THURSDAY 29th APRIL
FINALS NIGHT with Bob Ryan FRSA FRPS
The end of April sees the end of the season and it has certainly been a very different season! Despite the covid-19 pandemic, club members have been extremely loyal and attended the weekly Zoom meetings for the duration. Week after week, from the comfort of our own homes, we have listened to the speakers, enjoyed the members evenings and have still continued to enter the monthly competitions, albeit only digital images. I suppose, in a way, it is just as well that we were still meeting virtually as our judge for ‘finals night’ is no longer ‘a local’, Bob Ryan FRSA FRPS, who has visited us many times before as both a judge and speaker, has moved from the area and is now living on The Isle of Skye. By the miracles of the internet, our competition entries were despatched to him well in advance in order that he could view and mark them in readiness for Finals Night. The images entered for the pdi of the year cup were those that had obtained a 1st 2nd or 3rd place in any of the monthly competitions (excluding folio 5) whilst members not attaining a top three result could enter two images to compete for the personal selection cup. Before casting his judgement on the 46 images entered into the competition, Bob explained there were 10 areas he was interested in whilst judging a photograph, these included the basics – focusing, exposure, technical issues – and concluded with creativity and narrative. As Bob spoke he explained how he came about the mark given to each picture and occasionally made suggestions as to how he felt the image might be improved.
PDI of the year
1st – Jenny Fryer LRPS – Louisiana Swamp
2nd – Elizabeth Restall ARPS – Frost and Fog on Cotswold Edge
3rd – Joan Scott – Stripes Reflected
PDI Personal Selection
1st – Christine Ryske – Midnight at the Marina
2nd – Brian Wetton – Beach Hut Siesta
3rd – Peter Whitfield – They came from the deep
Alongside these results the top three photographers of the monthly competitions were announced – they were
1st – Brian Wetton
2nd – Elizabeth Restall ARPS
3rd – Barry Wilson
To finish of our final meeting of the season those members who had entered into The Cheltenham International Salon showed the images they had entered, of course, a full write up of the outcome of their entries will be published after our Cheltenham Salon evening next season.
Have a wonderful summer everyone!
See you in September!
THURSDAY 15 APRIL 2021
Clive Tanner ARPS FRPS MPAGB APAGB – ‘Divine Light and Beyond’
Our last speaker for the current season was Clive Tanner ARPS FRPS MPAGB APAGB and if it hadn’t been for the covid-19 restrictions and Zoom, it is highly unlikely, as he lives in Kent, that he would ever have had the opportunity to give us his talk. Some of the photographs to accompany his presentation ‘Divine Light and Beyond’ were digital images of the print panels he had submitted to the Royal Photographic Society (RPS) and The Photographic Alliance of Great Britain (PAGB) to gain the highest levels of merit within both associations.
The evening began with his ARPS panel which had originally been taken on large format slide and were a culmination of his visits to several cathedrals in and around Great Britain. The images depicted not only the architecture of the buildings, but also the stone and wooden shrines and sculptures that were within them. He followed this with the twenty monochrome images which formed the panel for his FRPS. Every image we saw, whether it be a large architectural view, a stained glass window or plain simple item, they all had a three dimensional feel to them and from front to back they were all ‘pin sharp’, the detail and depth of field that Clive managed to capture is incredible. During lockdown, Clive said he had revisited both panels and had made them into a book. The second half of Clive’s presentation, although not Cathedrals nor Abbeys, was on a very similar theme and a subject he is passionate about taking photographs of – Churches and in particular The Churches of Romney Marsh. Both monochrome and colour images showed internal and external shots of numerous churches and chapels in Kent. Each photograph was accompanied by a concise summary of the Church and its contents, even down to the reason for the pink pews in St Clement’s Church in Old Romney.
As an avid photographer, Clive has achieved the highest distinctions possible, but even so he says that you can make a picture out of anything, it doesn’t necessarily have to be great it just has to be beautiful.
THURSDAY 8th APRIL 2021
COMPETITION NIGHT
Our PDI set subject competition for this season was ‘STRIPES’ and it was John A Hudson ARPS DPAGB SPSA ASPS who took on the task of judging the 51 images entered.
John, who has been judging for about 3 years and is a member of Bristol Photographic Society, made his first visit to us over our now normal Zoom meeting and began by telling us a little about himself. Before he started the judging, he did make a comment that on the whole, the decisions made by judges were of an entirely personal choice and he hoped that no one would take any of his comments to heart. He merely made suggestions to the author as to how he felt an image could be improved.
John took his time over commenting on each image which gave us, as members, the opportunity to study each photograph in great detail.
Apart from the top three images the scoring was close but the winning photographs were definitely worthy of the top marks given to them.
First Place – Joan Scott – Stripes reflected
Second Place – Elizabeth Restall ARPS – From Red to Orange
Third Place – Steve Stone – Through the Blinds
THURSDAY 1st APRIL
CHAIRMAN’S EVENING – BRIAN WETTON
Into every programme, for each season, a chairman’s evening is planned, where the chairman can ‘do as he/she wants’.
This year our chairman, Brian Wetton, decided that as he was at the end of his tenure he would entertain us with what has kept him entertained throughout the long twelve months of covid-19.
About a month into the first lockdown, Brian was invited to join a Facebook group, which was set up on the 25th March 2020, for photographers to participate in by adding one image per day whose title began with a particular letter of the alphabet starting with A and twenty six weeks later ending with Z. As we all know, apart from a short break in the summer, lockdown and the, at one time, tier system is still ongoing and so is the Facebook group. They are now given a particular seven character word for the images to be posted.
Now, for those of you who like statistics that is, including today (1st April 2021), a maximum number of 273 images per member of the Facebook group! When invited to join the group, Brian didn’t have a Facebook account so he joined and posted his first image on 26 April, that means he only has a maximum of 241 images – shame on you Brian!
