Meeting Tuesday 2nd December

The small room was crowded for our member's digital evening. Once again Dave Akers managed to arrange the loan of a digital projector. Tony Redford began the evening by demonstrating simple photoshop adjustments to images where the initial lighting had been poor. He emphasised the importance of the adjustment layers and the feathering of selections. Jon Allanson then explained why he uses the "find the edge" filter so often, and gave numerous examples of the way this filter could be used to advantage. Brian Turnbull discussed the process of calibrating one's printer and passed around prints to demonstrate the effectiveness of the process, using the Marrutt colour test image. Finally John Ade reminded members that printers could not generally cope with the full gamut of levels 0 to 255. John showed examples of his attempts to distinguish the extremes. In his tests John had concluded that there was little point in trying to use the last five, or first five levels, and he explained how to reset the output levels to ensure that the printed output would cope. A useful informative evening, even for those who did not fully understand the finer points.

Committee Meeting held Wed 3rd December

Joyce announced that Richard Scaife had agreed to be President for the next session. Gordon reviewed arrangements for the Annual Exhibition in February. Tony raised the possibility of projecting the digital print images on a large screen during the Digital print competition judging. It might be possible to use a digital camera to quickly transfer the image of each print to a computer for projection. Agreed that we sell the programme at cost price, and that tea and biscuits would be sold for 50p. New advertisers/sponsors would be sought.

Richard Scaife reviewed progress on next session's syllabus. He proposed providing for six "digital workshop" evenings in the Council Chamber. Possible subjects for "theme" evenings included 'patterns', Columns and Arches, Self Portraits, and panels of images. Three external speakers had been booked , with three more in the pipeline.

Xmas Dinner 2003 in Downtown Bramhall

It was a full turnout for this year’s festive feast at Kurt’s of Bramhall with 39 members attending. A warm welcome was extended to those members whose faces we have missed recently at our meetings, including Rodney, Hilda and Trevor .

Judging by the empty platters the standard of food and presentation was appreciated by all, as one would expect with a chef of Kurt’s reputation (and 21 years of catering experience in exclusive hotels in London, Lyon, Bordeaux, not to mention 16 years at his restaurant in Disley!!!) The meal was served plated due to the space limitation but we all noted the caramelised latticework and other fancy touches of a master chef.

After the meal Joyce donned her favourite headgear and expressed a reluctance to part with it as she welcomed our new president to be, Richard Scaife. Richard dutifully donned the red bowler and, although a trifle too small, presented a very distinguished appearance as our future new leader.

A vote of thanks was given to Colin who organised the very successful evening which he rounded off with a very simple game involving only our “heads and tails”.

For those of you who were not present at the dinner you may yet meet Kurt Thomas, the owner of the Bistro if he keeps his word and joins us as a member of NCPS.

And From the Other End of the Table

A full complement of members attended the NCPS Christmas dinner at Kurts Restaurant in swinging Bramhall, the home of Manchester's trend-setting avant-garde and glittering literati. The society was able to monopolise the evening's proceedings; that is to say, we were the only people there. However, our hosts did us proud with an excellent menu and I for one have no difficulty in talking up a beautifully-presented meal. Whereas many restaurants tend to produce sub-standard fare at Christmas, the food here was well worth waiting for and everyone I spoke to was delighted with their choice. The house wine was adequate. Colin Pickles, to whom our thanks must go for arranging the evening, organised the briefest of competitions to secure the Christmas prize, which was won by Hilda Harrison after only three rounds of pre-guessing his attitudinal pronouncements. I am given to understand that this is yet another record for our esteemed society.

Joyce donned her vivid (and let's face it, OTT) bowler for perhaps the penultimate time, to wish us all a happy and prosperous Christmas; there may be only one more occasion to witness this memorable vision (or to get a bit of red into your picture). Our only regrets must be that the restaurant was not quite large enough to accommodate all the members who wanted to come, but with global warming proceeding apace, there is every possibility that next year some of us may be happy to sit outside. I left my umbrella behind and had to collect it later, but I always do leave something and Janet says I would leave my head if it was loose (but you will not be interested in this piece of irrelevant trivia, some of which is untrue anyway!)

