Last night I enjoyed an evening walk with the GNPC folks to the pretty village of Coggeshall. The light was variable, but there was a bit of setting sun to be seen. We were given three topics to photograph to stimulate our imaginations – they were red, texture and rectangles.
I liked the light on the Tudor house Paycockes and thought this one would make a great find for the texture theme:
You can see the rest of my images from the evening here:
A small group of us went to Hyde Hall this morning. The idea was to take lots of plant portraits, but it turned out to be extremely windy, which made things a bit difficult. Nevertheless, I managed a few shots I was quite pleased with:
Besides being a member of Ingatestone CC for nearly 20 years(!), a couple of years ago, I also started going to Great Notley Photography Club. I was asked to judge one of their first competitions for an exhibition, was very impressed with what I saw and decided to join.
Diving Gannet by David Ian Roberts
Despite being a very new club, having been formed less than 3 years ago, GNPC have recently been very successful in external competitions. At the end of November, we won the North Essex DPI trophy, coming top out of 12 clubs, with our 5 images scoring a total of 95/100. Club member David Ian Roberts also won the best image of the competition, with his great shot of a diving gannet [left].
In The Wake Of Alzheimers by Mark Edwards
As if one success wasn’t enough, we have also been entering the 12-month Battle of the Clubs 2010, run by Digital SLR User magazine. This is highly competitive, with clubs from across the UK taking part. We were very encouraged, as each round’s results were announced, that we were holding our own against tough opposition such as DAPA. In the end, GNPC won by two points ahead of DAPA, and once again, it was our club member, Mark Edwards, who came away with the prize for Best Individual Shot, with his powerful photo of his mother, entitled In The Wake Of Alzheimers [right].
Slinky, by me
I’m very pleased to report that one of my own images was considered good enough to represent GNPC in the 3rd round, Colour. Each club had to enter 3 images per round, and Slinky [left] was my contribution towards the final total.
Several club members attended the awards ceremony at Canon UK‘s HQ recently, and were presented with the obligatory “comedy” cheque for £3,000, which we can spend on Canon gear. Us Canon users are delighted, but I suspect one or two of the Nikon-lovers in the club might not be so pleased! Here are some of the club members with the cheque at our last meeting of 2010:
GNPC winners by Andrea Abbott
The club appears to be going from strength to strength – let’s hope we can keep up the momentum during 2011!
If you live near Great Notley and would like to come along to the club, why not take a look at the list of upcoming meetings? You would be very welcome.
I enjoyed an early evening outing to Heybridge Basin with the GNPC crowd yesterday. The light was quite nice for a while and with plenty of boats about there is always something interesting to photograph. Here’s my collection from the trip:
April saw me start several weeks contract work in London, at the BBC working on their Election Special programme. Consequently, I didn’t have a lot of time for photography, other than my usual photo a day taken travelling to, from or at work.
However, just before it all kicked off, I went to Lavenham, a picturesque Suffolk village, for a Sunday photoshoot with the folks from the GNPC.
Here’s my photoset from Flickr:
