Club News 2021 - 2022

Wincanton Camera Club Member has photo shortlisted for Astronomy Photographer of the Year

Massive congratulations to Wincanton CC member, Hannah Rochford, on having her photograph of the moon rising behind Glastonbury Tor shortlisted in the Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition. We will have to wait until September 15th for the final results to be revealed at an online awards ceremony to see if Hannah's image is amongst the winners but she is already a winner as far as we are concerned. Her image has been shortlisted from more than 3,000 images submitted from 67 different countries across the globe. To check out the shortlisted images click on the link below.

Shortlisted images from Astronomy Photographer of the Year

Picture of moon rising behind Glastonbury Tor

Photographic events to visit

Nunney International Horse Trials are taking place on June 17th-19th 2022 at Southfield House, Whatley, Frome, BA11 3JY. The British Eventing schedule for this event is at British Eventing. Entry for spectators is free on Friday but £12 per car on Saturday and Sunday. This is a high level event on our doorstep and offers excellent photographic opportunities. Some of us are planning to attend on the Saturday so why not join us?

The Societies of Photographers roadshow is taking place at Sandy Park, Sandy Park Way, Exeter on Tuesday June 28th 2022 between 9.30am and 3.30pm. This is free to attend but you must pre-register on their website. There are trade stands from a range of companies and three guest speakers: Damien McGillicuddy - "Making Light Work" ; Emma Jane "Secrets to a successful Newborn Session" ; and Scott Johnson "Making more money from wedding albums" . Again there are at least 2 of us going to be there so why not come along?

Royal Photographic Society Digital Imaging Group Newsletter features our member, Meyrick Griffith-Jones

Within the Royal Photographic Society there are various special interest groups. One of the best is the Digital Imaging Group which has published many Zoom lectures for members and non-members. They also publish their own magazine and newsletters. Their May 2022 newsletter features an article by our very own member, Meyrick Griffith-Jones, on pages 34-42 along with a good number of his recent woodland images. You can view the article using a reader on
RPS Digital News May 2022
or look at a PDF version on
RPS Digital News May 2022 - PDF version

Congratulations Meyrick!

Wednesday May 18th - Our Club AGM

Our AGM took place virtually on Wednesday evening. Our Secretary, Lachlan, took us through the business of the evening in a most efficient fashion. Last year's minutes were approved and reports from our committee members were delivered. All our officers were duly re-appointed with the addition of Roger Lush reprising his role as Competition Secretary in a job share with Paul Dyer.
Our Chairman, Tony Cole, reviewed the year and thanked the Committee and Membership. He also expressed our gratitude to AJ's Photographic Store in Bruton for their kindness in hosting one of our club evenings where we did actually manage to meet in person!
Additional business included a small change to our consitution, many suggestions for a programme of summer outings, and the approval of a move to a new venue for our meetings which will allow us to meet in person once again when we start the new season!
Our annual awards were reported. The Folkes Memorial Cup for prints was not able to be presented as we had not been able to hold any prints competitions this season. The Chairman's Trophy, awarded to the photographer with the most popular photograph at our annual exhibition in Wincanton Library, which we were very grateful to be able to hold this year, was won by Paul Dyer.
The Secretary's Shield for digitally projected images was very closely contested once again. After 4 competitions, 2 of them themed, our winner was Meyrick Griffith Jones with 150 points out of a possible maximum of 160. Brian Stubbs was second with 148, Paul Dyer third with 140, Roger Lush fourth with 138, David Foster fifth with 135. This year and previous years' winners can be seen on our Competition Winners page. Our congratulations to all.

We have also managed to squeeze into our programme an additional meeting looking at processing images once again with Meyrick. This is by popular demand so be ready to put your questions to Meyrick on Wednesday June 1st.

Do keep an eye on this website and your e-mails for events, get togethers and photo opportunities over the summer before we start our regular programme again in September 2021. If you are considering joining a camera club do get in touch with us. See our Contact page.

Wednesday May 4th Travel Photography and Astrophotography

This club meeting featured the work of Lachlan Fraser, travel photography of the North West Frontier, and Hannah Rochford's Astronomy photography.
Hannah started us off with a talk touching on the massive area of Astronomical Imaging at which she has become something of a master. Hannah took us through Landscape astronomical imaging, Planetary / Lunar, and Deep Sky which is her favourite. Hannah's talk was literally out of this world - sorry, had to be said :-) We are very grateful to Hannah for putting this talk together and look forward to seeing more of her work.