Update 2004

It is becoming almost an NCPS tradition for Brian Bower FRPS to update us on his latest trips and feelings about films. Unfortunately tradition also has it that we meet in the Methodist Hall for this first meeting of the New Year, and the acoustics are not good.

For the first half of the meeting Brian took us to Germany where he compared the merits of various films. Since the demise of Kodachrome II Brian has been searching for the best alternatives. He seems to have settled on Velvia where contrast was important (and the light poor), but prefers Provia 100F to avoid complete saturation in well lit situations. Although the film differences were too subtle for some of us, we all enjoyed the excellent photography that accompanied the exposition.

After the interval Brian illustrated his trip to Utah (Bryce Canyon, Red Canyon, Zion etc) his visit to St Louis (and its famous Arch) and his shopping trip to Las Vegas. Even the photographs taken from the aeroplane were mouthwatering and most of the audience were left in that "we must go there" frame of mind.

Brian noted that an important part of the trip was the planning; he never left himself with the problem ' where shall we go now '. He would plan to stay at least two nights at a good location; the first evening and morning to take photographs; the second evening and morning to maybe improve upon the first and to take in those views only discovered during the day's stay. He noted that American airlines gave those extra vital inches of seating space (so important on a long flight). He used Michelin Green Guides whenever they were available, and he found "Trailfinders " to be the most useful and informative of travel agents.

The Committee Meeting held Wed 14th January 2004

Prior to the main meeting a sub-committee met at the President's house to consider our application to the "Awards for All" scheme. The intention is for the Society to run a series of workshops on digital photography and its allied subjects.

To make this possible it is necessary to acquire a club electronic projector, lap-top (ie portable) computer and associated software. A variety of advantages would then accrue. It would assist us in raising the general expertise of club members in the digital field. The workshops would be widely advertised and we would expect an increased club membership to result. It would be possible to display "digital prints" in a similar manner to slides. Members could prepare short presentations at home on their own computer, save them to CD, and then play the results for all to see. In particular, members could prepare short presentations to present to the audience at the beginning of a Digital Workshop and run them prior to the session being thrown open for general discussion on the topic in hand. It would be an obvious resource to use if the club was invited to show its wares to the general public, through presentations to schools and osocieties. Tony Redford reported on contacts he had made which would allow us the use of a top quality projector at our imminent annual exhibition. The plan was to photograph (digitally) all digital prints entered for the inter-club digital competition and display them in turn on the large screen as the judge considered the actual print on the Print box. This would be a great opportunity to assess the finer points of the electronic projector.

Gordon Robson reported on plans for the Annual Exhibition. Judging (by Keith Brown) would take place on Sunday 18th January. We expected to receive Sponsorship from BaseCamp, KeeJet, Bob Rigby, Hodder Paper and Board, and Jessops. It was questioned whether Jessop's £25 offer was sufficiently large to make it worth accepting. Gordon agreed to follow this up. Jonathan Bawden had agreed to look after the trophy side of the event, retrieving trophies and organising their appearance on the night. Tony Redford had organised the team of helpers for the two competition nights. It was agreed to charge 20p for the programmes. This would reduce wastage, and encourage the audience to retain their programmes for a second night. Joyce reported on the wording of the new Alan Adshead trophy to be awarded to the winning club of the Digital Club Competition. Estelle would provide the cash floats. Bill Chadband would provide Radio Microphones for the Judges/Speakers.

