Blog

Our first meeting of the 2022-2023 season was held on the evening of Wednesday September 7th. This was a “hybrid” meeting with members attending at the Friends Meeting House and also joining via Zoom. Unfortunately our intended speakers were unable to come but at short notice two KPS members put together a pair of very contrasting presentations.

Simon Roberts has recently returned from a trip to Alaska which was almost entirely devoted to brown bears.

He was able to give us a fascinating insight into the life and behaviour of brown bears which was illustrated by a series of fantastic wildlife images. Such is the quality of the images, several have appeared in national newspapers since his return.

Observing the bears for long periods of time at close quarters (sometimes very close quarters!) he was able to observe and learn a lot about their behaviour, feeding routines and family dynamics. Simon is meticulous in trying to capture the “perfectly composed” image and this was evident in the photographs we saw.

Following the break, with a welcome, post Covid return of tea coffee and cakes Richard Jakobson gave his presentation on Deep Sky Astrophotography. He described how he has become fascinated by the taking and processing of images of objects, mainly nebulae, deep in our night sky.

Following the successful deployment of NASA’s Hubble telescope and more recently the James Webb Space Telescope many of us have be able to see the amazing and beautiful images from deep in our cosmos. Richard described how the amateur astrophotographer can take similar photographs from their back gardens.

 

The facts and figures associated with such images are incredible. For example it took over 3,000 years for the light from the Garnet Star to travel and reach the sensor in Richard’s camera!

If you would like to become a ‘virtual’ member or attend one of our Zoom meetings as a guest please email us (contactkeswickPS@gmail.com)

 

 

On the 16th August a group of members again ventured to Drumburgh Moss, a nature reserve on the Solway run by Cumbria Wildlife Trust. The trip was organised by Tony Marsh, who as usual was on hand to give practical advice on macrphotoography and to identify the various fauna and flora we came across. The weather was cool with dull light so there was not much flight activity from the damselflies and dragonflies but those we found did remain still, posing for for longer than usual!

A selection of the images can be seen at: Drumburgh Moss

The scheduled meeting this week had to be postponed at short notice due to illness. As in the past our programme secretary stepped into the breach with “something I prepared earlier”. In truth Alan’s presentation “Inter-City Photography” had only just been completed. We need not have worried. Alan gave us an apparently effortless and fluent trip round the world viewing many superb images of cities he has visited.

He began his presentation giving detailed advice on how to take candid street photography and also detailed advice on the techniques and equipment he uses for his architectural photography. We then had a trip around a selection of the UK and the world’s cities starting in London

 

and moving to Tokyo, New York, Belfast, Berlin, Venice, Florence and finally Havana.

 

There was a wide range of images from stunning skylines and nightscapes to candid shots of people going about their daily lives such as a New York traffic policeman on a junction on 42^nd Street. In contrast there were several abstract images where Alan was able to capture a visual appearance which took his eye at the time. These included a polluted waterway in London where the interaction of a discarded plastic bottle floating on an oil slick created a paradoxically fascinating, attractive photograph.

 

With each image Alan was able to give advice on aspects of photography including composition techniques, depth of field, storytelling, the influence of light. He showed three images taken from a hotel bedroom window in Tokyo at different times of the day which demonstrated the huge difference on a scene that differing light conditions can make.

There were many stunning architectural shots where at times Alan made best use of adverse weather conditions. These included an image of the Oculus taken in the mist in New York.

 

His street photography captured the essence of the cities they were taken in: a woman striding through a colourful scene in Havana and a group of Japanese commuters “doing what they do on a Tokyo subway”.

 

Included in his presentation was a series of monochrome images from Alan’s youth in London in the 1970’s. These photographs demonstrated that even then Alan had the ability to capture the essence of a scene and its time.

After entertaining and engaging the audience yet again with one of his presentations Alan was thanked by our chairman David Woodthorpe for another “Stunning performance”

Richard Jakobson

Our final Open Competition of the season took place on the evening of Wednesday 9^th March. It was a “hybrid” meeting being held both at the Friend’s Meeting House and also streamed by Zoom to members unable to attend in person.  Our judge was Richard Spiers DPAG, BPE2*, APAGB. Richard has been judging our internal competitions regularly for many years. As usual his insightful and often helpful comments were liberally sprinkled with dry wit and humour. This always makes for a very enjoyable evening.

