - Ann Owens C&G (Dist) Travelling Critique Sec - Helen Burridge Audio Visual Sec - Carole Attrell Peter Fry ARPS, DPAGB, BPE1* - AV Secretary designate Kingswood Salver & Knightshayes Trophy Sec - Carol Wilson Directory Sec - Jim Eastaugh LRPS MPX Secretaries- Pam & Eddy Lane (both ARPS : DPAGB) MPIX Secretary - Pam Sherren ARPS EFIAP/b DPAGB BPE2*. Assistant to DPIC Sec: Paula Graham ARPS PAGB Competition Sec - John Tilsley ARPS, DPAGB, APAGB PAGB Awards Officer - Di Tilsley CPAGB WCPF Rep to PAGB - Barrie Castle LRPS Webmaster - Bill Aven APAGB, DPAGB, LRPS Andy White LRPS - Webmaster designate Also - John Palmer Contents Diary Dates 3 President s Piece 4 Newton Abbot PC At PAGB Championships 5 Ways to Encourage Club Members to Distinctions 6/7 The Record Shot 8 Kingswood Salver 9 Clouds 10 Farewell to a Good Friend 11 New Salon Details 12 PLEASE BE AWARE THAT VIEWS EXPRESSED BY INDIVIDUALS IN THIS NEWSLETTER ARE NOT NECESSARILY THOSE OF 2

3 DIARY DATES E v e n t 7th October Kingswood Photographic Convention See the work of renowned Photographers - Des Clinton : Tony Dudley and Gijs van Gent. 13th October WCPF AGM and closing date for Kingswood Salver entries Details At the Pound, Pound Pill, Corsham, Wilts. SN13 9HX. Reserve tickets or more information contact - adrianherring@aol.com or vanessaherring@gmail.com At The Village Hall, Clyst St Mary, Exeter. EX5 1BG. Speaker will be - Peter Rees FRPS : EFIAP/Pp: MPAGB 15th October Closing date for Frome Wessex National Salon of Photography 10th November WCPF Kingswood Salver 10th November. WAVES hold another popular Workshop Day. 8 non members. 3 members. 2nd December. RPS VA Group Members/ Day. Cost TBC 16th December. RPS DiG Meeting provisionally exploring Adobe Photoshop RAWs interface. 5/ 3 entrance. janet.haines@btopenworld.com for more. 5th January DPIC Closing date From Sunday 3rd February Saturday 9th February Venice Carnival. 9th February WAVES AGM and Theme Day. 10th February. DPIC 10th February - closing date for Knightshayes Trophy More details see page 12 - or click this link - At the above venue. Speaker and judge will be - Don Byatt ARPS : MPAGB : EFIAP At St Thomas Church Hall, York Buildings, Trowbridge, Wiltshire BA14 8PF. From 10.00am pm. Hands-on help creating AVs. At Cudra WI Hall, Bucklers Lane, Holmbush, St Austell. PL26 3JN. Show your work - bring up to 10 prints. Contact linda.wevill@btinternet.com to book. At Merryfield Hall, Ilton, Somerset. TA19 9HG. Meet at for start till 4.00pm. Pre-booked lunches available. See for details on the DPIC page. tonytravel@blueyonder.co.uk for full details. Or phone Answer phone on this number. At St Thomas Church Hall, York Buildings, Trowbridge, Wiltshire BA14 8PF. From 10.00am pm. A non-competitive day, where others show how to construct an AV. At the Corn Exchange, Market Street Exeter. EX1 1BW..From 9.30am (for start) finishes at See for details. Bring entries with you when attending above event. 3

4 PRESIDENT S PIECE September 2012 At the AGM I will reach the end of my term as your President, and I have been reflecting on my three years in the job, and the personal pleasure it has brought. We have had some marvellous inspirational speakers showing high quality photographs, occasionally some controversial pictures, lots of good humour and just a bit of niggle at some AGMs and Council meetings. About the right balance. There have been many occasions when the fun of taking part with others of like mind has been the main thing, and I look forward to plenty more of that in the future. At other times my streak of competitiveness has come to the fore. For clubs which tend to be at the top of the list of winners in most competitions the sparks may be very intense, but for a club like my own, finishing in the top ten in the Federation is also a great achievement. Every now and then, a relatively small club with less than a handful of DPAGBs amongst us, can punch above it's weight, such as when we won the Kingswood Salver two years ago. That was a very particular pleasure, and shows that such things can be achieved. It has also been satisfying to see many of my club members being successful in our wonderful Members Exhibition. I well remember the thrill of my own first print acceptance, and the sight of those super WCPF prints on the walls of a big gallery, or circulating around the Federation as the Travelling Critique, never fails to impress. There are so many talented photographers in our clubs, and it is great to have a chance to see your best work at WCPF events. I hope you will continue to send it in. It has been my good fortune to work with a great team in the WCPF Executive. The hard work and dedication that they all put in on your behalf is enormous. The work that goes on behind the scenes to ensure the smooth running of the Federation draws little attention, but is vital stuff. Many events that club members attend have been in preparation for a year or more, and it must not be forgotten that most of the Executive are also still major players in their own clubs. The help and support I have had from present and recent past members of the Executive has been very freely given, and I have really appreciated it. I have no doubt that support for our incoming President Eddy Lane will be equally forthcoming, and I wish him all the very best in the job. Brian Galbraith 4

