Hobbits, Earthquakes and Other Happenings.
At their last meeting of the ’21/’22 season members of Wooler and District Camera Club went Down Under to Middle Earth and took time out in a Forbidden City on the way!
Members and guests were taken on this virtual tour by fellow member Patrick Sheard showing a selection of some of the two thousand photographs that he took when he and his wife visited New Zealand in 2019.
First stop was Hobbiton. Set in beautiful countryside in North Island the film set for “Lord of the Rings” is a big draw for film fans and a photographer’s delight. The twee world of the Hobbits might have held our presenter for longer but another world was calling – the natural world of the land of New Zealand – beautiful in detail and awesome in scale.
The beautiful detail came through in Patrick’s pictures of the flora. Photography is a hobby in which it is easy to get hooked on a theme – often a theme that comes just out of the blue and can take many pictures to shake off! Patrick cheerfully admitted that the varied size, colours and shapes of Ferns became a recurring subject and formed a high proportion of his holiday photographs.
The awesome scale came in the landscape views of rivers, waterfalls, mountains and rock formations. New Zealand sits on one of the major fault lines in the earth’s crust and is a land affected by ancient, and more recent seismic activity. Just how recent was shown in Patrick’s picture of Christchurch cathedral – a building that was devastated by the earthquake in 2011 and is still unsafe to enter.
However Patrick did have pictures of the interior of another cathedral – the new Christchurch cathedral - made entirely of paper. With the accepted inevitability of another earthquake in mind pictures of the old and new came over as an example of hope and ingenuity borne out of a natural disaster.
The built environment caught our presenter’s eye in other ways. The town of Napier has 120 buildings built in the Art Deco style. Each entrance, balcony and frontage proclaimed the style to the viewer. In a similar way a different artistic style – the massive intricate carvings on the front a Mauri Meeting House - told the viewer that “this is a place is of deep symbolic and spiritual meaning”.
So what about a “forbidden city”? Surely nothing of that in New Zealand?
No – but Patrick’s trans-global trip did include stops in Beijing, enabling visits to the Great Wall and the Forbidden City - and of course more photographs. Might a visit to China be the next virtual tour WDCC gets taken on?
Report by Charlie Brown (02/05/2022)
At their last meeting of the ’21/’22 season members of Wooler and District Camera Club went Down Under to Middle Earth and took time out in a Forbidden City on the way!
Members and guests were taken on this virtual tour by fellow member Patrick Sheard showing a selection of some of the two thousand photographs that he took when he and his wife visited New Zealand in 2019.
First stop was Hobbiton. Set in beautiful countryside in North Island the film set for “Lord of the Rings” is a big draw for film fans and a photographer’s delight. The twee world of the Hobbits might have held our presenter for longer but another world was calling – the natural world of the land of New Zealand – beautiful in detail and awesome in scale.
The beautiful detail came through in Patrick’s pictures of the flora. Photography is a hobby in which it is easy to get hooked on a theme – often a theme that comes just out of the blue and can take many pictures to shake off! Patrick cheerfully admitted that the varied size, colours and shapes of Ferns became a recurring subject and formed a high proportion of his holiday photographs.
The awesome scale came in the landscape views of rivers, waterfalls, mountains and rock formations. New Zealand sits on one of the major fault lines in the earth’s crust and is a land affected by ancient, and more recent seismic activity. Just how recent was shown in Patrick’s picture of Christchurch cathedral – a building that was devastated by the earthquake in 2011 and is still unsafe to enter.
However Patrick did have pictures of the interior of another cathedral – the new Christchurch cathedral - made entirely of paper. With the accepted inevitability of another earthquake in mind pictures of the old and new came over as an example of hope and ingenuity borne out of a natural disaster.
The built environment caught our presenter’s eye in other ways. The town of Napier has 120 buildings built in the Art Deco style. Each entrance, balcony and frontage proclaimed the style to the viewer. In a similar way a different artistic style – the massive intricate carvings on the front a Mauri Meeting House - told the viewer that “this is a place is of deep symbolic and spiritual meaning”.