48 digital images were submitted for the competition and 22 print images. Richard commented on the overall high quality of the images and his pleasure in having the opportunity to view them

In the print category four images scored the maximum of 20 points: “Griffon Vulture in Flight” by Ronnie Gilbert which was also judged the best nature print,

 

“Sunlight and Shade” by Ken Rennie,

 

“Trees in Arctic Storm” by Keith Snell which was judged the best landscape print

 

and “Black Tailed Godwit” by Carol Minks.

 

The best people print was “Cambodian Fish Filleter Family” by David Woodthorpe

 

and the best creative print was “Lotus Blossom” also by David Woodthorpe.

 

Three images scored 20 in the digital projected category: “Crested Tit with Grub and Ants” by Tony Marsh which was the best nature digital image,

 

“Eagle in Snowstorm” by Simon Roberts

 

and “Kestrel with Mouse” by Ronnie Gilbert.

 

The best digital landscape image was “An Oak and Horseshoe” by Chris Burgess,

 

the best people digital image was “Waterfall Dreams” by Keith Snell

 

and the best creative digital image was “Old Crocks” by Marilyn Woodthorpe

 

All the submitted images can be viewed on our gallery page

If you would like to become a ‘virtual’ member or attend one of our Zoom meetings as a guest please email us (contactkeswickPS@gmail.com).

Richard Jakobson

 

This week Keswick Photographic Society held its third set subject competition. The theme for this was song titles which seemed a popular choice as there was an excellent entry with twenty members participating. The songs were chosen from a wide range of genres and artists. Songs from pop stars such as The Beatles, Neil Young, Simon and Garfunkel, Fleetwood Mac and David Bowie were well represented. Others included children’s songs such as Nellie the Elephant and The Ugly Duckling. There were also songs from shows and films such as The Bare Necessities, Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines and Any Old Iron.  Members had obviously enjoyed using their imagination and hadn’t been shy about revealing their musical tastes.

The images were judged by one of our members, Sue Rugg, who had gone to great lengths to record each song so that she could introduce the images by playing short excerpts. She’d obviously enjoyed her task, particularly the humour displayed by some members in their choices and she felt that most of the images represented the songs well. She also wondered how some members had spent their youth given their choice of song titles and images.

There was the usual mix of landscapes, people pictures, creative images and nature. Sue’s overall choice of winner was an image of a Gannet skimming the sea by Simon Roberts. The song title for this was “Electric Glide in Blue” by James William Guercio.

 

Best landscape went to David Woodthorpe for a woodland scene titled “Moss Garden”, a song by David Bowie.

 

Best People was awarded to Ted Jordan for his image of two women titled “Sisters” written by Irving Berlin and sung by The Beverly Sisters.

 

Sue chose “Helpless” an image of a young Grey Wagtail by Tony Marsh as the best nature image

 

and “Purple Haze” by Bob Given as the best creative image.

 

It was a fun evening, enjoyed by everyone and excellently judged by Sue who gave many helpful tips on how the images could be improved.

All the entered images can be seen on our gallery page

Julie Walker

We held our second open competition of the season.  Maybeth Jamieson, a long time member, and immediate past president, of Dumfries Camera Club, was the judge and gave very detailed critique of the images which was full of positive comments and helpful tips.

Maybeth was present in the meeting room and members attended either in the meeting room or online via Zoom.  As usual there was a wide range of subjects in the images, including landscape, portraits, sport, creative and nature, taken locally and further afield.

There were 26 prints for Maybeth to judge.  The Best Overall winner of the print section was Ken Rennie with an excellent landscape titled “Cold start to the day”.  This image scored the maximum of 20 points and was also judged Best Landscape.

 

Also scoring a maximum of 20 points were images by Carol Minks, with “Arctic Reindeer Svalbard” which also achieved Best Nature,

 

and Julie Walker, with “Down by the Mill” which achieved Best Creative .

 

Scoring 19 points was “River Rider” by Sue Rugg, and was also awarded Best People.

 

Four images were awarded 18 points, “A Tree and a fence” by Sue Rugg, “”Dornoch Point” by Ken Rennie, “Pladda Sound” by Tony Melling and “Suspicion” by Alan Walker.