Lachlan followed on with images of his travels through the Northern frontier of Pakistan, the Khyber Pass, and Afghan border. Lachlan's images really captured the nature of the place, its people and their lifestyle. Lachlan's presentation was truly fascinating and a genuine example of Travel Photography.

This was a great evening and showcased the work of our own members. Very many thanks to both Hannah and Lachlan.

Pink Lady Food Photographer of the Year

The results for this competition are out. The overall winner was Debdatta Chakraborty in the Street Food Category with an image of kebabs being cooked.
To see the finalist images for all the competition categories click on the link below.

Pink Lady Food Photographer Finalist's Gallery

For advice on how to photograph sweets and desserts click on the following link.
How to photograph sweets and desserts

The competition is open to amateurs and professionals alike and includes age categories as well for aspiring young photographers still at school.

Final competition of the 2021-2022 season - SILHOUETTES and SHADOWS

For our last internal competion of the season we welcomed back our judge, Mike Barnard, to give us his critique of our images and scores. Our theme for the evening was Shadows and Silhouettes which produced a very varied approach from our members. As always, Mike was very helpful with his comments on how the photographer could improve the image, much appreciated by all.
Roger Lush was the only member to receive a maximum score of 20 for his image "They also serve who stand and wait" - an impressive night time railway shed shot.
We also welcomed new member Mick Hill to our club. We look forward to seeing many more of your images.
Our thanks to Mike Barnard for his time and effort on our behalf and to Paul for organising the evening.

To see the images for this competition click here.
To see the scores from all competitions, including this one, click on our Club info page

Post Processing with Meyrick Griffith-Jones

Huge thanks to Meyrick for his work in preparing and delivering a tutorial to club members on post-processing using Photoshop. He took us through setting up our cameras to deliver faithful representations of our images in JPEG and RAW formats; setting up Camera Raw not to do excessive amounts of pre-processing and to prepare the image for Photoshop; using Curves layers for all manner of processing tasks, including dodging & burning; producing random shaped vignettes; Cloning; Channel selections using colour channels; and the use of BlendIf.
Mixed ability teaching is not easy and we were certainly a mixed ability audience but Meyrick coped admirably. Thank you Meyrick, your talk was much appreciated by all.

Our next meeting is on Wednesday April 20th at 7.30pm and will be our last internal competition of the season on the theme of Silhouettes. Don't miss it!

The Shaston Challenge

On Thursday evening, March 31st, Shaftesburby Camera Club hosted the Shaston Challenge, a competition with 4 clubs participating, 12 images submitted by each club with no more than 2 images by any individual member.
This event was available to attend in person, in Shaftesbury, or online via Zoom. This worked very well. The participating clubs were Shaftesbury, Ferndown, Ringwood and Wincanton. Mike Weeks was the judge with the unenviable job of trying to score an amazingly high standard of entries. The scoring was incredibly tight but Ferndown came out on top with 112.5 points, Ringwood were second with 111 points, Wincanton third with 110.5 points and our hosts Shaftesbury were fourth with 108 points. Only 4.5 points separated first and last.
Many congratulations to Paul Dyer on his two perfect 10's and Meyrick Griffith-Jones on his 10 also.

Our entries for this competition can be seen at Shaston Challenge

All the scores from the evening can be viewed here

Our thanks to Shaftesbury, our hosts, for an enjoyable evening and giving us the opportunity to participate.

Kylie-ann Martin Photography presentation - club evening

On Wednesday, March 23rd, we welcomed Kylie-ann Martin to present to us on her photography journey and particularly her experience entering photographic salons.
Kylie took us through her initial introduction to photography with her father and her progress with clubs, salon successes and awards.
Kylie's website contains much helpful background including the requirements for each of the accredited awards Kylie has gained. These include BPE 1-3*, AFIAP, EFIAP, CPAGB and LDPS. Kylie, as we know, has become a popular club competition judge giving lots of helpful feedback.
Kylie also gave us links to some editing software she uses. These are PhotoSpiralysis and Fractalius photoshop plugin. Our thanks to Kylie for an interesting evening's talk. Our next meeting will be our very own Meyrick Griffith-Jones (April 6th) leading us through his processing techniques but there is also the Shaftesbury Challenge taking place on Thursday March 31st in person at Shaftesbury or online if you prefer. Wincanton are 1 of 4 clubs taking part. Watch out for links being sent.

