Silver medal for Tenby Camera Club

On February 17, Tenby Camera Club welcomed photographer Tal Chohan of TC Wildlife Photography.

Tal explained how he got hooked on photography, especially Zoo Photography. He was given a camera by his Aunt as a child and went to Dudley Zoo, from which his passion for wildlife photography grew.

Tal showed how you can get natural images of exotic animals, without costly safaris, by visiting some of the UK’s excellent zoos. Keen to support zoos who have conservation and good husbandry policies, Tal plans his visits with care . He explained techniques to aid the difficulties of shooting through glass, fences and wire. He emphasised how important it is to consider the behaviour of the animals or birds, time of day, eating times, rest times and playtimes.

Club members were treated to some stunning images!

Ace of Clubs

On February 20, via Zoom, the WPF Ace of Clubs competition was held. Organised by the WPF, 13 Welsh clubs competed to represent Wales in the PAGB Aces to be held in Warwick later in the year. The top two clubs would qualify for this honour.

Each club had to enter 30 images for judging by Carol McNiven, Barry Mead and Michael Krier, who are very experienced and qualified in these sort of competitions.

The judges have about five seconds to view an image and score out of 5. Therefore the maximum score would be 15.

There were seven maximum scores finally awarded.

The final results were in first place Gwynfa Camera Club with 371 out of 450 , followed by Tenby Camera Club in second place with 363/450. Bridgend came third with 355/450. This means that Gwynfa and Tenby will take on the task of representing the WPF and Wales.

As well as the placings, individual awards are given out by the judges. The two Gold Medals for colour and mono went to Bridgend members . There were three Silver Medals given out, one chosen by each judge. Tenby’s talented Ali Rees was given 2 of these for her “Champion Surfer” and “The Bulgarian Shepherd”. What an achievement!

Fourtograph

A different competition was held on February 24, the Fourtograph . This is a competition to challenge members to step outside their comfort zones of personally liked genres. Four categories of subjects are chosen in advance and members enter one image per category. The subjects for this year were Circles, Street, Portrait and Weather. The entries were scored by the Zoom audience, with a winner for each category and then an overall winner.

The Circles category had a tie for first place with three members scoring the same. They were Dave Bolton with “The Mistress and her buoys under a Harvest Moon” , John Whitehurst and “Droplet reflection” and Cheryl Hewitt with “Cathedral Circles”.

The Street category was won by Cheryl Hewitt with “Ironman Kiss”, in second place Dave Bolton and “The Pigeon Lady” . In third was Nicky Rhodes with “Millennium Centre Shadows”.

The portrait category was won by Nicky Rhodes and “Me”. In second place was Jayne Crocker and “No choice but to age gracefully” and in third was Cheryl Hewitt with “Get my best side”

In first place in the Weather category was Cheryl Hewitt with “Dash for cover”. In second place was Dave Bolton and “Blowing a Hooley”. There was a tie for third, Jayne Crocker and”Sunset after the storm” and John Whitehurst with “Dark and Sunny”.

The overall placings were: in first place Cheryl Hewitt, in second Dave Bolton and in third Nicky Rhodes.

A fun evening with some interesting and unusual photographs.