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NEXT MEETING Thursday 4th March 2010
The next event will be a lecture by Liz & Roger Scott entitled
"Seeing the Difference"
18th February 2010
Our clubs last meeting was a full night’s competition comprising of prints and slides.
The judge for the evening was John Boots ARPS from the Seaford Club.
The first part of the evening started with the print section,(incidentally all were computer printed this week, as we only have two darkroom workers left in the club)
General Class; John found this class consisting of 23 prints very difficult to evaluate, he did however, eventually award two top scores of 20 points ,to Autumn View by Vanessa Parker LRPS and Russian Great Grey Owl by Paul Hutchings however, the winning print was taken by Nicky Plumb entitled Scruffy the Town Dog scored 20*.
Small Print Class; John found this equally as difficult to determine a winner, with 8 images to evaluate, this time only one print received 20 points, that was Norman King's Colonnade in a Dream.
Record Class; This class attracted 6 images and was a very close run class. Paul Carrington’s photograph of an Iron Age Boar exhumed from a field near Lewes scoring 19 points but the class winner was Norman King with his print of Pisa Baptistry Door in Bronze by Pisano 1336 Scoring 20*.
Portrait Class; John had 9 to appraise in this section and Ken Plumb was awarded 20* for Wearing a Tea Cosy just ahead of Mike Fosters Chinese Wedding scoring 20 points.
Some of the winning prints will be displayed in the Bexhill Observer Window.
After the tea break the slides took precedence and we opened with the;
General Class; Dorothy Reeve was awarded the only 20 for Marks on Wood.
Landscape Class; Ray Noble scored 20 with his slide of Cumbrian Fell.
Nature Class; In this section honours were shared by Dorothy Reeve and Ray Noble who both scored 20 points. Ray for his slide of a Yellow billed Hornbill and Dorothy for Fescue Grass, very well done Dorothy who gained two winners during the evening.
John Bryant our chairman thanked the judge who responded, what a privilege it had been to judge such excellent work.
04 February 2010
Last Thursday we hosted an interclub competition against a very strong well balanced local club of Rye.
It had originally been arranged as a Slide and Print competition but at the request of Rye Club had been altered to a Print and Projected Digital Image one. (15 images in each class) John Holmes ARPS our judge for the evening was from Storrington Club who was predominately a lover of black and white and steam trains, was faced with 6o images to judge.
The Friends Meeting House was comfortably full and awaited .John’s precise and beneficial critique and appraisal of the 30 P.D.I’s. Bexhill’s images had all previously scored 19 or 20 in previous club competitions and all scored well enough to win the PDI part of the evening thus entering the second half of the evening with a lead of 8 points.
After the tea break John accredited the prints,this time awarding Rye club 14 points ahead of Bexhill thus giving each club a win in different media. Rye were accredited the winners on the night when the scores were aggregated.
Bexhill had scored 6 maximum 20’s and Rye had scored 4. Honours were even on the night and a pleasant and friendly one it turned out to be.
John Holmes (the judge) was thanked by the Bexhill and Rye chairmen, and he responded by saying he was honoured to have seen such high class work.
Thursday 21st Jan 2010
Last Thursday at the Quakers Meeting House Albert Road we invited Bob Webzell ARPS. To judge our 2nd Set Subject ‘Slides’ and the 3rd Projected Digital Images (PDI).
Bob who is a member of the Brighton and Hove Photographic Club and is well known for his Photographic Exhibitions gives great support to a Masai Tribe,and includes helping to fund building a school in Tanzania . He calls a spade a spade but was very meticulous with his judging. The first category for appraisal was the Slide Set Subject ‘Angles’(projected by Brian and Dorothy Reeve).Bob had a real mix of slides to evaluate (21 in all)ranging from wheel and umbrella spokes, railings, steps ,seats and even the inverted pyramid at the Louvre. He awarded two 20’s Norman Kings ‘Shadows and Steps’,
and Sue Clarke’s ‘Symmetrical Support’
but decided Normans slide be awarded 20* which made Sue and Norman the overall joint winners of the Set Subject Class, as they both scored 20 and 20* in the first Set Subject ‘Clouds’ in November.
The second half of the evening was devoted to the Projected Digital Images (PDI). The Nature Class (17 images) was won by Ken Plum for ‘Baby Gecko’ 20*,
closely followed by Dorothy Reeve’s ‘Meadow Foxtail’, and Paul Carrington’s ‘In-flight Refuelling’(A Humming bird feeding) both scoring 20.
