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For our meeting of the 14^th February we were the guests of Penrith & District Camera Club who hosted a three-way competition with ourselves and Carlisle Camera Club in Newbiggin Village Hall. This annual event is a very social evening with a welcome opportunity to view the range of photographic work (as projected digital images) from all three clubs, with each club showing 15 images from different authors. The images were judged and scored anonymously by Jack Bamford, now of Hexham Photographic Society but previously a very active and well-respected Cumbria-based photographer and club member.

The range of photographic subjects was very broad but with landscape, nature, travel and formal and informal portraiture very much to the fore. Jack emphasised at the outset the very high quality of all the images on show and this was widely acknowledged by the audience despite the competitive element of the occasion. In the event, Keswick Photographic Society were the clear winners with 260 points and Carlisle gained 248 and Penrith 232 points.

Five images were awarded the maximum 20 point score. Three of these were from Keswick authors: Ronnie Gilbert with Bonelli’s Eagle Plucking Pigeon;

Rosamund Macfarlane with White-tailed Sea Eagle;

and, John Macfarlane with Foxes Greeting By Snowbank.

This perhaps emphasises the renown of the Keswick club in wildlife photography but they were not the only club with this expertise. Carrie Calvert of Carlisle Camera Club also gained the maximum 20 points with an exquisitely atmospheric image of a Black Grouse Lekking at daybreak on the moors. And the fifth top scoring image was by John Tillotson of the Penrith club with an exceptionally inventive montage of three different people photographically trapped inside bottles and titled The Three Samples. However, when pressed, the judge selected Ronnie Gilbert’s image as the Best of Show.

As well as praising the fair and perceptive judging comments of Jack Bamford, the fine hospitality and refreshments provided by our Penrith hosts were also enthusistically acclaimed by the audience.

In what was a week of competitive photography, Keswick Photographic Society were in competition again at the weekend when they entered the Northern Counties Club Championships held in Gateshead. The Society gained first place in both the photographic prints and projected images sections and will now go on to represent the northern counties of Great Britain in the national club championships later this year.

Our next meeting, at the usual venue of the Friends Meeting House in Elliott Park, Keswick,  will be on Wednesday 28th February at 7.30 with a presentation of landscape and wildlife by our well-travelled members Alan and Julie Walker and titled Hot and Cold. Visitors are most welcome to join us.

Keith Snell, Chairman

This week our members were hugely entertained and informed by Neil Hulme who talked about his passion for mono images. His talk “Moments in Mono” gave us a geographic tour through locations he has photographed with his increasingly unique style. He started in Northumberland and finished in the Lake District with views of the Wirral, the north west coast, North Wales, Venice and the Peak District along the way. This was liberally laced with his self-deprecating  humour and tales of the “near misses” encountered whilst attempting to capture these images. Such “near misses” included sinking waist deep into salt marshes whilst fleeing the oncoming tide and a narrow escape from a marauding herd of Blackface sheep.

Neil spoke of the inspiration he has had from such photographers as Michael Kenna, Rohan Reilly, Stephen Cairns and Josef Hoflehner. He explained in detail how he obtained his images. Although they may seem simple and somewhat minimalist Neil showed what care and attention was taken to capture exactly what he had in mind. This frequently involved careful attention to weather forecasts and driving significant distances at ungodly hours. His images are often taken using filters to create long exposures with emphasis in composition on leading lines, separation of components within the image and careful tripod placement.

Neil has a very individual style and throughout his presentation he informed us of the techniques he uses in post processing. He draws the viewer’s eye to focal point of the image with careful selective lightening and darkening. He often removes the horizon line to create a surreal, ethereal feeling. He emphasises the leading lines within the image. Neil also brought with him prints of his images which demonstrated with even more clarity the quality of his work.

Feedback from members afterwards was very positive and I am sure that many of us were inspired to hope for dank, murky, misty mornings to go out and try our hand at his style.

Richard Jakobson

This meeting was another “Members Night” and gave an opportunity for five of our members to highlight particular aspects of their photography. Keith Snell’s theme was ‘Serendipity’, how to make the best of the unexpected as well as how to create unexpected images. I particularly liked an image of a Hebridean sunset transformed by moving the camera horizontally during the exposure.

