An occasional blog by Alan Keen

6th February saw Roger Hance, FRPS, join us over Zoom to give his enjoyable presentation entitled “Capturing the decisive Moment”. The presentation centred around Sport & Action Photography. Roger explained the type of equipment he uses, and how finding the right viewpoint is essential. Sports covered were Boxing, Cyclocross, Jet ski, Superbikes at Brands Hatch, Ice Hockey, Grass Track, Judo, Table Tennis and much more.

On 13th February we welcomed Bob Fish from Axholme Camera Club who gave a presentation entitled “ Hares, Birds and the Isle of Axholme”. The main speaker was to be Bob’s wife, Mary, who was unfortunately was ill and unable to attend. Bob stepped up to the plate and gave an interesting talk using images produced by himself and Mary. After the mid-meeting break Bob gave a presentation about another of his passions, the history of the Isle of Axholme.

The judging of Round 4 of our internal competitions took place on 20th February. We welcomed Erica Oram from Sheffield PS. Erica gave detailed feedback of both the prints and DPIs with concise suggestions on improvements that could be made, particularly in the Mono Prints section. This is the last round of our internal competitions, so members now have feedback from all four round to help them prepare for our Annual

Competitions. The deadline for entries for both the Print and DPI Competitions is Tuesday 19th of March 2024. The Judging will take place on 23rd April for DPIs and 30th April for Prints.

The final meeting of the month, held on 27th February, was a talk by Tracey Lund with a presentation of her 3-month photographic visit to the Falkland Islands. With many members turning up to the meeting it was looking to be a good night. Sadly, the evening was marred by technical difficulties. Firstly, Tracey had a problem with her laptop and was unable to get it to connect to the projector. To find a work around her 200 slide PowerPoint presentation was loaded onto the Club’s laptop, which appeared to solve the problem but then Tracey realised that some of the slides were not displaying correctly, and the embedded videos would not play. Eventually, Tracey decided to stop her presentation and the meeting finished early. Hopefully, all the issues can be resolved, and Tracey will be able to successfully give her talk at a later date.

In other news, and following on from the FIAP World Cup results, there was some good news from the PAGB. After the success in last year’s PAGB GB Cup Doncaster automatically qualified for the 2024 competition. It is very pleasing to report that Doncaster were successful again, finishing 8th= in the Open section and 10th in the Nature section. These results should ensure automatic qualification to the 2025 competition. Othe Yorkshire Clubs, who entered were, Sheffield PS (47th= in the Open and 36th in Nature), F4 Photographic Group (38th in the Open and 46th Nature). Ilkley were also 51st in the Open.

On Saturday 24th February Ray, Jane and Alan K took the Club’s print entries for the YPU 2024 Exhibition to Pontefract. Barnsley PS will be hosting the Exhibition this year at Barnsley Civic Centre. The following year, 2025, we will be the hosts and the YPU have asked that representatives from DCC help with this year’s competition to “learn the ropes” for next year. The judging will take place during the weekend of 9th & 10th of March, with about 70 entries (Print + DPI) the members who made entries will be hoping for several acceptances and awards.

Finally, At the beginning of the season, in September 2023, we introduced Tea, Coffee, and biscuits during the half-time break. The plan was to encourage more informal discussion between Club members as well proved the opportunity to have a hot drink during the evening. With over 400 drinks served so far the scheme is proving popular. A charge of 50p per cup was levied in order that the scheme was self-financing. However, Alan T, Carol, Bridget, and Ray have all made donations including biscuits, coffee, and cups during the season. This means that we will be able to donate a small profit to Club funds at the end of the season.

Alan Keen

28th February 2024