5 Newton Abbot Photographic Club at the 2012 PDI Championships Thanks to Plymouth Camera Club for exposing the contributing factors towards their inter-club competition successes in recent times. The forty Clubs at Warwick all pre-qualified in knock-out competitions in their own regional Federations, and to achieve P4 in that company is exceptional. Starting internal DPI competitions in 2005, NAPC were relatively early to adapt to the digital age in photography. Specialist digital groups were formed, outside the normal meetings, where members discussed digital projection issues regarding calibration and profiling, and fed off each other in improving individual Photoshop skills. Early inter-club competitions contained many oversharpened images, and blown highlights, factors continuously pointed out by the judges. Once the techniques had been learned, critique groups gave the opportunity for newer members to receive advice, from the strong core of established NAPC film photographers, on competition picture fundamentals like removing distractions to enhance the centre of interest. Landscapes had to move from pretty pictures to those with creative mood and the best lighting, whilst Nature pictures moved on from portrait setups to those with movement. Creativity, the added expression of the photographer s imagination within an image, already had a historical base in NAPC. By testing results in international Salons, it became obvious that competition pictures would migrate more and more towards impact, in the form of conveying strong emotion in the five seconds usually used by judges in Salon image selection. So things looked good when NAPC won DPIC in 2008, but sadly the PAGB Championship was still in the slide era, and we had to wait until 2012 to represent the WCPF at Warwick. DPI selection over the years has depended on a continuously updated database of images. These are mostly from our internal competitions, which are primarily intended to give members the opportunity to show their work, and receive a degree of expert critique. Others come from member s salon work, and improved versions of those shown at club. The best results have usually come from three selectors, focussing entirely on the objective Salon quality of the images available. However, for Warwick, we prepared a full past performance rating for all NAPC images previously used externally, and used a larger group to develop the final decisions. So what happened on the day? If you believe that you are in it to do well, then, for a selector, stress is the only one word description. The eight images for the first round were declared in advance, and gave us 100 points. The next eight choices were refined on the day, and gave 200 points total, one point behind 8th which is the cut-off position to progress to the coveted "Final Round". Could we have selected better? We will never know. We then joined the remaining 32 Clubs in the "Plate" Competition. Our score was 104 points in the Plate Round, which made us Second, two points behind the winner, placing us 10th overall. Warwick was a day of "very nearly!" for the Newton Abbot Photographic Club, but I know that a number of our fellow clubs have experienced similar situations in this prestigious competition. Alan Boothman DPAGB 5