There were 49 Digital images entered to judge. There were five images scoring the maximum of 20 points. The Best Overall was “Vincent the Boy who liked trains” by Sue Rugg, which also achieved Best People image.

 

The Best Landscape again went to Ken Rennie for his image “Deepdale Beck”.

 

Best Nature was achieved by Julie Walker for “Snow Leopard in Snow storm”.

 

The final 2 images scoring 20 points were an image of an athlete “Nelvin Appiah” by Bob Given

 

and “Red Kite Diving” by Ronnie Gilbert.

 

Two entries scored 19 points those being ”Goldfinches Squabbling” by Carol Minks and “Fortune Teller” by Alan Walker. Five images achieved 18 points,  “The Vaccinated” by Sue Rugg, which was also awarded Best Creative, “Jay and Woodpecker standoff” by Marilyn Woodthorpe, “Cottages in Cove” by Tricia Martin, “Mountain Lion in pursuit or prey” by Alan Walker, “ and “Thrush Chick waiting to be fed” by David Woodthorpe.

All the entered images can be seen on our gallery pages

Gordon Train

This week Keswick Photographic Society’s members were entertained by Carrie Calvert who gave a talk titled “A Walk on the Wild Side” accompanied by numerous prints. Carrie’s passions are nature photography and walking. In her spare time, she spends many hours walking miles on the fells near her home in Brampton, and further afield in Cumbria and Northumberland, searching for wildlife subjects to photograph. Carrie is a full time NHS employee at the Cumberland Infirmary in Carlisle so she has little time to spare but at weekends and during holidays she rises as early as 3.30 a.m. to be out on the fells by dawn. During the recent stressful times due to the pandemic, she has found it very therapeutic to be out and about in the fresh air with her camera.

 

Carrie prefers to photograph in the wild rather than from a hide and she is very protective of the wildlife she photographs, making sure that she does not cause distress by getting too close. Her wonderful photographs of a variety of species have been achieved by observing their behaviour from a distance, sometimes for hours, while deciding on the best location to photograph from, working out a good composition and waiting for perfect light.

 

Carrie’s prints covered a wide variety of creatures.  Owls are a particular favourite of hers and she had images of a number of different species including Short Eared Owls, Barn Owls, Little Owls and a Long Eared Owl. Other birds included in her presentation were Terns, Red Kites, Puffins, Gannets, and Sanderlings. She has twice had images selected for BBC Countryfile’s Calendar. One of Greylag goslings in 2017 and another of a cygnet under its mother’s wing for the 2022 calendar.

 

As well as birds she also has numerous images of mammals including Red Squirrels, Brown Hares, Red and Fallow Deer and Badgers. She also photographs domestic species such as Highland Cattle, Longhorn Cattle and local breeds of sheep.

Carrie explained that she often has to put up with considerable discomfort to achieve her images sometimes lying for hours on the wet and cold ground or scrambling over slippery rocks and wedging herself into position between them. She emphasised the importance of a flask of coffee which is almost as essential as her camera on her early morning outings!

Carrie’s enthusiasm for her subject was apparent throughout her talk which was also full of helpful tips particularly for those new to wildlife photography. Her prints of native wildlife were inspirational and more than adequately demonstrated that it is not necessary to travel huge distances to locations abroad in order to achieve prize winning images. In conclusion it was a most enjoyable evening.

Julie Walker

Our first set subject competition of the season was held on November 3rd. For this, members were asked to submit a panel of three images, either prints or digital images, on a subject of their choice. Seventeen members entered and there was a wide variety of themes including portraits, landscapes, sport and wildlife.

Alan Walker judged the images and as well as looking at the quality of each individual image he considered how well the three images in each entry sat together as a cohesive panel.

There were six print entries and Alan awarded “Best Print Entry” to Sue Rugg for her panel of high key images of trees. He remarked that the simplicity of these images was particularly appealing.

 

There were 11 entries in the digital image section.  “Best Digital Entry” went to Antony Melling for a panel of beautiful abstracts of flowing water.

 

Alan then made a number of other awards. Best Portrait was awarded jointly to Annie Given for her digital panel of three images of a boxer

 

and to David Price for his print panel of three close up portraits of a busker.

 

Ann Healey’s triptych of moody trees was selected as the best creative entry.

