SULGRAVE CAMERA CLUB HOME PAGE
SULGRAVE CAMERA CLUB
Introduction to the Club by Graham Roberts..
“We like to think that Sulgrave Camera Club provides an opportunity for anyone to come along and enjoy improving their photographic skills. Whether you use an iPhone or a fancy DSLR you should find our sessions engaging and enjoyable. We have monthly evening meetings in The Star and occasionally have location shoots.
If you think our group is for you please contact me via the link below.
See Club Members at a Photo Meet.
See here for details of the September 2023 Meeting
See here for details of the August 2023 Meeting
MEMBERS’ PHOTOGRAPHS OF THE PROLISOK UKRAINIAN DANCE TROUP PERFORMING ON CASTLE HILL
27TH AUGUST 2022
HANNAH DANIELS
TONY KEATLEY
CHRIS KIRKPATRICK
JO POWELL
WILL PRIESTMAN
GRAHAM ROBERTS
COLIN WAGMAN
COLIN WOOTTON
Graham Roberts writes (in the August edition of the Village Newsletter):
At the July meeting we had a short technical talk on how to minimise “noise” in photographs. Noise is a consequence of insufficient light reaching the camera sensor, the camera compensates by creating additional pixels which make the final images soft and with loss of detail.These problems mainly occur when taking long exposures, night photography, or in shade and a high shutter speed is required to capture the action. We had an engaging and entertaining discussion on this topic and how to overcome the problem, but then relaxed to look at the monthly challenge, with members sharing their artistic interpretation of summer flowers.
There are further details in the Newsletter of an evening with professional photographer and award winner, Paul Wilkinson, who will be joining us on 14th September in the Village Hall to speak about portrait photography.
Our next meeting will be at 8.00 pm on Wednesday 17 August in The Star. If you have an interest in photography, come along.
Graham Roberts writes (in the December edition of the Village Newsletter:
Our November meeting was held in the newly refurbished Village Hall which was warm and comfortable and allowed us to use the full size screen and projector for a talk on Intentional Camera Movement photography, or ICM. This artistic technique seems counter intuitive to the photographer who would normally wish to take a sharp and detailed photograph of the subject. However ICM can deliver some pleasing abstract or impressionist images. A short presentation on the techniques was followed by recent images taken by the speaker.
Our next meeting on 8th December, will be more of a social event as we approach the Christmas break, an opportunity to review the members favourite photographs of the year. Once more we shall be meeting in the Village Hall, at a slightly later start of 8.15PM
If you are interested in photography and would like to know more about Sulgrave Camera Club, contact
Graham Roberts writes (in the August edition of the Village Newsletter):
The Camera Club is on location! Members will be out and about taking photos during the summer months.
Watch this space for an update later in the year and, don’t forget, if you want to submit a photograph to the Produce Show, the details and entry form are included with the August Village Newsletter.
See new Members’ Album “Brackley Morris Men at the Star”
Graham Roberts writes (in the July edition of the Village Newsletter):
The Camera Club has concluded the Zoom meetings with a talk by photographer Mike Hawkridge ARPS who illustrated his talk on architectural and abstract photography with images from his collection and explained how he approached his portfolio of work for his application to the Royal Photographic Society.
We are now taking a short break from Zoom meetings and will try to get out and about to build up our own portfolio of photographs during the lighter evenings. The range of topics is open, landscapes, local village scenes, street photography, wildlife and summer events. As the restrictions on groups ease in a few months time we will then be able to re-convene to share the best of our photographs on a club evening or for upload on the village website.
There may be less to report in the newsletter during this time so watch out for our next entry later in the year.
If you would like to learn more about the activities of Sulgrave Camera Club, [email protected]
Graham Roberts writes (in the June edition of the Village Newsletter):
At our first virtual meeting in May we were all intrigued to learn more about how to capture the character and movement of horses, a very informative presentation by Jo Powel illustrated by her own action photographs, illustrating some of our local horses enjoying a spring day. The collection included the walk; the gallop; the canter and, after a clearly energetic hour or so, a really nice photograph of two horses snoozing
We continued afterwards looking at some of our monthly challenge, ‘MUSIC’ , which produced some really creative results.