Richard Scaife reported on progress with next Session's syllabus. He had included six evenings of "Digital Workshops" on the assumption that our bid would be successful. Richard had circulated slips to members inviting them to offer an evening, half an evening, or smaller contributions to the programme, and he awaited members responses. Discussion then widened to how best we could serve diverse members interests and how we encouraged new members. It was noted that several newcomers had been seen at earlier meetings but they had not returned. Our President, Joyce Streets, had made a special effort to encourage new members, but it was not usually clear what they wanted from the club. Some suggested that newcomers were often keen to talk to someone about newly acquired cameras and that our meetings generally did not offer much time (at the tea break) to deal with such things. An alternative might be to encourage a 7.30 start with general announcements and discussion programmed into the session, though it was not clear that newcomers would turn up early enough to make use of such an arrangement. We could perhaps ensure that spare copies of the session programme, and Focus were available for immediate distribution to all newcomers to encourage them back.. The Methodist Hall would not be available in future on a Tuesday evening, but in any case was acoustically very poor. Richard agreed to investigate the Community Centre up the road, and the new Church Hall near the cross-roads as possible alternative venues (as an alternative to the small room we have been forced to use at the beginning of each month).

Frank Hutchinson reported on his recent publicity ventures. Colin Pickles invited comments re the Christmas Dinner. It was agreed that though the food was excellent and the evening an enjoyable one, the restricted space was a problem we should face for next year.

The next committee meeting was fixed for Thursday 26th February at the Robson's House.

On the Trail of the Great Bear

George Beaumont gave his presentation on Tuesday 20th January.

George commented that there was only one Bear in the title, and it was definitely not the “trial” of the great bear (as had been observed in one advert!). Rather was it an amalgam of his several visits to the area put together to tell a story. We started in Calgary, went South as far as Yellowstone Park (lots of steam, hot springs, geysers Elk and Bison) onto the Western side of the Rockies (Boot Hill and Virginia City) through Glacier National Park, over the Logan Pass Divide [at6680ft), through Kimberly and onto Banf; and finally to Jasper, where we ended our journey. On the way we learned much about the Lewis and Clark Expedition (which had hoped to find a water route up the Missouri river and to the Pacific (unfortunately the Rocky Mountains were in the Way). We heard of Saca Tawea, the 16 year old Indian girl who was so important to the expedition. We discovered that Bud Chef had not only written a book on Indian Tales but had signed one for George in person. We saw the original Paramount Films Peak, the Swiss (or Austrian?) architecture of Kimberley, we recoiled at the idea of Radium hot springs (in Banff) we marvelled at the turquoise colour of the lake below the Glacier, and we discovered that Jasper was all about trains. Thanks again George for another fascinating travel evening. Is there any need for the rest of us to go, having been given such a thorough tour?

On 27th January John Coles introduced us to his house and garden under the title of Macro Medling. John began by exhibiting his equipment (Minolta back, Ring Flash, 'the Pod' bean bag, and 90mm macro lens). Raising himself up to his full 6'6", arms and legs akimbo he gave us Paws for thought.

John was fascinated by the patterns to be observed in Nature at the Macro level. He confessed that he had ruined many a pair of trousers with this obsession. We were given insect's eye views of the many flowers in the garden, and many views of the insects themselves. In one sequence of shots John presented himself as Lord of the Flies, though the pesky insects kept moving before he had his camera properly in focus, Other shots showed how easy it would be for the insects to fall off the edge of the world. In some cases the insects had landed upside-down and John endeavoured to show how the world would look to them.. Occasionally, it was easy to spot John's trick since the flower stems grew down from the Heavens. On other occasions it was more difficult. He presented intriguing shots of, for example, orange balloons rising up in the sky and drifting away, only to let on that they were oil drops falling through water. Few of us accepted John's explanation that Fuji had deliberately mounted his slides upside down!.

John's serious theme for the evening was the difficulty of getting adequate depth of field, given the available light, and the fact that the image would move if the exposure were too long. For many of his shots he was restricted to the range f8 to f11. Due mainly to John's amusing commentary his audience were enthralled til the end, many risking the impending blizzard raging outside to stay to see how the plot would be resolved. Thanks John for an unusual and enjoyable evening.