The Record Class was won by David Rossiter with ‘Religious Plaques Villa Real’ 20*
closely followed by two other images also scoring 20 namely Martin Haswell’s ‘Avro Vulcan’ and Norman Kings’ Detail from Baptistery Door Florence No 6’.
The creative Class was won by Dorothy Reeve with her monotone study entitled ‘Wooded Valley’ scoring 20*,
just ahead of Paul Dunmall’s ‘Ice Kiss’ scoring 20.
General Class was won by Paul Dunmall with his perception of ‘Caught Up’. Depicting a double strung black thong caught in a stiletto heel, he scored 20* and the best overall image of digital entries.
Vanessa Parker LRPS was very close on Paul’s heels with ‘Ullswater Frosty Morning’ scoring 20. Very well done Paul.
Thursday 17th DecThe last meeting of 2009 held at the Friends Meeting House Albert Rd
was the second Projected Digital Image competition. We were privileged to have had an esteemed stalwart (previously employed by this paper), namely John Dowling as our judge for the evening.
John was returning to the club after many years (having been a former member) to evaluate our four classes of Digital images 65 in all.
The first class to be appraised was the Record class (12 images) the winner was Norman King with’’ Detail Dahlia bloom, miniature ball, Latin Pinnata’, scoring19.
The Second class was Creative. [14 images] Paul Carringtons ‘ Dungeness lighthouse reflection’. was the only maximum 20 point winner in this class.
After a very short tea break, due to the possibility of getting snowed in, John ploughed on with the next class.
Nature was the third class [20 images] and John found four images worth 20 points
And was overwhelmed with the quality of the close ups of nature. This time Bob Butler excelled with his ‘Female Common Darter’ which scored 20*.
General was the last class,and by by this time the snow was reported to be about a centimetre deep .John had 20 images left to evaluate. Once again our digital secretary Paul Carrington was the winning photographer with his ‘Glowing Rose’ scoring 20 which went on to be the eventual overall winning image of the evening.
John ended the evening by congratulating all the photographers who produced the 65 images, he was very very impressed by the quality of their work, especially as the world is gradually changing from Celluloid to the Charge Coupled Device.
John Bryant our chairman thanked the digital team for their hard work and of course John Dowling for all his comments and critique.( who is still being encouraged to rejoin the club as a member). The annual membership of the club is £28.per annum
Sunday 29th November
The Sussex Federation Projected Digital Image competition
Hailsham club hosted the inaugural event at the Community Hall last Sunday, 29th Nov. The County was projecting digital images in competition for the first time and Clive Tanner FRPS from Kent was the judge for the afternoon. Clive’s county has been competing digitally for 5 or 6 years but he found that our images were a pleasure to appraise and of such good content and quality.
Seventeen clubs entered, and each was allowed 5 images .One of our new members Sonia Dumnall scored 17points although Paul Hutchings equalled this. The images which represented the club were as follows:-
Muscles in Action by Sonia Dumnall
Tuscan Lights by Vanessa Parker
Flamingo by Paul Hutchings
Thwaite below Kisdon, North Yorkshire by Norman King
Male Large Red Tailed Damselfly by Brian Reeve
Although Bexhill did well during the afternoon, at one stage were joint 4th place for a while. However, coming back down to earth by the end of the afternoon’s judging, so it was a good experience and we were proud to have even entered the Digital Projected competition, the first of its type in Sussex. The hall was full of Sussex based photographers eager to be at the beginning of what hopefully will be a very popular annual event.
The overall winners were Crawley camera club with 95 points from a possible 100. Not only were our 5 photographers given a vote of thanks, Paul Carrington was thanked by his own club members for coordinating our entry and officiating during the selection held some 5 month ago. Many thanks Paul.
Our next meeting at Quakers Hall, Albert Road on the 17th Dec. will be our 2nd open digital competition which will be judged by John Dowling( a member of the club many years ago)
Thursday 19th Nov
At the Friends Meeting House Albert Road Bexhill members enjoyed the first half of the evening in the clouds, as the slide workers were being judged upon their cloudscapes (First part of the set subject) by the Battle judge Michael Betts.
Michael found many storm and rain clouds but more sophisticated varieties were projected namely lenticular and music sheet clouds. From the 19 entries Norman King scored maximum 20 with’ Glastonbury Clouds’ but the winner Sue Clarke was awarded 20+ for her’ Evening Rays ‘well done Sue.