As the Newsletter goes to publication we are looking forward to a second virtual meeting during May, this time we will be joined by Culworth Snappers Camera club and a presentation by amateur photographer Mike Hawkridge ARPS. We will hear about his photographic style and techniques which resulted in his election as an Associate to the Royal Photographic Society.
If you would like to learn more about the activities of Sulgrave Camera Club, [email protected]
Graham Roberts writes (in the May edition of the Village Newsletter):
Spring is upon us and lockdown is easing so the impulse to get out and take some photographs is strong. We are planning to organise a number of opportunities which will include different formats, from formal gardens to street scenes, perhaps some village events, historic buildings or fast action. The scope is huge and after such a long period of restrictions a welcome change. Lets hope lockdown continues to be eased according to the Boris plan.
At our most recent zoom meeting we had both spice and variety, with something informative and then something entertaining. First a technical presentation on lenses followed by a conversation on the use of filters. To unscramble the brain we closed with a very entertaining, if tough, photo quiz on cinema and well known films. We had a good evening’s entertainment.
If you would like to know more about Sulgrave Camera Club contact
Graham Roberts.
Graham Roberts writes (in the March edition of the Village Newsletter):
Despite the continuing restrictions imposed by the lockdown we are continuing to find opportunities for our photography. Recently we had a selection of images of “everyday objects” to share at our fortnightly Zoom meeting – see here on this website for a wider audience to appreciate.
The snow during February gave members another opportunity to capture some village scenes and with the crocuses and snowdrops appearing yet more opportunities will arise.
We had a very interesting evening talking about Street Photography as an art form with examples from a number of well known photographers during February and more recently discussed setting up websites using social media, for example Instagram or Facebook to bring our photographs to a wider audience.
Our next Zoom meeting will by on 24th February when the topic will be “Editing your photographs, using gradients”. The first meeting in March will be on the 10th.
If you have an interest in photography and would like to know more about Sulgrave Camera Club, contact:
Graham Roberts writes (in the February edition of the Village Newsletter):
At our first meeting of the New Year we find ourselves in lockdown again and plans to get out for some photo shoots have to be shelved. So once more we have reverted to video meetings and with a number of different topics on our list we have decided to hold a virtual get-together every two weeks into February.
The first of these meetings was an entertaining peek into camera bags, from large and formidable backpacks to small yet compact solutions, it was interesting to see what members carry with them and why. We also discussed some ideas for future meetings and then concluded by sharing photographs from our monthly challenge – CREATIVE & ARTISTIC PHOTOS OF EVERYDAY OBJECTS.
When you read this our next meeting will have taken place and we will have been discussing the art of Street Photography, sharing members photographic interpretation of LIFE IN A LOCKDOWN and planning for the following meeting on the 10th February.
If you have an interest in photography and would like to participate in future meetings and events – contact:
Graham Roberts writes (January 2021):
2020 has been a challenging year for all of us, the Camera Club has also been challenged with only two limited opportunities to get out for socially distanced photo shoots due to the restrictions, but both were good opportunities to practice our photography skills. We have also missed our meetings at the Star, where we have always been welcomed but we continue with regular video meetings on ZOOM throughout the year.
Topics ranged from Macro-photography to Astro-photography, we we also had a number of talks on “our favourite photographer”, shared photographs and discussed techniques for photo editing, had some entertaining monthly challenges to discuss, discovered how best to shoot panorama and topped it all with a couple of photo-travelogues. The meetings have been varied and entertaining and there is always time for helpful critique.
Here’s hoping that 2021 will see restrictions eased and allow more opportunities for on-location shoots and a return to the Star.
If you have an interest in photography and would like to know more about Sulgrave Camera Club, contact:
Graham Roberts writes (December 2020)
To avoid the Lockdown Rules we decided to organise an additional Zoom meeting for members during November. Chris Jackson delivered a really interesting presentation on photographing the night sky, covering all aspects from moon shots using a standard digital camera to deep sky astrophotography including shots of Andromeda and a Nebula.
