Guest speaker Jeanette (JET) Lendon: Smart Photography – more than Just a Camera on a Phone

Jet is the founder and Creative Director of Jet Black Squares.  Combining her former teaching career in the East End of London with a more recent corporate photography business of 13 years, she has created a hub for everything creative surrounding the smartphone.

Her passion is showing people of all ages how to get the best photos from their phone - she believes that photography should be available to everyone and not just those who have a ‘fancy camera’. 

Jet’s infectious enthusiasm is evident for all to see, whether teaching the CEO of an international company, presenting to a conference of 100+ clients within the travel industry or an 85 year old grandma.

Jet says:

We all have an amazing camera in our pockets - we just need to learn how to use them properly!  Whether you want to take better holiday photos, macro images of flowers or bugs, or get into photography as a hobby, we have a smartphone photography masterclass for you.

As well as personal photos, at the heart of every business social media or marketing campaign are either images or video content - and these need to be good.  Really good.  At Jet Black Squares we offer full smartphone photography and videography training.  Working with some of the best trainers around, we run virtual livestream and in-person workshops showing how to get the best out of your smartphone camera for your business, no matter how big or small.

Photowalk: Windsor/Eton Smartphone walk

Details of this walk will be emailed to club members nearer the date.

Early May Bank Holiday.

There is no meeting tonight, but you can read all about May Day here.

Things that have happened on May 6^th include:

• 1937 the Hindenburg airship was destroyed
• 1954 Roger Bannister ran the first ever recorded 4 minute
• 1994 the Channel Tunnel was officially opened

An evening with Doug Seeburg.

Doug is a Windsor-based freelance photographer. He says:

I am a freelance photographer based in Windsor, Berkshire and I have over thirty years’ experience working for local and national newspapers.

I studied Photography at the Berkshire College of Art and Design before working as a staff photographer on The Reading Chronicle and Bracknell News titles. After 4 years on local papers I joined Southern News Service, a Surrey based news agency providing coverage of news, sport and features to the national and international press, magazines and TV. Not long after I was asked to do shifts at The Sun and soon left to freelance full time for the UK's biggest selling daily paper.

In 28 years working for the Sun I have travelled to over 60 countries and worked on major news stories at home and abroad.

You can see some great examples of the breadth and quality of Doug’s work here.

Don’t miss this great opportunity to hear first-hand from a great photographer with a wealth of experience.

Photowalk: Architecture

Details of this walk will be emailed to club members nearer the date.

Photographer Of the Year "Best of the Best" Competition

Tonight is the Photographer of the Year Best of the Best competition.

Entries are taken from the first, second and third placings together with all Highly Commended entries if not awarded a placing, of the six Photographer of the Year rounds of the season. Entries are judged separately by an external judge, and the judge will determine first, second and third placings for the printed and digital images separately.  

Uploading of images is not required for this competition, the projected version of all images will be organised by the Internal Competition Secretary. The mounted prints need to be submitted by the relevant members on the night of the competition. 

Trophies are awarded for both the print and PDI category winners at the end of the season.

The judge for the evening is Gladys Perrier of Bracknell Camera Club.

Gladys says:

When I was 7 years old my Dad gave me his box brownie and that whetted my appetite for photography.  For Art ‘O’ Level I borrowed a school camera to create a project about ‘water in monochrome’ and learnt darkroom skills.  I wanted to do so much more but I had to hand the camera back and it was not until I left home and had my first job, that I was able to afford to buy a camera of my own.  On receipt of my first pay packet I purchased an Olympus 10.  I found the camera a perfect companion with which to pursue my other love – nature and wildlife.

I had been brought up in rural Ireland in those days when children were able to run wild and free, in the open countryside, chasing each other through meadows, over streams and copses unafraid of anything. The days when banks were covered in carpets of primroses and marshes filled with a pink haze of ragged robin. Where willow warblers and corncrakes could be heard at dusk on a summers evening.  Therefore my choice of photographic subject was obvious.

In the late 1980s I was presented with my first autofocus camera – a Canon EOS10.  Having built up a kit bag with Canon lenses I have remained loyal.  My focus of interest beyond the lens has varied over the years on account of circumstances.  Wildlife photography is not viable when you have children in tow so instead I focused the camera on them and found a love for candid portraiture.  Over the years I have taken photographs for the prospectus for a number of schools and photographed school productions, sports days and outward bound expeditions dabbling in AV for a while.

With my children grown up I have been able to return to my love of nature and landscape but my skills were all self taught from camera to digital darkroom.  I was feeling that my skills had plateaued and I wanted to find a way to make my images really stand out.  In 2018 I came across the Bracknell Camera Club exhibition and I recognised the club would give me what I was looking for without the expense of photography courses or tours.

I listened well to the judges and responded to constructive criticism.  I immersed myself in the camera club community, taking every advantage of time to talk with members and learn from their experience and in no time worked my way up the leagues.  I joined the special interest groups in the club which enabled me to expand my portfolio to include street photography, night photography and studio portraiture, With fabulous mentoring within the club I was able to submit a panel to the RPS and was awarded my first distinction.

I was aware that there is a lack of female judges in the SCPF and had it in the back of my mind that perhaps I might go down that route sometime in the future, however, the opportunity presented itself much sooner than I had planned and so I jumped at the chance and qualified as a Level 1 Judge in June 2022. 

Training as a judge has taught me to not just to look at the technical aspects of a photograph but look for that sense of visual awareness and expressiveness that makes a photograph really special regardless of the genre.

Join us for a great evening and see if you agree with Gladys' selections.

Spring Bank Holiday

There is no meeting tonight.

But it’s a special day for each of the following:

• Pat Cash
• Paul Gascoine
• Denise Van Outen
• Jamie Oliver

And a small selection of other things that have happened on this day through history:

• 2017: Barack Obama is the first president of United States to visit Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park and meet Hibakusha.
• 1967 – Australians vote in favour of a constitutional referendum granting the Australian government the power to make laws to benefit Indigenous Australians and to count them in the national census.
• 1937 – In California, the Golden Gate Bridge opens to pedestrian traffic, creating a vital link between San Francisco and Marin County, California.

Photowalk: Dragonflies at Bushy Park

Details of this walk will be emailed to club members nearer the date.

Creative Challenge Series 5/5 - Get Off The Disc!  

The final creative challenge of the season.

Details will be posted here nearer the date.

Annual General Meeting and Awards Ceremony

This is the final meeting of the 2023-24 season.

Be sure to come along and have your say at the meeting and also to see which prizes have been awarded to which people for which images.

Photowalk: Mono 

Details of this walk will be emailed to club members nearer the date.