2023/24 Season now under way

It's been a while since we updated our blog but I can assure you Otley Camera Club is still alive and kicking and the 2023/24 season is well under way.

Last season saw us have some really great successes with members collecting BPE awards in Salons and accredations in the PAGB Distinctions. We also did very well at the YPU exhibition with awards for members, including trophies for our Junior Member Evie and club chair Chris and the club being in the top three for prints, dpi and overall. For a small photographic club, we are certainly making a splash in the club photographic pond and came second in the Interclub against 10 other clubs.

This season has kicked off with a couple of talks by excellent photographers Leigh Cole an international portrait photographer whose inspiring talk showed there is still hope for younger photographers to make a living from photography and Amy Bateman who was warmly recieved with her second talk to the club about her book "40 farms". This talk was one of the few we are zooming this year, having come back to being a "mainly live and in person" club again. It's one of the main factors that diferentiate a physical club from the numerous online clubs that have sprung up on social media. We meet on a weeklybasis and have a strong social side to us that ironically is lacking when people join an online group. One of these was a practical night where we met on Otley Chevin for an evening where our chair took us through a process of "slowing down" when taking an image. We weren't allowed any fancy gear, had to pick a focal range and stick to it or even use a camera phone(!). Waiting ten minutes after taking our positions, we then took a single photo then moved twenty paces. Another photo, then move twenty paces. 20 images in total and then the favourite five from each memner were viewed and talked about on another evening. We also had a Studio practical recently with a group of Star Wars Cos Players (The Ms Eisley Misfits) where we hired a studio but set up our own lights and backgrounds to create the images. Other upcoming practicals include Still Life, a Splash session, a Studio Pet Portrait and many more as being planned.

Speaking of exhbitions, we took part in the Otley Wildlife Exhibition recently but also this year worked with Otley Pub Club with their photo contest, Otley Cycle Races, Otlet Rewilding Event and the Otley Steampunk event. We have been asked to be the photographers for the Victorian Fayre in December too.

We've had our first club competition which covered Macro/close up photography. Some very interesting and varied photos were offered up for critque by our guest judge for the evening. Our next competiton (Mono) is continuing our comp secs experiment started last year and is judged internaly by two members. Preparation for that included an evening where members critiqued images from the YPU exhibition. New this year is an exchange with York Photographic Society. We were invited to send some of our members along to give their members an evening of talk and entertainment. We had three people go and they were warmly welcomed by York. we're looking forward to welcoming them to our little room this week. It's always good to see how other clubs do things and we hope this is a success and may lead to other exchanges with York and other clubs. So lots has happened and we have a lot more to come - please check out the Programme on the website and our Events Page for meeting up outside the club.