​The competition was a little smaller than normal with 35 images entered, but we did have a good selection of fine images.
We had the pleasure of welcoming Mike Allport as the judge this time, his critique did bring up questions afterwards but that is expected with any judges’ decisions.
Well done to the top 5 and 5 Highly commended.
1st – Kaleidoscope - Chris Houghton
2nd – Fading Away – Colin Livingstone
3rd – Tall Ship Blyth – Bill Leadbitter
4th – Ring of Brodgar – Brian Sidney
5th - Woodhorn – Donna Gibson

​Highly Commended
Just a Sketch – Colin Livingstone
Tam Hows – Bob Finlay
Landing Gear Down – Colin Livingstone
Holy Island Ruin – Donna Gibson
West Bay – Ray Barnes

Colin Byrne
​PDI Competition Secretary

A few members battled the rain and travelled to Cambois Camera Club to represent Cramlington in the interclub competition.
The 4 clubs taking part were Blyth, Cambois, Cramlington and Whitley Bay and was judged by Alan Wilson ARPS AFIAP.
1st place was awarded to Cambois with 272pts.
2nd place was Blyth with 263 points.
3rd place was Whitley Bay with 262pts.
 4th place was Cramlington with 248pts.
​
There were 4 x 30pts awarded to:
The Underpass - Shauna Hogg (Whitley Bay)
How much is that doggy in the window - Elaine Wylie (Cambois)
Misty Mountain Tops - Neil Benison (Cambois)
​Heart to Heart - Alison Leddy (Blyth)

The top two images from Cramlington were both awarded 27pts and were from  Colin Livingstone with 'Sunset on a rock' and Colin Byrne with 'Looking down at you'.
​Well done!

PDI Competition Secretary
Colin Byrne

Tonight's guest speaker was Phil Benton, a long standing friend of Cramlington Camera club.
Phil’s talk was entitled “My View of the World” which started of an image from Crosby Beach near Liverpool of one of Anthony Gormley’s statues sunk into the sand. Which Phil has now renamed his talk “Rear View of the World.

His talk is based on a project started during and the period during the Covid crisis. Phi was very ill at the time and like may could not get out much. He started with some images of the Northumberland coastline, from “Mirrored” a view of the Holy Island peninsular looking north to “Golden Light” a view of the castle and old boat huts on the island. As Phil progress his talk each image had an anecdote to indicate its meaning to him and to point out that the unusual viewpoint he takes his images from.

​Moving on to his time as COVID confined him to his garden images of two starlings “chatting” entitled “Bath time” to a “Flight of the Foxglove” showing the unusual angle of the bee coming in to gather pollen.

​Phil also works with a variety of Care homes and Hospitals, sharing his images as decoration in their wellness clinics and public spaces. Offering a bit of peace and tranquillity to residents and patients.
Phil has branched out to interior design, working with designers on projects such as Wallpaper and Splashbacks. All of this adding to his variety of outlets for his images. He also spends a good part of his year at local country fairs where he sets up his Stall. All of his images are free to view on his website.


http://www.philbentonphotography.com/


Colin Livingstone
President

Tonight we had our 2nd PDI battle of the season, this time we mixed it up a bit and only allowed mobile phone pictures.
It's quite surprising how good a picture can be created using a phone these days.
With 30 images in the competition we managed to whittle it down to the last two with 'Thaw' by Donna Gibson winning first place and 'Starters Orders' by Brian Sydney coming a close second.
​Well Done.

Colin Byrne
PDI Competition Secretary

​Paul Kidd, one of Cramlington Camera Club's best photographers, organised a practical evening for members. The objectives were to help members improve and practise their skills in a safe and supportive environment. Paul provided the equipment for 4 different photographic experiences, each of which came with its own high-quality lighting. Members simply had to bring their cameras and tripods.

​Other set ups included the use of a ring light for portraits, a light box with a revolving and colourful wheel (photographing this necessitated the use of a tripod and very different images were captured depending on shutter speeds) and a well-lit flower with a subtle background.

​Members enjoyed the evening and most of us were able to improve our knowledge and skills. A big thanks to Paul or the work and organisation he had put into the evening.
 
Ray Barnes
CCC Programme Secretary  

Tonight (15th Jan) saw the results of this season’s 2nd Open Print Competition. Tonight’s competition was judged by Glen Lawson and was a combination of both colour and mono prints.
 
Glen provided his observations on each of the images providing some good positive feedback on the night.
Congratulations go again to Colin Livingstone, his prints being placed 1st 2nd and 5th.
A full list of the prints 'placed' and' highly commended' are shown below.

1st . Lilly's - Colin Livingstone
2nd. Fish Supper - Colin Livingstone
3rd. Lochside Sentiments - Ray Barnes
4th. Autumn red - Bob Finlay
5th Chloe - Colin Livingstone​

​Highly Commended:
Dinner at Twilight - Ray Barnes
Belsay Trials - Colin Livingstone
Bashum Crashum - Paul Dunn  

Paul Dunn
(Print Competition Secretary)

Tonight was an in house competition just for fun, where the members choose their favorite. after selecting the pairs at random we were able to narrow the event down to the last few. The quality of all the images were a high standard and we couldn't choose between the last  two in the final so it was declared a draw!
Well done to Bill Leadbitter for 'Making a Splash' and Bob Finlay for 'Little and Large'. 