At our next session Hywel will introduce us to photographer John Cleare, detailing his exploits over many years as “Mountain photographer” on expeditions. We are also planning to hear from another club member who will be talking about action photography.
Whist we are normally unable to get together as a group during the lockdown, club members did take the opportunity to capture the Remembrance Day event on Castle Green: the photographs can be seen on the Sulgrave website.
If you have an interest in photography and would like to participate email me for details:
Graham Roberts
Graham Roberts writes (November 2020)
The Camera Club members are continuing to meet via ZOOM on the first Wednesday of each month and at our most recent meeting we took a critical look at a member’s photographs to offer helpful tips on composition. We are also looking for opportunities for photo shoots and recently a small group were able to capture some stunning autumn colours.
Our next Zoom meeting will be on Wednesday 4th November. This month’s challenge is “Texture” and we are sure to have some interesting photographs to share.
Some of our previous challenges and photographic projects can be seen below on this Web Page.
If you are interested in photography at any level, contact:
Graham Roberts
Graham Roberts writes (September 2020);
As the social restrictions have now eased we have been looking to organise some photo shoots recently and have had two very successful events, one at Sulgrave Manor and a second at Mill Hollow Barn – our grateful thanks to David and Judith Thompson who made us feel welcome. It was very satisfying to be able to meet fellow club members, share some ideas for compositions and discuss techniques. The zoom meetings will be continuing but now on a monthly basis and, whenever practical, further photo-shoots will be organised.
Our next event will be a Zoom video meeting on 2nd September, we intend to share some of the resulting photographs from the photo-shoots mentioned above and will be discussing topics with the objective of sharing and improving our techniques.
Each month we set ourselves challenges, a recent challenge was to take photographs in a “Colour of choice”. We had some really nice entries, some of these have been posted on the Sulgrave village web-site so it you would like to take a look, go to https://sulgrave.org/cms/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Colour-of-Choice-Album.pdf for a small selection.
Our current challenge is to take photographs in monochrome and it will be interesting to see the results at our next Zoom meeting.
If you have an interest in photography and would like to join our group, contact details are given below.
Graham Roberts
See here for a recent addition to Members’ Galleries
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Graham Roberts writes (August 2020):
At our last meeting the weather was kind enough to allow a club portrait shoot in The Manor grounds, a welcome change to get outside as a group after many weeks of ZOOM meetings. We started earlier than normal to take the best possible advantage of the evening light and, with some members volunteering to be models, the plan was to exploit the location as creatively as possible. We intend to review the resulting photographs at a future meeting, but if the weather continues to be on our side we will be taking advantage of some more outdoor photo-shoots in future weeks, carefully managed to respect social distancing.
At an earlier meeting we held a technical talk on focus and reviewed the monthly challenge, “Colours of Choice”. We had a lot of entries from members and some of these will be posted on the Sulgrave Village Website in the near future, look for them on https://sulgrave.org/sulgrave-camera-club-home-page/
If you have an interest in photography and would like more information about Sulgrave Camera Club, contact below:-
[email protected]
Click here to see the entries in the June “Colour of Choice” competition.
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At our most recent meeting Dominic told us all about one of his favourite photographers, Mario Testino, the international fashion photographer. His work has often been seen in the top fashion magazines such as Tatler and Vouge, we all picked up some ideas and handy tips from the manner in which the photographs were taken and an interesting conversation on the art of portraiture followed.
We then had our own critique session with members showing their own photographs. We discussed style and composition and learn from each other, we can see how our photography skills are improving through sharing ideas.
At our next meeting we intend to look at Focus; how should you focus your camera to get the best possible sharpness? There are lots of different techniques and suggestions from the rule of thumb to the highly technical and we will be talking these though.