So what about a “forbidden city”? Surely nothing of that in New Zealand?
No – but Patrick’s trans-global trip did include stops in Beijing, enabling visits to the Great Wall and the Forbidden City - and of course more photographs. Might a visit to China be the next virtual tour WDCC gets taken on?
Report by Charlie Brown (02/05/2022)
SPECTRUM NOSTALGIA - March 2022
Music affects mood, teases the emotions, evokes feelings of joy and anger, laughter and sorrow.
Photography takes an instant of time, holds it, draws the viewers in and wraps itself around them.
Skilful combination of the two, so that sound and vision complement each other, can give a result that is greater than the two parts.
This is what Howard Wilson of Whitley Bay does and in a presentation of his work entitled “Spectrum Nostalgia” he entertained members of Wooler and District Camera Club with a series of artistic vignettes that showed the genre perfectly.
Howard's inspiration comes from holidays, places and themes.
Pictures of cyclists in Amsterdam – adults, children, commuters, shoppers, people going about their daily lives - combined with “The Pushbike Song" put the viewer in jolly mood right on the street, watching the pedals going “down up down and round and round as the sun goes down”.
“Who's that Knocking at my Door" accompanied a fun piece that featured door furniture especially doorknockers, bells and some notices that made it clear that “knocking at my door" was definitely not invited!
A visit to Saint Petersburg showed some fine architecture, wide boulevards and a silver band. The band was not playing the accompanying piece but by the way the picture zoomed in on the tuba player just as the music hit a deep base note certainly made it look that way.
Howard showed his affection for his native Tyneside with photographs of the river and a folk music accompaniment that celebrated coal and shipbuilding. A nostalgic look at industries now lost.
The audience's emotions were captured when engaged by a piece with that celebrated the history of the British Red Post Box! A moment or two later they were stunned into a contemplative silence by a visit to the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire.
The evening showed that “Sound & Vision” can inform, entertain and make very powerful statements.
The next meeting of Wooler and District Camera Club will be a competition night on March 17th.
Report by Charlie Brown
Music affects mood, teases the emotions, evokes feelings of joy and anger, laughter and sorrow.
Photography takes an instant of time, holds it, draws the viewers in and wraps itself around them.
Skilful combination of the two, so that sound and vision complement each other, can give a result that is greater than the two parts.
This is what Howard Wilson of Whitley Bay does and in a presentation of his work entitled “Spectrum Nostalgia” he entertained members of Wooler and District Camera Club with a series of artistic vignettes that showed the genre perfectly.
Howard's inspiration comes from holidays, places and themes.
Pictures of cyclists in Amsterdam – adults, children, commuters, shoppers, people going about their daily lives - combined with “The Pushbike Song" put the viewer in jolly mood right on the street, watching the pedals going “down up down and round and round as the sun goes down”.
“Who's that Knocking at my Door" accompanied a fun piece that featured door furniture especially doorknockers, bells and some notices that made it clear that “knocking at my door" was definitely not invited!
A visit to Saint Petersburg showed some fine architecture, wide boulevards and a silver band. The band was not playing the accompanying piece but by the way the picture zoomed in on the tuba player just as the music hit a deep base note certainly made it look that way.
Howard showed his affection for his native Tyneside with photographs of the river and a folk music accompaniment that celebrated coal and shipbuilding. A nostalgic look at industries now lost.
The audience's emotions were captured when engaged by a piece with that celebrated the history of the British Red Post Box! A moment or two later they were stunned into a contemplative silence by a visit to the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire.
The evening showed that “Sound & Vision” can inform, entertain and make very powerful statements.
The next meeting of Wooler and District Camera Club will be a competition night on March 17th.
Report by Charlie Brown
It's a Lovely View so Watch the Birds! - Feb 2022
At their Member’s Night meeting on February 3rd Wooler and District Camera Club shared knowledge and learned from each other when Jim Bird spoke about photographing landscapes and John Miller described how to make dishwashing interesting by photographing through the kitchen window.
