We are pleased to announce two competitions for everyone in the SK9 area.

This is an open photo competition and all images (camera and/or phone) are welcome.

The first competition is for all photographers aged 18 or over (the first prize is a gift vouchers for £100)

The second competition is for all photographers aged under 18 (the first prize is a gift voucher for £50)

The competition ends (and all submissions must be received by) 31st October 2025

Please can you send your submissions  along with your age and postcode to: wilmslowcomp@wilmslowphotoclub.org.uk

Rules

The spirit of this competition is ‘Photography’ by local amateur photographers from the Wilmslow and immediately surrounding geographic area. The Photographers must be connected this same area/ location although their images can be captured from any location.
Images will be judged by, Composition, Originality, General Appeal.
Only 2 Images may be submitted per photographer in ‘JPg’ format, and WPC may alter its size (not content) to fit the image judging software that will be used.
The photographer retains the copyright to the image but by entering the competition grant WPC the right to publish and exhibit their photographs. Entrants whose photographs are one of the final 10 in each category, also agree to allow their images to be used in post – competition publicity.
Entries will not be accepted unless submitted via the official channel.
Entrants must not be professional photographers or make monies from selling images.
Minor image enhancement / editing is permitted. Excessively edited images will be excluded.
Composite images will not be accepted, and WPC will not accept use of AI generated content / images.
All images must be the photographers own original work / taken by them. No third party may own, or control content and the image must not infringe upon the trademark, copyright, intellectual rights, or rights to privacy of individuals or companies.
Necessary permission must be in place for ‘drone’ images or access onto non-public land and this should be available for verification should it be required.

There are two categories.
1)Adult Competition (over18yrs)
All submissions must Name their images, and submit by E mail to  *****EMAIL *****
And must include; a) The Heading ‘WPC Adult Competition’ b) The email mail address and   c) identify where in the Wilmslow geographic area the photographer resides

2) Junior Competition (under18yrs)
a) The Heading ‘WPC Junior Competition’. b) The email must originate from the responsible adults e mail address, c) identify the name and age of the photographer and d) the adults consent for the junior members participation and e) identify where  in the Wilmslow geographic area the photographer resides.
All entries submitted by a parent / guardian on behalf of an entrant will ensure compliance with the rules.

All contact will be initially be made by  e-mail
WPC decision as to the eligibility of images will be final and no correspondence will be entered into
Images will be judged by WPC panel and all decisions are final. WPC reserves the right to disqualify any entry that is deemed inappropriate or does not conform to contest rules.
Submissions will not be accepted past the closing deadline.
WPC existing members will not participate, other than in judging, as this is a community challenge.
The prize must be collected by the winner and is non-transferable.
The winner will be contacted via the email address provided. If no response is received after 14 days, a new winner will be selected and the previous winner will forfeit all rights to the prize.
All entrants understand and will adhere to the rules of the competition.
Unsuccessful entrants will not be contacted.
Winning entries and top 10 submissions from each category will be displayed on WPC website and may be used to advertise this competition and WPC.
All other unsuccessful submissions and contact details /data will be destroyed.

Yesterday, I was very pleased to receive a cheque from Wilmslow’s May and Town Councillor, Tim Higgins.  The club are extremely grateful to the council for their generous donation which will be used to fund a replacement laptop for the club and help us run a community photo competition.  I’d like to send my thanks to everyone in the team at the club that has helped us in getting this award. 

The town council has more information on their website and Facebook and Instagram accounts,

We’re planning on having a photo-editing challenge on 18th Feb.  If you’re new, or have forgotten how this goes then we’ll send everyone the same two images and we all edit them in our own unique way.  You then upload your results to PhotoEntry and the various edits will be discussed at the evening.

If you haven’t already, please download and complete a 24-25 membership form.  This is the updated form Version 2.

WPC Membership Form V2

You can also find this form via the ‘About Us’ menu item on this website.

We are running a member voted smartphone competition on 12th November.  The competition has been created on PhotoEntry in the single competition section so you can upload an image now!  Entries will close a week before so we can share them to all members prior to the meeting on Tuesday.

We’ve set PhotoEntry to downsize any oversize entries and to allow any colour profile.  This should allow you to upload directly from your phone. We have not tested how images resizing by PhotoEntry and with a different colorspace will be projected so it’s up to you to decide if you feel lucky, well do you? (to paraphrase Dirty Harry).  

Voting will be in-person only – no postal (or email) votes. So now’s your chance to re-arrange things/cancel holidays so you come and vote!

