Walsall wood camera club, my second visit.

This was my second visit to the club which meets each Tuesday in the hall behind St Johns church Walsall wood.
On this occasion, one of the local rival clubs (Aldridge) turned up to put on a prints and digital show for us.
I must start off by saying it was a fantastic turn out again, i never in my wildest dreams thought that a camera club could have so many active members.
One of the gentlemen from Aldridge, gave a brief description of what we were about to see.
The first display was by a gentleman who had a fantastic selection of shots from the Lake district. There were plenty of water shots which i particularly like, as he managed to capture very still waters and great reflections.
We then had a display of mixed monochrome and colour images. This particular selection had a couple of portraits in it. one of the portraits was of a Greek fella that the gentleman had spotted in a cafe while on holiday. This particular image was really eye catching for me and has enthused me to capture as many images of characters as i can.

Here is an image i took a year or so ago with a compact camera. This guy rocked up on a pier in Greece with his fishing rod and a stool. He pitched up next to me wearing wellies and what i imagined was a old German world war 2 helmet. He kept the helmet on the whole time to keep the sun off his head (i would imagine) as it was 40 degrees.

my favorite people shot so far.

Please feel free to criticise my images. I have not photo shopped this image, but what could photo shop actually do for this image?

The next set of prints came from some one who used the Clayhanger wet lands a lot. i was amazed at how he had managed to make some rather mundane spots, look fantastic on his prints. May be its the fact that i go there a la lot that i don't consider the area worthy of a good photo (lesson learnt). Next time i am over that area i will be taking my camera. That set of prints has given me much enthusiasm to capture more of the places i often go and don't appreciate.

It was time then for a cup of tea and a chat with some of the members. I don't have trouble chatting to be honest. A couple of the senior members made a point of coming over for a chat. I signed up for a lesson on framing (how to) which is something i need to learn fairly quickly. I had brought a photo with me which i had framed, my idea was to get an opinion of what i had done rite or wrong in this effort. I ended up putting it into the competition for next week. I know it won't win any prizes, but the criticism will be constructive and help me in producing a better shot in the future.

The photo i entered into the competition (the Oss)

We then moved into a digital display which was very interesting. Some of the shows were of mundane subjects, and others of specific targets. One of which was a dance group, definitely not mundane. These photos had some great shots in which seemed to utilize lots of black and white clothing and background, mostly black The little amount of colour on shots made the photos very interesting to me. I suppose if you get a subject so full of energy you are going to have that come out in your images, which these surely did.

There were a couple of the shows presented to music. These pricked my interest in setting some of my snaps to sound. Watch this space!

All in all it was a very informative night, and i look forward to my next visit.

Please leave comments on this blog, i do like to be interactive.

god bless ya.