The Group met at 10:15 a.m. on 14^th May with the theme ‘Technology’.

5 people attended as John Clark had not completed his paper round! Most were back to rude health.

Overall best picture was Pam Liberson’s ‘Mobile Home Dashboard’ which featured a Satnav and rear camera (amongst other automobile technology.

The June theme is ‘Landscapes’. John Hawke encouraged members to discuss options for the theme. Members confirmed the broadness of the theme By including city landscapes. Most of the discussion centred on composition tips and tricks including ‘Rule of Thirds’, adding depth of field to a two-dimensional image, and using available light to enhance features such as clouds and shadows.

In response to Pam Liberson’s problems with a malfunctioning 5 years old Windows PC, John Hawke advised to do two things.

1. Go into File Explorer and highlight the C Drive – right click to get the drop down menu – highlight ‘Properties’ to see how much space is left. If space is almost used up, he advised to download as much as possible to her external hard disk drive.  Once completed, recheck ‘Properties’!
2. Reset Windows using the option ‘Retain files and programs’. For the necessary steps to do this he advised to Google for ‘Reset Windows’ where there will be several ‘idiot guides’ that will give a step by step guide.

The Group met at 3 p.m. on 8^th April with the theme ‘Motion’ hosted by Angie Sargean

5 people attended as Rosemary Crumplin had not recovered from a virus infection – partly the reason March’s meeting was abandoned. Angie Sargeant and Mike Liberson both had operations that precluded attendance.

Overall best picture was Angie Sargeant’s ‘Tree Surgeon’.

Angie is housebound and she was fortunate to see some tree pruning in a neighbour’s garden. Her garden windmill was also highly recommended as a good example of the theme.

The May theme is ‘Technology’. John Hawke encouraged members to discuss options for the theme as well as ideas for the June meeting ‘Bleak Landscapes’ – now was the time to take the photographs – one hopes that by June we might have better weather!

The Group met at 10:15 on 12^th February with the theme ‘Mood/Atmosphere’.

4 people attended as Mike Liberson had a hospital appointment.

Overall best picture was Rosemary Crumplin’s ‘Halo’.

Halos are a sign of high, thin cirrus clouds drifting 20,000 feet (6 km) or more above our heads. These clouds contain millions of tiny ice crystals. The halos you see are caused by both refraction, or splitting of light, and also by reflection, or glints of light from these ice crystals. The crystals must be oriented and positioned just so with respect to your eye, for the halo to appear. Rosemary’s photo was taken using her mobile phone – the phenomena is very transient, her husband John Clark was not quite at the same view angle and missed it.

The overall standard of the folios was very high (see Group Web page for individual samples) with different takes on the subject theme. The web page contains two pictures by John Hawke of the same trees that appear as one – a before and after following a recent storm – hence his title ‘Tragedy’.

The March theme is ‘Motion. John Hawke encouraged members to try various techniques such as panning, intentional camera movement, slow exposure, etc to create an impression of movement.