6 LOOKING FOR WAYS TO ENCOURAGE YOUR MEMBERS TO GAIN DISTINCTIONS AND BROADEN THEIR PHOTOGRAPHIC EXPERIENCES? Clive Rathband and Joan Ryder Rathband I came to the UK, from South Africa, in 2009 when Clive Rathband FRPS FPSSA EFIAP and I were married. We had met in 1985, when Clive was transferred to South Africa. He joined the Germiston Camera Club, where I was Chairman. We became friends and we shared many photographic experiences together in the three years that he spent in South Africa. One of the trophies we had in the Germiston Camera Club at the time, was the Ryder Trophy for National and International Salons. It was a keenly contested competition, where members were encouraged to enter National International Salons and Exhibitions, and the most successful member was awarded the trophy each year. As a result, members work improved considerably and Germiston Camera Club became one of the most successful clubs in the country and, on more than one occasion, won the National Trophy for the most salon acceptances gained by its members. In addition, three members of the Germiston Camera Club, viz. Joan Ryder (Rathband), Clive Rathband and the late Maurice Calvert-Evers FRPS FPSSA, won the Gold Medal in three different Royal Photographic Society International Exhibitions! Clive believes that it was during his time in South Africa, as a member of the Germiston Camera Club, that his photography improved from being a competent Club photographer in the UK, to being a successful photographer at an International level. It inspired him to apply for, and be awarded an Associateship and Fellowship of the Photographic Society of South Africa, and, on his return to the UK, apply for his Fellowship of the Royal Photographic Society. He also continued entering international salons and exhibitions and went on to gain an AFIAP and EFIAP. When I arrived in the UK, Clive and I decided that it would be worthwhile to encourage the members of the Devizes Camera Club to enter salons and thus broaden their exposure to photographic competitions on a much wider scale. We wanted to encourage members to spread their wings and compete against some of the best photographers in the country and the world. We also wanted to encourage members to apply for distinctions in the RPS, PAGB and other similar organisations and also to apply for FIAP honours. The Ryder Rathband Trophy was born. To encourage members to start entering salons, we included the Western Counties Members Exhibition - as a regional organisation - as well as the approved salons and exhibitions by International organisations such as RPS, PSA, FIAP and other similar organisations. The important provisos were that they had to be approved salons but also that the salon had to be open to ALL Devizes Camera Club Members. Many of our members have been inspired to start entering salons and the number of members gaining acceptances and awards has risen from four in the 2009 (prior to the trophy) to fifteen members since the Ryder Rathband Trophy was introduced. Most of them were first time entrants! The Devizes Camera Club has become very successful in Inter-Club battles and the standard of photography in the Club has increased phenomenally in the past two to three years. We believe that the introduction of this competition has helped to make a difference. Two of our members, Gill Cardy ARPS DPAGB AFIAP and Rod Stowell ARPS AFIAP were inspired to enter more salons and have since gained their AFIAP distinctions. The first winner of the Ryder Rathband Trophy in 2011, Robert Harvey ARPS, has also gained his Associateship of the Royal PhotographicSociety. (See image on following page.) 6

7 Frank Collins, Chairman of Devizes Camera Club presenting the Ryder Rathband Trophy to Robert Harvey ARPS. PRIOR TO THE RYDER RATHBAND TROPHY YEAR ACCEPTANCES AWARDS PAGB Ribbons Highly Commended 1 PAGB Ribbon 1 Bronze medal AFTER THE INTRODUCTION OF THE RYDER RATHBAND TROPHY Honourable Mention 1 Highly Commended 6 Very Highly Commended 2 Ribbons 1 PSA Ribbon 2 Medals 1 Gold Medal 2012 (As at 13/09/2012) Honourable Mention 9 Highly Commended 2 PAGB Ribbons 2 NCPF Ribbons 1 Silver Medal Interested? Information about the Goals, Rules and Administration of the Ryder Rathband Trophy Devizes Camera Club Salon Results on the Ryder Rathband Trophy Log from 2012 back to Information about FIAP, Salon Entry Forms and Other Distinctions Salons and FIAP Information Good Luck! Joan joan.ryder@gmail.com 7

8 THE RECORD SHOT Have you ever had a judge comment on your work This is a Record Shot or (slightly better) A Good Record Shot or (heaven forbid) Just a Record Shot? I m pleased to say that, so far, I ve avoided being on the receiving end of this put-down but I cringe each time I hear it said of other folk s efforts! The connotation I take is that the Record Shot is just a record of what was in front of the camera and has no creative or artistic input from the photographer. Now the only photographs I consider to fall into this category are those taken by speed cameras and maybe the mug shots taken at police stations! (You may think of others). As club photographers, entering our efforts in competitions, we are all trying to say something about the subject in front of our lens. We select a subject which catches our interest or imagination, frame it carefully to place the emphasis where we think it appropriate and try to get lighting, exposure, focus, depth of field and sharpness suitable for our subject. We seek to capture the atmosphere and express just what we felt at that very precise moment when we released the shutter. We then hurry back to our computers and apply those corrections that we feel enhance the image and emphasise what we felt when we took it. I don t know about you but every image I take goes through this process. No matter how often a subject has been photographed before, this is my selection, my particular take on the subject, and my choice of processing and emphasis. Judges - by all means suggest alternative crops or treatments, criticise bad technique, processing or presentation but please don t insult us by implying that, like the speed camera, we have not thought about what we are doing. That is just what you do when you write off one of our efforts as a Record Shot! Number One Reader Judges - Let s Hear from You? How we love to hate you! But we can t do without you! Competitions are the stuff of most camera club seasons - so, if we are to have winners we kinda have to have judges! Surely you have your own take on this conundrum - so please feel free to have your say? Sign your name if you re brave enough! Or use a pseudonym if you prefer! But please - RESPOND letting us have your side of this equation? 8

