Photography

14 August

It’s no wonder a lot of the public dislike photographers so much. It seems Wills and Kate are not happy about the way that paps are behaving in their endeavours to get photos of the little chap. They are hiding in car boots and in bushes. Most disturbing to my mind is that they’ve used other children to lure him into the range of the lens. I am the only one who sees another danger here, surely not? Luring away kids to get photos is one thing, but how long will it be before someone tries to do the same thing for an abduction attempt? I’m not a fan of the royals as most will know, but this thought sends shivers down my spine.

All photographers have their own favourite kit. I like Sony kit but when it came time to get a new set-up I moved to Nikon, mainly because of cost, and yet I am happy with my choice. You may well be aware that I read a lot of photomags in which there are lots of reviews of new kit becoming available. These reviews make me think about the reviewers quite a bit. Here’s a for instance … One guy I know is a hardened Canon user and refuses to look at anything else. So I wonder how he would react if he was paid to review a different make and model. Could his readers ever be certain that his report is fair, even though he was paid? I’m not so sure you know.

These photomags run lots of completions too and offer good prizes for the winners. Quite often I’ve seen images that have won and thought, what a load of crap! And I’m not the only one either. This judging issue ties in with another discussion point right now about local camera clubs and their survival.

So many are struggling to keep going. One local one here in Dorktown is one that may be a struggler. When we were members. The membership was only around 18 or 19. The club has completion nights where members show photos for judging. The winning photos are then entered into larger competitions. I did enter a few of them but didn’t get anywhere, that’s fine, I didn’t really expect to. But I found the judges’ comments to be unhelpful really.

I have and image which I really do like … 

I entered this one, which was taken in a Minolta 404si on slide film (it's lost a bit of punch in the scanning though). His comment on it was, along the lines of, ‘Yes, this is the sort of shot that we were all taking years ago.’ Fine, but what if you weren’t taking photos years ago when all the others were? And yet we are not expected to challenge a judge. One of the other members said to me after that he loved the image and thought the comments unhelpful.

We left that club soon after when we moved to Atherton in Gr Manchester where we joined the club there. What a difference in how the clubs were run. Atherton was a speaker based club, while Dorktown’s was a competition based. Maybe that is why the membership was up to the 70s. The club also owned its club rooms too. We went there often and were fully welcomed by everyone. We were also impressed with the numbers attending the meetings. All the seating was taken at every one, around 50 each week. Tea and coffee was served at half time.

When we came back here to Dorktown I went back the club that first Monday evening, and nothing had changed. Perhaps we were used to the Atherton way by then, even if we were there for only eight months. The question is; how can clubs survive? Following Atherton’s example would be one way I would recommend.

I think another flower photo for today … 

A carnation.

Today’s funny …

At the end of the day, a policeman parked his van in front of the station. As he was gathering his equipment, his dog started barking. The policeman looked up to see a puzzled looking little boy. "Is that a dog you have back there?"

"Yes, it is," said the policeman.

"What'd he do?"