BaseCamp in Stockport have been loyal supporters of the Annual Exhibition, regularly taking an advert in the programme. It is pleasing that they are as diligent outside of the Exhibition. When I recently discussed the cleaning and reproofing my Waterproof Jacket I was sold the appropriate materials to use. The importance of the hot tumble dry in the process was emphasised. When I explained that I did not possess a tumble-dryer Mike Edwards, the proprietor said "Well leave it with me and I'll do it for you"; which he duly did. Good on yer, Mike!

As ever a bevy of club members turned up on the Wednesday morning to erect the stands, mount the prints on them, set up the continuous Slide presentation system, set out the trophies, and set up the Audio and Visual systems for the exhibition.

After a difficult journey from Southport, L&CPU President Keith Suddaby arrived in a nick of time to bring Southport's entry to the inter-club digital competition and to officially open our annual exhibition. Before presenting the awards (listed below) Keith was complimentary about the work of NCPS and the high reputation the Society has earned in the L&CPU.

We were pleased to welcome Keith Brown, our exhibition judge, to the first day. Even those who received no awards felt he had done a good job!

Exhibition Results

Interclub Digital Print Competition

President Joyce Streets thanked Keith Suddaby for his kind opening words. She read out the list of competing clubs. This included clubs from as far afield as Scotland, Wales and the Isle of Man. She then welcomed David Butler as our judge for the evening, and the competition began.

A problem with all print competitions is that, though the folk on the front row have a good view of the prints (some as small as A4 size) those nearer the back may strain to get a decent impression. Previously NCPS has provided a video camera and projector to give an enlarged view of the print. This year, a state of the art digital projector was borrowed and all entries photographed with a digital camera on receipt. The digital images were transferred to a computer and the images projected on a large screen to coincide with the judge's consideration of each print. The images projected were a great improvement on the previous system and were welcomed by all present. The audience could see the colours of the print on the print box and simultaneously observed the detail of the print on the digitally projected image. Peter Redford and Tony Redford (plus other club members) worked hard (and rapidly) behind the curtain to photograph images, some of which only arrived moments before the opening of the Exhibition. Not only were the prints projected on cue but thumbnail images with their associated marks, and cumulative totals, were digitally displayed to maintain the momentum and anticipation of the evening. As ever we are grateful to Peter Redford for sacrificing some of his holiday entitlement to help us put on such a good show.

Judge David Butler had a difficult job assessing 90 prints from 18 clubs from cold in the short time available. David kept his audience engaged with his considered (and humorous) comments. The results are presented below. Southport Club triumphed in the inter-club competition, whilst Robert Devenish of Hoylake PS was congratulated on producing the best print ("Tsunami").

The Alan Adshead trophy was presented to the Southport PS representative by Alan’s Daughter, Jill.

Robert was presented with a Jessops £25 gift token.

Results of the Interclub Digital Print Competition.

North Cheshire Challenge Trophy

On the Thursday evening, again donning the Presidential Red Bowler Joyce Streets, welcomed everyone; announced that 21 clubs were competing in the Inter-club slide competition; and introduced the judge, Bob Underhill from the Midlands Federation. Bob had 105 slides to judge in the limited time of two hours. After a quick run-through of all slides Bob began his comments. 51 slides were lost in the first round, 26 in the 2nd, 14 in the 3rd, 8 in the 4th and 3 in the 5th round. This left 3 slides from which to choose a winner. As always any of the 3 could have won but finally Bob plumbed for a slide "Spiral" by Gwen Charnock of Wigan 10 Foto Club. This club was then declared the winner of the competition and Bob Underhill presented the trophy to David Butler, the club's representative.

In her vote of thanks to the many people involved Joyce Streets again drew attention to the wide geographical spread of the competing clubs. She again thanked our sponsors for their support and hoped that Bob Rigby who had provided a photographic stand for the event had found it worth-while. She drew attention to the many club members who had helped to make the event so successful and singled out Gordon Robson, our Exhibition Secretary who had put in so much work behind the scenes. The smooth running of the event was due, in no small measure, to Gordon's attention to detail.

