Club profile special
Earl Shilton CameraClub Based in the East Midlands, Earl Shilton CC is a progressive club that's going places – as chairman John Smith explains E arl Shilton CC was founded in 1975 by Neville Jackson, who had been teaching photography in the area. encouraging improvement of our members in this way, we have seen the overall standard of work within the club make marked improvement. This is reflected by success in external competitions, and stronger competition within the club. We have three internal Trophy, an annual competition between several local clubs. We have our own challenge trophy, The Cedars Challenge, which in 2019 was between our own club, Hinckley & District PS, and Lutterworth Co-op CC. We were very pleased to retain our own trophy. We take the majority of our
He passed away in 2019 aged 88, and he is remembered by the club that he formed with the Image of the Year competition bearing his name. Over recent years the membership has grown, and currently we have 39 members. A few years ago it seemed that we had more senior members, but in recent years we have attracted younger people – the age range is from early thirties to seventies – and we have more lady members. We have use of an excellent function room, which includes flexible lighting, a stage for speakers, a bar and buffet area if we ever need to provide hospitality. There’s also a store room to accommodate our extensive range of equipment, including print racks, a light box for print competitions, our own PA system, projector and screen, studio lighting and backdrops. Members' ability and experience varies greatly, and we encourage more talented photographers to help others in the club. This works well, both in workshop evenings and during critique following competitions. By
competitions, for which the winner receives a trophy. These are: The Secretary’s Challenge – open subject; The Trevor Wain Landscape Trophy, a competition based on UK landscapes and named after a former member who was the club’s most successful contributor; and, the final award – the Image of the Year Trophy, named after the club’s founder. These three competitions are all assessed by an external judge. In addition (and very popular) there are seven competitions on specific subjects, and judged by the members. These scores are accumulated to decide the Photographer of the Year, for which there is also a trophy. Each of these rounds is followed by a critique evening when members can share their thoughts on the images. We participate with other East Midlands clubs, and at the moment we hold The Fosse Coop Intercity
speakers from the list provided by the Midlands County Photographic Federation. In 2014, we decided to source a keynote speaker and were able to welcome wildlife photographer Chris Weston. We were pleased to have Will Cheung the following year, and then in 2016 – to vary the style of speaker – we were fortunate to persuade stage and TV actor Bill Ward to attend. Bill has been in both Coronation Street and Emmerdale , and he is also a very talented photographer. In 2019, we invested our resources in an evening with Charlie Waite. We had people attending from far and wide, which was reward for all the hard work that went into organising the evening. The long-term aim for the club is for our members to become better photographers and to continue success in external and inter-club competitions. On a practical note, we aim to remain financially strong by recruiting new members, thereby keeping our membership fee at an affordable level.
IMAGES Earl Shilton members enjoy internal and external competitions, and have recently done well in local contests
Issue 75 | Photography News 41
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