The Retford and District Photographic Society meeting season is now over, giving members time to go away, get their photo libraries replenished and processing done in readiness for their September restart.
The last two meetings of the year were a members’ show and tell and memorial trophy night. The first of three trophies to be contested was the Dennis Rich Memorial Trophy for prints and the winner for 2023 was Peace Offering by Lee Dalgleish. His photo of a workworn hand holding a feather impressed both members and the judge who placed it first in the earlier ‘Textures’ competition.
Lee said that it is a self-portrait. There was no need for a hand model as he set up his camera on a tripod and managed the settings with the other hand. When he was happy that he had the right shot he used a timer delay to eliminate camera shake and took it.
During processing in the computer, the hand was changed from a clean one to one which looked as though it had lived a hard life. He desaturated the natural colours and applied a texture over the surface. Finally, Lee rendered the background fully black.
Next came the Rosemary Wright Memorial Trophy competition for projected images, which are shown on the big screen. Members voted the mellow-toned street scene, Croatian Passageway by Joyce Bell, the winner. Joyce normally does best with her monochrome shots, so it was good for her to win in colour.
Last on the night was the final Audio-Visual competition for the Dennis Mosely Memorial Trophy. On this occasion there were eight entries, each being compilation of up to 50 images accompanied by a soundtrack. There were diverse themes and the images varied as much as their soundtracks. Harold Gay won with his Brooklands presentation.
The new programme, from September 2023, will be published at www.retford-photographic.co.uk by the end of August, where you can also find more information on the Club. Meetings will restart on Monday 4th September at 7.30pm in St Joseph’s Hall, Babworth Road, Retford; a warm welcome awaits all attendees!