Each month we set ourselves a challenge and the most recent subject was “shadows”. See here for an album of some of the contributions. Our current challenge is “Colour of choice!”, we are looking forward to see how this exercise is represented in the photographs submitted.
If you’re interested in photography and would like to participate Sulgrave Camera Club is meeting whilst “socially distancing” via Zoom video conferencing every two weeks on a Wednesday evening.
For more information, contact [email protected]
Notes of Meeting held on 20th May 2020
We now meet twice a month by video and at our most recent meeting we had an enjoyable evening with contributions from three of our members who took us on a photographic trip around the world.
First Finland, way up into the arctic north in both late summer and early spring in search of the Northern Lights. There was quite a contrast, from lakes and forest scenes in late summer to snow covered landscapes in spring. It is quite difficult to photograph snow scenes and even more challenging to capture the Northern Lights, both patience and a tripod is needed to get a memorable photograph.
Next we had a trip around the USA, including cityscapes from the Empire State Building, street shots in San Francisco and landscapes in Colorado. Camera angles, close-up work and long lenses needed to capture some stunning images.
Finally the session finished off with some really nice images from Japan, showing the skilful and delicate traditional buildings intermixed with the modern architecture and some insight into the Japanese way of life. Some great composition techniques were shared, examples with leading lines drawing the eye into the scene, or creating symmetry to give balance to the photograph and using alternate point of focus to add interest.
Seeing all these different images was a great opportunity for us all to discover more about composition and photographic techniques.
We closed the evening with a discussion on future topics and our current challenge, “Shadows” a photographic representation of light and dark, the results to be shared at the next video meeting on Wednesday 3rd June 8.00pm, when we will also be demonstrating editing techniques and some of the software available to help us achieve that special photograph.
If you are interested in sharing your photographs, perhaps learning a little bit more about technique, come an join us.
Graham Roberts
Contact me on [email protected]
See here for Members’ Favourite Photographs 2019
See here for March Photo Challenge – “Reflections”
April Meeting 2020
Graham Roberts writes:
For the very first time eleven members of Sulgrave Camera Club held their April meeting using the ZOOM APP. All went very well as members became more and more proficient using this technology.
Chris Jackson gave a very enjoyable and informative presentation on how to shoot Panoramas. Mostly using his own photographs he clearly explained the techniques and advantages of multi-image Panoramic photography. His results were stunning giving us all the incentive to have a go as soon as we can. Chris Behan informed us of free software that can be used to help create Panoramic pictures.
Not surprisingly our monthly challenge is to photograph in and around our own homes. The idea is to give ourselves the incentive of looking at a very familiar location with a fresh creative photographic eye. Neil Higginson showed some pictures of his own home to give an idea of what can be achieved. We will take a look at all club members pictures at our May Zoom meeting.
We are hoping to have a ‘ Top Tip ‘ each month. This month was, what do you do if ‘ ERROR ‘ flashes on your camera’s LCD screen ? As there was no information in the Nikon handbook Neil Explained a procedure that should cure the problem.
Our next full meeting will be in early May when there will be presentations on ‘ My Favourite Photographer.’ There will be more subjects yet to be decided that will be of interest to photographers of all skill levels.
If you are interested in photography, at whatever level, and would like to join like-minded people – for more information contact
March Meeting
Graham Robert writes:
At the March meeting of our club we put away the gadgets and technology and a number of our members talked about “Our Favourite Photographer”. All photographers, either landscape, portrait, wildlife or sports have their own style and it was interesting to share these styles. We look forward to re-visiting this topic in the future. We also viewed the photographs taken for our winter challenge – “Reflections”. Some very good images have been produced and it is intended to show these on the Village Website in due course, look for the Camera Club page.
Regarding future meetings we are, of course, having to curtail these in view of the Coronavirus. We are exploring ideas to keep our club going and maintain the enjoyment for all. There may more in the next newsletter if our ideas work out.
