Newsletter December 2017

Editor: Bob Breach

The President’s Column

It’s hard to believe that four months have

passed by since the beginning of the season of

society meetings, and that the Christmas

holidays are once more upon us. We celebrated

Christmas as a Society on 5th December, with

our annual dinner, held at the West Midlands

Bridge Club. As ever, a great evening was had

by everyone, enjoying excellent food and

wonderful company. Our thanks, as usual, go

Bob Bracher for organising the event. It really is

something I look forward to every year.

It has already been an eventful and successful

year with good attendance figures and excellent feedback from members

on our guest speakers. There is much more still to look forward to in the

New Year. As ever, Rhys Jones continues to organise a first class

programme of speakers for us. The full programme is available on our

website.

Our competition season is developing nicely. There are already 27 names

on the leader board which represents a good percentage of our member-

ship and there is still plenty of time to add more names to the list, so get

those shutters clicking! Internally, we still have the third and fourth

aggregate competitions, the annual competitions for nature, creative

image, projected image, print and the mobile phone competition still to

come, so to borrow from an old sporting metaphor, “it’s still all to play

for”.

Externally, we have had the results of the annual ‘3S’ competition,

between ourselves, Sheffield and Shillington. We came 3rd of the three

this year, a slightly disappointing result given our recent good perfor-

mances, however, I think we should take this result and use it to

strengthen our resolve for next year’s and future competitions. Our

thanks go to Tony Moir for his efforts as External Competition Secretary.

The next big event for us is, of course, the 40th Solihull Photographic Soci-

ety Open Exhibition of British Photography. Publication of this edition of

the Newsletter will coincide with the closure date for entries, so I hope

that we have received a good crop of entries from members this year.

Many thanks go to Jim Hiscox and his team for the efforts in organising

this prestigious event.

Before I sign off, I’d like to remind you that the Society’s website contains

a wealth of useful information about our programme for the year, your

committee members, and technical and competition information is availa-

ble from the members’ area. So do take advantage of it.

Finally I would like to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and Happy

New Year.

Geoff Read - President

Inside this issue:

Comedy wildlife awards by Bob Breach

2

Society rules and procedures by Geoff Read

3

Cartoon fun for Christmas

4

Competition success for Jo Monro

5

Forthcoming meetings by Rhys Jones

5

External competitions by Tony Moir

6

Solihull Open Exhibi-tion of Photography by Jim Hiscox

7

Editor - Bob Breach

breaches@btinternet.com

A very happy

Christmas to

all members.

May all your

New Year

images be

good ones.

Reminder

Our first meeting

of 2018 is on

9th January,

featuring our own

David Venables

as speaker

Comedy Wildlife Awards by Bob Breach

Page 2 Newsletter - December 2017

Did you know that you can enter the “Comedy Wildlife

Photography Awards” which showcases some great quirky shots of wildlife. A few of my personal favourites from this

year’s awards are shown below. If you want to see all of

the winners and finalists go to the website link.

https://www.comedywildlifephoto.com/gallery/2017_winners.php

“The laughing dormouse” by Andrea Zampatti

“Eh what’s up doc” by Olivier Colle

“Must have three putted” by David Croft

Page 3 Newsletter - December 2017

Reminder Remember that the password for the member’s area of the website has changed to

55*BEST

Society rules and procedures by Geoff Read

Although the priority for our Society is to ensure that all members enjoy their photo-

graphic hobby, your committee also has a duty to look after the broader member’s interests. In particular there is a need to ensure effective governance and have in place

adequate financial and other controls necessary to protect the Society, its members and the Committee from any adverse event or activity. These also need to take into account the fact that since the Society is legally what is known as an “Unincorporated

Association” it cannot directly hold assets or enter into contracts. The committee therefore recently reviewed the way it works and as a result has adopted a new frame-

work for its rules and procedures which is summarised below.

We are keen that members are fully aware of the way the committee operates and so copies of the most important documents are available in the members area of the

website, and all other relevant documents and procedures are available on request. We will also ensure that all members receive an up to date set of the main society documents

at least once a year with the August newsletter.

If you have any queries on any aspect please get in touch, but rest assured that the

committee will continue to do all it can to ensure that your Society continues to thrive.

Note from the editor

One of the benefits of an electronic newsletter is that readers can quickly access related websites through what is called an HTML link. If you are not familiar with these you will find them in this edition as web addresses which are underlined and in blue. If you are reading this on your computer and wish to visit the webpage simply:

Hover the mouse over the link

The mouse pointer should change to a hand

Click and you should find the web page appear by magic in your browser

Note that for security your computer may ask you to confirm ok

Page 4 Newsletter - December 2017

Cartoon fun for Christmas

Page 5

Our programme starts again in the New Year with more very good evenings planned.

Some involve a change to the published programme so always check the website to

make sure.

9th January - David Venables will show "Dave's Dodgy Digies" - A selection of his

work. (This is a change to the original programme)

16th January - Our 3rd Aggregate Competition, with Judge John Haines

23rd January - “The Best in the West Midlands” – Exhibition and discussion of

images from the MCPF Portfolio, in a different format from previous years.