Carol Waterhouse showed her intriguing recycling of small sections of some of photographs into collages of colour and patterns.

Richard Jakobson talked us through his attempts at night photography and the techniques he has used, featuring the Aurora Borealis and stars, particularly the Milky Way.

These three demonstrations had been very well received at Morton Camera Club the week before.

New this week was Alan Walker’s fascinating exposition of the High Dynamic Range technique. HDR is used when there are areas of intense dark and brightness in a subject, easy for our eyes to adapt to, but containing too much contrast for even the most modern cameras to capture. The solution is to take the same frame at differing exposures and combine the results in special software, (Alan uses Photomatix but the newer versions of Lightroom also work well). HDR images can end up looking very artificial but in Alan’s hands the subtle results are quite natural although he also likes adding a ‘grungy’ look to subjects such as abandoned old cars.

Finally, Carol Minks, one of our excellent wildlife photographers, showed us few of her favourite nature images. Some of these had been taken on slide film, some were local to Cumbria with others in Central Europe, Scandinavia and, perhaps her favourite place to visit, Yellowstone National Park and ranged from Orchids through Butterflies to Brown Bears. All were cracking shots.

Tony Marsh

The usual Wednesday weekly meeting of Keswick Photographic Society was transferred to Thursday following an invitation from Morton Camera Club for members to attend and present their images.  A group of volunteers from Keswick set out to Morton Community Centre in Carlisle where they were welcomed by Chairman Gerald Chamberlain.

The evening was started by Keswick’s Chairman, Keith Snell with an image of a nude model holding a discreetly placed chiffon. It had been taken at a Royal Photographic Society course when the model was relaxed and not consciously posing. Keith had used a small Canon G15 camera without flash producing an image which fulfilled all the rules of fibonacci sequence.  He then showed a lone Red Fox in Yellowstone in scenic snowscape, a reminder that these are lone animals who can survive in wilderness and travel huge distances. Next was an example of Intentional Camera Movement (ICM) which was achieved by panning from left to right with the appropriate camera settings. He ended with an example of In Camera Multiple Exposure (ICME) where three images of heather, reeds and water were superimposed on each other giving a surreal appearance.

Richard Jakobson then gave a talk on “A Novices Guide to the Milky Way” showing beautiful images of the night sky and the Milky Way. His tips were to be awake at 3am(!), use a tripod and to focus on infinity. Amazingly the camera sees a totally different image from that of the eye.  Richard had added foreground interest by either using longer exposures, a torch or a little help from the quarter moon. However he encountered two problems; condensation on the lens and falling asleep.  Despite the title of ‘novice’ these images were very good.

Ken Rennie then showed some stunning landscape images of Dornoch Point in Scotland, Castle Crag in Borrowdale and the steamer on Ullswater taken from Gowbarrow.  His talk included the various techniques he uses in lightroom and photoshop to obtain impressive improvements which were often counter intuitive. In addition he changed from using a wide angled lens to a telephoto lens to emphasise the more interesting aspects of the landscape, hence the adage “less is more”.

Following the interval Carmen Norman showed some studio shots of a ballerina (Kirstie) in a variety of poses displaying her versatility including an amazing standing splits. The use of a step ladder gave some additional interesting postures and lighting challenges.  Outdoors, Kirstie did some ballet leaps and spins adjacent to Crummock Water, waterfalls and Cathedral Cavern where a point pose reflecting in the water was beautiful.

Carole Waterhouse showed a number of images that at first sight appeared ordinary but after some radical cropping to focus on an intriguing part of the image then copied up to 6 times, she produced some exceptional work, “Hands of Buddha” being a good example.  Images of bubbles and reflections were manipulated into creative and visually impressive compositions.