The second half of the evening Michael evaluated the 2nd Open Print competition,
General Class (19 pictures) nearly half were natural history images and Michael awarded two 20’s, one to Ken Plumb for ’Green Bush Cricket eating a spider’ and the other to Paul Hutchings’ ’Tiger on the prowl’, Paul’s’ was awarded 20+
Portrait Class (7), Ken Plumb was awarded 20+ for his seventies style ‘The Red Rose’ Cliff Willard was a very close second with 20 for ‘Chloe’
Small Print Class,[ 12 Prints] and once again nearly half the pictures were erring toward Natural History and Michael found two of them .Sonia Dunmall scored 20 with her ‘Grey Squirrel’ but Ray Barry’s ‘Robin taking off ’ scored 20+.
Record Class, a new class introduced this year is beginning to attract more photographers. Michael did explain what record photography was all about and said he expected to see real detailed record photographs and by passed 3 or 4 photographs but liked ‘The Concorde’ and ,the ‘Henry V111 gold angel (coin)’ but the two top scores were awarded to Paul Hutchings for his print of ‘A Stained Glass Window Canterbury Cathedral’, but Norman King’s image of the ‘Head of Christ from the Turin Shroud by John Roberts in Portland Stone in Lincoln Cathedral’ scored the 20+,
this seemed to be the criteria that Michael was looking for and he certainly made it clear what should be presented in’ Record ‘in the future. Best Print of the evening went to Paul Hutchings for his ‘Tiger on the Prowl’
Our chairman John Bryant thanked Michael very much for his critique and for a very enjoyable evening.
Two days later on 21st November at The Rainham School for Girls( Kent ). Bexhill had entered 8 prints into The Ross Cup, an interclub competition between 33 clubs in the Kent County Photographic Association, including 4 clubs from Sussex. Bexhill were represented by
 
Paul Hutchings (2),
 
Norman King (2),
Chris Martin,
 
Vanessa Parker LRPS (2),
and Ken Plumb. Ken scored 19 for which he was awarded a merit and Vanessa scored 18 which helped us to attain 18th place from the 33 clubs ahead of Eastbourne, Battleand Seaford.
29 October 2009
Bexhill P.C. held its first Projected Digital Image Competition,along with the 2nd open slide competition. Brian and Dorothy Reeve provided the expertise behind the slide projector and Brian ended up the winner of the General Class with 20 for his image entitled ‘Beauty within Desolation’.
Ray Noble and Paul Hutchings shared the plaudits in the Landscape Class both ‘The Loughrigg Tarn’ and ‘Swaledale’ scoring 20.
The Nature Class was also shared with previous winners Brian and Ray both scoring 20’s with ‘Azur Damselfly’ and ‘Poppy Texture’ respectively.
Our judge for the evening having to evaluate 86 images in all was Glyn Bareham LRPS.CPAGB from Kent, would be no mean feat.
Before the tea break The Nature Class of the Digital competition was judged and 6 images were awarded maximum scores (20). ‘A Snail’ and ‘A Green Bush Cricket’ by Nicky and Ken Plumb respectively, ‘Robin’ by Scott Willard, ‘Grey Heron’ by Ray Barry ,’Barn Owl’ by Paul Hutchings and the top accolade went to Moira Fosters’ ‘Humming bird Hawk Moth’ well done Moira for a 20+.
After a very short tea break the second half of the evening was opened by The Creative Class (14) when two maximums were awarded. ‘The Fans’ by Paul Hutchings and ‘Leaf glow ’by Cliff Willard.
Next came The Record Class (12) two twenties were awarded by Glyn. ‘The Brandenburg Gate Quad Riga’ by Bob Butler and ‘Lion Door Knocker ‘by Brian Reeve.
The culmination of the evening was the General Class (21) three maximums were awarded, ‘Archie’ by Scott Willard, ‘Typhoon’ by our new print secretary Martin Haswell and the overall winning digital image of the evening was taken by Bob Butler entitled ‘Evening Fishing’. Very well done Bob.
Cliff Willard gave Glyn the vote of thanks he thoroughly deserved at the end of an absorbing evening, Glyn responded by saying he felt privileged to judge Bexhill’s very competent work, and looked forward to returning sometime soon. Thanks also went to the”Three Paul’s “who organised the digital projection.