He began our evening where he had started with the letter ‘E’ and immediately took us to India with his image of an elephant taking tourists up to the Amber Fort close to Jaipur, India. On his way to the letter ‘Z’ there were many more beautiful landscapes, portraits and architectural shots from the many holidays he and Christine have taken in not only Britain but all across Europe and Asia as well.
He admitted that some of the letters were a little tricky, especially when you had to find seven images to fit the letter X! How clever though to include the X of the arches in Wells Cathedral, an X box and the word xenophobia on a scrabble board. Some images had been reproduced from slides Brian had captured when slides were the only option available pre digital cameras, but no matter where they came from, Brian said he had thoroughly enjoyed the many trips down memory lane whilst searching through what must have been thousands of images taken over countless years in order to complete the challenge thrown down to him. With a time constraint put upon him, Brian didn’t get to show all his images, but I am sure come the next members evening he can pick up where he left off.
Thank you Brian for really enjoyable evening and sharing your wonderful images with us!
THURSDAY 25th MARCH 2021
8th Cheltenham International Salon of Photography (2020)
Martin Fry FRPS EFIAP/p AV-EFIAP ABPE APAGB made his second Zoom ‘visit’ to Tyndale Photography Club this season to show his audio visual presentation of The 8th Cheltenham International Salon of Photography (2020).
A Salon of Photography is an exhibition, created by a photographic society or camera club, with a set number of sections. International associations support and give patronage to these salons and also supply a range of awards to recognise photographic merit. Images are judged to the standards set by whoever a club has received patronage from and photographers from around the world are able to submit images into any of the worldwide salons held each year.
In 2020, just over 650 photographers, from more than 50 countries, entered over 7800 images into the Cheltenham Salon, giving the panel of five international judges quite a challenge. 1770 of the entered images were accepted and of those 60 were awarded medals.
A selection of the accepted entries in each of the five sections were displayed in turn, with the images given awards shown at the end of their respective section. Martin explained how this year the judging had to be done over Zoom because of the restrictions placed upon them by covid-19, however everything went to plan and ran smoothly, his production of the five audio visuals was superb with the accompanying music fitting each photographic section perfectly.
The evening began with the TRAVEL section and this was clearly a celebration of photography from all around the world, displaying a wide variety of landscapes, portraits and facets of various cultures.
The CREATIVE section definitely showed a ‘different’ type of photography where the imagination and post processing could ‘run wild’. The majority of the images were ‘marmite’ images – you either did or didn’t like them, but without exception every image was unique. The MONOCHROME section was an amazing group of photographs and they displayed the power that black and white images can give in emotion and texture. The NATURE section as you would expect, covered images from rock structures to fungi, insects to animals, birds to butterflies and even a few underwater shots. The final section was COLOUR and in this section it seemed that nothing was ‘off limits’ as long as it was in colour. The variety of subjects was wide ranging, landscapes, sport, creative and it was a delight to see such an assortment.
The excellent audio visual was well presented and displayed an amazing variety of stunning photographs.
Five of our members had between them ten images accepted into the salon and luckily each had at least one image chosen to be shown in the audio visual presentation.
JENNY FRYER (LRPS) had two acceptances – ‘The Gondolier’ in the colour section and ‘A Dark Wet Night in Bergen’ in the creative section.
ELIZABETH RESTALL (ARPS) had three acceptances – ‘ Girl on the steps’ in the colour section, ‘ Path to the Loch’ in the monochrome section and ‘White Trees’ in the creative section.
GEORGE RYSKE had two acceptances – ‘Enchanted Forest ‘ in the creative section and ‘Vietnamese Monks in Rain’ in the travel section.
MIKE SMITH had two acceptances in the nature section – ‘Little Owl Think Its Bed Time’ and ‘Little Owl Head On’.
BRIAN WETTON not only had his ‘Temple Sweepers’ accepted in the travel section he also won the Travel CISP gold medal.
Well Done to you all!
THURSDAY 18th March 2021
A visit from Thornbury Camera Club
It was with great pleasure that we welcomed eight members of Thornbury Camera Club to our regular Zoom meeting.
Andy Gillingham, secretary of their club, introduced the evening by telling us about their club and the members who would be showing us their work.
Dean Packer then took over and talked us through the images he had taken whilst travelling abroad for work. The majority of the images taken in places such as Shanghai, Hong Kong, Tokyo and Dubai were night time shots showing the skylines and the hustle and bustle of the city streets.
Andy Gillingham’s contribution was a mixture of images from various genres of photography. Landscapes taken in the Lake District were followed by both monochrome and coloured images taken on model shoots. His travel shots included photographs taken whilst on holiday in Iceland, Australia, New Zealand and here in the UK.
Janet Oxenham began by showing images she had taken during the 2020 lockdown. Like us all, she was limited to what she could photograph but her post processing added that extra ‘zing’ to the images of flowers she had captured. Her pre-covid photographs included the streets of Delhi, various Cathedrals and Cowes Week.
Steve Wells started his presentation with travel images, taking us to many places including the Lake District, Norway and Venice. During his lockdown, he set up a ‘home studio’ and took images of flowers, he experimented with backgrounds, photo-stacking, multiple exposures and combining images and he was very pleased with results.
Rob England wasn’t able to join the meeting but was happy for his images to be shown. His style of photography is ‘intentional’ and ‘inventive’, producing pictures in a very specific way. This was quite obvious in not only his studio portraiture but also his unique images of ordinary things around us.
Barbara Gibbons, who is also a member of Tyndale Photography Club, was next ‘on stage’. She has been taking photographs since a child and just loves to take images of anything and everything in front of her. She showed us beautifully captured local, holiday and nature images taken over the last eighteen months.
George Collett began his photography journey with wildlife images but soon discovered another passion ‘action photography’. The images he showed of the ‘Tour of Britain Cycle Race’ and both men and women at ‘The Tough Guy and Gal Challenge’ were a complete contrast to the fine images of gannets, woodpeckers and kingfishers.
Brian McBride, who enjoys combining craft and art in his photography, showed mostly monochrome images of varying subjects. He said he likes to create sets or collections of images which support each other and are on the same theme and his ‘sense of place’ and ‘Ephemeral’ folios definitely fitted this bill.