Graham Roberts writes:
At our February meeting we had a good turn out for a demonstration of techniques for Macro or close up
photography. Examples of photographs of insects taken with specialist equipment where shown alongside the more typical methods of capturing close-ups using the standard lenses and equipment used by most keen amateur photographers. Focussing and depth of field were demonstrated and although the topic was quite technical there was a good exchange of questions and some new features discovered in the use of our camera equipment.
As spring approaches we have started to think about getting out and about on some photo shoots to make use of the lighter evenings for photography.
Our near neighbour, The Culworth Snappers, are hosting an evening with Wildlife Photographer Robert Harvey from 7.30 pm on Friday 6th March in Culworth Village Hall for anybody interested, contact details in the enclosed flyer.
The next Sulgrave Camera Club meeting will be on 11th March, at The Star from 7.45pm.
The club is an informal gathering open to any person interested in photography, for details contact [email protected]
Graham Roberts writes:
At our January meeting we set out our plans for the next six months and have an interesting programme of talks, outings and some friendly competitions to keep us busy.
Our talks will include topics such as macro photography, portraiture, and post processing images using software. We also have some photo shoots in mind. As spring approaches we will be capturing the snowdrops and bluebells, another visit to a canal side venue is planned and an opportunity for action photography will provide an opportunity to improve our photographic skills. We also hear of the plans for a number of village events this year, and we are hoping to record these activities throughout the 2020.
Plus, we will be showing off our work on the village website where we have a dedicated page for the Camera Club, look out for some of our favourite photographs from 2019 soon.
If you have an interest in photography come along and join us, we meet every second Wednesday of the month in The Star, from 7.45.
Contact [email protected] for more details
Graham Roberts writes:
November has been a good month for the Camera Club, our very first project was completed with the delivery of the Sulgrave Calendar 2020, now on sale at the village shop. The production was a club event on behalf of the Village Shop and all photographs were taken by members, the initial design was by Charlie Ford-Ziemelis and Sharon Ford. Banbury Print and Design turned out to be a good choice as they produced a very professional looking Calendar which many in the village have complimented us on. There are still some calendars available from the Village shop if you do not have one as yet.
At our November meeting we looked back on our first year as a club and an assortment of pictures, we are pleased to find we have all improved our photography skills as a result of sharing ideas and suggestions. We can look forward to the coming year with some new projects to take on and will no doubt be growing our capability further as a group.
As always, many thanks to Steve and Niki for hosting us at The Star
The December meeting is to be a social event. A new programme of events is to be announced in the January Newsletter
A seasons greeting to all from Sulgrave Camera Club
Graham Roberts
Graham Roberts writes:
At our September meeting we needed to get down to business as the club has been asked to produce a village Calendar! With nearly fifty photographs submitted we had to find a way of choosing the images for the calendar and after a round of voting we had finalists. It is now off to the printers to finalise the design and produce the calendar.
At our next meeting we will be looking back on the past year to find out if, as a group, our photography skills have improved. Members will bring along three photographs taken in the last 12 months which are considered to be better because we have been talking about photography and sharing ideas over the year. This will help to set the direction we need to take for the next 12 months, continually improving and gaining experience from each other.
Two of our members also visited Banbury’s Traditional Michaelmas Fair, a good if challenging opportunity for some photography at twilight and into the evening to capture the vibrancy of all the fun at the fair. See Members’ Own Photo Galleries.
Our next meeting will be on Wednesday 6th November at The Star starting at 7.45 pm.
For more information about Sulgrave Camera Club contact [email protected]
Graham Roberts writes:
At the end of August the camera club was seen out and about in the village for location shots at the Village Shop and the Star, there were quite a few photographs taken and we are really grateful to the villagers who turned up to help us by “dressing the scene”. We had a good event which was well supported and all of us had an enjoyable session, hence, at our September meeting there was plenty to discuss when reviewing the pictures taken. As we are all in a learning process, constructive criticism is essential so we can all improve our photographic skills.
As we gain experience and expertise there is often a desire to obtain extra pieces of kit, so we also talked about purchasing telephoto lenses and tripods. I’m sure other camera kit will be discussed in the future.
