As members of the Cornwall Photographic Alliance we are encouraging members to take place in the CPA competitions throughout the year.

We are pleased to announce that while there haven't been many members putting themselves forward into the competitions it is quality over quantity that counts.

Both Rob and Kay entered the CPA Charle's Hosken competition. This was an open subject competition for individual members to enter. Out of 391 entries our very own Rob Green got 2nd place overall with his image of Glencoe and Kay got a Highly Commended for her Eskimo Roll image taken at Plymouth Bridge.

This is a great achievement and we offer our congratulations to you both on success for the second competition in a row!

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​On Monday we held the judging of our Projected Image Competition where nearly 25 members attended the Ashtorre on such an inclement evening. 

 This year the competition was judged via a zoom link by Sue O'Connell and Peter Brinsley who live in Bristol.
Both are very experienced and competent judges who gave us some useful tips on how images can have a greater

 impact just by cropping tighter to the subject and adjusting our position slightly to gain better composition.

The results are as follows:-

Commended:- My apologies here as I did not pick up on the set letter to convert to a name but it was a set of insects.  So if they were yours, well done.
Highly Commended:-  Mark Symonds,  Dan Foote and Adrian Petts.

3rd:- Set of waterfalls from the Brecon Beacons which we thought could be from Rob Green.  (Apologies if incorrect)
2nd:-  Sue Etheridge

WINNER:-  Steve Evans.

Best individual image:-  Steve Evans.

Special award:-  Dave Pemberton

We had well over 60 entries which is really good.

We've already been back to meetings for 2 weeks!! Welcome to our new members, I hope you're enjoying things so far.

Last night we had a questions and answers night last night and I just wanted to share a few of the key  things which members may find useful. 


The first is the presentation on the exposure triangle and the second is the link to the Affinity Photo software and a discount code which is currently working but may not for too long!! 

Due to the death of The Queen we have decided to alter next week's planned activity from the first merits competition to a show and tell as we are aware that some members won't be planning to be in attendance. The merits will now be on the 3rd October as we have a guest speaker booked for the last week in September.

Buy Affinity Photo here: https://affinity.serif.com/en-gb/photo/   
The code for half price discount at the moment is AFFINITY-EPZ2

The Annual AGM was held on 13th June 2022. Please find attached the minutes from the meeting which are available for everyone to read. Some important changes were made to various competitions and to membership for the coming year so it is worth a quick read.
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The Portfolio is a Bi-Annual Trophy which interchanges with the Field trip Trophy. It asks members to submit three images which are in some way related to each other to create a 'portfolio'. Images are judged as three together as well as considerations made on the individual images making up the panel.


This year Colin Burt judged the portfolio competition for us. Colin, a former member of the club, is an experienced photographer and extremely knowledgeable with regards to art and photography having taught both for many years.

Colin's comments were informative and constructive and we look forward to welcoming him back in the future.

The results were as follows:

Kay Wilson - 1st place with her images on Emerging Dragonflies
Dan Foote - 2nd place with his images on Street Life
Sue Etheridge - 3rd place with her macro shots of flowers and water droplets.

Last night we had our final speaker of the year visit the club and gave a great talk on Portrait Photography. Colin Winstanley in based in Exeter and travelled down to show us photos from his extensive portfolio and share editing ideas and tricks with us. For everyone interested in editing and improving their shots there were some insightful comments and tips given.

Another very good choice of speaker - thank you Rob for continuing to provide us with new faces and a variety of subjects on offer.

It was noted last night that the membership turnout was surprisingly low - we really need members to make an effort to attend please - we know it isn't easy when you're busy and tired but it really does make an impact on the room when there are few in attendance.

Some of the editing techniques shown by Colin could be really useful in future for all manner of subjects- the colour grading and texture overlays were perhaps some of the simplest and very effective.

We're hoping in the next year to once again offer a portrait evening with background and lighting all set up with a 'model' and it might also be interesting and beneficial to members if we think about gathering and making our own textured backgrounds to use as overlays as you have to have taken your own images to use when entering photos into a competition. Let us know if this would be of interest to you at next week's meeting.

The link to Colin's website for those of you who would like a better look at his work and to perhaps investigate further is https://www.colinwinstanley.com

 

Last night saw the final of this years Merits competitions with "Shape" being the category to round out the year.​

Again an excellent number of entries in all categories with  the subject of shapes generating some interesting images.

COLOUR PRINT,    1st Steve Evans,   2nd, Michael Nancekivell,  3rd, Dan Foote

B&W PRINT ,          1st Mike Anning,   2nd, Keith Morris,  3rd, Steve Evans. 

PROJECTED,         1st, Steve Evans,  2nd, Louise Richey,  3rd, Mike Anning.

OPEN,                     1st, Steve Evans,  2nd, Kay Wilson,   3rd, Michael Nancekivell


We are now needing some suggestions for next year's Merits Themes - please email 2 ideas to Mike for consideration and to go into the vote.

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​Last night was the judging of our annual Animal Trophy which was conducted via a zoom link to our judge Bill Hall in Stithians.

We were very fortunate to have Bill as our judge for this competition, as not only is he a highly qualified photographer, he is one
of the most experienced judges who now lives in Cornwall. His knowledge on the subject of animals and wildlife was most noticeable.

About 15 members attended the Ashtorre, while a few others preferred to stay at home to view proceedings on laptops.

Following Bill's critique of all the entries the results were as follows.

Highly commended:-  Peter Addelsee,  David Pemberton, and Kay Wilson.

3rd,  Rob Green,     2nd, Kay Wilson,   WINNER :-  Rob Green.

Thank you to all those who entered, there was a great lot of varied and interesting images on view.

We were very fortunate to receive a fantastic talk from Andrew McCarthy (ARPS) this week.

Andrew is based in Exeter and specialises in nature and wildlife photography. His talk was very inspiring with some amazing images captured using some really interesting techniques. Andrew not only shared top quality images but also helpful tips about the sorts of equipment needed for some of the shots and had a vast knowledge of insects and tips on where to find them and even at what time of year.

If you missed the evening or want to keep in touch with Andrew and his latest projects then his website is:

https://andrewmccarthyphotography.co.uk