11 March 2021

*|MC_PREVIEW_TEXT|*

View this email in your browser H2 NEWSLETTER A friendly hello to members and friends of H2 Photographic Society   Red or Dead by Chris Shepherd 1st Place Hello to H2   And a warm welcome to members and friends of H2 Our theme for this month has been "Guess What This Is?", and on Thursday we will see what our members' imagination and creativity has brought us.  The subject was totally open: using obscure angles of view, or a subject out of context, or taken in such a way that the subject is not instantly recognisable. The theme was devised to stretch our creative grey cells and create different images. And we can see from our H2 Flickr page that many members have taken the theme seriously, uploading many images, some of which are very difficult to guess what they are taken of... So on Thursday, we will find out. We encourage all members to enter their images - there is no limit to how many - just entitle them "Guess What This Is 1/2/ 3/etc @ Suzie Shutterbug" in the normal way and if you have taken a less obscure shot of the item please title them with an a at the end ("Guess What This Is 1a/2a/3a/etc @ Suzie Shutterbug"). Then email them to dpi@h2photo.org.uk with the word "What" as the email subject. Please send them to us by 11pm Tuesday (9 March) at the latest.    Danger by Jeffrey Sinclair 2nd Place The Zoom invitation for all our meetings is below, all are welcome to come along; members & non-members alike. Zoom Invite Topic: H2 Club Evening Time:  "Doors" open at 07:30 PM for 7:45 Start         Every week on a Thursday Join Zoom Meeting https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82906584413?pwd=dnFuRG9LUzBzU0hlSFZ3NDAzYkluQT09 Meeting ID: 829 0658 4413 Password: 927576 Me and My Guitar by Jeffrey Sinclair 3rd Place Last Thursday - Portraits   What a splendid evening is was at our Portrait Cup competition on Thursday. Given that we've been in lockdown several times this past year, making it impossible to meet for practical evenings, the entry numbers were greater than expected.  It was expertly judged by Sarah Kelman, giving each image a comprehensive critique which will help the authors to analyse their work and, hopefully, improve. Sarah was complimentary about the scope and originality of our entries, citing that some may do well in competitions with different judging criteria.   Thank you to all members who entered their work. And well done to the winners (shown above and below)   Title Author Score Red or Dead Chris Shepherd First Danger Jeffrey Sinclair Second Me and My Guitar Jeffrey Sinclair Third Graham Tryptich Jeffrey Sinclair Highly Commended Watching You Jeffrey Sinclair Highly Commended KIRSTY John Morrison Highly Commended BOOU John Morrison Commended Past Reflection Paul Major Commended Yellow Boots Warren Martin Commended Graham Triptych by Jeffrey Sinclair Highly Commended The Story Behind the Shot The winning image from this year's portrait competition was taken back in November 2019 at an Extinction rebellion protest.   This was up at The Kings Cross headquarters of Facebook, Youtube and Google (which is a very photogenic area in its own right).  The protest was to request Youtube & Facebook stop promoting climate change denial videos. Extinction Rebellion protests are great if you want to try your hand at street photography as they feature a very varied range of people and they are there for publicity so really don't mind having their photo taken. For me though, the most visually exciting part of the protests is a group called "The Red Brigade". All dressed the same in eye-catching attire and stylised makeup. They move through space as a carefully choreographed group. They never seem to break character, and make for such an eye catching scene that people naturally give them space to perform. For the portrait competition I picked a shot taken as the group moved down a set of steps. I then cropped this and cloned a small area to give something more like a single portrait. I liked the large amount of negative space on the left but the consensus seemed to be that I should crop a bit off the left. So I took that advice on board and reworked the face using Portrait Pro to make it more stylised which gave the final image: I hope you found this interesting and would love to feature more write-ups on how a shot was created by other members.  Please feel free to mail newsletter@h2photo.org.uk with the details and we would be happy to publish your story behind the shot. Watching You by Jeffrey Sinclair Highly Commended Peter Warne - Wildlife of Copped Hall   Friend of the club, and excellent speaker, Peter Warne is giving a talk on behalf of the Copped Hall Trust.  The talk concerns the wildlife of Copped Hall and the surrounding area with the bulk of the images taken in 2020.   He will be using the webinar facilities by EFDC and their licence allows 100 participants so there should be plenty of room.  We are asking for £5 from each computer seat all of which will go to the restoration fund which like so many good causes needs some swelling after last year.   The talk will be at 7pm on 10th March and last for about an hour. Tickets can be secured on-line through “ticketsource” on our website www.coppedhalltrust.org.uk .   Kirsty by John Morrison Highly Commended BOOU by John Morrison Commended H2 Programme   Here is our programme for the next few weeks. Programme as Google Calendar     11th Mar "Guess What This Is?" Critique 18th Mar League Competition #4 25th Mar Speaker 1 Apr  Practical Evening on Layers & Masks Past Reflection by Paul Major Commended Thinking of trying out Affinity Photo as an alternative to Photoshop? Well, there is no better time than now as it is available for 50% off making it a bargain £23.99 - less than the price of a cup of coffee! Why not take a look and download the trial version from their site.  Yellow Boots by Warren Martin Commended Interested in Joining Us in 2021? We'd love you to. Visitors are welcome to join our virtual meetings, just use the zoom links in this newsletter. To contact H2PS click here   Photography Experts offer a whole series of online webinars at reasonable prices,  their programme is well worth checking out. Copyright © *|CURRENT_YEAR|* *|LIST:COMPANY|*, All rights reserved. *|IFNOT:ARCHIVE_PAGE|* *|LIST:DESCRIPTION|* Our mailing address is: *|HTML:LIST_ADDRESS_HTML|* *|END:IF|* Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list. *|IF:REWARDS|* *|HTML:REWARDS|* *|END:IF|*