Sidmouth Photographic Club

Well, what a night we had in Honiton on 15th March for the annual Battle, with a great turn out from SPC Members. Although John Tilsley wasn't able to make it, Malcolm McNaughtan was an excellent replacement Judge, and gave concise and thoughtful feedback on all of the images: 20 prints, 10 DPIs with set subjects and 30 open DPIs.

Prints were first, with 5 categories: Landscapes, Mono, Portraits, Creative and Nature. The quality of all the prints was very high and at the end of this section, Honiton had 84 points and Sidmouth 85 - so very much anyone's game.

We had a break before the DPIs and in the adjoining room were met with the wonderful sight of a table laden with cream teas...all handmade by one of Honiton's members. Needless to say, we didn't waste any time in enjoying the fruits of her labour and all agreed that whatever the results of the evening, we would certainly remember the fabulous cream tea!

Back to business, and Malcolm went on to judge the DPI set subjects: In All Weathers, Playing with Time, Pretty in Pink, ICM and From the 19th Century, before working his way through the open DPIs. We saw an impressive mix of styles and genres - again with fairly close marking. At the end, Malcolm then proceeded to select his top 3 images, which earned an extra 1, 2 and 3 points for the author. And so, the closing scores were...Honiton 249, Sidmouth 258.

A special mention goes out to the following members who scored 10/10, which undoubtedly let to our success (Sidmouth securing 5 out of the 7 top scores): Paul Gale - Blond Capuscin (Print - Nature), Brian Sherlow - Early Evening at Clifton Suspension Bridge (DPI - From the 19th Century), U-Bahn - Mike Hawkridge (DPI - open), Armenian Church Service - Paul Mellor (DPI - open) and The Last of the Light - Mike Hawkridge (DPI - open). And a special, special mention to Paul Gale, whose print was chosen as Malcolm's favourite and earned an extra 3 points - a well deserved recognition for this beautiful print.

A massive congratulations to all of our members whose images were included in the Battle and secured our win.

What a fantastic evening we had last night when John Tilsley (from Dorchester Camera Club) judged our Interclub Sidmouth vs Torbay Battle. At the end of the Print judging (15 prints per club) Sidmouth were winning by 270 points to Torbay's 269, so it was a very close contest going into the break.
We then paused to enjoy the fantastic spread supplied by SPC members, before settling into the Digital Image judging (also 15 images per club). After a tense second half, Sidmouth began to pull away and finished with 283 points to Torbay's 260...which gave a total of 553 to Sidmouth and 529 to Torbay - a resounding victory!
Congratulations to all of the SPC Members' images that contributed to this successful result.

Storm Agnes coupled with a high tide provided some wonderful photographic opportunities for the 20 Club members who braved the elements to take part in this annual photography and social event.

Starting at Alma Bridge, and finishing at The Market Place, 3 groups of members walked along the promenade to Jacobs Ladder, up to Connaught Gardens and back via The Parish Church.
The highlights were the waves crashing against and over the sea walls, a chaotic element to the seascape, and the dark and threatening skies as the backdrop.
Afterwards, in The Anchor Inn, the talk centred on the fact that members were so glad to attend the event as they would not have ventured out otherwise.
Can’t wait to see the resulting images from the evening !

Sunshine, warmth, tea and cake – and some photography too ...

The fates smiled on us with a lovely warm day for our third trip to London this year and on this occasion there were ten of us. The train to Waterloo was on-time which these days is not a given, so we were off to a good start!

First stop was Battersea Power Station and the newly developed area around it, which has a wealth of photographic opportunities both inside and outside as well as offering the usual array of up market retail outlets which not everyone was able to resist! Here was the realm of street and architectural photography and it did not disappoint.

We spent a couple of hours here and finished up eating our lunch by the riverside in the park. By now it was properly warm and sunny.

Next up was the (relatively) new US Embassy with its garden, moat and interesting cladding on its façade; nearby we could see people swimming in the sky high glass bottomed swimming pool – more photo ops!

Then it was onto the riverside walk, over Vauxhall Bridge doffing our hats to the spooks in their lair as we passed by, along Millbank and finally some welcome shade, tea and cake in the Tate Britain. Here we were treated to the spectacular black and white tiled Caruso St John spiral staircase added in 2013 as part of a major refurbishment.

The final leg of our walk took us through Parliament Square and up Whitehall. A quick peak through the gates at Downing Street revealed absolutely nothing!

The barricades round Nelson’s column and the fountains were a big disappointment as was the lack of water in the fountains; to add insult to injury the whole of the façade of the National Gallery was under scaffolding and shrouds. There were still a lot of people making the best of it, but it was not what we had expected.