Using their own work as illustration both presenters showed how they got it right and learned from when they got things wrong.
For Jim composition counts. Foreground, lead in, symmetry and thirds can be used to make an image that is easy on the eye and soothing to the soul. Conversely ignoring just one of those “rules” can make an image that is uncomfortable and makes the observer think.
For John photographing the garden birds through window glass brings technical challenges and artistic rewards. Behind the kitchen sink is an ideal bird hide and a feeder placed at just the right distance gets the birds –and the occasional cheeky squirrel - within camera range making for some lovely pictures.
The take home message from both speakers was then – Go out and Do It! or if you prefer – Stay In and Do It! Either way some good work awaits that will please, satisfy and may even win prizes!
CJB. (08-02-’22.)
At their Member’s Night meeting on February 3rd Wooler and District Camera Club shared knowledge and learned from each other when Jim Bird spoke about photographing landscapes and John Miller described how to make dishwashing interesting by photographing through the kitchen window.
Using their own work as illustration both presenters showed how they got it right and learned from when they got things wrong.
For Jim composition counts. Foreground, lead in, symmetry and thirds can be used to make an image that is easy on the eye and soothing to the soul. Conversely ignoring just one of those “rules” can make an image that is uncomfortable and makes the observer think.
For John photographing the garden birds through window glass brings technical challenges and artistic rewards. Behind the kitchen sink is an ideal bird hide and a feeder placed at just the right distance gets the birds –and the occasional cheeky squirrel - within camera range making for some lovely pictures.
The take home message from both speakers was then – Go out and Do It! or if you prefer – Stay In and Do It! Either way some good work awaits that will please, satisfy and may even win prizes!
CJB. (08-02-’22.)
PRINTER'S PIE - 30th Sept 2021
Ask any photographer what photography means and the answers received will be as diverse as the person’s asked.
To some it is all about capturing the moment. To others it is the record of a scene. To Peter Dixon it is all about light - particularly black and white light.
Peter is a native of Newcastle and has been photographing his city and the North East for a lifetime. In a talk to Wooler and District Camera Club, illustrated with his own work, he showed what fascinates, challenges and occasionally amuses him in both subject, choice and method. The bridges of Newcastle are structures that pull him back time after time. His monochrome pictures, often taken in the mist and rain have an ethereal, ghostly quality. Similarly his pictures of derelict buildings draw the observer – often across the moors - to them and into them to give thought provoking and occasionally spooky images.
Properties are things that he carries around with him and uses to enhance and add interest to his pictures. So the wrecked bicycle in the hedge may not have been there all the time but the broken piano in the cottage probably has. However his audience was left with the feeling that its appearance elsewhere was only prevented because he could not get it into his car!
Peter’s techniques are interesting. He told his audience that he photographs in colour and then converts to monochrome on the computer. Much of his work is done on impulse so he rarely uses a tripod, he let’s the camera think for itself and a large umbrella is never far away! Indeed on some days photography might just mean going out and getting wet but with pictures like Peter's to aspire to it would certainly be worth it.
The next meeting of Wooler and District Camera Club will be on the 14th of October at 7.30 PM in the Cheviot Centre Wooler. It will be a mixed Competition and Practical evening.
CJB (02/10/2021)
Ask any photographer what photography means and the answers received will be as diverse as the person’s asked.
To some it is all about capturing the moment. To others it is the record of a scene. To Peter Dixon it is all about light - particularly black and white light.
Peter is a native of Newcastle and has been photographing his city and the North East for a lifetime. In a talk to Wooler and District Camera Club, illustrated with his own work, he showed what fascinates, challenges and occasionally amuses him in both subject, choice and method. The bridges of Newcastle are structures that pull him back time after time. His monochrome pictures, often taken in the mist and rain have an ethereal, ghostly quality. Similarly his pictures of derelict buildings draw the observer – often across the moors - to them and into them to give thought provoking and occasionally spooky images.
