Exchange Visit to North Shields PS

Exchange Visit to North Shields PS


Last evening (18th Feb) we had the pleasure of visiting North Shields PS for our exchange visit.

Five members of Cramlington CC had come forward and offered to compile a short presentation with which to show on the night.

First up was Colin Livingstone who’s presentation explained how his love of ‘panoramic’ photography had lead him to research ways of making this kind of photography easier and would result in a more satisfactory finished image.  This Coin explained was achieved by the purchase of a special tripod mount and sliding bar which enables the ‘nodal point’ of each lens to be ascertained, thus allowing editing software to much more easily ‘stitch’ multiple images together to create the panorama. Colin used both physical demonstration, images and video to show this.

Next up was Peter Moody.  Peter, as many of you will know is an ardent flower photographer.  For his presentation Peter had compiled a collection of PDI images taken from his many trips to garden centres, country houses, botanical gardens and even his own greenhouse and garden. As we have come to expect the images were beautiful, with many we were seeing for the first time.

Brian Sidney followed. For many years Brian has been a keen, some may say fanatical, lover of Astro Photography.  Brian has visited many parts of the world in his quest to see and capture images of a total solar eclipse.  Images he showed tis evening proved him to be successful in this quest.  Brian also showed images from this country and abroad of the beautiful Northern Lights (Aurora Borealis) and some amazing shots of blazing tailed comets and shooting stars.

Alec Cowley presentation was his forte, AV’s.  He commenced with a short explanation of how he ‘put together’ a series of images to create an AV, followed by a very short AV visually showing this.  Alec’s ‘famous’ aircraft AV followed where Alec’s expertise in this genre was plain to see.  Beautiful images of aircraft, great transitions and a dramatic accompanying sound track to add to the visual experience.

Last up was Derek Parker. Derek has traveled the world for many years, following his passion for ‘bird photography’.  For his presentation Derek had compiled a collection of his favourite mounted prints of some of the beautiful birds he has photographed, many from the Far East and Africa as well as closer to home.  The North Shields PS members were told how the prints they were seeing were printed straight from the memory card with no post processing, showing the high level of Derek’s camera skills.

Many thanks to David Waters & Bill Fell for their warm welcome help and hospitality and thanks to all the North Shields PS members present who I’m sure enjoyed the show immensely.

A personal vote of thanks to Colin, Peter, Brian, Alec & Derek for putting on such great presentations.

Bob Finlay (President)

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