Devizes Camera Club

Thank you so much for your kind hospitality and for such an interesting and entertaining evening yesterday and thank you so much for sharing so clearly and unselfishly some of your quite obvious vast knowledge of photography. I did not realise that by simply cropping an image how much difference it can make and how much can be done to adjust various aspects of an image with photoshop as demonstrated by Joan with Robin’s black and white images. I have a great deal to learn but have already benefitted from joining the club and certainly learnt so much from you both last night.
Thank you both so much.

Experienced judge Shirley Britton had given her marks without knowing if the photographs were from the Ladies or the Gents team so it was completely fair. The result was that the best print was awarded to Gill Cardy with ‘Red Grouse taking off’ Joan Ryder Rathband’s ‘The Single Red Rose’ was awarded best Projected Image and also overall winner of the judges favourite image.
When the points were added up after the print section the Gents were one point ahead and declared that the Ladies stood no chance!

However later after the points for the Projected Images were totalled the result was Ladies 532 and the Gents 526. A victory for the Ladies – not that the Ladies took it all seriously of course - after all it was a 'friendly battle'!

A framed certificate was presented by Shirley Britton to Pam Mullings (above) on behalf of the Ladies Team and Joan Ryder Rathband (left) was presented with the overall winners certificate for her beautiful image.

Tracey visited us for the first time, and we certainly hope it won't be the last. She presented us with a wonderful series of wildlife images from Wiltshire to the snows and polar bears of Canada, then to Africa and far flung places of the South Atlantic. She trained as a zoologist and has worked as an ecologist in many parts of the world. This has given her great opportunities to study and photograph wildlife.
Her professionalism , knowledge, and the respect she has for her subjects show in the quality of her images. Her pictures were always well composed, and beautifully illustrated the often hidden aspects and behaviour of the natural world.     GC

Despite a reasonable weather forecast, it was drizzling when six hardy members of the group arrived in Lacock with the aim of photographing the early spring flowers in the Abbey garden. Eventually, the rain stopped, but the sky remained obstinately grey.

So the hoped for wide pictures of woodland with a carpet of snowdrops and crocuses, bathed in dappled sunlight, failed to materialise. Consequently, macro lenses were brought out for close ups of raindrops on the flowers, and it has to be said that the conditions were near perfect for this, there being little wind to upset long exposures and with the cloudy sky producing flat even lighting.

And of course, there was ample opportunity for some real social networking.       DG

A large number of members turned up for this popular competition. There were 22 entrants making a total of 66 portfolios, each showing 5 images, so some efficient work had been expertly put together by Hilary with timing carefully planned. The work was of a very high standard and quite difficult to mark out of 10, as each spectator is required to do.

As might be expected there were some snow and ice shots, documentary delights, lovely landscapes, wonderful wildlife and many other interesting compilations, illustrating the imaginative approaches of some our photographers. We await the results of the mathematics with interest!

Seven members of the Nature Group gathered at Langford Lakes on 11 December on a rather gloomy but less cold day than we’d recently experienced. A large area of water was still frozen, keeping the birds away from Robin’s Hide. However the organised working party kindly found some work away from the Round Pond hide and a happy hour or two was spent photographing the small birds at the feeders. Three brown rats also entertained us, gathering seeds dropped from the feeders.
Later we moved to the Hide overlooking the Long Pond, where 3 lovely Ruddy Shelduck had dropped in and the Mallards practised their skating techniques. The ice, here too, kept the birds at a distance but a very brief shaft of sunlight enabled some to obtain more interesting images. Coots were difficult until the sun arrived. A large flock of gulls and Canada geese mixed with a large number of duck species. A pair of Mute Swans posed gracefully.

Eventually the light defeated us, but hopefully those new to bird photography had a bit of practice.