Kieran Metcalfe came to the club last season to give his very enjoyable talk on his landscape photography – ‘Chasing the Light’.  Every year, Kieran produces a charity calendar of his images and next year’s is available for pre-order on his website 2025 Charity Calendar – Kieran Metcalfe Photography

From David Hardy

I promised the membership that I would announce the themes for next season’s competitions before the summer break but have just realised that it is upon us and I haven’t done so yet

So here they are.

As always it is up to the individual how he/she chooses to interpret the theme. Hopefully some of the interpretations will showcase imagination and individuality.

I realise that long exposure is also a project group theme for the summer but don’t see that as a problem. Not all the members attend the project group and perhaps it will encourage some of the project group who do not usually enter the competitions to do so, and anyway, we thought of it first!

As mentioned at the AGM we have had to revert on insisting on mounting prints for competitions.  Prints can be flush mounted although you are free to window mount them if you desire, and members have offered to loan you their window mount cutter.

I’ve recently watched a video on printing your images by Mads Peter Iverson which I found helpful, and DS Colourlabs have a useful page.

The Useful info and links page on our website has been updated with more information on printing and mounting your images.

Just to let you know that the rules for the Annual Competition are on the L&CPU website Annual Individual Competition Rules | L&CPU (lcpu.org).  If you are planning on entering any prints, the club needs to send all our club members together so please let David R know.

For PDI’s you can submit individually by logging onto the L&CPU portal.

It is free to enter so why not give it a try?

With the New Year, you get a new calendar and our website is no exception!  Unfortunately, we are no longer able to add new meetings etc to our existing calendar so we’ve moved to Google calendar. You can see the new calendar here  along with instructions on how to view it on your phone/tablet or computer. The old calendar will be removed after our next meeting on 9th Jan.

I received this from the Photography Show Online, please subscribe on YouTube if you are interested.

Dear David,

I am writing to you to introduce Photography Online – a 60 minute
monthly photo magazine show hosted on YouTube. You may already be aware
of our channel, but we have taken a break from releasing output during
2023 to allow us time to record more exciting content from all over the
world.

Our relaunch show is available from Jan 7th and includes a photo
challenge around the UK, winter macro photography, a photo tour around
Namibia and a model shoot where we cross process some film to get some
funky results. We also have a week-long photo holiday to the Isle of
Skye in Scotland (worth £2000) to be won.

We then have a further 9 highly produced shows to come in 2024 which
will be released on the first Sunday of each month through to Oct. These
will include features on light painting, zoo photography, astro and
aurora, long exposure seascapes, wildlife for beginners, wide angle
photography, camera maintenance, hidden Venice, and lots more.

Photography Online is free to watch and aims to educate, inspire and
enthuse anyone with a camera to get out more often and enjoy their
photography.

If you would be so kind as to help spread the word to your camera club
members and anyone else who may be interested, then we would really
appreciate it. Our aim is to build a worldwide platform to help
photographers improve their skills and expand their knowledge.

Please feel free to visit our channel  – www.YouTube.com/PhotographyOnline

Many thanks and we hope you enjoy our shows in 2024.

Kind regards,
Photography Online Team

Just a quick reminder that if you need help or information about club and activities, it is quicker to contact the appropriate person directly rather than going through the chair.

Club email addresses can be found on the contacts page.

London Camera Exchange has their inaugural POTY competition – free to enter and £12000 prize fund (in LCE vouchers). There are 14 different categories.

And thanks to Nick for sending the list below, might be worth a try.  These competitions are judged by different standards than our club competitions.

• Amateur Photographer of the Year
• Landscape Photographer of the Year
• Sony World Photography Awards
• LensCulture Photography Awards
• Anthology Photography Competition
• Travel Photographer of the Year
• Astronomy Photographer of the Year
• Pink Lady Food Photographer of the Year
• Wildlife Photographer of the Year
• Environmental Photographer of the Year
• Taylor Wessing Photographic Prize
• British Wildlife Photography Awards
• Close Up Photographer of the Year
• International Garden Photographer of the Year
• EISA Maestro
• Nature Photographer of the Year
• SINWP Bird Photographer of the Year
• iPhone Photography Awards
• RPS International Photography Exhibition 164
• British Photography Awards
• Weather Photographer of the Year
• Fine Art Photography Awards
• World Sports Photography Awards
• Historic Photographer of the Year
• Minimalist Photography Awards
• Underwater Photographer of the Year

Due to the great talks at last weeks meeting, we ran out of time to talk about the mentoring groups. I’ve organised the groups to the best of my ability and here is an update of where we are.

First of all thanks to everyone who signed up, we had 27 positive responses.  For privacy reasons, I’m sending out details of groups by email to those who responded so keep an eye on your inbox (and spam folder).

