"Still Life"

28th September 2017

Last night the club held a studio night entitled "Still Life" a good number of members showed up with their cameras and some props.  We set up two "studios" with backdrops and lights and members took a variety of shots.  There were Flowers, Vintage cameras, vases, bottles, ( some still full), skulls, and even the Crystal ball. Julia set up some shots showing her excellent skills with dried flowers and plates. Ray produced a couple of sets using his vintage cameras, whilst Adam set up using his array of bottles and vintage cans.

​ During the night many members exchanged information and advice with each other, and had a good chat and catch up. Tea and coffee served all evening . Overall a very successful night.

Colin Livingstone
Secretary

Creepy Crawly Night

Last evening (21st Sept) saw the welcome return to Cramlington CC of 'Animal Escapades', bringing things that slither and things that crawl before the waiting audience who waited cameras in hand ready to meet the 'beasties'.

Julia with daughters Arieanne & Tia brought a selection of their animals along including, a Royal Python, Peruvian Rainbow Boa, Russian Horsefield Tortoise a stick insect, a pair of Crested Geckos and a couple of hairy spiders thrown in for good measure. The Python & Boa especially, made great photographic subjects entwined around tree branches with the studio lighting showing their beautiful colouring at its best.

Once again Julia, Arieanne and Tia were able to give the members an insight into the the lives and habits of the animals they had brought with them which proved of great interest.
Some members were keen to handle the snakes and some not so, but handle them or not, a great evening of photography was had by all.

A big 'thank you' to Julia and the girls for providing another entertaining and absorbing evening.  Many thanks also to the 19 members who participated.

Bob Finlay (President)

Hello and welcome back to a new season at Cramlington camera club, Last night was our
first meeting of the season and after the formality of welcomes and meeting old and new
faces it was time to introduce our guest speaker for the evening.

Our guest was Thomas Heaton from Whitley Bay and a member of Tynemouth Photographic
Society. His presentation " The New Landscape Photographer", took us on his journey from
amateur to pro photographer. Thomas is probably best known for his following on YouTube
where he has 150 thousand plus followers worldwide. He explained that he likes to make
the "Blogs" as authentic as possible so that his viewers see the reality of how difficult or
easy it is to capture the perfect shot.

Throughout the evening his journey to improve as a photographer and to find the best equipment for each task was described in detail, his use of a drone to document his travels along with a small hand held camera. All in the pursuit of showing his Landscapes to the viewer so they may be encouraged to get out and find a location and composition to shoot. His love of the outdoors came through on every level.

Thomas showed a short version of a video, here he describes, how it happened, his
reactions to the environment, his vision and what he actually saw on the day, then the
final image and settings he used. Over the course of the night Thomas took us on a journey
from "Yosemite", "Glencoe", "Arctic Finland", and back to "Cambios Beach". His use of
Social Media and the Internet is wide spread and this has given him access to magazines
and TV coverage. At the end of his presentation Thomas then took questions from the
audience.

I thanked Thomas for his time and the club showed their appreciation, over all a good
start to the season.

Colin Livingstone
Secretary