Lacock Positive

Lacock Positive Meeting, 8th January 2026

Our first meeting for 2026 began with a bang with an excellent presentation (via Zoom) from multi-award winning photographer Tony North MPAGB ABPE, entitled Flora & Fungi.

©Tony North

Over the course of two hours, Tony shared not only some of his wonderful imagery, but gave an extremely useful insight into his typical 'Floral Calendar of Subjects', Fungi and techniques to achieve eye-catching images. Based in Manchester, Tony will often visit RHS Garden Bridgewater in search of subjects, as well as his garden. He has even prostrated himself in the middle of an urban carriageway's central reservation to get a particular image of a tree!

The example below is his Highly Commended image entered in the International Garden Photographer of the Year 2024.

©Tony North

Tony looks us through, month by month, the sorts of flora typically in bloom at different times of the year. He shared with us his tips for improving our imagery, such as: isolating individual flowers; getting down low; looking for uncluttered backgrounds, to name but a few. But he also gave an introduction to 'Focus Bracketing and Stacking', either utilising Photoshop, or his preferred option, Helicon Focus. Through a combination of the tips he described, and the photo stacking technique, images such as this beautiful Magnolia flower are suddenly within reach.

©Tony North

This Helenium was particularly striking.

©Tony North

The second half of the evening saw us venturing into the fascinating world of Fungi. Again Tony shared plenty of useful tips, including descriptions of his set-up.

©Tony North

One tip that did capture the imagination was the artistic use of water sprays combined with differing shutter speeds, depending on the desired effect. The image below was shot at 1/160s.

©Tony North

The use of glycerin to provide a 'controlled' water droplet, such as below, was also explained.

©Tony North

Again, the use of photo bracketing and stacking was also recommended for shooting fungi. One compositional element that Tony always sought to seek out was the incorporation of an insect. Insects abound on the forest and woodland floor, so careful inspection of your chosen subject may reveal one already in situ. If not, the careful utilisation and temporary relocation of a 'model', can work very well, but it needs to sit still to allow for photo bracketing!

©Tony North

It was a real treat to have Tony share with us, not just some of his marvellous portfolio of work, but also his techniques, tips and methodology behind them, and we look forward to welcoming him again to the club in the future.

©Tony North

More of Tony's work, including information on courses that he runs, can be found here: https://www.artofmacro.com/galleries

Lacock Positive Meetings, January 2026

Our 2026 programme kicks off with 2 external speakers in January. Our first meeting will be on Thursday 8th January, and will be held via Zoom, with members attending from home. This meeting will feature Tony North who will be talking about Fungi and Flora.

Then, on 22nd January, we will be back in the Manor Room, Lacock and our speaker will be Tim Jones from Fotospeed.

New members are always welcome, and if you are interested you can join us for up to 3 trial meetings before taking the plunge to join us. Please see the contact details to the right of this page.

Lacock Positive Meeting, 11th December 2025

As this was our last meeting before Christmas, we took the opportunity to spend some time socialising and having snacks and nibbles. Then taking our plates to our seats we reviewed the pictures from some of the recent challenges.

The following are just a taste of what our members submitted.

Challenge: The Letter "S"

S for Shells ©Sue Power

Strawberry Splash ©Roger Parry

S for scaffolding ©Derek Liversidge

Sheep ©Danny Wootton

Sun, sea and sand ©Ann Horne

One Month, One Picture - November

Blackwood Forest ©Amanda Gregory

Yet more bottle photography ©Tony Bamford

Gone Fishing ©Pam Bamford

Tarr Steps, Exmoor ©Caroline Howe

And finally our seasonal challenge: Deck the Halls

Deck the Halls ©Ann Horne

Festive Shoppers Ponte Vecchio ©Craig Purvis

Deck the Halls ©Caroline Howe

Baaaaa Humbug ©Pam Bamford

Christmas ©Lesley Cadger

Lacock Positive Meeting, 27th November 2025

Our meeting on 27th November was filled with a wide variety of shots, displaying the inventiveness and creativity of our members.

The meeting started with a presentation from Julia Lloyd-Parks who described her trip earlier this year to The Camargue to photograph the white horses. these horses are a traditional breed, indigenous to The Camargue. They live in semi-feral conditions in the marshy areas of the region. They are the traditional mount of the Gardians - the Camargue riders who herd the black bulls of the area. The horses are always grey, but are born as black or dark brown.

For the purposes of the shoots, the horses are herded by the Gardians, and are driven towards the photographers to get the most dramatic shots. In between runs the horses relax and this is a primetime to get portrait shots of them. The shoots were organised in different locations - a lake, at the beach, and in a tidal lagoon.

The weather was bright and the sky clear, and this, combined with the colour of the horses, lends itself beautifully to the use of black and white for the images, so there is a mix of colour and black and white in this selection.

Here are some of the photos that we saw at the meeting (all pictures ©Julia Lloyd-Parks):

From the lakeside shoot:

At the beach:

There was also an opportunity to photograph stallions sparring with each other. This was very carefully managed, and no blood was drawn.

Early morning at the lagoon

One month, one photo - September

Our coffee break is a chance to catch up with others, and after coffee we resumed with the member challenges - the first was photos for September. Here are just a few from that session:

©Philip Male

©Caroline Howe

One Month, One Photo - October

The next challenge was the photos from October

Autumn Colour

©David Sage

©Philip Selby