We have now selected and entered images into the upcoming 2023 L&CPU Annual Club Knockout Competition. Go too  the competition menu to view the selected images. 

At last week’s meeting, we calibrated our projector to give accurate colours.  We used the club’s X-Rite ColorMunki which is works on Windows 10 and 11. The packaging says it works on Mac OS 10 and above.  Datacolor also make a similar device.

From X-Rite’s website we did this  because “Our eyes are very adaptive and influenced by many factors. If you work on an un-calibrated monitor, you can’t trust the colors you see on-screen. You need a display colorimeter to create an ICC profile to render accurate color for the best reproduction on-screen. ICC profiles are used to achieve color consistency between different devices, such as monitor to printer match.”

To answer questions raised whilst we did this, the calibration is for the projector however the results are saved on the club laptop.  For your images to look the same at home and at the club, you should calibrate your display at home, and you can use the clubs ColorMunki to do this.  Note that there may still be difference due to brightness especially as you may view your images at home in different ambient light.

For more information, have a look at the X-Rite website or the Datacolor website

David

Last week, there was an enthusiastic reception to setting up mentoring groups as part of our activities. I’m now working on a form for those (the majority who were present) to sign-up.  We are also looking at the program for meetings when we can hold mentoring sessions.

For those who weren’t at the meeting, here’s some background information.

What is mentoring

• Would you like to have others discuss your work in small groups so you get an alternative viewpoint? Others won’t have the same emotional attachment to your image.
• Would you like more help to understand how to get certain effects or get the most out of your camera? 
• Do you have other questions about photography? 
• Perhaps you’d just like to help others develop their skills? 
• Do you just fancy talking about images in a small group?

If so, then mentoring may be for you. 

This to enhance your skills – not necessarily for competitions

How will these group work?

• However you want them to
• They have a random distribution of people with different skill levels
• Discussion within groups can take place via  Email, WhatsApp, over a drink, each group decides what they want to do. We will also use club meetings.

Look out for the email and WhatsApp message so you can sign up to participate.

David

As sending email updates continues to be an issue for many members, I’ve put the bulk of my recent email here as well.

If you haven’t received the email, please check your spam folder.

Please use the web contact form if you want to be sent the payment details to join the club.

Next season

Since May, the committee and several club members have been working on getting everything in place for the new season.  This starts on Tuesday 5th September 2023 at Wilmslow Conservative Club, 15 Grove Avenue, Wilmslow SK9 5EG.  There is a link to a map on the club website under the interested in joining us section.

The programme up until Christmas is on the website as well. Michael is still working on the remainder or the year, and it will be published as soon as the final speaker or two is confirmed.

The club website also has details of our constitution and privacy policy

Register now for £5 off

We have set the subscription for next year at £85 however if you pay online before August 22nd, it will only cost £80.  Remember this is for the whole season and we don’t charge a weekly fee. 

Publicity

For those of you who post on Instagram, the club is now has an account.  Please tag the club whenever possible as this will help with publicity for our club.  There are link to the account and the facebook page at the end of this email.

Although there wasn’t a huge number of people at the Wilmslow Show, we have attracted potential new members, and there have also been enquires via the website.  If you’re one of the potential new members, don’t forget that you can come along to a few meetings before joining to see what we offer.

We also added to the club funds at the show by the sale of cards kindly donated by Kathy H, and after the show, I sold three images of Wilmslow to someone who stopped at the stand.
 
We now have our regular newsletter thanks to Dave R, if you have any info/articles of interest, images you want to share to him either directly or by using the contact form on the website. Due to the newsletter, you will see fewer emails from me and they will generally be shorter in the future.

Take care and enjoy your photography

David
 

We will be at Wilmslow Show this July!

Come to our stand to find out what we do, how to join us, or just to have a chat about photography.  Everyone welcome!

We’ll also have a  selection of members’ pictures on show, some for sale.

Sunday 2^nd July 11am – 4pm

Carnival Fields, Wilmslow SK9 5NG

A reminder of the competition subjects for the next season.

We had Three members John O’Brien, David Higton and David Royle, enter into the L&CPU Individual Competition with varying success. David Royle having successfully attained  a score of 13 or above on two images  which means they will be accepted into the  L&CPU exhibition.  David Higton narrowly missed out with one of his images scoring 12.

Congratulations to David Royle on his success.  Here are his successful images, Walking the Dog and Three Sail Out

A fantastic day out in Hebden Bridge and Heptenstall organised by our very own Sue Bryant. See some of the images from our club members of “The Grand Day Out“