Lacock Positive 31st October

Our meeting on Halloween saw a talk given by Craig Purvis, of our own parish, on walking El Camino de Santiago. In English, "The Way of St. James", is a network of pilgrims' ways leading to the shrine of the apostle James in the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in Galicia, northwestern Spain.

He was inspired by the film "The Way" in which Martin Sheen plays a father who leaves America to recover the body of his estranged son, who died while walking "The Way" and decides to take the pilgrimage himself.

Craig chose his camera equipment carefully - a small camera, just two lenses and no tripod as this was, after all, a walking trip and not a photography trip.

His start was in Sarria.

Albergue Mosterio da Madalena © Craig Purvis

The Way is well signposted with the yellow-on-blue sign (representing a scallop shell) shown above.  Pilgrims have a choice of overnight accommodation, ranging from dormitories to small hotels.  For anyone intending to use dormitories, taking your own sleeping bag is a must.

Horreos © Craig Purvis

Craig also mentioned that some pub and restaurant owners can gently "redirect" some of the signs to point towards their establishments, leading pilgrims around the houses slightly more than necessary.

There is not only accommodation, but also a choice of food on The Way.  This can vary from a basic three course meal at around €10 to more expensive tapas.


Old Village © Craig Purvis

Part of The Way takes pilgrims through a eucalyptus forest where some pilgrims feel the need to decorate some of the way markers with graffiti.


Eucalyptus Forest and Camino Marker © Craig Purvis

Finally Craig reached the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela where many pilgrims end their journey.


He gave a special shout-out for Bridgedale socks, which saw him safely through the whole walk without blisters.  This purchase was advised by staff at "Go Outdoors", many of whom had walked The Way themselves and were able to recommend guide books and maps.

After a coffee break, we resumed with a talk by Caroline Howe, again of our own parish, on her 6 day trip to St Kilda in July 2023 with Mc2 Photography.  There were 8 people in the group, with 2 leaders and they had their own cook.  

Fortunately, as many of us weren't entirely sure where this was, she provided a map:


St. Kilda is the small dot on the extreme left.  It is reached by a five hour boat ride from Skye. The boat has a "flexible" departure time because of weather conditions.

The boat to St. Kilda © Caroline Howe

On that note, the weather can deteriorate during the journey such that a landing at Village Bay isn't possible.

The islands are a UNESCO World Heritage site and are controlled by the National Trust for Scotland. Keeled boats are not permitted to land in case they carry rats, which would wipe out the local wildlife.


Only the main island has ever been populated and it is also the only one with spring water.  There is a permanent, manned, military radar station there, but those are the only people now permanently occupying the islands.

These islands are so isolated, they have:

  • their own subspecies of Wren
  • their own subspecies of Mouse
  • their own subspecies of Dandelion
  • a particularly ancient breed of Goat, which have been the subject of genetic studies
  • around 135,000 pairs of Atlantic Puffins (roughly 30% of the UK population)
  • around 30,000 pairs of Northern Gannets
  • around 65,000 pairs of Northern Fulmars

St Kilda Wren © Caroline Howe

Atlantic Puffins © Caroline Howe

Everything is based around the village at Village Bay and everything must be carried up from the jetty.  All paths out of the village are up and visitors should also be aware the sea cliffs are the highest in the UK, so there's a lot of up!

View of the Village © Caroline Howe

Recent research shows the islands have been inhabited, on and off, for the past 4000 years.

The Village in evening light © Caroline Howe

One evening the group walked to the opposite side of the island and camped overnight in tents to capture sunrise the following morning.  Unfortunately although they set off in sun and clear skies, overnight it rained and this sight of Boreray greeted them the next morning:

Looking towards Boreray at "dawn" © Caroline Howe

The island has its own cannon (now a rusting relic), which arrived months after the island was shelled by a u-boat, which surfaced in the bay during the first world war. Several houses were destroyed. The best theory is that the u-boat was lost.

The St Kilda Cannon © Caroline Howe

Departing St Kilda © Caroline Howe

Our next meeting will be on 14th November.