Properties are things that he carries around with him and uses to enhance and add interest to his pictures. So the wrecked bicycle in the hedge may not have been there all the time but the broken piano in the cottage probably has. However his audience was left with the feeling that its appearance elsewhere was only prevented because he could not get it into his car!
Peter’s techniques are interesting. He told his audience that he photographs in colour and then converts to monochrome on the computer. Much of his work is done on impulse so he rarely uses a tripod, he let’s the camera think for itself and a large umbrella is never far away! Indeed on some days photography might just mean going out and getting wet but with pictures like Peter's to aspire to it would certainly be worth it.
The next meeting of Wooler and District Camera Club will be on the 14th of October at 7.30 PM in the Cheviot Centre Wooler. It will be a mixed Competition and Practical evening.
CJB (02/10/2021)
Photographing the Natural World with Kevin Hilton. 24th September 2020
A recent national photographic exhibition judged by, amongst others, the Duchess of Cambridge featured some one hundred images. One hundred images out of a total entry of about thirty thousand!
The digital revolution and the camera/telephone has made the communication that is called “pictures” accessible to anyone who wants to say anything to anybody about any topic. How then to get the attention of an audience rather than get submerged under a welter of competing images?
At their most recent meeting Wooler and District Camera Club were given some good advice on how to do this when they were addressed live by Kevin Hilton of Hexham Camera Club.
Kevin’s speciality is photographing the natural world and in pursuit of his hobby he has travelled extensively in the U.K and Australia.
Colour contrast and composition, effort and enthusiasm, seeing the image that is within the picture and an ability to think spatially all help to make an ordinary picture a special picture.
The natural framing of a subject with grass or twigs, the clouds in the background, shimmering light from rocks in a pool and reflections in a river gives his work a quality that makes it stand out.
His presentation told stories – stories of how that bird happened to be on that branch, why those poppies happened to be growing in such profusion or why some petals are crimson while others are blue. (It’s down to territory, rainfall and age if you are wondering.)
Kevin concluded with a selection of his star scape pictures. The famous tree at Sycamore gap with constellations in the background conveyed a sense of wonderment while the image of the Milky Way streaming off the top of a moorland gibbet was both awesome and thought provoking.
The next meeting of Wooler and District Camera Club will be a competition evening on October 1st. at 7.30 p.m. in the Cheviot Cent
Report by Charlie Brown
A recent national photographic exhibition judged by, amongst others, the Duchess of Cambridge featured some one hundred images. One hundred images out of a total entry of about thirty thousand!
The digital revolution and the camera/telephone has made the communication that is called “pictures” accessible to anyone who wants to say anything to anybody about any topic. How then to get the attention of an audience rather than get submerged under a welter of competing images?
At their most recent meeting Wooler and District Camera Club were given some good advice on how to do this when they were addressed live by Kevin Hilton of Hexham Camera Club.
Kevin’s speciality is photographing the natural world and in pursuit of his hobby he has travelled extensively in the U.K and Australia.
Colour contrast and composition, effort and enthusiasm, seeing the image that is within the picture and an ability to think spatially all help to make an ordinary picture a special picture.
The natural framing of a subject with grass or twigs, the clouds in the background, shimmering light from rocks in a pool and reflections in a river gives his work a quality that makes it stand out.
His presentation told stories – stories of how that bird happened to be on that branch, why those poppies happened to be growing in such profusion or why some petals are crimson while others are blue. (It’s down to territory, rainfall and age if you are wondering.)
Kevin concluded with a selection of his star scape pictures. The famous tree at Sycamore gap with constellations in the background conveyed a sense of wonderment while the image of the Milky Way streaming off the top of a moorland gibbet was both awesome and thought provoking.
The next meeting of Wooler and District Camera Club will be a competition evening on October 1st. at 7.30 p.m. in the Cheviot Cent
Report by Charlie Brown