Brian Wetton gave the vote of thanks and said that some of the images and techniques shown tonight had probably inspired us all to ‘go and try something different’.
THURSDAY 11th MARCH 2021
COMPETITION NIGHT
When asked to judge the fourth open competition for Tyndale Photography Club, Julie Kaye imagined that she would be visiting us at North Nibley Village Hall, she was, however, under the current situation, more than happy to perform the task over a Zoom meeting. As it was the first time Julie had ‘visited’ the club she began by telling the members a little about herself. She is a member of two camera clubs and apart from being an enthusiastic photographer, using Canon equipment, she is a keen scuba diver and the majority the photographs she takes are underwater images. And so onto the competition – she clearly spent quite some time viewing the images entered, as she spoke in great detail about each and every photograph, hoping that her comments were fair and would benefit not only the author but also the members who had joined the Zoom meeting.
After announcing the winners Julie said how she had enjoyed viewing and judging all fifty four images and thanked us for inviting her to take on the task.
The winning images were :
First Place – Don Grundell – Night Crossing
Second Place – Elizabeth Restall ARPS – Frost and Fog on Cotswold Edge
Third Place – Mike Smith – Hare on Look Out
THURSDAY 04 MARCH 2021
‘More Travels Towards the Edge’
Sue O’Connell (FIPF ARPS EFIAP/d2 DPAGB BPE5*) and Peter Brisley (ARPS EFIAP DPAGB BPE2*)
It’s not the first time that husband and wife photographers Sue O’Connell and Peter Brisley have been to Tyndale Photography Club, on a previous visit their talk was entitled ‘Travels Towards the Edge’ and their recent talk took us on ‘More Travels Towards the Edge’.
Sue and Peter tend to travel to destinations not often visited by the majority of tourists, their travels seem to take them to ‘out of the ordinary’ countries and the images shown in this talk proved this by taking us to Mongolia, Iran, Brazil and India.
They shared the evening between them and Sue began with a documentary and highly descriptive photographs taken on two visits to Mongolia, a country where they found the travel and conditions hard but the photography very rewarding. From one visit she gave us a real insight into the lives of the camel herders in the stark and unforgiving Gobi desert. And in complete contrast, from another visit, the Golden Eagle Festival held in the far West of Mongolia, organised by The Mongolian Eagle Hunters. She concluded her part of the evening with several images taken from a tour they did around Iran.
After a break, where Sue answered the questions put to her by club members, Peter continued the talk by taking us to the Pantanal of Brazil and the state of Gujarat in Western India. The Pantanal is the world’s largest flooded grasslands and plays host to an enormous number of birds and several species of wildlife and although they do not class themselves as wildlife photographers the images they took of the birds, reptiles, otters, capybara and jaguars, to name but a few, were stunning. In complete contrast the colourful images of the tribes of Gujarat gave us an insight into the culture and ways of these nomadic people.
Even though Peter has had his work published in magazines and exhibitions and Sue has received numerous awards in salons and has been a winner several times in the Travel Photographer of the Year competition, they still consider themselves as ‘photographers who travel’ and not as ‘travel photographers’ – I am sure by the end of the evening each and every one of us was able to state which title we felt they should use.
Thursday 25th February
Film Night!
Thursday 25th February was an evening of two halves, both of which were ‘films’ of competitions the club had recently entered. Each year, Thornbury Camera Club invite other local camera clubs to a challenge in memory of Tom Crowe, a former chairman of their club. The competition is a battle between clubs rather than individuals. In each of the eight rounds, each club submits one image and each image entered must be by a different photographer. This year the competition was judged by Leigh Woolford AWPF, EFIAP, DPAGB, BPE3 FWPF (hon) who gave constructive comments and marks as he went along. The scores were totalled and a leader board created to show where each club sat in the ranking after each round. It was a tightly fought competition with excellent images entered by every club and after round eight there were only six points separating the first three clubs. Hay Camera Club were worthy winners with Thornbury Camera Club taking second place and Tyndale Photography Club picking up ‘the bronze medal’ in third place. Congratulations are due to all photographers who entered, thanks are due to those in each club who organised and pulled the folio together for the competition and acknowledgement must be given to Thornbury Camera Club for, yet again, providing another great evening of entertainment.
Tyndale Photography Club images were:
Landscape – Colourful Beach Huts – Christine Wetton
Open – Signs of Winter – Christine Ryske
People/Animal – The Piano Lesson – Barry Wilson
Open – The Tree at Lake Wanaka – Jenny Fryer LRPS
Creative – Where Tea Leaf Fields and Broccoli Grow – Steve Varman LRPS
Open – Sign of The Times – Steve Stone
Night/Nightscapes/Low Light – Underneath the Arches – Brian Wetton
Open – Bathing Beauty – George Ryske
Our second ‘film’ was of the WCPF Kingswood Silver Salver competition which we entered in November 2020. The panel entered by our club, entitled ‘Modern Architecture’, was awarded a Highly Commended and of the five images making up the panel Don Grundell was given a commended for his individual image. Other entries making up the five were by Brian Wetton, George Ryske, Steve Stone and Elizabeth Restall ARPS.
Kingswood Silver Salver Images
THURSDAY 18th FEBRUARY
CHRIS UPTON ARPS – THE WAY I SEE IT
Chris Upton is a speaker, who without Zoom, we would probably never have been able to invite to our club as he is a professional photographer based in Nottinghamshire. Chris specialises in travel, landscape and social documentary photography, is a member of his local camera club and really enjoys speaking to, and sharing information with, members of other camera clubs.
Before he began his talk, he explained that there were going to be no secrets – he would be giving hints and tips throughout the evening and was more than happy to answer any questions we might want to ‘throw’ at him. He explained that to create an image, you needed much more than just composition and that the talk he was about to give would guide us through the process to improve our photography and achieve a better photograph rather than an acceptable photograph.