Lacock Positive 17th October

 

Our club chair, Julia Lloyd-Parks and Amanda Gregory, a club member, gave a talk about their trip earlier this year to the Outer Hebrides.

© Julia Lloyd-Parks

Luskentyre Sands © Julia Lloyd-Parks

ICM © Julia Lloyd-Parks

Eagle in flight © Julia Lloyd-Parks

We then reviewed club members' images taken in September


Blooming Artichoke © Sue Power

Coffee Concentration © Roger Parry

© Philip Male

© Phil Selby

Kew in colour infra red © Pam Bamford

Stourhead Cottage © Lesley Cadger

© Julia Lloyd-Parks

© Helen Day

© Derek Liversidge

Starlings © David Sage

Kilchurn Castle in the Sun © Craig Purvis

Pumpkins © Caroline Howe

© Amanda Gregory

Finally, Julia showed some Red Squirrel images taken on a trip arranged by Canon where she was able to try out a 400mm f/2.8 lens.

© Julia Lloyd-Parks

© Julia Lloyd Parks

Our next meeting will be on 31st October.

Lacock Positive 3rd October

This evening was entirely given over to demonstrations of how to create audio visual presentations.

Although there are many and varied applications available to achieve this, Philip Male, of our own parish, showed us how to create an AV using software we (probably) already have, namely Lightroom.

Although there are a bewildering number of different options available, Philip navigated us through the important ones, showing how to select images, title text, cast shadows, change borders, set copyrights and finally choose a sound track.

He pointed out Lightroom (currently) doesn't let you choose different transitions between one image and the next - one method goes for the whole presentation and all images transition the same way.  There is also no means of zooming into, or out of, a particular image as part of the final result.

He then played the AV he had prepared.

The second presentation was from Danny Wooton who used iMovie (obviously mac only) to create a presentation.

With iMovie, stills and video can be merged, transitions for each and every image can be tailored and different soundtracks mixed.  On the other hand, there are no frames (you'd have to generate these for each image before importing), no standard text (again, this would have to be embeded in each image before importing) and no fancy shadows.

One thing possible in iMovie (which it isn't in Lightroom) is to add the Ken Burns effect to one or more images - something which is very popular with photographers who post on YouTube.

Danny then played his presentation so we could see the overall effects and it was interesting to see the contrast between the results created by these two entirely different software applications.

We then finished the evening watching a third AV from Rose Porfirio of images taken on a trip to Slimbridge Wildfowl Trust.

Our next meeting will be on the 17th October.

Lacock Positive 19th September

 We started this evening started with a review of submissions for the letter "L": 

Lefkas Marina Reflections © Amanda Gregory

Lookout © Anne Horne

Lifeboat © Caroline Howe

Landing Safely © Craig Purvis

Lighthouse © David Sage

Lighthouse © Derek Liversidge

Luna Eclipse (Partial) © Helen Day

Lichen © Julia Lloyd-Parks

Lloyds Building © Lesley Cadger

Lips © Pam Bamford

Long Tailed Tit © Philip Male

Longhorns © Rob Macklin

Lamp post © Roger Parry

Lanzarote Light © Sue Power

We then reviewed "images taken at three shutter speeds", which was one of the summer challenges.

Movement of water was a popular theme
Barbican Fountain, at 1/30th © Lesley Cadger

Barbican Fountain, at 1/60th © Lesley Cadger

Barbican Fountain, at 1/800th © Lesley Cadger

1/1250th second © Julia Lloyd-Parks

1/320th second © Julia Lloyd-Parks

1/30th second © Julia Lloyd-Parks

Brown Bear at 1/640th © Philip Male

Brown Bear at 1/100th © Philip Male

Brown Bear at 1/50th © Philip Male


Finally we reviewed the results from the questionnaire all club members are encouraged to complete at the end of each year.

To summarise a very detailed presentation given by our club secretary, members are looking for:
  • Social interaction with like-minded people

  • Learning new things, including camera use, techniques, post production etc.

  • Learning from other members


Our next meeting will be on 3rd October.