Speaker – Polina Plotnikova FRPS EFIAP ‘Starting from a blank canvas’ 13/12/23

Our Programme Secretary, Sue, with assistance from Zoom served us up another treat this evening with a beautifully illustrated talk by Russian-born UK-based Polina Plotnikova. This very accomplished photographer showcased her various projects centred around ‘Flower Portraits’ and her take on Still Life. In each case Polina started by showing examples of painters who had influenced her work followed by a wide range of her own images and technical advice on studio set-ups. Included within this were examples from her FRPS panel of flowers which were past their best.

She explained how she started from her pre-visualisation of the finished image. Then, by carefully setting up the subject or subjects against a chosen background with a variety of lighting methods she was able to achieve the desired effect as nearly as possible in camera. A few of the more surrealistic ones involved props which were cloned out in Photoshop but post-processing was kept to a minimum. Polina is a Lensbaby ambassador and gave some good examples of how to create images with selective focal points.

Even if you had limited interest in the main subject matter this talk provided a wonderful evening’s entertainment and some good tips to help everyone’s photography.

Speaker – Christine Hodgson CPAGB ARPS ‘Simply being me’ 30/11/23

It’s always a pleasure to see a presentation by one of our own members. In this case the title belied the incredible creativity of Chris’s work. Personally I always like to see mounted prints displayed and Chris showed us three of her recent projects, each with a different approach to capturing and displaying images.

The first was a series of images taken at Yorkshire Sculpture Park during visits using an annual visitor pass. Eschewing the usual approach to capturing the whole of an artwork, Chris photographed portions of works and converted them to monochrome to create a consistent style throughout. Intriguingly each print was a small square format and mounted in a window off centre to the left of a portrait-oriented mount thus avoiding a central presentation.

The second project reminded our members of the recent workshop on Immiscibility. Circular petri dishes had been dosed with various solutions and dyes to create incredible swirling patterns in stunning colours. Chris had had to work quickly to capture the desired effect as movement occurred in the dish. Each dish had been photographed by placing it on a flat-bed scanner with light shining up through the glass. The finished set of 20 prints were circular and mounted in circular windows, another departure from convention.

The third and final project was based on captures taken in her house using light painting techniques. They were all presented as mounted A4 prints and Chris gave us advice on how each had been taken.

Thanks Chris for sharing you work with us and inspiring members to think outside the box and also develop project-based series of images.

Outing - Huddersfield 22/11/23

Tonight's outing was rearranged from the intended visit to Castle Hill, to meeting in St. Georges square in Huddersfield centre. The task for the evening had been changed from "night time photography" to taking images of "Transport". This was determined as any type of transport, stationary or moving, cars, buses or any other type. Fortunately considering how the weather had been during the day it was fine and dry albeit a little breezy.

Considering the short notice that members were given about the change to the plans, we had quite a good turn out for the evening, with around 16/17 members attending. James gave us all directions on what to try and capture and we left the square around 7:40pm with the plan to meet up again around 9:00pm.

Some members decided to try their luck on the train station and some managed to get in free, whereas others had to pay to get in. The rest of us went our separate ways to attempt to capture anything that was moving. At the end of the evening, when we all met up again, most of us were persuaded to try a tipple or two at the Sportsman pub. It will be interesting at a later date to see some of the images that all the members managed to capture. I'm sure that there will be quite a mixture of subjects. I think that it would be fair to say that a good evening was had by all.