March 2012 Club Meeting...

Folks,

Our March club meeting was held this afternoon at Rumores bar.

The main content this month was an excellent photo presentation from John Michael. John has a wealth of experience in photography, and his informal presentation detailing his trips around the globe with stunning images, illustrating various aspects about our hobby was both fascinating and inspiring.

Hopefully it has renewed our club's 'fervour' to get out there with our cameras (big or small) and get snapping!

Thanks John!


It was decided that our next Field Trip would be to Cuevas castillo to explore architecture and surrounding areas (and local cafes!). As myself & Sheila will be unavailable until the middle of the month, it was kindly agreed to delay the trip until towards the latter half of March. Keep an eye on the forum, and I will try to post a date as soon as possible.

For those who are interested in these things, Ken has been monitoring the almond blossom situation up beyond Saliente monastery, which, when out, covers probably thousands of acres... A truly wonderful sight! As of today, it is partially out, and will probably be at it's best in a week or so...ish!

One of the recurring topics covered in John's presentation today, and at previous meetings, is that of 'depth of field', and in particular a shallow depth of field to isolate the subject from it's background. This is usually achieved by selecting a large aperture (small f number) on a SLR camera, or cameras that allow lens aperture adjustment. On compact point & shoot cameras, selecting telephoto, rather than wide angle mode will help when used close up to subjects.

We therefore decided, as this month's photo assignment, to try for shots that illustrated a shallow depth of field. Please post your efforts in the Darkroom gallery on the forum.

Also, as discussed at the end of the meeting...

It was interesting to see a small portion of John's collection of photos, taken over the years... It was agreed that it would also be interesting to see others back catalogue of photos taken previously, and not recently for club assignments etc. So please feel free to post as many older shots you have for us all to see... I'm sure they will be very interesting to all.

One further point raised... By me... Again... I really do encourage club members to comment on other's posts and images. It all helps to create a friendly interactive forum, and as a photo club breeds a healthy appreciation for each other's work via discussion and furthers understanding. Constructive comments and criticism is a good thing...

The next monthly club meeting will be Friday 6th April 2012... Although, as that's Good Friday, we may have to reconsider that! I'll keep you posted.

Look forward to our next field trip and all those pics n posts coming in... see you soon!

Rgds,
Howard