Huw Alban - "From the Judge's point of view" - March 9th

Many of us know Huw who has judged lots of our club competitions in the past. Tonight Huw took us through his views on judging club images and his approach to judging. This was a very well researched and most thoughtfully presented talk, well illustrated with images to explain what Huw was saying.
Huw explained the objective approach compared to the subjective approach to assessing images. He also emphasised the need for a "thick skin" and that we should not take judges' comments too seriously. Afterall, we are doing this thing called photography for fun!
Many thanks Huw for an excellent presentation.

Next meeting will be presented by Kylie Martin via Zoom, March 23rd.

Internal Club competition Wednesday Feb 23rd

Kylie Martin returned as external judge for our 2nd Open themed competition of our season. Being "open" the range of subjects submitted by our members was very varied and must have been challenging for Kylie but she coped admirably and offered detailed critique for each image with both praise and helpful comments as to how the image could be improved.
To see the images from the evening click on our Photographs page. Scores for all our competitions can be seen by clicking on our Club Info page.

Abbey Road Music Photography Awards

Abbey Road Music studios are launching their inaugural Photography Awards under the guidance of Rankin who will be assisting in the judging of the images. The competition opened on February 15th and closes on March 21st 2022.
To see more details click Abbey Road Music Photography Awards

Landscape Photographer of the Year

This year's competition is now open for entries and closes on May 5th 2022.
For details click Landscape Photographer of the Year website

Wildlife Photographer of the Year

The Natural History Museum in London is hosting an exhibition of photographs from the Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition 2021.
Have a look at Natural History Museum - Wildlife Photographer of the Year

Annual Quiz - Christmas delayed!

Last night we were treated to our annual photographic quiz, courtesy of demon quiz master, Roger Lush. Not only were the questions incredibly well researched but they were presented well and accompanied by appropriate music. Thanks to Roger you too can enjoy pitting your wits against these questions and check out the answers afterwards to see how well you did.

To download the mp4 video file for the questions click here

To download the mp4 video file for the answers click here

Many thanks Rog.

Western Counties Digitally Projected Image Competition for clubs - GREAT RESULT for WINCANTON

Following this morning's Digital Projected Image Competition for all the clubs in the South West of England we are tremendously pleased to report that Wincanton came 11th= out of 51 clubs and was one of the top small clubs in the West of England. Our total score was 202 points. Bristol won the overall title with a score of 223. Dorchester were runners-up with 218. Both these clubs will go on to represent the South West in the National Championships. Nomad club came 3rd with a score of 217 and they were the top small club.
To see a screenshot of all the club scores click here.
This result represents a significant improvement for our small club. In 2018 we were 47th out of 57 clubs; in 2019 we were 52nd out of 57 clubs; then in 2020 Wincanton were 28= out of 56 clubs maintaining approximately the same position with a rank of 29= out of 58 clubs in 2021. So, 2022 represents a significant step forwards.
Thank you to all members who submitted images because every score counted and even if you didn't have images selected to go forwards you help boost the standard and give our selectors more variety from which to choose.

To see the gallery of our images and their individual scores please click here.

Western Counties Digitally Projected Image Competition for clubs

On Sunday, February 6th, the meeting opens from 9.30am with judging starting at 10.00am. There are usually a couple of breaks - mid-morning and lunch - with the event closing mid-afternoon. Our club has entered a good set of your images and we hope to do well. This is a club competition so we are competing against all the other affiliated clubs in the West of England. Each image is scored by the three judges, live as we watch, and then the total points for each club are totted up, the club with the highest total being the winner.
This is a great learning opportunity to look at a lot of top class images and see how they are scored. Try awarding a score to each image before the judge does and see how your scores compare.
The event is normally held in the Corn Exchange in Exeter but is online via Zoom again this year. This saves a journey, parking fee, and you can dip in and out as you wish during the day. The link has already been ciruculated to club members and is on our secure Facebook page. Do get in touch if you haven't already got it.

