Lacock Positive

Lacock Positive 17 May 2025

As a non-competitive Club we aim to help each other towards our own photographic goals but we have noted that we need to improve our feedback when we share our images with each other.

Our Critique evening started with member Craig giving an overview of how to approach this by drawing together advice collected from taken courses. A quick summary suggests that the photographer should:

(1) Introduce their image by explaining the Where and the When it was taken, the What they were trying to achieve and whether they felt they had succeeded.

Feedback should cover:

(2) Technical points e.g.is image in focus (or softened intentionally), are exposure and depth of field appropriate for the intention, are the lighting and colour balance good?

(3) Emotional response - was there anything felt by the viewer on seeing the image; does the image tell a story or part of one?

(4) Composition - what skills has the photographer used to create the image or have 'rules' been challenged; what has been kept in (or out) of the frame?

Craig amplified many of these points especially about compositional guidelines e.g. rule of thirds, leading lines, symmetry, negative space, diagonal lines, Golden ratios. Members will find further information on the Club's Learning Zone.

Member Sue then showed Black& White images taken by professional photographers for everybody to practise their critiqueing skills on by saying why they felt each image was successful (or not) judging by the Points 2 to 4 above. It was interesting to note the breadth of opinion! Sue advised that the average viewing time of images in galleries is 10 seconds so that makes it quite challenging to find a way of grabbing attention.

The second half of the evening was intended to cover members' Black & White images of Portraits, Landscape or Wildlife but such was our enthusiasm to give feedback we only managed to see the first category, the other two will now be shown as a later date. A selection of portrait images (where permission had been sought from the subject) by participating members are shown below.

Coming Up

June 5: Jenny Grewal will be talking about Kruger Safari

June 19: Julia will kick off the Club's AGM and Danny will be checking out ideas for summer shoots locations!

This evening started with a few announcements:

Julia is stepping down as club chairperson
Lesley is considering nominating herself for chairperson next year
Other members should consider nominating themselves for the role of chairperson
We need volunteers/nominations for club secretary before June 19th (AGM)

We then discussed the exhibition. The footfall was the highest we have ever seen at almost 1000 people in two days. Helen requested members who had sold prints (for which the club had taken payment via the SumUp machine) to send her their bank details so she can pay them.

The sale of cards was a great success and many thanks to Caroline for organising this.

Suggestions (some from visitors to the exhibition) were:

A note be added to image labels to say if a card was available
We need to think about the display of cards, which was a bit limited
Prints displayed nearer the walls seem to get less attention because of crowds
Consider hiring an extra room

Next year's exhibition will again be held over the May Bank Holiday weekend, so members should make a note in their diaries.

We followed with David Sage, ARPS (of our own parish) giving part 2 of his talk entitled "This and That", a journey through his photographic career.

He started with a tribute to VE day:

Then continued with wildlife:

Then street photography:

And finished with landscape photography:

After tea and coffee, we continued with a review of images from April:

Low Tide © Caroline Howe

Beech Sapling in Light © Craig Purvis

Dressage © David Liversidge

Egyptian Geese © David Sage

A Bluebell's View of the Wood © Julia Lloyd Parks

Bluebell Zoom Burst © Lesley Cadger

Cornflower © Pam Bamford

Fritillaries © Phil Male

Phil Water-skiing © Rob Macklin

Wisteria © Rose Porfirio

The Clock Stopped © Sue Power

Backlit Almond Tree © Tony Bamford

We continued with the "Letter Q" challenge" - one of the more challenging letters of the alphabet:

Q for Quill © Amanda Gregory

Q for Queens © Ann Horne

Q for Quality Street © Caroline Howe

Q for "Q YP" © Craig Purvis

Q for Quiescent Drone Fly © Craig Purvis

Q for Quadrangle © Danny Wootton

Q for "Q by Aston Martin" © Danny Wootton

Q for Queen (Elizabeth 2nd) © David Eagle

Q for Quiet Beach © David Liversidge

Q for Quilt © Rose Porfirio

Q for Quercus © Julia Lloyd Parks

Q for Quartz © Lesley Cadger

Q for Quadrat © Lesley Cadger

Q for Quince © Pam Bamford

The letter Q © Phil Male

Q for Audi Q2 © Phil Male

Quackers Queueing © David Sage

Q for Quintessentially English © David Sage

Q for Quill © Rob Macklin

Q for Quartet © Ruth Baldwin

Q for Quick Quattro © Sue Power

Q for Quail © Tony Bamford

Members are reminded that the portraiture session will be held in the village hall on 17th May, 9am to 1pm.

The next meeting on the 22nd May will be devoted to a monochrome photograph critique session. Members are asked to submit two images per subject into the following three categories (i.e. a maximum of 6 images per member):

Portraiture (includes sports photography)
Landscape (includes architecture)
Wildlife

Images should have been taken within the last 3 years.