His first ‘image’ of the evening was a list of the seven steps he feels you need to master to improve you photographic skills. He then explained each step in great detail at a level even the less advanced of us would understand. From knowing the fundamentals of photography, both the technical and creative, to knowing your equipment and getting out there to take ‘the shot’ Chris talked us through every aspect we should consider in order to improve our skills and our photography.
Planning plays a major role with Chris and his photography, he uses several phone apps to advise him on weather conditions for those misty morning shots and for knowing the times of sunrise and sunset, making it possible to get those ‘blue hour’ and ‘golden hour’ shots.
Chris concluded his talk by saying we should always review, refine and even reshoot our images – you can’t always get that ‘perfect’ shot at the first attempt. But the only way to improve is to get out there and ‘shoot more’.
To accompany all the advice, Chris shared with us stunning images from as far as India and New York to local landscapes in the Peak District. He explained where each shot was taken, how he had planned the location and why he had composed the image as he had, which I am sure we all benefited from greatly.
There is a saying that goes ‘every cloud has a silver lining’ and the silver lining for us regarding covid-19 and lockdown is that Chris was able to ‘visit’ Tyndale and keep us all enthralled for the whole evening.
THURSDAY 11th FEBRUARY
COMPETITION NIGHT – FOLIO FIVE
Judged by Peter Weaver LRPS CPAGB APAGB
Peter Weaver LRPS CPAGB APAGB is a familiar face to the members of Tyndale Photography Club having visited many times before, both as a speaker and a judge. His ‘visit’ this month was to judge our annual ‘Folio Five’ competition and as we are still under covid-19 restrictions Peter was more than happy to give the results over a Zoom meeting. He began by saying how he appreciated the amount of effort that goes into preparing a folio of five images all based on the same theme and how much he had enjoyed viewing all twenty one panels entered. He commented on how each image within each panel fitted the title of the theme, either by the subject within each image or the story the separate images gave. When displaying each set of images entered, Peter first commented on the folio as a whole and then on each image indicating which, in his opinion, was the strongest of the group. There was a good and varied number of topics chosen by the members who entered the competition, some imaginative, some creative but all of a very high standard, thus making Peter’s job hard to judge a winner. He did, however, manage to separate the top three from the rest and awarded Diana Baker third place for her folio ‘Blue Butterflies of Summer’ David Brookes second place for his folio ‘In The Dolomites’ and David Rumsam first place for his folio ‘Mental Health Awareness’.
Presentation of the Cup, by Chairman Brian Wetton, to the Winner Dave Rumsam
THURSDAY 4th FEBRUARY 2021
An Evening with Sheila: Presentation by Sheila Haycox ARPS MPAGB/AV EFIAP
We are continuing to hold our meetings over Zoom and as such are still able to invite speakers from further afield. Under normal circumstances Sheila Haycox ARPS MPAGB/AV EFIAP, who lives in Devon, wouldn’t travel as far as Gloucestershire to give her talk so we were privileged that she agreed to join us over the internet. She explained that her interest in photography began back in the 1960’s but it wasn’t until the 1980’s that she became really serious about her hobby. ‘An Evening with Sheila’ consisted of several audio-visuals, an area of photography which started from her taking videos of her grandchildren – just for fun. She has since become only one of eight people in the United Kingdom to have gained a Photographic Merit in Audio-Visual.
Over the evening Sheila demonstrated her personal skill in producing a visual sequence of still images matching them with suitable transitions and harmonising them with background music or words. The range of different photographic subjects differed from dreamy landscapes in Britain to brightly coloured wildlife in Costa Rica, from a milking parlour in Devon to the pomp and circumstance of the annual carnival in Venice and the Autumn colours of Stourhead gardens to the tiled walls and floors of the inner sanctum of Leeds library.
Whilst in lockdown Sheila tackled several audio-visual projects and she was quite happy to share the new sequences with us. The first of these was entitled ‘Re-thatching’ and gave us all an insight as to how her neighbour’s cottage was re-thatched over the spring/summer months. Another was to set a series of photographs to a Beatles song. Sheila chose Imagine and although I am probably biased, being a lifelong Beatles fan, Sheila managed to interpret the lyrics, written and sung by John Lennon, with carefully chosen monochrome winter images to give, what I felt was, a very moving audio-visual.
All in all, the presentation was a rare treat for the members watching, the evening was packed with a variety of creative, humorous, travel and thought invoking ‘movies’.
THURSDAY 28th JANUARY 2021
Kilimanjaro: Presentation by George Robertson DPAGB
In November 2020, David Brookes put out a plea for a speaker as the one booked was unable to give his talk over Zoom. George Robertson DPAGB, who is based in Lennoxtown, replied and gave an highly enlivening talk about a mountaineering trek he led through the Karakoram mountains of Northern Pakistan. Members were so impressed, not only with his images but also his extremely detailed and interesting talk, that when another Zoom ‘spot’ became available, George was invited back – having the same speaker twice in one season never usually happens!
The talk George gave this time, ‘The Snows of Kilimanjaro’, was inspired by several mountaineering treks he has led, as the title suggests, to the summit of Africa’s highest mountain, Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania. As he did with his first talk, George explained that the photographic equipment he was able to take was bare minimum, just one camera body, one lens and a few batteries. As he was leading the group his main concern was his clients, so all his images were ‘grab shots’ – but oh how many of the club members wish their ‘worked on’ photographs were like George’s ‘grab shots’. With all that explained the adventure began – because George has made this trip several times, images projected were from various areas of the Kilimanjaro National Park. There were five distinct regions that George, along with the porters, walked his groups through, the first being ‘civilization’. The colourful images taken here were of birds, distant views of where they were heading and of local folk going about their everyday life. The landscape of the ‘rainforest’ was difficult to capture because, of course, it was very misty, damp and dense with vegetation, but the smaller things such as flowers filled this section of the talk with their beautiful colours. George also managed to capture images en-route of the occasional monkey. The ‘moorland’ area took the group above the clouds and was covered in grasslands and scrub and it was as different from the rainforest as it was from the next region they climbed through which was the ‘alpine desert’. This region covered by the trekkers is actually a lava desert and the images George captured here showed not only the changing terrain but the wonderful sunrises and sunsets they were treated to whilst acclimatising themselves to the altitude, ready for the final ascent. When at the summit, called ‘eternal ice’, George displayed images taken from the same spot but on various trips, to show how the area looked in different seasons and weather conditions.