Wednesday Club meeting Magic Mike II

On Wednesday January 26th we were treated to a second talk by maestro Mike Barnard. For inspiration and diversity of imagery Mike takes some beating. The images Mike showed us and talked about ranged from frost on gravestones to images with motion blur but still subjects; frosted leaves; abstract tulips; the Lake District for those who don't like walking far from the car - Derwent Water, Ashness Bridge, Keswick, Borrowdale, Buttermere, Castlerigg stone circle, Blea Tarn; Bridlington Fair, Re-enactment Victory show at Cosby near Leicester, before getting steam up and showing us his train shots; bird photos, squirrels, and the nostalgia of Beamish Museum. Thoroughly entertaing as usual, this was a great talk.

Our next virtual meeting is the Fiendish Christmas Quiz devised and delivered by our very own Roger Lush. This is usually great fun so don't miss it on Wednesday February 9th, 7.30pm start as usual.

Wednesday Club meeting reminder

Just a quick reminder to all members that we have our next virtual club evening this Wednesday, January 26th, when Mike Barnard will be entertaining us with his talk and presentation of some of his images - Magic Mike II. The meeting starts at 7.30pm and you should already have had your Zoom invitation - contact Meyrick if not.

Sherborne Bradford Abbas Camera Club are hosting a virtual exhibition of some of their members' work. You can view their exhibition by visiting SBACC exhibition.

WCPF Knightshayes Trophy

The Western Counties Photographic Federation (WCPF) is holding its Council Meeting and the Knightshayes Trophy Competition on Saturday March 5th 2022. This would normally be a prints only competition but, with things as they are, this year you must submit your two entries as digitally projected images (jpegs). The theme for the competition is on the set subject of "Simplicity" and will be judged by WCPF President Nick Bodle. As a club we have had some success in this competition over the last few years so why not give it a go? Entry is free and images can be emailed in but must be submitted by Sunday February 13th. Full details and instructions are available on the WCPF site at https://www.thewcpf.com/knightshayes-trophy. You will be able to watch the judging via Zoom on the day.

Club Evening - Harry Behind the Lens

On Wednesday Jan 12th we welcomed Harry Wheeler-Brand from Suffolk to our bi-weekly club meeting. A very accomplished young man, Harry is a Lee Filters representative, a National Trust photographer, runner-up in Young Landscape Photographer of the Year in 2020 and already a published author of his own photoguide to East Anglia.
Harry talked us through some of his landscape photos explaining his approach, his settings, his use of Apps to prepare and research his locations. Harry's website is https://www.harrybehindthelens.com/. Our thanks to Harry for a very informative talk.

Our next club meeting, Wednesday January 26th, will be a return visit of Mike Barnard from Yorkshire with his talk "Magic Mike II". Don't forget to get your entries for our next club competition in to Paul Dyer by February 15th.

Our Amateur Photography Magazine correspondent

Congratulations to our member, Roger Lush, for getting his views on composite photographs printed in the latest edition of Amateur Photography Magazine! Roger's article is published in the Viewpoint section of this long established magazine. Pop down to the Newsagents or subscribe to the online version to read what Roger had to say.

Landscape Photographer of the Year (LPOTY)

The 2022 version of this competition opens on January 6th so all you landscape photographers need to get your images sorted and consider entering. Entries close on May 5th 2022 and can include images that are up to 5 years old. A single image entry costs £9.99 and 8 entries can be made for £24.99. There are over £15,000 worth of prizes!

Western Counties Photographic Federation (WCPF) Members' Exhibition 2022

This competition is open to all members of photographic clubs in the South West of England. There are 4 projected digital image classes (Open, Nature, Creative, Photo Travel) and 3 print classes (Colour, Monochrome, Nature). There will be an exhibition of both prints and projected images at Bovey Tracey Golf Club from May 1st until May 16th 2022. Entry is done online with prints to be submitted to a regional collector. The standard is usually very good but it is always worth having a crack. Do read the rules and instructions carefully. Entry opens Monday January 3rd and closes Saturday March 5th 2022.
The link below will take you to the WCPF website information page.

Details of the WCPF Members' Exhibition on their website

Don't forget that our Camera Club programme resumes on Wednesday January 12th with a Zoom talk entitled "Harry behind the lens" . Watch out for the link coming your way in your e-mail box.
Wishing you all a Happy New Year!

Photographic Salons to enter NOW

Wondering what to do over the Christmas period? Why not consider entering a photographic salon or competition. There are a number of salons now open and accepting entries via the internet. Entry is very easy but do read the entry instructions and rules very carefully. Images need to be a paticular size and this can vary from competition to competition.