 

Bob Given’s entry of female rugby players was awarded “Best Sports Entry”.

 

“Best Landscape” went to Chris Burgess for three images of sand dunes which illustrated various stages in their development.

 

Marilyn Woodthorpe’s panel comprising head shots of a Merlin was selected as the best nature image

 

and finally Michael Rowlinson’s panel of vintage diggers and other machinery was awarded “Best General Interest”.

 

Julie Walker, Nov 2021

Gerald Chamberlin DPAGB EFIAP is a member of the Morton Photographic Society in Carlisle and is an experienced photographic judge and speaker.  Members of the society again attended either in person at the meeting room or on Zoom.

Gerald started by explaining the science of Infra-Red (IR) and how it fits into the light spectrum, as ‘Invisible Light’, the history of Infra-Red photography and how it began in the late 1800s. It was used in both the First World War, for identifying trenches and gun emplacements, and during the Second World War. He showed how it was also used in the 1960s and 70s to produce ‘psychedelic’ photographic effects on record covers, etc. Originally the process relied upon film but nowadays digital cameras, which are a lot easier to work with, achieve excellent results. Gerald used to use a DSLR but now uses digital mirrorless cameras.

He explained how there are two ways to achieve IR by the use of external IR filters for the camera, which makes the process very slow, or getting the camera professionally converted by changing the standard filter in the camera to an IR filter, and the choices of different wavelength filters.

He presented his excellent digital images of very varied subjects, including the Harbour at Galston, Little Langdale, Carlisle War Memorial, Ferrybridge, Eskdale, Lowther Castle, Edinburgh Jupiter Park, Longtown Car Show.

The sitting man as Silloth, Threlkeld Quarry including Sir Tom, Beamish Museum, including some panoramas.

He described the complex and quite technical processing of the images once taken, including the stages of Custom White balance, Red and Blue swapping, Desaturation of colours, Clarity and Dehaze, using software such as Photoshop and Nik Effects.  He also showed some excellent prints for members to examine.

 

Gerald then bravely demonstrated this workflow for post processing the images on his laptop, successfully detailing the various stages.  Finally, Gerald showed a short video showing the subtle processes he had used on those prints displayed in the room. Members enjoyed the very informative talk and the excellent images and prints.

Gordon Train

This was the Society’s first Open Competition of the season. It was also the first meeting where the judging of prints has been possible since the start of the Covid pandemic due to previous meetings taking place solely on Zoom.  Our judge, Simon Allen, who attended via Zoom, is a member of Dumfries Camera Club. He an experienced judge and gave his detailed critique of the images which was full of positive comments and helpful tips.

The evening was divided in to two halves;  prints and digital images. There were 28 prints for Simon to judge.  There was a wide range of subjects in the images, many taken locally but some from further afield.

The overall winner of the print section was Carol Minks with a beautiful image of a Whimbrel.

 

This image scored the maximum of 20 points and judged Best Nature print.    Ken Rennie also achieved the maximum score of 20 for his image of a seascape titled ‘Wild Horses’, this image was also judged the Best Creative print.

 

Three scores of 19 were awarded; one to Alan Walker for an image titled “It’s long way down Dad…be brave Son”, an adult and a young owl,

 

and another to Marilyn Woodthorpe for an image of an Indian woman feeding her goats titled “Feeding Time”.

 

The third was an image by Tom Stenhouse titled “Attempted Charge Down”, which also was judged Best People print. Simon also awarded a score of 18 to four prints. These were “Dawn on Bassenthwaite Lake” by Fred Bell, which was also judged Best Landscape print,

 

“In the Shifting Wind” by Sue Rugg,

 

 

“Three in One” by Ken Rennie

 

and “Made It” by David Price

 

Fifty Two images were submitted for judging in the digital section. Again a wide range of subjects in the images. The overall winner was Bob Given for his image titled “Lara Clears”, a monochrome image of a high jumper. This image scored 20 points, and judged Best People image.

 

A score of 20 was also awarded to Alan Walker for his image titled “ I see You”.

 

It was a good evening for Carole Minks who was also awarded 19 for her image titled “Wild Buzzard with Prey”, which was also judged Best Nature image.

 

All the entered images can be viewed in our gallery pages:

Gallery link