We rounded off the day with a very pleasant meal at Cote Brasserie by the Royal Festival Hall, then a short hop to Waterloo and a belated group photo, the interminable train journey back to Honiton and home to Sidmouth back nicely before midnight. Everyone seemed to have had a good time, and the weather was perfect.

This walk was originally planned for the 2nd of August but the weather was so bad on that day that I had no other choice then postpone the walk. Unfortunately this was in the same week as the Folk Festival and many members had other commitments so there were only seven of us.

However, we were very lucky to meet Kim, the site manager of the project, at the beginning of the walk. I’ve asked her if she could spare 10 or 15 minutes to give a talk about the project and she kindly agreed and also took the group picture. She explained that at the end of August the new bridge was going to be installed and in September the estuary will be breached over a distance of 70 metres. This will be done in stages as it can only be done at low tide. It should have been done already but there were birds nesting in that area so that was delayed.

After the talk we made our way over the new footpath towards the seafront as it was time for a coffee. There is no better place for a coffee then at the seafront. After the coffee the sun came out and it was pretty warm. We were all very pleased to have postponed the walk.

We’ve made our way to the coast path and arrived at a new bird hide. There are five new bird hides build along the project. We couldn’t believe how lucky we were as a Big Egret came strolling along right in front of us!! I have seen many little Egrets but never a big one, and he was big. A beautiful bird. Everybody was taking loads of pictures of him or her.  After strolling around the project more pictures were taken and after a couple of hours everybody made their way home.

It was a very pleasant day and it was good it is on the doorstep as a few members went back to it for another walk. After the breaching of the coast path there will be more wildlife especially when the migrating birds are flying in for the winter!!

Tony

Fungi of Artist’s Bracket, Hoof, Brittle Cinder, King Alfred’s Cakes, Mazegill, Blushing Bracket, Birch Bracket, Earthball, Hairy Curtain Crust, and Cinnamon Crust. Hawthorn blossom, Beard lichen and many other forms, the evening choral of the song thrush, eerie call of the tawny owl, splendid views down to Sidmouth and along the Otter Valley, an amazing red sunset, and of course, the Nightjars…..just a few of the wonders of the moor enjoyed by the 10 members on this, the first of this year’s Summer Outings.

Three miles, and a long evening, starting at 18.30 for a fungi photoshoot, and ending at 22.15, with just one stop for refreshments at Keble’s Seat, the only sign of tiredness by the end was the continuous noisy chatter of the participants had softened to but a quiet murmur.

Sidmouth hosted the annual Battle with Honiton this year and welcomed around a dozen of their Members. Our judge for the evening was Norman Marsh from Dorchester Camera Club, who gave thorough critiques on each image, before marking them out of 10....

City of London and Kings Cross : The second club visit to London this year was a slightly more relaxed affair with six club members taking part. Our train was on-time at Waterloo and we were off to a flying start! With our bags dropped off at the hotel we headed over to London Bridge Station by tube, and then crossed over the bridge into the city area where the photography fun started in earnest ...

Greenwich and Canary Wharf: Early Sunday morning the four of us were on our way to London for two days of serious urban photography. Miraculously our train arrived at Waterloo early but then annoyingly we had to wait for an empty platform! ...

What a great night our intrepid club members had at the Torbay vs Sidmouth Battle on Wednesday 26th October, as 16 of us made our way to Torquay to do battle with our old adversaries, Torbay Photographic Society!

A trip of contrasting locations. After the long drive to Bristol in three separate cars, nine club members spent an interesting morning exploring the vast Victorian cemetery at Arnos Vale. It has become something of a destination for locals and has a rather nice café where we were able to have lunch as well as coffee on arrival, and tea and cake in the afternoon – all the essential ingredients of a good photo trip! ...

Though the weather forecast had looked decidedly iffy, we were treated to a mild evening with lovely soft light and a little sun peeping through to warm things up nicely. Eleven club members met on the boardwalk by the beautifully tranquil Bystock reservoir, full to the brim; we were looking forward to a pleasant evening of photography and chat, and we were not to be disappointed ....

A small group of Club members and guests made the trip down to Paignton to catch the steam train to Kingswear. Our train was unusually double headed as they were testing one of the locomotives following maintenance; this resulted in lots of chuffing and puffing and hissing of steam, especially on the uphill section – more than usual - as well as plenty of photo ops at each end of the journey. ....

A depleted group of 8 club members, ( 4 had had to cancel at the last minute due to health issues), met at Exeter Bus Station to begin this walk along the medieval routes around Exeter visiting buildings that had existed for many hundreds of years.

Starting at The Castle, with a comfort break at The Ramm Museum, we entered, St Stephens, St Pancras, St Martins, St Petrocs, and St Olaves Churches, absorbing the different atmosphere in each ...