Here are a few for you to consider:
Southport Photographic Society 75th National Open Exhibition - closes January 14th 2022

The 76th Bristol International Salon of Photography - closes January 30th 2022

Southampton International Exhibition 2022 - in its 108th year. Closes February 19th 2022

Cheltenham International Salon of Photography 2022 - Opens January 1st 2022 and closes March 28th 2022.

The Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize

The Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize is a very prestigious competition run by the National Gallery in London. The current exhibition for 2021 is being hosted at the new arts hub, Cromwell Place, London until January 2nd 2022.
You can view an online version of the exhibition at Taylor Wessing exhibition and vote for your favourite image or view past winners.

The Photographer - magazine of the BIPP

Something different to read for photographers. The following link takes you to an online issue of "The Photographer" - the magazine of the British Institute of Professional Photography. This is published four times per year. Click on the link to read it online The Photographer

Club Competition on the theme of Woodland

We had a good turnout from members for this second competition of our club season. The theme was Woodland and our judge, from Bristol Photographic Society, was Sandie Cox who had clearly put in a great deal of work to provide every single image with detailed comments on how it could be improved. This was done in a very supportive way encouraging every member whatever their standard.
Three images were awarded the maximum mark of 20 with three images gaining marks of 19. The standard was very good. Scores for all images are available on our Club Info page
and a gallery of the images submitted can be found by following the appropriate link on our Photographs page.
Our thanks to Sandie for her efforts on our behalf. We also welcomed two new members to the club and look forward to seeing their images in due course.
Wishing all members a very Happy Christmas and New Year. We look forward to meeting again on January 12th 2022 for our Zoom talk "Harry behind the lens".

Competition success for club members

Very many congratulations to Meyrick and Paul on their success in the Frome National Salon of photography. Paul had an acceptance for his "Red Footed Falcon with dragonfly" image in the Nature section. Meyrick had 2 acceptances in the Scapes section, one of which gained a Selector's award 1st place - "English Summer" and one was commended -"Autumn Light Gold Hill".
Brian also had an acceptance into the Smethwick International Salon with "Training on the sand gallop".

Well done to all.

Club evening meet at AJ's Photographic Store

This was rather a special evening meeting in that it was the first occasion for many of us to actually meet face to face and say a proper hello to new / potential new members. Our very great thanks to Andrew Dibben and Hannah for hosting our evening at AJ's in Bruton and plying us with pizza and wine.

AJ's is probably the foremost company providing photographic lighting equipment in the South-West of England, providing both online and store based sales to all parts of the world and catering for some of the top professionals in the business.
Andrew talked us through some of his product range and explained the benefits of proper lighting, lighting modifiers, stands and so much more. The range of stock is very impressive from top end systems to the little gadgets that just make life as a photographer so much easier.

Here are a few photos from the evening.

Andrew pointing to an Octabox light modifier

Our next meeting is an online Zoom get together for our second club competition which is on the theme of Woodland. Watch out for the zoom code to attend on Wednesday December 8th. This will be our last meeting of this calendar year. Don't miss it.

Club members man stand at Wincanton Morrisons

On Saturday November 20th members of Wincanton Camera Club manned a small stand at Morrison's Supermarket to show off some of our photos and publicise the club to our community. Our stand attracted interest and some very positive comments. As a club we are always looking to attract new members who may be interested in photography. Our thanks to Morrisons Wincanton and to our Chairman, Tony Cole, for organising this event and to those members who represented the club.

Club members' visit to Chase Woods

On Sunday November 14th various members of our club got together in Chase Woods, near Sixpenny Handley in Dorset. Organised by Meyrick Griffith-Jones, our members took advantage of the wonderful Autumn colours to grab some shots for our forthcoming Woodland photo competition. Another very enjoyable outing for the club. With thanks to Meyrick for organising. Photos courtesy of Kit, Roger and Meyrick.

Photo of Adie and Meyrick preparing to take shots in the wood

Dipping track amongst Autumn coloured woodland

Photo of Kit and Pam tucking in to their picnic lunch

Sky Arts: My Greatest Shot

There is a new series of photography programmes on Sky Arts which is available on Freeview channel 11. Sponsored by Adobe Lightroom, photographers of some repute talk about their photography and then tell us about their greatest shot. This is a 6 part series which is aired on Tuesdays between 8 and 9pm. The series is already part-way through but there should be plenty of repeats.