By the end of the evening we had been taken on another fantastic journey and because of George’s detailed explanation of the geography, geology, flora and fauna of this magnificent place I, for one, felt as though I had been there on the adventure with him!
THURSDAY 21st January
THURSDAY 14th JANUARY
Members Evening
Members’ evenings have always proved to be very popular and Zoom certainly hasn’t stopped this trend, the first of 2021 was well attended and definitely came up to the mark. David Brookes took on the task of organising the programme and it was definitely an evening packed with entertainment from the fourteen members who volunteered to share their images with the rest of the club members. The theme of the evening was ‘Memorable Place’ and those participating talked about their photographs and personal memories with a genuine warmth. Portugal, Bavaria and France, to name just a few, were the far-away countries we ‘visited’ whilst many areas in the UK featured greatly, the topics covered varied from holidays and local walks to photographic shoots and weekend extravaganzas.
Don Grundell – Sheds in Bristol Allotments – taken whilst helping his daughter with her newly acquired plot of land.
Christine Ryske – The Golden Temple in Amritsar – showing her first twenty four hours in India.
Barbara Gibbons – Llyn Idwal – an area of outstanding natural beauty she has visited a couple of times.
David Smith – Local Walks – images taken on his phone whilst limited to local walks in lockdown.
Diana Baker – Lisbon – colourful images taken in this beautiful Portugese city whilst visiting family.
Christine Morgan – The Big Cat Sanctuary, Kent – close up images taken whilst ‘on safari’ in an organized group.
Alun Rees – Images of many favourite places which are close to his heart, both local and a distance away.
David Brookes – The Romantic Road – images taken in the towns along this historical path through Southern Germany.
Malcolm Wootton – Sidmouth – images showing how the area has changed over the years.
David King – Gloucestershire Vintage & Country Extravaganza – recording his enjoyment at one of the biggest steam events in the UK.
Stephen White – Chamonix-Mont-Blanc – images taken whilst on holiday in this beautiful region of Southeastern France.
Lionel Jones – Scotland 50 years on – retracing and comparing a cycle holiday taken in 1955 with a car holiday taken in 2005.
Elizabeth Restall – Portishead Marina – an area favoured for photography by Elizabeth for its architecture and colours.
Brian Wetton – The holiday that was cancelled – images taken on previous visits to Tenerife – Tenerife 2021 – cancelled!
Many thanks to all who were happy to share their images and memories and special thanks to David Brookes for all his work to put the evening together.
Some of the images from the evening
THURSDAY 7th JANUARY 2021
ALEKS GJIKA DPAGB, EFIAP – In search of the ‘Je ne sais quoi’
Because of the restrictions still being imposed on us we were delighted that Aleks Gjika DPAGB EFIAP was more than happy to give his talk – In search on the ‘Je ne sais quoi’ – over Zoom.
He began the evening by giving us an insight into his background and although he now resides in Gloucester, he originates from Albania. Apart from his passion for photography, he also speaks several languages and has an Open University Degree in psychology.
Aleks explained that his interest in photography began around 2004 whilst working at Gloucester Museum and he became even more motivated after gaining good results in competitions within Cheltenham Camera Club, he has since done very well in national and international competitions culminating in winning the “My View” category of Landscape Photographer of the year in 2020.
The evening was split into three sections and he ‘kicked off’ with a selection of photographs taken just a couple of years ago whilst on a visit to Albania. As each image was shown Aleks told the story of the shot and explained the culture, nature and geography of his beloved homeland. The ‘je ne sais quoi’ he found in most of these images were the smiles and connection between eyes and mouth of the characterful faces of the locals in the images.
Gloucestershire, his adopted county, was the next set of images he shared with us. He told how he has fallen in love with this area and how different the light, seasons and skies are in this part of the world compared to where he grew up. His photographs took us all over this beautiful region, springtime bluebell walks accompanied stunning images of wet woodlands in Autumn and the landscape views of The Slaughters and from Coaley Peak, accompanied the intimate images taken down by The River Severn on freezing Winter mornings.
To conclude his presentation Aleks talked us through his competition winning photographs. Each of these sensational images had ‘mood and drama’ attached to them and with each one he had managed to create a ‘work of art’.
THURSDAY 17th DECEMBER 2020
CHRISTMAS KNOCKOUT COMPETITION
Tradition this Christmas for Tyndale Photography Club, like so many other clubs and societies, has just flown out of the window! No setting out the chairs! No decorating the tables! No arranging the food and preparing the drinks! But hang on, no way is this virus going to stop the tradition of our Christmas Knockout Competition!
With thanks to Steve Stone and David Brookes ARPS we were able to enjoy our Winter social evening over Zoom. Like every previous year, the images (over seventy of them) were shown in pairs and then a vote was taken for the preferred image. As voting by a show of hands wasn’t viable this year, after the images were shown we were able to vote for our favourite ‘on-line’, tick box A or box B and submit – what could be easier? Even though we weren’t all in the same room you could feel the tension building up as the task of choosing which image you preferred got harder and harder as the evening went by. After the last vote was taken the final four images were displayed for us all to see. The authors of the equal third images identified themselves as Steve Varman LRPS and Steve Stone. Barbara Gibbons took second place with her image ‘Anenome with Bee’ but it was Steve Varman LRPS who took first place with his image ‘Masquerade’. Both Steve and Barbara won a Christmas cake baked, beautifully decorated and donated by Gloria Pritchard.
After watching an amusing audio visual created by Jenny Fryer LRPS, Brian Wetton wound up the evening by thanking each and every member for making the evening a success and for their continued support during this difficult time.
