This Thursday (1st April) our guest will be professional photographer Phil Punton who will be give us a tutorial/masterclass on how he sets up for his photoshoots. 

Chris Crane Cup

Last night the result of the Chris Crane Cup was announced. This was the last competition of what turned out, for obvious reasons a greatly reduced competition program.

Our judge for this competition was Peter Maguire. LRPS, AFIAP, CPAGB. Peter a keen landscape and nature photographer has been a member of Gosforth CC since 2011 and is well known & highly regarded by many at Cramlington CC.

Peter began by explaining that his approach as judge was to view and rate each image and suggest possible ways to improve them.

We had a an entry of 48 images for Peter to consider, which in itself was gratifying considering the current circumstances.

After running through the all 48 images and giving his deliberations on each, Peter revealed that the image chosen as the competition winner was ‘No 825’ by Colin Livingstone. Very well done to Colin for a worthy winner.

Thank you and well done to all the members who entered images and special thanks to Peter for his judging skills.

Bob Finlay (President)

 'No 825' By Colin Livingstone

​   Click on image to view full size

RESULTS NCPF NORTH TYNE PDI COMPETITION

1st  Gosforth                      224 points
2nd Tynemouth                  215 points
3rd North Shields               212 ponts
4th Whitley Bay                  210 points
5th Cramlington                 202 points
6th Ponteland                     198 points


Cramlington Entries    

Contemplation                       26    Colin Livingstone
Foreboding Sky                      25    Natalie Wright
I am King for a Reason         26    Paul Kidd 
It Will be Fun They Said        25    Bob Finlay
Mountain Stream                  25    Jim Meikle
Sign of the Times                  22    Paul Dunn
The Fisherman                       27    Jim Meikle
The Violinist                           26    Pauline Wilson
                

Peter Dixon ARPS, APAGB, DPAGB

Peter, a retired printer by trade has had an interest in photography from a very early age. Peter has been a member of Whickham Photographic Club since the early 90’s and during that time has held most Executive Committee rolls at the club. Peter has long had a passion for monochrome photography, prints and printing and was to highlight this with his talk/presentation to CCC this evening .

Entitled ‘Black & White’ Peter took us on a monochrome journey both in the UK and abroad, starting with images of the Tyne bridges and other local landmarks taken in winter around sunset in a project Peter called ‘Light & Shade’.

Peter likes to set himself projects and challenges and this he showed in a selection of images taken at the SummerTyne Americana Festival where rather than the concentrating on the faces of the artists, their hands and instruments became the focal point with amazing detail. The Newcastle Mela Festival held annually at the Exhibition Park also proved productive for Peter with some stunning images of the musicians and entertainers showing that monochrome is still able to capture the ‘vibrance’ of what is an event awash with colour.  Slow shutter speeds used to capture the swirling dresses of the Asian dancers proved very effective.

Peter loves to take images of wet roads and pavements, especially the cobbled streets when illuminated by street lighting where the high contrast produced some stunning results.

Peter explained how he actually captures his images in colour before converting to monochrome in post processing but was able to ‘see’ how that image would transfer to monochrome in his minds eye.

At the end of his talk Peter happily answered questions from the members and also gave a short tutorial showing how he edited his images.

Peter’s relaxed and friendly presentation along with his selection of what can only be described as ‘stunning’ monochrome images made for a thoroughly enjoyable and memorable ‘Zoom’ evening.

Thank you Peter.


Bob Finlay (President)

Please be aware of the following changes to the upcoming programme.

28th March.    Phil Puntin

1st April           Chris Crane Cup

8th April           Peter Robinson

Margaret Warren

Our guest tonight (11th March) is Margaret Warren. Margaret is a long time member, past President and twice Treasurer of Tynemouth Photographic Society. Margaret currently holds the roll of PDI Competition Secretary.

Over the last few years Margaret has travelled extensively and this evening she regaled us with stories and photographs from trips taken in 2019 to which she entitled ‘The Year Before the New Normal’.

In March of 2019 Margaret embarked on a guided tour of Kyrgyzstan & Kazakhstan. Flying into the Kazakhstan capital, Nur-Sultan, Margaret told how the name had just been changed from ‘Astana’ in  March 2019.  Nur-Sultan has some stunning modern architecture alongside traditional old ‘brutalist’ buildings leftover from its former inclusion in the USSR prior to 1991.

Margaret showed some images of the ultra modern architecture such as the Bayterek Tower the Aka Order (Presidential Palace) the Golden Towers, also known for their looks as ‘Beer Cans’ and some lovely images of the impressive Hazrat Sultan Mosque.  The local markets are always locations in which Margaret likes to frequent and she explained that the Kazakhs love anything to do with horses, and that included eating them as she showed with the images of horse meat for sale on the many market stalls.

A coach ride along the vastly under used New Sill Road, built by the Chinese ended in the city of Shymkent which Margaret said was not one of the highlights of the tour.

On to Kyrgyzstan. Apparently a much smaller and poorer country.  Margaret showed this with images of old trolly buses and ancient minibuses with no  timetables that plied the ancient capital, Bishkek.  Areas of the country are quite barren and Russian Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin landed in this area after his historic space flight in 1961.  Many old castles left from the Crusades are dotted throughout the region and Margaret managed some ‘golden hour’ shots of one.

In October of 2019 Margaret embarked on an escorted photographic tour of Jordan.  The main aim of this trip was for Margaret to visit the ‘Lost City of Petra’. Margaret explained a brief history of Petra. How it was lost to the western world for hundreds of years until its re-discovery in 1812.  Margaret showed some wonderful images of the buildings carved directly into the red, white and pink sandstone.  Margaret told how this location had been used in the making of the film ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark’. We were shown images of the thousands of tombs cut into the rock including the Royal Tombs.  An image taken at dusk of the Monastery showed the beautiful colours as the light fell on the sandstone.

Margaret finished her presentation with images of camping at the huge rock formations at Wadi Rum and the beautiful greens and blues of the waters of the dead Sea.

On behalf of the members a big ‘thank you’ to Margaret for a thoroughly entertaining evening.

Bob Finlay (President)

 Results 2nd Open PDI Competition.

Last evening (4th March) the results of our 2nd Open PDI Competition were revealed.  For this competition we had a total of 54 entries from members.

Judging our competition was Graeme Clarke ARPS.  Graeme from Stockton is External Competition Secretary at Gallery Photographic Group based in Teeside. Graeme graduated in Botany in 1965 and is a keen landscape and nature photographer who also has a passion for fungi.

As is usual with judges Graeme explained a little on how he made his decisions on judging open competitions with wide varying subject matter.  How each genre would have a set of ‘parameters’ to look for and work from and that is how he would mark them.  

From his comments, observations and suggestions it was obvious that Graeme had looked carefully at each image before coming up with his decisions.

After giving his deliberations Graeme announced the winners as follows.

1st        Lindisfarne Icons          Paul Dunn
2nd       Deep Dark Woods         Paul Dunn
3rd        Woodland Walk             Pauline Wilson
4th        Peek a Boo                     Colin Livingstone
5th        Pink Rose                       Pauline Wilson

To view the top 5 images please click…………..(HERE)

Congratulations to Paul Dunn and well done and thank you to all that entered images.

Thank you Graeme for kindly judging our competition.

Bob Finlay (President)