Trailer 1

Trailer 2

AJ's in Bruton - Club visit coming up

After another quality presentation by Will Goodlett from South Africa, our next meeting is a physical meet up at AJ-s.co.uk in Bruton on Wednesday November 24th. Numbers are limited and attendees need to book with Brian Stubbs urgently if they have not done so already. Established in 1994, AJ's is the leading independent South West photographic supply store specialising in new and secondhand professional photographic flash and continuous lighting, along with a wide range of studio accessories and consumables. This promises to be a really interesting club evening.

Radical new version of Lightroom Classic

Apologies to those who haven't got Lightroom but the latest version is now so powerful with the addition of masking tools. Here is a long deep look into the new tools
by Michael Rung. This makes masking so much simpler but also really powerful.

Sherborne Bradford Abbas Shield

We had high hopes approaching this competition with a selection of good images. We were 2nd to Yeovil last season but unfortunately we came 2nd to last this year with Yeovil in last postion! The competition was deservedly won by South Petherton who hit the target with what the judge wanted. From the off the judge ruled against images with some colour and this resulted in many of our images being marked down when the theme was White on White. Our thanks to Sherborne Bradford Abbas club for running this competition once again and including us in it. Our top scorers were Paul Dyer with 19/20 for his Little Egret, Michael Anthony with 19/20 for The White Jug and David Foster 18/20 for "Sitting Pretty. Our entries and scores can be seen by clicking here.

Two excellent online lectures - what's coming next?

Our club members have recently enjoyed two excellent lectures, one by Paul Harris (Brief Encounters) and one by Colin Harrison (Creative Flower Photography), both on Tuesday evenings. Our thanks to both these speakers. Our next online meeting is also on Tuesday, October 26th, where we will be participating in and viewing the Sherborne Bradford Abbas Shield competition, contested by a number of local clubs. Our images have now been selected and submitted. Join us on the night to see if we can better our 2nd place of last year.

The Nature Conservancy announce their 2021 photo contest winners - October 1st

The Nature Conservancy has recently announced the winners of their annual photography contest. The categories include People's Choice, Landscape, People and Nature, Water, Wildlife. Use the links below to see some of the stunning images.

Click here to see the winning images

Click here to see more images from the contest

Click here for a BBC News article about the photo contest showing some of the images

First club competition of the season - Open theme

We welcomed a new judge to our club, Kylie Martin, who kindly agreed to judge our images and present her most helpful comments via Zoom. It was remarkable how a crop here and there produced a very different looking image. She also rescued us by presenting the images when we had an IT failure! The open theme brought out a very varied range of images from our members, most enjoyable to see, and there were several images held back by the judge for further comment before scores were awarded. Three images scored 19, one of Jim's and two of Meyrick's but only Brian's image of Milk on Cornflakes scored 20. Scores for all images are available on our Club Info page
We welcomed new member, Fiona McKenna, to our club and very much hope she will enjoy our activities.
A reminder that our next meeting is on Tuesday October 12th when we join with Sherborne Bradford Abbas club to listen to Paul Harris' "Brief Encounters".

Lush success in Photocrowd competitions

Our member, Roger Lush, has been entering photos into an online competition called Photocrowd.com with some success.
Roger explains -
"Here are the two pictures I got my best results with, the first one was 9th out of 100 (competition was crowd rated) the second didn’t do so well with the crowd 37th but the competition was assessed by a judge as well and he gave me 6th position (out of 500) with the following comments
Not surprisingly, there were many entries picturing trains and indeed canal boats, passing under bridges. I have chosen this photograph in particular, because I like the position taken up by the photographer and also the way that the railway track leads the eye under the bridge, towards the oncoming train. The overall hue of the image is also pleasing and is not too saturated. It is important to note that the train is on the far side of the bridge and hence we are looking through the bridge to view it.
Other than those, my best results are 2 images placed 11th out of 801 and 11th out of 565.
Photocrowd is a window on the photographers of the world with 20,000+ members. I’m currently at 4472 on the leader board which is like a league table so fluctuates weekly. It is possible to enter a lot of quite prestigious competitions through Photocrowd or, like me, just enter the free community competitions. "

