Last week’s meeting Tues 13 May: Print Competition Our judge was Kathy Chandler and the results were: Colour First Place John Boteler: Gypsy Lad Second Place Pete Warrington: The Old West Pier Brighton Third Place Dave McKay: Concentration H. Commended Ian Bray: Dolce et Decorum est Pro Patria Mori H. Commended Rob Ferrands: Nelson Mandela H. Commended Alan Lewis: Iberian Lynx Commended Les Gordon: Cormorants Neck and Neck Commended Adrian Cubitt – Lynx Young Male Commended Keith Worthington – Little Bee Eater Commended Pete Warrington – Bosco Surf Monochrome First Place John Boteler: Broken Oak Second Place Ian Bray: Tulip Third Place Sandra Devaney: Late for School H. Commended Pete Warrington: The Light on the Beach H. Commended John Boteler: Passing Strangers, Weston H. Commended Dave Belcher: Contemplation Commended Sandra Devaney: Bubble girl Commended Dave McKay: Hokkaido Winter Commended Dave Belcher: Fountain Abbey Commended Les Gordon: AR 55 Congratulations to all who entered the competition.

Last week’s meeting Tues 6 May: Outdoor portraits with Brian Worsley and Matild Mati We all assembled on the corner of Merton Street not far from the Mercure Oxford Eastgate Hotel and Brian introduced Mati and explained what we would be doing. The light was still very good, and the enthusiastic posse of photographers began snapping away. Mati was an excellent model and posed very professionally. At times she was not sure who was shooting as so many of use were pointing our cameras at her from various angles.

Last week’s meeting Tues 29 April: Jonathan Vaines – Little Print Show Jonathan had over 50 prints – highly original and totally different to what we see at camera clubs – on display. The vast majority were processed in-camera at the point of taking rather than in Photoshop or Lightroom. Hence his advice to ‘think inside the box’. He takes photos of anything that catches his eye and usually very local to his home. He will focus on a particular detail of the subject he is photographing and take 25 similar shots of the detail, moving his camera slightly and/or turning it 90 degrees.

Last week’s meeting Tues 22 April: Paul Kilsby, PhD RCA – Unnatural Histories followed by members’ project reviews Paul spoke about his latest work Unnatural Histories, which were photographs of birds with prey in their beaks which would never occur in the wild. But before getting to this he told a little bit about himself, and what shaped his childhood, so that we could understand why he chose birds and ‘nature’. He was brought up around the Ilse of Purbeck in Dorset, very close to Poole. He showed an old black and white photograph of his school class, 9-11 year olds, in a primary school near Christchurch in Dorset. Paul was not in the photo as he rarely went to school.

Last week’s meeting Tues 15 April: A Passage To India with Sandra Devaney and Linda Wride Last year Sandra gave us a presentation of her trip to northern India. This time she was showing images from her visit to southern India. She went the state of Kerala which had the first democratically elected Communist government in the world (1957). Kerala has the best human development indicators in India – higher life expectancy, lower infant mortality, lower birth rate, lower death rate, higher literacy rate.

Last week’s meeting Tues 8 April: Projected Digital Image No. 3 Our judge was Peter Cox and the results were First Place White Tailed Eagle in Snowstorm Dave McKay Second Place Dulce et Decorum est Pro Partia Mori Ian Bray Third Place Lynx Hunting Alan Lewis H. Commended Come Back Here Les Gordon H. Commended Cheetah in Early Morning Light Dave Belcher H. Commended Petulant Young Elephant Keith Worthington Commended Lynx 3 Alan Lewis Commended Hornbill and the Rising Sun Dave Atkinson Commended Shortie Dave Atkinson Commended Mating Crown Cranes 3 Keith Worthington Congratulations to all who took part.

Last week’s meeting Tues 1 April: The Soul of the Creator – Paul Sanders Paul began his talk sharing a quote from the art critic John Berger’s seminal work ‘Ways of Seeing’: “Seeing comes before words. The child looks and recognizes before it can speak.” Paul added that photography is the only language that needs no translation.

Many thanks to all members who put in images for the competition. The quality of the images was exceptionally high. After expertly talking through each image, Phil held back a long list which then became a short list, then an even shorter list, Phil choose his four favourites which were: 1st place: Heads Up by John Boteler 2nd place: Shade to Light by Rob Ferrands 3rd place: Contemplation by Pete Warrington 4th place: Potter #3 by Linda Wride Congratulations to all who entered.

The Dave A and B introduced the talk with a history of Zimanga which is set in KwaZula Natal in north-east South Africa near the border of Eswatini (formerly Swaziland). This private nature reserve is the brainchild of South African sugar farmer, Charl Senekal, who has turned a former hunting reserve into a 6,000 hectare wildlife haven where photographers can take stunning shots of the park’s wildlife from ‘state of the art’ hides and trips around the reserve. Charl hired Bence Máté, an award-winning wildlife photographer, to design the hides, some of which have illuminated water holes with all ‘mod-cons’ for the nocturnal photographer.

Last week’s meeting Tues 11 March: Janteloven – ‘No one is better than the other’ with Michele Peters Michele has visited Denmark on many occasions, and she introduced us to the Scandinavian concept of ‘Jantoven’ which is a social code that emphasises the ‘we are all in it together’ approach to society. She would pick up this ‘no one is better than the other’ approach in her second half of her talk.