Photography News issue 25

Photography News Issue 25 absolutephoto.com

Clubs

frequent camera craft sessions and several special interest groups. A digital group helps members with post-production, a mono group encourages black & white image-making through traditional and digital means, and finally, there is the PIC group. “Our PIC (Photographers in Camera) group is not into competitions but encourages members to work in themes or on projects or towards photographic distinctions,” says vice chairman Malcolm Cartledge. “We do have many members with distinctions to help fellowmembers achieve theirs. “Generally, our members are very active. We are changing the way we run print competitions because they are so popular and an increasing number of members are putting prints in so we have changed the process to make judging more manageable. “It is also interesting that many new members are preferring to enter print competitions rather than DPI, which seems counter-intuitive because more work is actually involved.” Perhaps one reason for this switch to prints is that internal Amersham PS contests are based on skill level, ie. the entry categories are beginner, intermediate and advanced and not subject-led. The club abandoned subject- led contests 15 years or so ago and it has been running open competitions ever since. Internal competitions are popular, and Amersham PS is, of course, still entering outside competitions, and not just our Camera Club of the Year. “We used to do well in outside competitions but in the past few years we have done less well,” says John. “I think that is down to our nature pictures. You do need a very good base

Winning images, clockwise fromleft: Buffalo Road by Steven Brabner; Turbulence by John Caton; Make AWish by Andrew Hale; Common Blue Butterfly by Peter Jones; Clinging On by GillianMorgan; and Rhythmof the Dance by Rod Darrah.

of nature pictures and we have lost some of our best natural history workers. Of course, the quality of entries from other clubs is going up too. “We are delighted to be the Photography News Camera Club of the Year. It’s a credit to our members andwe have to give special thanks to Gill Morgan, external competitions secretary,” says John, who actually coordinated the club’s entries. “We’re doubly pleased that we’ve won a new Canon projector, which was something we were looking at buying anyway because our old one has a problem,” he concludes. “The timing has been brilliant.” We are delighted to be the Camera Club of the Year and it’s a credit to our members

Fromleft to right: From left to right: Richard Yerby, president and honorarymember who joined AmershamPS 55 years ago; Malcolm Cartledge, vice chairman; Gill Morgan, external competitions secretary; Will Cheung, PN ’s editor; and John Caton, chairman.

Camera Club of the Year 2015-16

Full entry and prize details of this season’s Camera Club of the Year competition will be announced in the next issue of Photography News , available from 19 November.

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