Alford Sunset - train about to go under a bridge

Royal Photographic Society Digital Imaging Group success for club members

On Saturday September 18th the Royal Photographic Society Digital Imaging Group held their selection for their prestigious Projected Image competition. There were three categories to enter - the Open Colour; Open Monochromatic and Altered Reality. Judging was done live on-line, rather like the WCPF DPIC event, with three judges, all of them Fellows of the Royal Photographic Society, each awarding a mark out of 5 for each image. This produces a total mark out of 15. The acceptance mark is decided after the section has been judged but was determined as 11 for all sections. There were 1878 entries from 350 members, many of these also FRPS. Many excellent images were awarded a competent mark of 9 which meant the standard was going to be very high.
There were 875 images entered in the colour section with three of these from club member Brian Stubbs. Brian's scores were 9, 10, narrowly missing the acceptance mark, and 12 for his successful image "Racehorse Reserve Tank" shown below. This completes the double for Brian who also had an image accepted into the RPS Digital Imaging Group Print exhibition earlier in the year. This was the image of Chinese Eventer Alex Hua Tian at Nunney.

Meyrick Griffith-Jones also continued his run of success in competitions. Meyrick had a couple of images with a score of 10, just missing selection, but was successful with his barn image, "English Summer", shown below, which scored 11 after gaining a gold in the Welsh competition. Well done to both club members on their success in this prestigious competition.

Chinese eventer Alex Hua Tian riding at Nunney

Club Evening photo critique Wednesday Sept. 15th

For our second meeting of the season we joined together via Zoom to peer critique images submitted earlier. We had an interesting range of different subjects and lots of interesting images. Critique was gentle, fair and helpful.
It was good to see some members again who had been unable to join us for our first meeting and we look forward to our first internal club competition in two weeks time. Make sure you get your 3 images in to Paul Dyer as soon as you can. We have a new judge for the evening so it will be interesting to get her feedback.
Our Library Exhibition drew to a close on Saturday after a period of 3 weeks. Our thanks to those who helped with the setting up and taking down of the stands. There were some 115 votes posted by visitors across a wide spread of images. I know the librarians were very pleased with the extra footfall in the Library from people coming to see the images and I do know from comments made by locals that the show was very well received. Well done everyone!

Searching for the perfect Landscape image in Northern Ireland

For those of you who spend hours trying to capture the perfect light for your landscape shots, there is an interesting article on the BBC News website featuring landscape photographers in Northern Ireland doing exactly the same. Click on Northern Ireland Landscape: Searching for the perfect picture to read the article and view some stunning images.
Don't forget our Zoom Critique of your images this Wednesday evening (September 15th). Make sure you have the link to hand and join us for our second meeting of the season.

First Zoom meeting of the season - Ross McKelvey

September 1st and we met up on Zoom once more. We were privileged to listen and chat with Ross McKelvey from Belfast, Northern Ireland. Ross is the founder of the Catchlight Camera Club and runs the Catchlight Studio where he puts on workshops for other photographers to hone their skills. Ross is the world leading salon photographer for black and white prints according to the PSA (Photographic Society of America). In his spare time Ross is also a barrister.
Ross took us through some of his photographs in many genres including Creative, Nature, Artistic Nude, Sport, Studio and Composite. Throughout his presentation Ross was giving out helpful suggestions and tips. He then finished by talking us through him producing a composite image in front of our eyes. His techniques in both Lightroom and Photoshop gave us all something we could take away with us. We finished the session with Ross answering questions in a most helpful and supportive way.
This was a great evening to start our season and we send our immense gratitude to Ross for giving up his time to share his knowledge with us. Do have a look at his YouTube channel. There is a link from Links page.
Keep an eye out for our next meeting where we will be looking at our own images.

It's Gold at the Welsh International Salon

Our many congratulations to club member Meyrick Griffith-Jones on achieving a maximum mark of 15/15 and winning the Gold medal for landscape photographs at the recent Welsh International Salon. This success is thoroughly well deserved. Those of us who know how much time and effort Meyrick puts in to going out at silly O'clock to get, or not get, the light on a particular landscape subject, the care he puts in to processing the resultant images, and the studying he has done to perfect his craft, know that this award is well deserved. Hopefully it will be the first of many.

Club Members' Library Exhibition

From today, Saturday August 21st, Wincanton Library is hosting an exhibition of club members' images for a period of three weeks. Every member was able to submit at least one image to the exhibition on whatever theme they wanted. This has resulted in a very varied and interesting collection of images. Entry to the library to view the exhibition is free and members of the public are encouraged to vote for their favourite image. We hope you enjoy viewing the photos as much as we enjoyed taking them. If you are interested in joining our small friendly club then do get in touch via the contacts page of our website. You can also see our planned programme of talks and events which start on September 1st.