An idea that has been suggested for the winter evening meetings will be for club members to talk about and show pictures of photographers they personally admire. This can be a very good way of broadening the scope
of our meetings so we will be planning to do this in the near future. Look out for the details in future newsletters if you would like to contribute.
The Camera Club organised the photograph competition at the Sulgrave Produce Show on 1st September t and we were really pleased to have over 50 entries. Whilst club members were well represented in these entries we also had non-members participating with some really good photographs so we hope this competition will become a regular feature at the annual show and encourage even more entries next year.
Finally, as a club we are nearly a year old. So, at our next meeting, we shall be looking at photographs taken by members in and around the village during the past year to see what we have achieved during our first
year as a camera club.
Our next meeting will be in The Star on Tuesday 8th October at 19:30 hrs.
If you are interested in photography and would like more information about the Sulgrave Camera Club please get in touch.
For more information contact [email protected]
June 2019 Meeting
After a rainy day typical of this June, the sun finally and somewhat reluctantly decided to show itself on the evening of Tuesday 4th June. This enabled members to take their cameras around the churchyard and stocks area of the village in pursuit of images illustrating the theme of “exploring the way different lighting conditions affect photography”. Samples of these images can be seen on the webpage “Village Images by Village Photographers”.
Some of those taking part can be seen below, on location and viewing the results in The Star:
April 2019 Meeting
The Camera Club were “on location” for the April meeting, members visited Wardington to take photographs of the village which has some interesting cottages, terraced housing and a manor.
Wardington was only 15 minutes from Sulgrave and presented opportunities for some creative photography, we had to think about composition, how to frame the pictures and create depth or a sense of 3 dimensions. The evening light allowed us just over an hour to take the photographs and then we returned to the comfort of the Star to chat through the event over some light refreshments.
Our next meeting will be on Tuesday 14th May; 7.30 pm in the Star. Our plan is to look through the photographs from the visit to Wardington, plus looking at the entries for the “Best of Spring Photograph”.
Look out for these to be posted on the village website shortly after that meeting.
If you have an interest in photography and would like to join us, please contact Graham Roberts – [email protected]
March 2019 Meeting
Another enjoyable evening at The Star for members of the camera club. Neil had taken a number of photographs around the village to demonstrate composition and we decided the “rules of composition” should really be guidelines, in many cases the objective should be to produce a photograph that is pleasing, sometimes taking the image a few paces to the left or right, or up or down, will make a real difference and this is not always following the “rules”
Each month we have a project, March was “animals” and the pictures brought to the meeting were all very good indeed, lots of “Ahhs” accompanied the photographs of lambs, cats and dogs.
We intend to get better at sharing some of these photographs on the village web-site, which Colin is pressing us to do, so look out for the page on the website soon. See new page on the Village Website.
The next meeting will be on Thursday 18th April. Meet at the Star and then to a photo shoot at a location to be advised.
Graham Roberts
January 2019 Meeting
January’s photo theme of ‘ Chimneys ‘ provided plenty of variation so it was fascinating to see how other photographers interpreted this subject.
We welcome new members so if you would like to know more, contact me at [email protected]
Graham Roberts
December Meeting
At our December meeting in the Star we viewed recent photographs that had been taken by us locally. Each photographer presented their work and explained the motivation and aims of each image. In a supportive way as a group we made comments and suggestions that hopefully would benefit us all.
As we are now enduring the short daylight hours of winter we tend to have discussions at our monthly meetings on composition, creativity and technical skills etc., but as soon as we can we intend having more location shoots in the new year.
Graham Roberts
Brackley Visit – November 2018
Photographs later.
Portraiture Evening – November 2018
Photographs later.
Banbury Canal Visit – June 2018
See one image from each member chosen for publication on village website.
MEMBERS’ OWN PHOTO GALLERIES
Members are invited to submit one photo album per month, in pd form not exceeding 2Mb. Subject matter preferably but not exclusively local. Style of the album at members’ discretion.
Graham Roberts
Brackley Morris Men at the Star. May 2021
Colin Wootton