Whitchurch Hill Camera Club

KNOWN as Whitchurch Hill Camera Club for more than 40 years, we now have a new name and a new look — Whitchurch-on-Thames Photographic Society.

Having suffered during the covid pandemic as we were unable to hold meetings and other events and members put their cameras away, the club is now engaged on revitalising our programme and expanding our aims with a greater diversity of photographic subjects.

The programme of meetings has been modified. Once every two weeks we now meet in person at Whitchurch-on-Thames village hall for competitions, discussions on equipment, computer programs and day-to-day activities.

Currently, our competitions are all projected images displayed on a big screen in the hall and assessed by qualified independent judges from different organisations.

The results are entered into a ladder to find the overall winner at the end of the season. We also have themed competitions, for example, natural history and monochrome.

Next season we hope to get back to regular print competitions as well.

The weeks in between we are holding Zoom meetings online, which has enabled us to engage with a greater diversity of subjects and speakers with specialist talks on a greater range of photographic ideas from all over the country.

Virtually every person now carries a camera in their pocket and we have seen great pictures taken of most subjects.

Everybody gets lucky with one or two good pictures, but if that picture can be enhanced to a superb picture then that is our aim.

We make use of many different computer programs, such as Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Lightroom, Faststone, Pictures to Exe (for sequence presentations) and many more.

Currently, there are members who have skills in these and are happy to pass on their knowledge when we have discussion/training evenings.

There is a new venture into photography which is becoming attractive to some members who are exploring the art of drone photography. Will this take off?

Using their skills and obtaining the proper licences, members are producing new views of the landscape that are not attainable with the normal camera. We cannot all fly above the landscape.

So, if you are interested in photography, please visit our new website
(www.wotphoto.co.uk), where you will find all the contact details, the forthcoming programme of meetings and examples of members’ work.

Come along to one of our meetings for a free first visit where you will receive a very warm welcome, a cup of tea and a biscuit.

Ray Lewis