September 2018 Photography Group Meeting.

Photography Group meeting 19th September 2018
Fourteen members of the U3A Photography Group met at the Martillo Bar in Moraira at 1030 on the 18th September, the first after the summer break. Group leader John Snell welcomed the group, particularly new members Arthur and Barbara Cockburn.
Dave Hardy gave a very interesting and informative talk about basic photographic composition, which was accompanied by an excellent power point show. He talked about the rule of “thirds” when composing a picture, the use of light, leading lines to the subject, and the framing of the subject, just to mention a few. This was backed up by many images demonstrating both how it should be done, and also how it shouldn’t. Many thanks to Dave for taking the time to compile this talk, from which I’m sure we all learned something. I certainly did.
Earlier this year the group decided to hold another Photograph Exhibition in La Senieta in 2019. The chosen dates are from the 18th May – 31st May. We envisage setting up the exhibition on the weekend of 18th/19th, be open to the public from 20th – 30th, and dismantle the exhibition on the 31st. The U3A will be submitting these dates for approval by the Ayuntamiento next month. The group discussed themes for the exhibition. Two themes emerged. One was to use the challenge subjects since the last exhibition, and the other was to have different groups, such as landscapes, portraits, architecture, fauna, flora, plus others. Those present seemed to favour the different groups, but of course there is no reason why images for the challenges should not be included. Plus of course a favourite that doesn’t fit any of the chosen subject themes. Please email me your thoughts and ideas.
During the summer Laurence Baehr had helped a Scottish tourist who was keen to photograph the local area, and Laurence suggested that a similar exploration to local places in the Marina Alta would be a good basis for a group outing. This idea was very well received, with members suggesting visits to different places some of which are quite some distance away. So there is potential here for more than one outing, but it was decided that the first one should be kept local, to Moraira, Teulada and Benitachell. The date is 10th October, and we’ll meet at the Martillo Bar at 10.00. We’ll spend around 3 hours in the local area taking photographs before ending up back at the Martillo Bar where we can have tapas or lunch. If you have specific places that you know in these area that you think will interest others and be good subjects for pictures, please email them to me and I can then devise some sort of route. If there is a good take up with many members wanting to participate, we can have different orders of route so we are not all at the same place at the same time. This should be very interesting and perhaps we’ll find out about hidden local gems. Sharing cars would be very helpful, I can take 3 others in comfort and 4 at a squeeze. Please let me know if you would like to join in the outing, and whether you wish to stay for a bite afterwards.
During the meeting, everyone attending thought of and wrote down a subject for the monthly challenge. These went into a bag and new member Barbara had the first draw, and the subject for this month’s challenge is Sunrise/Sunset. Please bring up to 8 images of sunrises and/or sunsets taken between now and the next meeting, which will be held on 17th October at 1030 at the Martillo Bar, Moraira.
At the next meeting Stephen Jones will be giving a presentation on “Exposure” He will aim the presentation principally at those photographers who shoot mainly in “automatic” mode and will be explaining a little about how and why if the photographer controls exposure, he or she can often get a better result than leaving it all to the camera to work out. It sounds tailor made for me!
John Snell
Photography Group Leader