THURSDAY 10th DECEMBER
Open Competition judged by Beryl Heaton ARPS EFIAP CPAGB
When originally asked to judge our second open competition, Beryl Heaton ARPS EFIAP CPAGB thought that she would be judging at North Nibley Village Hall, she was however, under the current situation, more than happy to perform the task over a Zoom meeting. Even though Beryl has been judging competitions for over seven years it was her first visit to Tyndale so she started the evening off by telling the club members a little about herself. Her interest in photography started at a very early age and was reignited when her own children had left home, she loves photographing natural history and is a member of Bristol Photographic Society.
Beryl spoke clearly and concisely about each image entered into the competition and I am sure her comments, both technical and personal, gave help and advice to the author. After announcing the winners Beryl said how she had enjoyed viewing and judging all fifty eight images and thanked us for inviting her to take on the task.
The winning images were :
First Place – On High Alert – Mike Smith
Second Place – Glacier de Bionassy – Steve White
Third Place – Eyes Right – Richard Wright
THURSDAY 3rd DECEMBER
INVISIBLE LIGHT – FUN with INFRARED
DAVID BROOKES ARPS and ELIZABETH RESTALL ARPS
David is a dedicated member of our club and he volunteered to give us a talk about infrared photography, a subject that probably most members would never attempt as it is a topic not many people have knowledge of and it’s not an easy subject to master.
David explained how he has been taking infrared photographs for over forty years starting off with film and then, as time went by and digital cameras were introduced onto the market he moved on too initially using a filter over the end of his lens and then more recently having a camera converted for purely infrared shots.
As far a composition is concerned, taking an infrared photograph doesn’t differ too much from taking a normal photograph, but the similarity ends there as the images produced show us a changed world, grass and trees become white, the sky (on a bright day) becomes almost black and the image has a saturated contrast. In other words infrared photography is a unique genre that produces images quite unlike typical photographs.
David was able to show his film images as part of his talk because he has digitised them using his own ‘Heath Robinson’ set-up to photograph them and then store them on his computer, a process which has taken him quite some time to perfect.
Elizabeth is another member who has a dedicated infrared camera and after David had finished his talk she also showed some of her images. In the shots taken by both photographers there was an impressionistic, almost ghost like feel to the images taken in the countryside, a superb clarity to the cityscape images and a midwinter feel to those taken on midsummer days. They both showed images that were dreamy and peaceful and if taken on an ordinary camera in colour would have been deleted before you even got home.
Both David and Elizabeth had, in post processing, added colour to their monochrome images which in itself added a completely different dimension to the image as the colours were not ones you would associate with the items photographed. By the end of the evening I think most members thought infrared images to be surreal but in their own way quite magical.
Thank you both for a really enjoyable and informative evening.
THURSDAY 26th NOVEMBER
BRIAN NORTHMORE – ‘IN DISCUSSION’
If there is one good thing that has come out of us having to hold our meetings via Zoom, it’s the fact that we can invite speakers from all over the country to speak to us, ordinarily distance dictates who can be invited. Our latest speaker Brian Northmore lives and works in the Plymouth area and was able to fill in a gap in our programme at short notice to give his talk ‘In Discussion’. It was a generic talk covering all aspects of photography and it displayed a full range of his photographic interests and expertise. Although Brian usually encourages audience participation, that aspect of his talk is quite difficult over Zoom. He was, however, more than happy to answer any questions put to him during the break and at the end of the evening.
He began by explaining how his interest in photography began and with a grandfather and father both owning and using film cameras it was probably inevitable that Brian would take up the same hobby at some point in time. His preferred photographic genre is monochrome landscape but he did show us other images including aircraft at air shows, horses in point-to-point competitions and creative pictures achieved by ‘in camera movement’.
He explained that he enjoys taking landscapes as it allows him to get outdoors, away from the trials of life, losing himself in planning the composition and timing of his images. He has patience in ‘buckets full’ to keep returning to the same place, day after day, until he captures the exact image he set out to get. He demonstrated, how by moving slightly, changing the focal point of an image or the changing light, can make the same view look so different. Whilst showing stunning images from Dorset, The Lake District and Cornwall, to name but a few places, Brian told the us what equipment and software he had used to achieve that piece of artwork. To conclude the evening he ran a short audio-visual of pictures needing no explanation at all.
THURSDAY 19th NOVEMBER
Landscapes Competition Judged by Martin Fry (FRPS EFIAP/p AV-EFIAP ABPE APAGB)
TYNDALE PHOTOGRAPHY CLUB
Martin Fry (FRPS EFIAP/p AV-EFIAP ABPE APAGB), who is no stranger to Tyndale Photography Club, had been booked for over a year to judge the club’s Projected Digital Image Landscape Competition and even though the club is holding its meetings via Zoom, Martin was still happy to perform this difficult task and deliver his results over the virtual gathering. He began by saying that for him landscape photography is a really challenging subject, not only do you have to find your subject you have to have the correct light so that the colours and mood create your landscape image. Martin gave in depth comments about each image, offering helpful advice on how slight alterations could be made to improve and ‘finish off’ certain landscapes. In total there were 48 images which took us all over Great Britain and although this was of a set subject matter, the judging must have been very difficult because the images entered were so diverse. In the end the three winners conveyed all aspects of the countryside we live in.
The winning images were :
First Place – Wastwater – Steve Varman LRPS
Second Place – Thrift on North Cornwall Cliffs – George Ryske
3rd Place – Porthmeor Beach – Don Grundell
THURSDAY 12th NOVEMBER
GEORGE ROBERTSON DPAGB – Into the Throne Room of the Mountain Gods
The speaker who was originally booked to talk to us was, as he was experiencing broadband problems, unable to Zoom. So a plea was put out via Facebook for a speaker; George Robertson DPAGB replied and volunteered to stand in at short notice. We were really lucky to be able to welcome George because as he is based in Kilmarnock an actual visit would have been almost impossible. Before he began his talk, he introduced himself as a mountain and landscape photographer, he has won Landscape Photographer of the Year and has had images printed in several publications. With the title of his talk being ‘Into the Throne Room of the Mountain Gods’ we waited with anticipation as to what the presentation was going to unveil.