Image of Wincanton Camera Club exhibition in Wincanton Library

Club Members' Salon success

Two of our number entered images into the Peveril Point photographic Salon recently and both achieved success. Paul Dyer, entering his first salon, had three images accepted into the exhibition and of these one achieved an Honourable Mention and another received an Honourable Commendation. One of Paul's images, shown here, is of a Red Footed Falcon that visited Langford lakes this summer. The falcon has a dragonfly in its talon.

Meyrick Griffith-Jones also entered the competition and had six acceptances, 2 Honourable Commendations, 1 Honourable Mention and a Silver Medal. One of his images is shown here.
For those members who don't know much about salons, they are essentially photographic competitions where the first step is to have your photos accepted into the exhibition. Salons have three judges each awarding a mark out of 5 to give a total score out of 15. Some salons vary in the percentage of entries they will accept but the usual score needed for an acceptance is about 12/15 with the top honours going to those images where all three judges award their top mark. We have a list of salons with links to their websites on our Links page if you want to give them a try.

Physical meet up at Kingston Deverill and a little tuition

Our thanks to Meyrick for organising a get together at the ford near Kingston Deverill and providing a little tuition on the exposure triangle. It was lovely to actually meet some of our new members in the flesh for the first time. Here are a few photos from the evening.

Our new programme for 2021 - 2022

Do keep an eye on our Programme for the new season as it develops. We start with an absolutely cracking evening, Wednesday September 1st , when we Zoom talk with Ross McKelvey of the Catchlight Camera Club in Belfast. Ross is a Commercial photographer with his own studio. He holds a string of photographic honours such as MPAGB, FIPF, EFIAP/p, MFIAP, FBPE and is a member of the London Salon of Photography. Ross is a regular competitor and medal winner in National and International salons in various genres as well as being a judge for many salons. We are honoured that he is giving up some of his precious time to speak to our small club.

Later in our programme we are invited to attend at AJ's photographic store in Bruton on Wednesday November 24th at 7.30pm. Andrew Dibben, the proprietor, has kindly invited us to have a look around his store and will be demonstrating some of his equipment for us. This event will be limited to 15 members only, because of space requirements, and will be on a pre-booking basis only. If you wish to attend this event please book your place with Brian Stubbs as soon as possible. Please do not delay as we anticipate a high demand for places on this evening.

We have lots to look forward to this coming season.

BBC interview three Olympic Sport Photographers

The BBC have a short video clip where their journalist speaks to three sports photographers - Laurence Griffiths, Naomi Baker and Richard Heathcote – about their favourite shots from the Games so far. Click on the link below: Tokyo Olympics:Capturing the perfect moment

Club visit to Kingston Deverill ford Wednesday evening August 11th 2021

This is an informal get together with advice on how to attempt various types of shot at a river ford. The location is beautiful and off the beaten track. The village is also very picturesque. For more details contact our Treasurer, Meyrick Griffith-Jones.

Club visit to Bennetts Water Gardens July 19th 2021

It was hot, sunny, and beautiful with pleny of shade under the trees plus a nice cafe on site. A number of club members met up at Bennetts Water Gardens, Chickerell, near Weymouth on Monday. This beautiful site features many ponds, fish, lilies and bridges in the style of Claude Monet's famous paintings. It was good to get out and about again and this venue offers wonderful opportunities to take photos.

Photography Show at the NEC September 2021

After last year's virtual show the 2021 Photography Show is back in person at the NEC Birmingham September 18th - 21st 2021. Click on Photography Show 2021 for details and pre-registration for tickets. The site also has links to useful videos from previous shows.

Astronomy Photographer of the Year Shortlist

Click here to view the shortlisted images from the 2021 Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition. There were 4,500 plus entries from 75 countries worldwide. The awards ceremony will be on September 16th 2021. An exhibition of the winning and shortlisted images will be held at the National Maritime Museum.

Wincanton Camera Club on Facebook

Our club now has a private group on Facebook for members only.
Click on this link to see the page and request to join. You will need to have a Facebook account which is free.

What we did in 2018-2019

What we did in 2019-2020

What we did in 2020-2021