30th January - Members' Activity - Shooting models using studio lighting. Bring your

camera, lenses, tripod, etc.

Forthcoming meetings by Rhys Jones

Newsletter - December 2017

Congratulations to Jo for her recent success in international competitions. To get two

award winning images at this level is a significant achievement.

Competition success for Jo Monro

Lady in Black - this was entered into the

Montenegro 'Canvas 2017' 1st

International Salon and was awarded a

PSA Gold Medal. The image was adapted

from a photo taken in the rain in Rome.

The Stairwell - this was entered into

the 43rd Smethwick International

Exhibition and was awarded an SPS

Ribbon (Smethwick, not Solihull!)

(November). Adapted from a

photo taken inside the Casa Battlo

(Gaudi's House of Bones) in Barcelona.

Page 6

Our first external competition of the season was the three-way, inter-club competition

between Sheffield, Shillington (near Luton) and Solihull photographic societies, known as the “Battle of the Three Ss”! Each club selects 20 digital images and the 60 images are

shown in a random order and judged at each club. Each image is given a mark up to 20

and the aggregate score over the three judging evenings determines the winner.

In the past, we have done well in this competition but this year Sheffield produced several stunning images that secured a convincing victory for them. We were pipped for second place by Shillington. Our judging evening was very enjoyable, although we felt

that the judging seemed rather harsh on some of our images! We shall be competing

again in November 2018, when we hope to gain our revenge!

The next external competition we all need to think

about is Midphot, run by the Midland Counties Photographic Federation (MCPF), of which we are a

member. The deadline for entries will be 10th February 2018. In the past, individuals have submitted their entry forms, prints and CDs

(containing DPIs) through the club. MCPF have, however, stated that there are going to be “major

changes to the Midphot entry system” and that they will inform us as soon as possible. When we hear

about the new entry system, I shall endeavour to

make sure all members are briefed.

For the detailed rules relating to Midphot, it is best to visit the MCPF website:

http://www.mcpf.co.uk

Midphot has several categories with a number of awards in each:

Colour prints – awards include best print, best landscape and best portrait

Monochrome prints – best print, best landscape and best portrait

Nature prints – best print and best print of a mammal

Projected digital images – best general image, best landscape and best contemporary

image

Nature projected images – best image

Creative panel of prints – best panel

After Midphot, our next external competition will be the inter-club competition with

Webheath Camera Club, which will be held at our club on Tuesday 13th March. Our selec-

tion committee (Bob Bracher, Bob Breach, Jo Monro and me) will select 25 digital images

for the competition. As with the 3 Ss, the judge will give marks up to 20 for each image

and the aggregate on the evening will determine the winner. Last year, we came second,

so we’ll be looking for a strong set of images in the New Year!

External Competitions by Tony Moir

Newsletter - December 2017

Page 7

Entry for the Exhibition closed last Saturday and we have received 4162

entries from 402 entrants, a rise of 280 images from the 2017 exhibition. Very

pleasing and especially so as the print entries increased by nearly 14%.

Unless you have entered you may not be aware that print entries arrive in one of

three ways - by hand to Smethwick Photographic Society, which means collecting from there and returning them

after the exhibition closes; by hand or post to a storage facility we rent in Tysley; or

by hand to me at the club on a Tuesday.

All these have to be collected and taken to Solihull School in mid January for the grand Print Sort, at which a group of us identify, record (electronically), label, and sort into four piles for each category every print in readiness for the selection weekend (the judging). A

mistake at this stage, if undiscovered straightaway, can cause quite significant problems during the selection stage - mostly for me it must be said. You will all be aware that I use

a specially written bit of software for club competitions, which is the cut-down and simplified version of the suite of programmes used for the Exhibition. Unsurprisingly the digital side is generally simpler since it is a totally software-driven exercise so the chance

for human error is reduced.

From this you may have gathered that the print side of the exhibition requires a fair degree of manual intervention and requires a number of members to make it work smoothly from start (i.e. collecting the prints) through the whole judging/exhibition

process to the finish (i.e. return of prints to their authors). This need for physical effort is a major reason why many clubs/societies are giving up trying to run print exhibitions but

the Exhibition Committee feel very strongly that the Solihull Open has always been a print exhibition and will continue to be so.

There are only two elected members on the Exhibition Committee, the Chairman and the Treasurer, and as Chairman it is down to me to co-opt as many others onto the committee

as I feel is necessary, but additional help is always welcome so if you would like to know a bit more do ask me about it on any Tuesday evening.

One final point, and I say this every year, it is the SOLIHULL Open Exhibition, and follow-ing the approach originally made to Solihull School by Steve Richardson a few years ago

we have a local venue in which to hold it. It is only a matter of yards down the road from the WI Hall so no-one can claim they don’t know where it is and you’ll get plenty of reminders from me before, so I want to see every member visiting the exhibition on

Saturday 3rd March from 2.00pm!

www.solihullopenexhibition.co.uk

Solihull Open Exhibition of Photography 2018 by Jim Hiscox

Newsletter - December 2017