Ronnie Gilbert ended the evening with some of his natural history shots. He explained that  for certain animals it was essential to be in a hide because of the sensitivity or the ferocity of the subject including kingfishers, sparrowhawks and a European Brown Bear whereas less sensitive and more curious fauna are hares, squirrels, and the deer in Bradgate Park.  The RSPB sites at Leighton Moss, Martin Mere, Bempton Cliffs and the Farne Islands all provide ideal sites to photograph various species of water loving birds. One of Ronnie’s beautiful images was of two humming birds on the decking of an apartment in California, taken with camera in one hand and a G&T in the other.  His finale was an image of an adolescent grizzly bear running towards him, he chose to stand still and fortunately the bear passed by about 5 feet away. Phew!

The feedback from Morton members was very complimentary and Keswick Photographic Society look forward to the 2018-2019 season when Morton Camera Club will visit Keswick to reciprocate the session.

The evening of our third Open Competition was judged by Richard Speirs DPAGB, APAGB, BPE2. Richard is recognised as one of the top judges in the Northern Counties and he did not disappoint.  He judged using constructive criticism, advice and a sense of humour; he even had the courage to involve the members in deciding whether his advice was good or not.  However despite the opinion of the audience, he didn’t alter the scores!

These competition evenings can be long with many images to get through, on this  occasion there were 36 prints and 59 digital images. It was impressive to see that more of our new members had entered, thus braving exposure to comments that might be less than favourable. Fortunately, Richard always gave the good points first followed by the improvements, so first timers were in good hands, as the blows of negativity were softened by kindly suggestions.

The prints’ section had some excellent entries, overall the lowest score was 15. Two members scored 20 points; Carol Minks with a wonderful image of a “Juvenile Sparrowhawk” looking very coy in the rain and John Macfarlane displayed an equally impressive image of a sea otter eating a baby octopus, entitled “Chewy”. The striking thing about the latter image was that the otter was in complete harmony with the background, both in terms of colour and texture. The judge is asked prior to the competition to give first place should there be a tie and it was Carol who received this accolade.

Five members received scores of 19 points; Rosamund Macfarlane with “Puffin drying off”, Tony Marsh with “Blue Tit and Lichen”, Carol Minks with both “Male Stonechat on Gorse” and “Black Tailed Godwit”, Ken Rennie with “Solway Watercolour” and Alan Walker with “Fighting Barn Owls”.

A score of 18 was obtained by eight members; Ronnie Gilbert with “Red Squirrel in morning light”, Keith Snell with “Birds in Flight”, Rosamund Macfarlane with “Puffin Portrait”, Marilyn Woodthorpe with “Eggstacy,” Tom Stenhouse with “Fish Feeding Frenzy”, Julie Walker with “Red Stag in Snow”, Tony Marsh with “Caerlaverlock Rainbow” and David Woodthorpe with “Drizzle on a Squirrel”.

The digital image section was equally competitive with a tie for the top position of 20 points by Julie Walker’s “Crested Tit” and Ronnie Gilbert’s “Male Sparrowhawk with Prey” which Richard described as “stunning” giving him first place.

Ronnie Gilbert’s “Running Hare” and “Red legged Partridge” together with Ken Rennie’s “Safe Haven” were awarded 19 points.   Both Alan Walker’s “Bald Eagle in the Rain” and “Wild Rocker” as well as David Woodthorpe’s “Wren on Bracket Fungus”, Tony Marsh’s “Portinscale Kingfisher” and Rosalind Macfarlane’s “Bearded-Tit doing the Splits”  (an eye-watering image!) all scored 18 points.

With nearly twice as many digital images as prints Richard, using no accompanying notes, always appeared calm and collected and the evening finished exactly on time. Timing is a difficult thing to master being the hallmark of an excellent judge.

Once again it is the familiar names that appeared amongst the high scorers; as the saying goes “the cream always rises to the top”.  Unfortunately, not all the images can appear in this article nor be described in great detail but the standard of the two winners gives an indication of the excellence displayed.

Meetings take place at The Friends Meting House, Elliot Park, Keswick CA12 5NZ on Wednesday evenings AT 7.30PM. The next meeting is on the 31st January a practical session on “Still Life”

Tom Stenhouse

Tom Stenhouse has been  a member of the Keswick Photographic Society  for nearly 10 years. He very bravely submitted himself to a critique by his peers as he described the journey he has taken from then until now. That journey has been both geographic and technical, which made for an interesting evening.

