Focus Returns For New Season

Our new season began on the 6th September with our first club evening after the summer break. That night was just an open night for new and returning members. To date our membership has grown by 5 from last year and we now have 30 members. One statistic that is great to see is that just over a third of our members are female. This has increased over the past few years and it really is great to see.

Normally we meet every two weeks but this year it was decided that for the months of September and October we would meet weekly. This was to help any new members and beginners become familiar with the club and hopefully to encourage them with talks and presentations geared specifically for them.

Our first proper evening was a presentation by club member Michael Carbery. This was on Camera Basics which was then followed by a question and answer session.

The second evening was judging for the 1st round of the NIPA Interclub competition. This was judged by Darren Brown. 

Our first quest speaker of the year was Ross McKelvey and as well as a presentation of some of his award winning prints he also demonstrated some Photoshop techniques that he uses.

Next we had an introduction to Lightroom and Photoshop. This was taken by Phil Wilson who demonstrated how it was possible to rescue an under-exposed image, very impressive. This was followed by Michael Carbery giving a quick overview of some of the tools he uses in Lightroom.

The first practical session was a macro/still life theme. There was a great turn out for this and members brought in a large and varied collection of objects to photograph. At the start of the evening Paul Robinson gave a short but excellent presentation of macro photography and focus stacking.