HPIC News 02/07/2020

Paul Campbell, Steven Drew and Richard Fulcher had their Creative print entries to the 2020 Annual Competition held back by Judge Christine Hodgson BA(Photo), ARPS, CPAGB. Seventeen images from club members made up this category; all had submitted their work some time ago but Lockdown delayed judgment.

The club thanks Christine for her hard work and erudite remarks on all the entries. Christine’s holistic approach to the prints’ assessment covered all aspects of image creation, post processing techniques and presentation including the author’s choice of paper and mounts. The Zoom audience of over 30 members will have learnt a lot from Christine’s commentary.

Those held back are:

• The Trophy Hunter and Dragon Master by Paul Campbell

• Necromancer by Stephen Drew

• The Last Goodby by Richard Fulcher

A recording of the judging will be made available to all members shortly and is recommended viewing.

Club stalwart, Alan Stopher, gave two presentations: one on the club’s plans for this year’s exhibition, scheduled for the 5th to 24th October in Unit 35 on the Piazza in Huddersfield, as part of the town's Temporary Contemporary Creative Arts programme – more details will be announced via the club’s website.

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The second presentation outlined the plans for 2021: the main points of which are summarised below. For full details please watch the Youtube video when released or read the summary soon to be published on the website. The main proposals are:-

• Time the submission date to be after the YPU work is submitted.

• Remove limit on age of images entered as long as not entered before

• Changes to categories based on popularity

• Reduce print competition entries per member from 10 to 6

• Allow an additional non-competitive member’s print panel of up to 4

• Reduce Experienced PDI entries per member from 5 to 4

• No change to the number of PDI entries for Intermediate and Beginner members

• Aim for an increased acceptance rate for PDIs

• At least one entry per member (Print or PDI) to be accepted for display.

The new categories are:

• Open Colour - Print & PDI

• Sport Action Photojournalism - PDI

• Architecture & Record - Print & PDI

• People, Portrait & Figure Study - Print & PDI

• Nature - Print & PDI

• Scapes - Print & PDI

• Travel - Print

• Creative - Print

• Open Mono - Print & PDI

• Intermediate - Print & PDI

• Beginners - PDI

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And finally members will notice a fresh new look to the website courtesy of the efforts of the Web Master Kevin Lloyd: More images from a greater diversity of members, an up to date News section and a new addition to the Annual Competition Archives which now show the years 2017, 18 and 19. Well worth a visit.

Tony Renshaw

Richard Fulcher BPE 2* - BPEs: A Personal Experience

Before the evening started, a first for HPIC: we gave a warm welcome to Peter, our first overseas member from Stockholm, Sweden. We hope that Peter will enjoy being a member of the club.

Richard’s talk tonight was one based on his own journey into the realms of BPEs, or British Photographic Exhibitions. Richard gave us an insight about the history, how the exhibitions are run by photographic clubs within the UK, where they are based and generally how to enter.

Most exhibitions are digital entries only, with a few being both print and digital. This also came with a caveat from Richard: read the rules and check the size of image to enter, as these can change from exhibition to exhibition. Once the images are judged in an exhibition you are notified if you have any images accepted and acceptances go towards crown awards. There are criteria to gain BPE1* up to BPE 5* and beyond.

So near and yet so far!

Since beginning his journey in December 2018, Richard has found that his knowledge and photography skills have improved. Whilst his first exhibition had no acceptances, Richard persevered and so far has 99 acceptances – he needs one more for BPE3*. Judging by Richard’s standard of photography he will gain that 1 acceptance soon. Richard shared his images that have been both successful and not so successful in exhibitions.

Below is a small selection.

For more information go to:

http://www.britishphotographicexhibitions.org.uk

Members' Panel Evening

Members were treated to a varied and enjoyable evening on 17th June. Six colleagues presented personal photographic projects they were working on.

Graham Sykes started off showing a series of inspiring infra-red photographs that he had taken on his lockdown walks close to his home. His technical explanations were a revelation to those of us who have yet to dip into IR.

Mary Rogers treated us to a series of images during her local lockdown wanderings including wildlife and normally busy locations. Her view of hay burning was particularly atmospheric.

Tony Renshaw presented his ‘Nature in Lockdown’ selection of images mainly taken during his morning exercise in local woods. His showdown between a Miner Bee and Wasp was a noteworthy capture.

George Fewster showed us some macro images taken at Knowsley Safari park and then a number of remarkable macro setups at home which resulted in some striking abstracts from refracted glass and the study of a dandelion clock shown here.

Barbara Sheldrake showed us something completely different. Turning the clock back around 170 years she explained how to make wet-plate collodian images on glass plates and then shared some of her images produced using this 19th century photographic craft.

Alan Stopher rounded off with a project which is work in progress. Starting from a topical subject ‘Protest’ he showed a range of images taken in recent years and then took us back to demonstrations from the early 1980s. The older ones were taken from black & white negatives and the more modern digital work had been converted to mono to achieve a similar documentary style.  

All in all it was a fascinating 2 hours demonstrating what talented photographers we have in our club.