Good Morning Everyone

As a non-wildlife person, I was not particularly excited about the prospects of last night's talk. How wrong was I !! It was jam packed with amazing images from the UK. Kevin Pigney from Cambridgeshire gave his 'Passion for Wildlife' talk to a full house, a testament to the quality of his talk was that everyone stayed to the end!

His images are very distinctive: blurred, uncluttered surrounds and taken at the subjects' eye level. These images obviously did not happen by chance; repeated visits to sites, getting to know their habits, feeding them 'treats' over a length of time and preparing their surroundings went into producing the required final result. It was also full of useful tips, camera settings he used and lots of other information. He also showed us images taken in different light conditions, very different images made in camera, - silhouettes, back lit, rim lighting. high key, low key etc etc. Some very 'Artsy" - lovely, I thought.

He talked about 'getting lucky' when he managed to capture the one action he had been preparing for, for ages. I think it was hours and hours of preparation and even more hours waiting for the animal to comply with his wishes and nothing to do with luck!! As someone once said - 'the more I try, the luckier I seem to get' - or something like that.

He did stress that one of the most important things in photography was to take pictures that you enjoy, rather than to please judges.

At the end of the presentation Kevin also mentioned is membership of the Society of International Nature & Wildlife Photographers (SINWP), a special interest section of the Societies of Photographers and of which Kevin is also an ambassador. The link to his page in SINWP is https://sinwp.com/members/Pigney171030.htm; other special interest sections can be found on the Societies homepage under the 'About Us' tab.

A great talk and the advantages of Zoom were clear - a speaker from further afield and not having to go out on a nasty evening.

Dennis told us Tiverton Camera Club's Exhibition is at Tiverton Museum from November 5th till Christmas (ish, didn't make a note of the exact date)

Important message from Paul Carter about the print competition. Next week (Nov 9th) is hand in date for the competition, Open and Film Titles. It is also the final date for the PDI files to be sent to Paul. Please look at the website for full instructions. So that the competition can be run in the best possible manner, Paul needs to know how many images will be entered.
Please let Paul know today if you intend entering the print comp and if so, how many images you will be entering. He needs to know by return so a decision can be made on Thursday whether we need to limit entries to 3 per person.

Plus a reminder to check the rules on the website, especially about sending in a PDI version of the print. As always, any questions you can contact Paul via the competitions email wdcccompetitions@gmail.com

Next week is the first Members' Challenge' of the year - 'You': 5 or 6 pictures which define who you are, your hobbies, your holidays etc. Images and the stories behind them. Bring 5 or 6 images into next week's meeting on a memory stick, in a clearly labelled folder and talk about them. If you want them displayed in a specific order, remember to number the files, otherwise they will be displayed in alphabetical order. An interesting evening when we get to know a bit about members and to quote Diane - "what turns you on" - (but we don't really want loads of scantily clothed ladies - or fellas!! ??????)

Have a good week and hope to see you at Wellington School next week.