9 KINGSWOOD SALVER A gentle reminder to all Camera Clubs that the Kingswood Salver competition entries will close on 13th October As I am sure everyone knows, this is a print competition (colour, monochrome or any combination.) Five images by five different photographers, mounted in the usual dimensions of 40cmx50cm. This year, the competition on Saturday 10th November will be judged by - DON BYATT, ARPS, MPAGB, EPHIAP After the judging, we will be treated to one of Don s talks - KEEPING IT SIMPLE Entry forms available online at To whet your appetite - below is a small sample of Don s work. Multirose The Gateway Slubbing Bi"y Sinister Pair 9

10 CLOUDS Many a promising landscape photograph has been let down by a boring sky above the exciting mountains and forest slopes. Sometimes the excitement can be enhanced by importing a sky from some other shot. The more organised of us might build a collection of interesting skies for just that purpose. Unfortunately, the replacement doesn t always seem to work as well as desired and there are several reasons why this might be. A cloud shot, taken with the camera tilted up at 45 can produce a bizarre result if it is placed low over a range of distant hills. The reason for the uncomfortable result may not be obvious to some observers but it just will not look right. The scale of the clouds must be right, which is the same thing as saying that the camera focal length setting must be the same or almost the same for both land and sky. Weather is a consideration and any clouds need to be selected to match the weather of the day. Some study of the variety and meteorological significance of cloud types could be useful for the aspiring landscape specialist and fortunately plenty of help on this is currently available. The Cloud Book by Richard Hamblyn, published by David and Charles at around 9.99 is probably the best on the subject now in print. It is not the first cloud catalogue by any means. The earliest was produced by Luke Howard in Howard introduced the now familiar Latin names Cirrus, Cumulus and Stratus. Howard s analytical approach appealed to the scientific community and his work was developed internationally. This culminated in the International Year of Clouds in 1896 when an expanded version of Howard s catalogue was adopted. Each cloud type was assigned a number between 1 and 10. The highest climbing cloud, cumulo nimbus, became number 9. Its height and its top like a mass of feather pillows became famous. To be on cloud 9 is to recline above earthly worries in a state of euphoria and to gaze down at the toiling masses below. Clouds are now classified and described by Latin names in the same way as biological species. Learning them may be no help to photography but they often have an attractive ring as in altocumulus lenticularis opacus. Further reading, less scientific than The Cloud Book is The Cloudspotter s Guide by Gavin Pretor Pinney, published by Hodder and Stoughton Ltd at around Also available is The Cloud Collector s Handbook. The author is a wildly enthusiastic cloud observer and founder of The Cloud Appreciation Society which now has over 30,000 members. The Society s website is well worth a visit. This month s quiz for the editor s special prize is to name the cloud in the photograph. CLUBMAN 10 Details of the prize will be announced with the name of the winner! Editor

11 KEN TAPLEY It is with great sadness we have to report the sudden death of Ken Tapley on Monday 24th August. Ken will be remembered at WCPF annual general meetings, when he represented Bleadon Photographic Group. Ken was Chairman of BPG for many years, serving enthusiastically and tirelessly for the club. Ken started his photographic life as a professional photographer, latterly being on the sales staff of Ilford Ltd, and subsequently, for a number of years before retirement, Canon UK. His considerable expertise and photographic knowledge was much valued by our club members, and his fund of stories of his early photographic life were always interesting. Perhaps his most notable achievement at BPG was in successfully applying for an 'Awards for All' grant, in 2002 which took the club into the digital era resulting in a threefold increase in club membership. Ken's skill in drafting the application also proved valuable to several WCPF clubs, in advising them how to apply for a grant successfully. He will be greatly missed at BPG. Our thoughts are with his wife Pauline and daughter Melanie and family. Clifford Brown LRPS DPAGB. 11

12 An Apology In my haste to publicise good news for WCPF members who had gained Salon Distinctions in the last newsletter - I erroneously credited Pam Sherren with an EFIAP/s (Silver) award. Although Pam has now accrued enough points and awards to apply for her EFIAP/s, she will have to wait a few months more for it to be made official. My sincere apologies for this mistake - and I hope it didn t cause Pam any embarrassment.? It was entirely my fault. Ann Owens Frome Wessex National Open Salon of Photography Exhibition 2012 Member of B.P.E. Entries are invited into our 1 st Online Open Digital Exhibition. Closing Date 15 th October 2012 OPEN NATURE CREATIVE Selectors: Colin Harrison, FRPS, FIPF, FBPE, MFIAP, MPAGB Graham Hodgkiss, ARPS, MPAGB, APAGB, AFIAP Barry Mead, FRPS, EFIAP/s, MPAGB Visit Frome Wessex Camera Club website, and follow the Frome Salon link. 12