When he submitted an early image of birds in flight into one of the regular competitions that the Society holds, he was advised  by the judge to make some alterations. He then lightened the wings as suggested, but this made no noticeable improvement. He became aware of the mantra, “You cannot make a bad picture good but you can make a good picture bad by too much post production work!”

Tom’s other interesting comment was that, sometimes, an image was better with some monochrome than all colour . A monochrome background can sometimes reduce the visual intrusion of the background on the main subject of the image.

By 2012 Tom had moved on to more adventurous applications within Lightroom and Topaz. A good example of that was a visit to the Golden Temple in Japan on a dull day in which he was able to bring out the golden aspects of the subject through the software that was now available. He was now regularly receiving commended and highly commended both in local and wider competitions and was able to use the software to enhance his images. One interesting image of 2013 was a view from Warnscale Bothy which unusually highlighted the visitors book in the window . In the same year he took some pictures of his daughter’s wedding – a stressful and not to be repeated exercise!

By now, his ability with the software was producing different results. Swapping backgrounds and improving foregrounds had led him onto still life. Smokin Joe did not go down too well with the judge, but the droplet sequence of photos showed great skill in the manipulation of the original images and were well received.

Geographically, we had moved from  the Western Isles, the Yorkshire Dales, Japan, New Zealand, Valencia,….to Ashness Bridge lit at dusk by torches!

Tom’s final set of images was the juxtaposition of the original picture of birds in flight with a recent sequence of birds in dispute over fish.

The comparison showed  how far he has come in his journey.

Meetings take place at The Friends Meting House, Elliot Park, Keswick CA12 5NZ on Wednesday evenings AT 7.30PM. There will be no meeting on the 24^th January as the Society is visiting Morton Photographic Society and so the next meeting is on the 31^st January a practical session on Still Life

Stephen Harris

John Gravett has been running a photographic company based in the Lake District since 1999. His photographic workshops are for people of all abilities and are mainly held  in the Lake District but he also runs occasional trips abroad. His main interest now is in landscape photography but he started out as a sports photographer in the 1980’s. He has contributed to a number of photographic magazines and last year he published a book entitled “Photoshop for Landscape Photographers”.

John treated us to a selection of lovely images taken in the Lake District over the last year. These were divided in to the four seasons and examples were shown from each. The majority of John’s images were landscapes but in the spring he had photographed daffodils at close quarters with a macro lens and bluebells from an unusual perspective by placing his camera on the ground. Summer had provided the opportunity to take images of rain drops bouncing off the bonnet of his car although he assured us that there really had been some good weather during July and August. He also demonstrated his versatility by showing images of wildlife taken during the summer months. In the autumn John had taken images of toadstools as well as landscapes. However the winter is clearly his favourite season when he is able to walk the fells suitably equipped with crampons. We enjoyed many beautiful images of snow covered slopes.

At the end of the evening John also showed us some images of his 2017 trip to  the USA taken in the National Parks including Yellowstone, Arches, Canyonlands, Bryce Canyon and Grand Canyon.

John offered some very useful advice which included “always have a camera with you” and made the point that even images taken with a mobile phone can be printed up to a reasonable size. He is a strong advocate of using a tripod saying that this helps him compose an image. His focus on detail was clearly demonstrated in his images, he pays particular attention to how different elements balance each other and fit together.  Another piece of advice offered was that “there is no such thing as bad weather, only different types of lighting”. John clearly goes out in all weathers, a great example to those of us, including myself, who prefer to remain indoors when it is pouring with rain. Many of his images illustrated that very atmospheric images can be taken in poor weather.

KPS members would like to wish everyone who visits our website a happy Christmas, a healthy and prosperous New Year.

This was an evening where instead of having a presentation from an outside speaker,  members viewed one another’s pictures in the form of themed “panels” of three prints. 28 panels were shown in total from 14 members and it proved to be a fascinating and enjoyable evening where we could look at very personal and sometimes quirky images that were often very different from those we would enter into competitions.

Ronnie Gilbert set us off with themes of “Diving for food”, showing a Grizzly Bear and a Lesser Black-backed Gull with a fish each and an Otter with a crab, and then three icy scenes containing a handsome male Wigeon, (a duck), a flying Mallard and a Snipe.