His talk was actually about a mountaineering trek that he led through the Karakoram mountains of Northern Pakistan, a remote and scarcely visited region with a unique landscape. He explained that the photographic equipment he was able to take was bare minimum, just one camera body, one lens and six batteries, which, as a by the way, he had to sleep with in order to keep them warm!
With the introductions over, George then got down to talking us through his adventure from Islamabad to K2 and back again. The images accompanying his talk were varied in the fact that to begin with, whilst in towns, he was able to capture street life and portrait photographs of the people who live in these remote and probably never heard of places. As the journey progressed, we were able to see the differing terrain and conditions that he and his group travelled in and the wonderful scenery they were able to enjoy. George explained that all his images were ‘grab shots’, because of time restrictions he was not able to wait for the right light and so he considered himself really lucky when there was good or dappled light, moody clouds over the mountains and gentle sunsets.
His images were absolutely stunning and took us to a spot in the world that many would never be able to get to. From a mosque in Islamabad, to his street photography in Skardu, from the ‘road’ and camp conditions on his journey to the scale of the Baltoro glacier and K2 mountain, George certainly kept us entertained.
If there is one thing we can thank lockdown for, it’s the fact George was able to visit us!
THURSDAY 5th NOVEMBER
SIMON CAPLAN LRPS – Extraordinary Ordinary
It is the first time that Simon Caplan LRPS has ‘visited’ us and I say visited very loosely as he, like the previous speakers, gave his presentation and talk “Extraordinary Ordinary” over a Zoom meeting.
Simon, who is based in Bristol, has over time, built an amazing portfolio of urban abstract, light-sculpted still life and unusual landscape images. In his talk he explained his thinking behind and the techniques he used to achieve the very different images he shared with us. He seems to find hidden beauty in the urban environment which most of us would just pass by. His images of sections or parts of buildings pick up the strong combination of colours, textures and tonal contrasts we often take no notice of, but Simon seems to have the ability to spot them and capture them in a very imaginative way.
He explained how it is most important to isolate your subject against a good background which means taking your own paper/cloth or even lying on the pavement getting strange looks from passers by.
Most of Simon’s images are actually creative art – air-conditioning fans, street lights, lightbulbs and even shoes come to life in the most fanciful way. He says when you wander around you will often stumble across something that will, with a little post processing, give you a good image. By using his creative eye he is able to reveal unusual details in otherwise workaday objects to create stunning works of art.
Throughout the evening Simon gave the members present many tips and advice on how to create similar images to his own and said we should use our cameras as a creative tool.
When he gives a talk Simon usually brings along prints for the audience to view and discuss, of course this couldn’t happen but hopefully in the not too distant future we will be able to invite Simon back to the club where we will be able to participate more fully in his interesting approach to photography.
THURSDAY 29th OCTOBER
OPEN COMPETITION judged by JOHN TAYLOR
It was decided at a committee meeting earlier in the year, that the only competition that would be viable for the foreseeable future would be the Projected Digital Images (PDI) competition. Members would be able to submit their entries via email to the PDI competition secretary with the judging carried out remotely. Judges would then be able to give their comments and scores via a Zoom meeting. Also, for simplicity, as it wasn’t known under the current restrictions how many members would take part, each competition would be open to all club members with no splitting into divisions.
John Taylor, from North West Bristol, had been booked quite some time ago to judge the first competition of our 2020-2021 season, so it was he who had the pleasure of seeing if this format of competition would work. It was John’s first ‘visit’ to the club and after thanking us for inviting him to judge, he stated how he hoped his comments about each image would be constructive and not critical, as he feels critical statements do not help photographers at all. He said he likes photographs with a ‘wow’ factor and also those that tell a story or have some sort of mystery associated to them.
His last statement before the judging began was that he had truly enjoyed viewing all the competition entries and that there was a varied selection of really good images.
The outcome of a very enjoyable evening was
1st – Jenny Fryer LRPS – Louisiana Swamp
2nd – Marjory Wright – Waiting for a Fare
3rd – Mike Baxter – Fire Eater
THURSDAY 22nd OCTOBER
ROY CARR AWPF – ROY’S OUTDOOR LIFE
It was a shame that Roy Carr AWPF couldn’t be with us in person, but by giving his talk ‘Roy’s Outdoor Life’ over Zoom he saved himself the drive from The Welsh Valleys. His theory is, you will photograph best what you love best and from the many images Roy shared with us, you could see that he definitely has a passion for the outdoors.
He spent the first half of the evening taking us on an adventure he had made many years ago, from Cardiff to Morocco and back. The 4500 mile solo journey took him four months and he cycled all the way with his tent, clothes and camera equipment tucked nicely into the panniers on his bike. His trip took him through Spain and Portugal and on reaching Morocco you could see from the images that the landscape was changing and temperature was rising to quite an uncomfortable level. He delighted us with photographs of Moroccan people going about their everyday business, colourful markets, deep gorges and red clay houses fading into The Atlas Mountains.
After a short break, Roy continued to entertain us with images from around Britain and other outdoor activities he has a passion for. He enjoys rock climbing and I’m sure that many of the members must have been holding their breath at the photographs of climbers hanging over sheer drops only using the tips of their fingers and toes to make their way up the rock face. All his life, Roy has loved walking and this has taken him and his camera to such places as the North East Coast The Dorset Coast, The Peak District and The Lake District. His photographs showed misty sunrises, rich sunsets, snowed topped mountains and wonderful landscape views.
Roy stated that he would spend hours waiting for the right light and often returned to the same place to achieve the results he wanted.
THURSDAY 15th OCTOBER 2020
Members Evening
Our first members evening of the season was well organised by David Brookes and Steve Stone with six members participating.
