Practical evening - Infinity boards & How to mount your own print 02/03/22

Our second practical evening in a month saw us spread over two rooms. Graham Sykes gave a demonstration in the committee room of how to mount your own prints. We pride ourselves on being a club which encourages printing so this was really helpful for those who had not cut their own mounts before. In the main club room James and Sue had set up a number of table top arrangements with an array of props. Members were able to frame their own set-ups against white and black backgrounds and try out macro techniques with cacti and dandelion seed and trial different lighting approaches.

Experimenting with a macro set up

Graham presents his tutorial

Mobile phone photography in a studio setting

Monthly challenge - Leading Lines 16/02/22

Congratulations to the four authors who secured sufficient points to come in the top four of this second challenge of the season which was designed to put us all on the right lines (get it!). Twenty-one members submitted entries, all of a high standard.

Kamul Samanta came first with 20 points for his image entitled Rebounced. George Fewster

came second with his image Shadows In The Snow with Mike Hey and Richard Fulcher secured third equal placements with their images, Where's That Train? and an untitled beach scene respectively.

Rebounced - Kamal Semanta

Shadows In The Snow - George Fewster

Where's That Train? - Mike Hey

Untitled Beach Scene - Richard Fulcher

Commentary was provided by Carla and Kevin Lloyd who had bravely volunteered. Their comments were thorough, incisive and useful, and for the 40 or so members in the audience were well timed, enabling us all to take the lessons learnt and apply them to our entries to the HPIC exhibition entries for which will close on the 16 th of March.

Other News

An Extraordinary General Meeting preceded the challenge. The outcome of which, was the unanimous approval of the Committee recommended subscription rate for 2022/3, of £60 for full membership with effect from the 1 st April 2022.

Practical Evening – Other types of photography by Barbara Sheldrake BA (Phot) ARPS 09/02/22

Back in October 2021, when we had yet to return to physical meetings, Barbara entertained members on Zoom with her experiences of trying out Cyanotype, Salt printing and pinhole photography. Now established at our new club venue at Kirkheaton Parish Centre, Barbara was able to deliver the practical event which she had promised. Entering the room to see a long bench full of chemicals, blocks of wax, frames, transparent slides, papers, patterns, and bags of small items it was soon apparent that this was not a venture which could be conducted on line. Indeed it was thought impractical to relay the presentation as a hybrid meeting particularly as a key part of the evening was to have a go at the techniques ourselves. Barbara explained the process of making cyanotype prints, illustrating it with some of her own photographic images which had been made into large scale negatives. These had been exposed onto light sensitive paper using a simple ‘darkroom in a box’ using a UV light. She then went on to show us the materials and chemicals involved in making cyanotype prints and demonstrated the use of the two-part cyanotype developer. Those of us who had done darkroom printing were intrigued to see that no separate fixer solution was required; just a good wash to remove unwanted chemicals. Barbara showed us how to lay out objects on paper including layers of leaves and flowers in an applique fashion.

Then it was our turn to have a go and a number of club members got their creative juices going to good effect. Thanks Barbara for giving us an evening with a difference.

Kevin Lloyd turns his hand to the process

Barbara with an example of the finished article

Renuka Samanta proudly displays the results of her labours