The next meeting is the Slide set subject "Cloudscapes" and 2nd Open print competitions on November 19th (please note, change of judge for this competition, Mike Betts from Battle club will stand in for Ted Moon) Hope to see you all at The Friends Meeting House Albert Road. Details can be obtained about the club from John Bryant Chairman 730758
SUMMER CHALLENGE 2009
Thursday 15th October was a very traumatic day in the life of Paul Hutchings, a club member, it started at 12 noon at the Crematorium and ended at about 10.15 after he had finished his presentation of judging the Summer Challenge.This was something that he had set back in May entitled Something Funny and Something Creative.
Paul soon got back into the swing of photography and started to appraise the 17 images in the ‘Funny Section’. Although the prints had been prejudged they were evaluated by Paul on the night.
Two prints scored 20’s one being Cliff Willard's Wedding Group who were all gurning or strangling each other. The other print was David Rossiter’s Lavatorial Humour this one may turn up in the Observer Window but can’t be spoken about until after the 9oclock watershed, but Paul loved them both.
He started the second set of pictures ‘Something Creative’ just a couple fell by the wayside but most Were well within the parameters of creative. The winners were once again Cliff and David. Cliff showed us five little fairies in energetic positions in letter box format on the mount. This gave him maximum scoring of 40 well done Cliff. David was second scoring 19 with a fat female in a black leotard ‘Trapped’ under a table but she was also divided up into six separate images and the contorted female gave David 39points in all. Both these last two mentioned pictures would not have looked out of place in a quality art photo gallery.
Paul enjoyed judging the Summer Challenge despite the hectic 2weeks leading up to the prize giving, he was given a hearty vote of thanks by the members and then by John Bryant our chairman.
The next meeting is on November5th when two of our members give an illustrated presentation, one a Slide Show and the other an Audio Visual, at the Friends Meeting House Albert Road. Further details of our club call John Bryant on 730758
1st Open Print & Slide Competitions
1st October 2009
Members assembled at The Friends Meeting House in Albert Road for the opening night of the competitive season on Thursday the first at 7-45 pm. The open print and slide classes were judged by the eminent Ian Betts of the Henfield Camera Club.
This season heralded a new and popular Record class, which had been voted in by members at the May AGM.
Ian a very intelligent and worldly - wise adjudicator
started with the General class [the most popular overall] with 21 entries ,his knowledge of all topics in the class included natural history,both flora and fauna, sport [tennis] architecture, aircraft ,landscape and even a cyclist pedalling along the outgoing tide on golden sands with a sunset on the horizon. Bob Butler was the photographer, it scored a 20 star and was given best print of the evening.
Portrait class was judged with equal aplomb, Ian knew of all the aspects of portraiture,from the six he had to evaluate, he found nothing wrong with a sweet image of Imogen. Cliff Willard [who recently gained an accolade from the Royal Photographic Society]was the photographer and it scored 20.
Next was the Record Class, 8 pictures were entered and Paul Hutchings won a very close contest with a 20 star, with a beautiful pastel coloured, stucco emblazoned parapet taken in the Czech Republic.
Ian completed the first half of the evening giving a detailed critique of the small class which comprised of just 9 prints. Ian commented that they were just as good quality to judge as the previous images, hardly a low mark between them; Brian Reeve scored 20 for a magnificent Common Blue Butterfly which was the outright winner closely followed by three other 7x5 images two of which scored 19 and one 19 and a ½ the average score of this class was 18 points from 20.
The second half of the evening comprised of the three classes for slides. The General class attracted 6 entries; the winner was Paul Hutchings with his slide of a Vintage R.A.C.car badge in crisp focus and perfectly lit (taken at the Bexhill 100). This picture had already been recognised in a County competition which was confirmed by Ian who awarded it 20 points.
The Landscape class winner was Dorothy Reeve with a beautifully lit image of Langdale, Cumbria.
The last class of the slides was Natural History and these were also given generous critique and time and Ian's understanding of flowers and birds was equal to his immense photographic knowledge. He judged two separate Golden Eagles alongside Young Beech leaves and a Blue Tailed Damselfly, but Ray Noble's Red Fox cheekily looking back over it’s shoulder,(this was the instant Ray released the shutter,) which included highlights in it’s eyes, became the winner with a 20 star.
Ian thanked us profusely for the opportunity of seeing such high class work, John Bryant [chairman] responded equally with a very big thank you, and I’m sure the audience thoroughly agreed.
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