Archive of meetings held Sept 2021 - Aug 2022
From May 2020 till the start of September 2021 we were meeting only on zoom, but on Thursday 23rd Sept, we started alternating between in-person meetings in the Wesley Room at the Mint and zoom meetings. Currently, we hold an in-person meeting at 2pm on the fourth Thursday of each month in the Wesley Room and a zoom meeting two weeks after each in-person meeting. Details of meetings are posted on this page as they become available.
Thursday 9th September 2021 at 4pm (please note the change from our usual start time of 2pm): zoom meeting. We will start with a general discussion about plans for the next few months, including possible talks by members, photo-ambles, etc. The photo-sharing theme for this meeting is "Landscape", where we plan to discuss different kinds of landscape pictures, including 'pastoral', 'picturesque', and 'sublime'.
Thursday 23rd September 2021 at 2pm: in-person meeting (Wesley Room at the Mint). The photo-sharing theme for the meeting is "A summer outing". An attempt will be made to run this as a hybrid face-to-face/zoom meeting, which should make it possible to follow and participate in the face-to-face meeting via zoom.
Thursday 7th October 2021 at 2pm: zoom meeting. The photo-sharing theme for this meeting will be "Fruits of the harvest".
Thursday 28th October 2021 at 2pm: in-person meeting (Wesley Room at the Mint). Photo-sharing theme planned for this meeting is "Minimalism". We plan to hold this meeting as pure face-to-face, rather than hybrid.
Thursday 11th November 2021 at 2pm: zoom meeting: Alan Cowman will give us a talk entitled "Have camera, will travel". We also plan a short photo-share session on the theme of "Abandoned".
Thursday 25th November 2021 at 2pm: in-person meeting (Wesley Room at the Mint). This meeting will consist of photo-sharing on the theme of "Tombs and cemeteries".
Thursday 9th December 2021 at 2pm: zoom meeting. We will share photos on the theme of "The poetry of autumn". If you have a favourite autumnal poem, you are encouraged to link it to your photos. You can read out the poem (or part of it) yourself, or, if you prefer, Kris Frank will be delighted to recite it for you.
Thursday 6th January 2022 at 2pm: zoom meeting. This will be an opportunity to show what you consider to be some of your best photos taken in 2021. Guidelines about how you might wish to choose these photos will be posted here nearer the time.
Thursday 27th January 2022 at 2pm: zoom meeting. This will be a photo-sharing session on the theme of "Old family photos". More details of how to interpret this are on our "Photo-sharing" page.
Thursday 10th February 2022 at 2pm: zoom meeting. Members of the group have volunteered to give talks based on photos they have taken in India. There will also be a short talk by Kris Frank on editing your photos with Affinity Photo, focusing on resizing images and removing blemishes.
Thursday 24th February 2022 at 2pm: in-person meeting. There will be a talk by Claire Edey based on photos she took on a visit to Antarctica. Following that, members are invited to show before-and-after examples of blemish removal in images achieved using Affinity Photo or with other post-processing software. Here, the term "blemish" covers not only small unwanted objects in your image but also larger items such as unwanted people.
Thursday 10th March 2022 at 2pm: zoom meeting. We will share photos on the theme of "Old houses". In addition, there will be discussion of techniques for editing your photos.
Thursday 24th March 2022 at 2pm: in-person meeting. Our photo-share theme for this meeting will be "Plastic". This theme was chosen with an eye to the environmental impact of plastic waste, but you are welcome to show us photos illustrating any aspect of plastic that you wish. Time permitting, the photo-share will be followed by a short talk by Mike Gillan about using layers in the Affinity Photo post-processing package.
Thursday 7th April 2022 at 2pm: zoom meeting. We will share photos on the theme of "From an unusual point of view". As photographers, we are often urged to "look upwards", because this can sometimes give us a novel and arresting point of view. But other unusual viewpoints, for example the "worm's eye view", can achieve the same thing. So we encourage you to amaze us with unconventional perspectives.
Thursday 28th April 2022 at 2pm: in-person meeting. We will be sharing photos on the theme of "Man's best friend". Of course, your first thought will be "dogs!" But we're not all dog lovers, and our best friends might well be of the feline persuasion, so as always you are free to interpret this theme in whatever way takes your fancy.
Thursday 12th May 2022: no meeting. According to our normal schedule, there would be a zoom meeting on this date. However, Mike is away for the first three weeks of May, so there will be no meeting.
Thursday 26th May 2022 at 2pm: in-person meeting. At this meeting, we will share photos on the theme of "Poetry of spring". This is an opportunity to celebrate the joys of spring, with particular attention to spring flowers and the return of new life. If you can find a suitable poem to go with your images, please come along prepared to recite it for us!
Thursday 9th June 2022 at 2pm: zoom meeting. For this meeting, we ask you to "Find out more about your camera (or smart phone)" and tell us what you found. This is a chance to sort out things that have been challenging you, or that you have always been meaning to look into. Just as suggestions, you might want to look at one or more of the following, if you don't already know about them: slow-shutter techniques; time-lapse video; shutter delay; burst mode (continuous shooting); back-button focusing; changing the focus point in the field of view; aperture priority vs shutter priority vs full manual (with or without auto-ISO); anything else you want. If time permits, Mike will also give a short talk about "Why your smart phone (sometimes) takes better pictures than your proper camera".
Thursday 23rd June 2022 at 2pm: in-person meeting. This meeting will consist mainly of photo-sharing, on the theme of "Food photography". You are free to take this as you wish, but you can regard it as a particular kind of still-life photography, in which case you may want consider the arrangement of food items, contrasts of colour and/or texture, and other artistic aspects.
Thursday 14th July 2022 at 2pm: zoom meeting. (Please note: this is three weeks after the in-person meeting, rather than the usual two weeks.) The photo-sharing theme for this meeting is "Pink". The idea here is to show photos that prominently feature the colour pink. The subject itself can be anything you wish - pink clothes, pink flowers, pink hair, pink clouds, there are many possibilities!
Thursday 28th July 2022 at 2pm: in-person meeting. We will be sharing photos on the theme "Devon villages". Members who went on the photo-amble to Lustleigh village are encouraged to show photos from that outing, but photos from all Devon villages are welcome.
PLEASE NOTE: There will be no meetings of the group during August, because we take a summer break during this month.