Don Grundell was first in the spotlight giving us an insight into cyanotype photographic printing – an experiment he undertook during lockdown. He detailed the equipment needed for his project and then took us through the process explaining each step taken to achieve his cyanotype blueprints. He was so pleased with the results, images of his grandchildren are now hanging on the walls in his house.
Christine Ryske talked of her progress as a photographer since she had become a member of the club in 2017. She showed images she had entered into club competitions and explained how the judge’s critique had helped her with the composition of an image.
During the previous season Steve Varman had gained 20 points with his image ‘Where tea leaf fields and broccoli grow’. It was in fact, a composite photograph and Steve not only explained, but also demonstrated, how he had achieved his ‘work of art’. He combined and layered several separate images into a single image to give the illusion that they are all part of the same scene. With a little more tweaking to get shadows in the right place and flat parts of the image made into hills Steve left most of the members aghast.
Focus stacking is a term that many members had heard of, but not many had not attempted, so David Brookes decided to show us how it is done. He explained that focus stacking is when images are captured with different focus points and then combined with computer software to create an image which is sharp front to back. Macro photography benefits from using this procedure, as David showed, with images he had taken from the flowers growing in his garden.
Bill Beere concluded the first part of the evening showing images of the fauna and flora in his garden. It has been an interesting summer for Bill as he only recently moved house and so didn’t know what to expect from his inherited plot. He captured images of visiting birds feeding on the food left out for them, bees collecting nectar from the flowers and fascinating happenings in his newly acquired pond.
After a short break Brian Wetton, Chairman of the club, shared with everyone the photographs he had taken on his two week holiday to the Greek Island of Tilos back in the summer of 2018. He and his wife, Christine, enjoyed exploring the beaches and churches of this small island and savoured the tranquillity of this non-touristy part of the world.
THURSDAY 8th OCTOBER 2020
Dave Mason
After Life
I don’t know if Dave Mason realised it, but his third talk to Tyndale Photography Club was in fact the first Zoom talk that the members had attended.
Dave is very much a Street Photographer and always goes for ‘the wider view’. He explained how he aims to be inconspicuous whilst taking his photographs, he tries to make himself melt into the crowd by not carrying huge cameras and loads of equipment. Patience is a virtue that Dave has by the bundle – he searches out what he feels is a good backdrop and then waits, keeping alert, for the right person/people to appear. He seems to pick up on street furniture that most other people would just not notice or maybe notice and walk away from. He is also able to put a good story behind each of his images, thereby, linking complete strangers to each other by capturing a quick glance or a crossing shadow. He also has an uncanny knack of showing where ordinary folk mirror or blend in with the background. He was very quick to say that his photographs ‘just happen’ because as a street photographer you don’t have much control over what is going on around you, you never know what your next photograph will be.
His monochrome images taken in Rome beautifully complemented his colourful Docklands multiple exposure images taken on his mobile phone. By visiting several towns and cities and attending as many re-enactments and festivals as he can, Dave’s images give a really good insight into life in The British Isles. We were shown images of folk shopping in London, holidaymakers at the seaside, flamboyant folk at social gatherings and people going about their everyday lives.
To quote Dave ‘all my photographs have an honesty about them, I aim to capture the image in camera and do very little, if any, post processing’.
THURSDAY 1st OCTOBER 2020
Our first meeting of the season also happened to be the first Zoom meeting that Tyndale Photography Cub had ever had. It was wonderful to see so many members sat in the comfort of their own home, or in the case of two members in the comfort of their motorhome, enjoying the first get together for several months.
Usually, the first meeting would be the U-Judge print competition, but as you can imagine under the rules we are now living by, that was ‘not going to happen’. It was decided by the committee that an invite would be put out to all members for them to show ten images of what they had been doing during the months of lockdown and social distancing restrictions. There were twenty members who were willing to show and share their images which meant we were in for a really busy evening as there were 200 photographs to be displayed.
It was clear that during the first few weeks of lockdown, the majority of people were taking photographs inside their home and garden. It was amazing to see how the flora in the gardens changed over just a few weeks and for those who took photographs on their allowed walks and bike rides, how the countryside looked in the good weather we were lucky enough to have in the early summer. One particular image showed a virtually empty M5, how spooky – that’s what it must have been like years ago!
As lockdown eased, it was good to see that folk were spreading their wings and visiting ‘far away places’ – well further than your back yard!
A few members of the club set themselves a project to do, which I would imagine kept their minds off covid-19 and filled theirs days with either entertainment, education or frustration. Other members had treated themselves to new photographic equipment or even went on a workshop – each and everyone one of them said how pleased they were with their purchase.
All in all it was a very entertaining and successful evening, it would take far too long to write about each individual and their images but thank you to :
Christine Ryske who shared some of her hobbies and walks with us
Diana Baker who took photographs with her new macro lens
Lionel Jones who took photographs in his garden and ‘runs out’ in the car
Joan Scott who thoroughly enjoyed her photography workshop
Mike Baxter who photographed in his garden and ‘took us’ to Jupiter Artland in Edinburgh
Christine Wetton for sharing her local walks and two holidays
Don Grundell for experimenting new ways of photographing garden flowers
David Brookes who was extremely pleased with his new camera
Barbara Gibbons who was pleased to show lovely sunsets and also a newborn puppy
Steve Daniell told the story of the submarine wrecks at Aberlady Bay
Jane Martin who showed garden images
Peter Whitfield explained about his project – 100 monchrome images
Elizabeth Oakley shared the views she has from her top floor flat
George Ryske showed images taken at Bristol light festival (pre lockdown)
Jenny Fryer spent time manipulating existing images on her computer
David King showed post lockdown images of him at long last being let out
Steve Varman showed mobile phone and microscope images
Elizabeth Restall enjoyed her garden flowers and the reflections and shadows they gave
Steve White who took local family walks and enjoyed an Italian holiday
Brian Wetton for sharing a few days away in Devon with us
Many, many thanks to all who showed what they did in lockdown and special thanks to David Brookes for all his work to put the evening together and to Steve Stone for getting the ‘Zoom’ side of things sorted out.