​One of our longest standing and best attending members, Adam Burness, presented My Photographic Journey to the group on 4th December. Adam had never before made a presentation to a group but said that he was keen to explain his passion for photography to the group and had spent a good deal of time preparing his talk.
 
Adam stated that his interest in photography had been inspired from the age of about 5 by a colour photograph which had been taken by his mother, probably in the 1960s. He showed the photograph which featured the old YMCA building in Newcastle and a number of trolley buses which were operated for 31 years between 1935 and October 1966. 
 
He went on to showcase some of his images from around Newcastle. These included the inside of churches. Over the years Adam has taken many photographs around the city of buildings and structures being demolished and in the different stages of construction. These provide a fairly unique history of the city since the 1990s and include the building or restoration of the Sage/Glasshouse, the Baltic and the Millennium Bridge. Adam had visited the development of the Millennium Bridge so often that he had got to know the workmen involved. He had been given the opportunity to walk across the bridge before the official opening but had declined the offer because he wanted to wait until it was open to the public. 
 
Adam also likes to take photographs of music gigs, and he has had some success with these in competitions. He had also been invited to hen parties where he had taken on the fun role as "official photographer".
 
Adam is attracted to sepia photographs and has converted a number of his shots to sepia or, sometimes, black and white.
 
In addition to his talk, Adam exhibited 5 Nikon cameras which he owns and explained that he has 6 lenses, including a 600m lens which he had used to take a close-up photograph of Earl Grey at the top of his monument. Prior to using Nikon equipment, Adam had owned Olympus and Canon cameras.
 
Adam also exhibited some of his favourite prints from amongst his photographic collection. These included a large print of the Red Arrows and another print of 12 arches along walkway of the Tyne Bridge. 
 
The members appreciated Adam's talk which helped us to better understand his motivation and approach to photography.
 
Ray Barnes
CCC Programme Secretary   

​Last night Cramlington Camera Club were the host of this event, 1st leg of a two part competition with the PDI leg in March 2026.
We were joined by representatives of Gosforth Camera Club, Ponteland Photographic Society, Whitley Bay Photographic Society and Tynemouth Photographic Society.
 
Colin Livingstone ‘President’, welcomed all guests and members and introduced  Bill Broadley of Blyth as our judge for the evening, Bill started out by giving a brief biography and his approach to evaluating each image. He said how pleased he was to the quality and variety of the images presented to him. He then went on to show each image and give his constructive comments before awarding a score,(out of 30 points). As this was a print competition Bill did comment many times on the paper selection that was used by photographers, and the creativity and planning of some of the entries.
​The scoring was quite tight, never going below 22 points. Three images score 29 points,
St Mary’s in the Mist (John McGuiness, Tynemouth), Ice Queen(Lesley Hughes, Gosforth)
and Sir Nigel (Colin Livingstone, Cramlington).

​Jason Row, a professional photographer, was warmly welcomed to CCC. Originally from London, Jason explained that he and his Ukrainian wife had been living in Odessa for some years when the Russian invasion of Ukraine took place on 24th February 2022. They had quickly developed and executed an evacuation plan which saw them move to a new home in the north-east of England. Jason had been a professional photographer for many years, and he had continued this career from his new home. Jason, whose many YouTube videos about photography can easily be accessed, described himself primarily as a landscape travel stock photographer and videographer who had started out photographing on cruise ships (which is where he had met his wife).

​Jason explained that most photographers are drawn to standard "cliched" images of scenes. As an example, he showed us a high-quality image he had taken after waiting, and being jostled by many other photographers, for 5 hours at a well-known vantage point in Bruges. However, he also showed us other images he had taken in Bruges of much less well known scenes, which he contended were better, more interesting and more thought-provoking images. Jason emphasised that he was not arguing that the cliched shots should not be taken or that they were not good photographs. As he said, in order to understand a cliche, you first needed to experience it. His argument is that your photographic experiences and journey should not end there, and that you can enrich the experiences and insights of yourself and your viewers by looking beyond the cliches.  
 
Jason stated that most people today viewed photographs on social media where the time given to each image is fleeting. This is one of the factors which had driven cliched images. It is the cliched photographs which receive the most "likes". For similar reasons, he gave examples of other types of images which had become tropes. He showed us images using lens crystal balls and images of reflections in rain puddles. Again, Jason did not argue that there was anything wrong with such shots, or that they should not be taken, but that they can be overdone and so become cliches or tropes. 
 
We were shown images Jason had taken in Durham, London and Newcastle which were not cliches. Sometimes these images were quite recognisable but were taken from a different perspective or homed in on details from the location which told a story, and perhaps raised questions in the viewers mind, without being cliches. As Jason said, a photographer is on to something if their photograph tells a story or provokes the viewer's imagination. 
 
 The presentation was well constructed and delivered and included some nice touches of humour. Our members very much appreciated Jason's talk and observed that much depended on why the photographer was producing the image and who they considered the audience or the viewer to be. Perhaps images are sometimes taken only, or primarily, for the photographer. Jason's talk challenged us to give some serious thought to these matters and to consider whether we sometimes want to escape the cliches and tropes and to instead take a more subtle, considered and thought-provoking approach.
 
Ray Barnes
CCC Programme Secretary