Roland Harries showed intriguing pictures taken from the window of his upstairs flat, three of wonderful cloudscapes and three showing the recent roadworks proceeding near Booths supermarket. Two of these at night were particularly atmospheric.

Richard Jakobson had contrasting panels of impressionistic views of grasses and birch trees, with a pleasing blur caused by moving the camera vertically whilst taking the picture and dramatic monochrome portraits of a White Rhinocerous, a Cheetah and an Elephant, taken in Namibia. Roy Knowles panel was on a theme of “Walls”, a pleasingly isolated zig zag of dry stone walls taken near Caldbeck Common, the graffiti covered interior of an abandoned Irish coastguard station and a dramatic house wall mural from Londonderry remembering the events of Bloody Sunday. Tony Marsh showed three different lemur species taken in Madagascar and Carol Minks featured more “Winter” scenes of a Cygnet on ice, a wonderful sunset overlooking Derwent Water and a flock of brightly coloured Waxwings adorning a tree like exotic Christmas decorations. She then followed with three beautiful butterflies, surrounded by grasses or flowers taken in the Bulgarian mountains where the insect life is untouched by modern farming practices in a way we can only dream about.

Ed Richardson then took us to New Zealand with shots of the same tree standing in a lake and with a backdrop of mountains. Taken over a number of years it showed very different lake water levels. Ken Rennie, one of our most skilful landscape photographers treated us to four sets of landscape prints. A section of Hadrian’s Wall near Housesteads in very different conditions but all in beautiful light, ethereal low key shots of Ullswater, Rydal Water and a Scottish Loch, rays of sunlight streaming between the trees in a foggy Gelt Woods and minimalist shots of sand and sea from the Solway, Cornwall and Brittany. Keith Snell’s shots were all taken within 20 paces of one another  in Wasdale, each using novel techniques and showed how much interest can be gained by looking imaginatively in a small space whereas Tom Stenhouse treated us to a sunset performance in a hotel infinity pool in Thailand where a fire-lighting finale was matched by the pyrotechnics of a setting sun backlighting splashes of water. A second set was of two colourfully lit modern towers in Tokyo and Kyoto flanking a serene but equally colourful ancient Buddhist temple.

Carole Waterhouse, showed three panels, one of a Heron at Muncaster Castle, a trio of Indian Street characters and idiosyncratic portraits of street performers from Edinburgh and Whitby. Marilyn Woodthorpe showed landscapes,  three snowy Cairngorms scenes and three of lava fields and amazing flower displays from Idaho. David Woodthorpe’s panels were of beautiful coloured smoke trails at a Red Arrow display and detailed bird portraits all taken in one day in Scotland. Perhaps the most intriguing presentation was by Robert Webb: he has been experimenting with an ancient plate bellows camera that he has been renovating using bits from e-bay and custom made metalwork. Using film he acquires from the Czech Republic and home developing he has successively produced images of tree bark but this is very much the beginning of a work in progress.

All in all, this was a highly enjoyable evening with a great range of photographic enthusiasms on show and with the explanations given gave us much insight into each other’s photography.

Every year the 50 clubs that make up the Northern Counties Photographic Federation (NCPF) of the Photographic Alliance of Great Britain (PAGB) participate in an Annual InterClub Competition. The awards ceremony for 2017 was held on Sunday 26th November and Keswick Photographic Society had a clean sweep, winning all three Club trophies (Colour Prints, Monochrome Prints and Projected Digital Images). Within these categories, a third of our club members (12 individuals) were awarded one or more certificates of commendation for their individual images. In addition, four club members were awarded individual trophies in specific areas:

Best Colour Print; Julie Walker, Fighting Stallions

Best Landscape Print;Ken Rennie, Bow Fiddle Rock

Best Nature Print; John Macfarlane, Red Fox Pair on Snow Bank

Best Sport Print;Alan Walker, The Try

Best Natural History Projected Image; Alan Walker, Puma Stalking its Prey

Many congratulations to all the club members who were honoured and who contributed to our outstanding success as the premier photographic club in the Northern Counties.”