Results of the Interclub Slide Competition for the North Cheshire Challenge Trophy

A Moment in Time

Despite problems with torrential rain and the renumbering of the M60 junctions Andy Harmer arrived in a nick of time to deliver his talk entitled "A Moment in Time". After a brief overview of his native Frodsham, Andy illustrated how industrialisation had not been a wholly bad thing for the wildlife. Andy illustrated his open and enquiring mind in a variety of ways. He told of his initial experiments to produce a self-triggered image of birds using home made apparatus based upon his small son's wireless controlled toy car. He noted the various incongruities he had observed: the all-day breakfast only available til noon; and the garishly colourful floating scarecrows he had spotted in a lake reserved for fishermen. Apparently these fishermen were allowed to use the lake so long as they did not spoil the scenery. They claimed that the scarecrows were to keep off the herons and Canada geese, but Andy's photograph showed the same geese swimming blithely amongst the scarecrows!

Andy showed a few "failed photographs, including Santa Claus apparently without a head, and a picture of an elephant and keeper, in which the elephant appeared to be eating his keeper.

Andy introduced us to his "hide" and recounted his many adventures with it. He noted the importance of having a friend to walk conspicuously away from the hide once it was assembled, thereby convincing the bird that humans had left. The hide had then to be picked up from the inside and moved slowly (over many hours) to get close to his target.

Andy is known for his "flash photography"! His initial experiments at self triggered shots failed because the basic delay of tens of milliseconds between the trigger and the operation of the camera was much too long. His alternative was to keep the shutter open and self-trigger a large flash of light. This could be achieved in less than one millisecond. However keeping the shutter open for long periods before the flash inevitably led to night photography. Powerful flashes were required of very short duration. This necessitated the use of large high-voltage capacitors, which could be lethal if mis-handled. But many of his resultant images, of Owls and Kingfishers, for example, had sold well and justified the initial expense.

His audience warmed to our speaker and thoroughly enjoyed his talk. In her vote of thanks Joyce Street noted how very entertaining it had been. She thanked him, thanked our audience for turning out on such a wet night, and declared the 2004 Annual Exhibition closed.

All that remained was for our team of Stalwarts to turn up early on the Saturday morning to dismantle the exhibition, and congratulate themselves on another fine Exhibition.

Two of our newer members combined to give us a home-grown evening on Tuesday 24th February.

Jonathan Bawden took us on a trip to Bolivia, Why go to Bolivia? Well, it was a mysterious place far, far away and near the Andes. Jon was aware that few people knew exactly where Bol;ivia was and so he spent a while at the front of the room with the map identifying it's position in South America, and telling us a little about its history (apparently it wasn't always land-locked!). He wouldn't don the colourful shawl or peasant's hat, though, claiming that they were woman's gear. Rachel sat firmly at the back! She was indispensable to the trip, however since she spoke Spanish, and Jon didn't!

We were shown great pictures of the Andes, the cities, the primitive (who said dangerous?) electrical wiring of showers, the Blessing of the Lorries and cars, do-it yourself landing stages, and treated to scary stories of coach maintenance.

After tea, Jon Dixon regaled us with a variety of images nearer to home. Jon was interested in Pattern pictures, and common sights seen from unusual angles. At one stage the audience (or at least, Colin Pickles) entered with gusto into the puzzle picture competition shouting out whenever he recognised a building or feature. The presentation might have been entitled "New perspectives on Manchester" until John moved on to Sheffield, and then left the country for Boston USA, before re-entering the country (Manchester) under cover of darkness. Apparently, at night, the fountains in Piccadilly gardens change colour on a regular basis.

An entertaining evening of contrasting halves, much appreciated by the audience.

Thank you Jon,

and Thank you Jon!

Our President informs us that we have been successful in our grant bid. We are now in a position to proceed with the beginners digital course proposed in the application. More details in the next edition of Focus.