Weekly Newsletter

Newsletter 23rd October 2025

On Thursday evening in front of 23 members and 1 guest we held our first competition of the season NSS1. Our guest Judge for the competition was Amanda Wright. Amanda was with us two years ago, coincidentally judging our first competition of the 2023/24 season NSS1. We were impressed with her style and judging in 2023 and we were not disappointed this time as she took time to provide positive, insightful and constructive comments on each image. We had 18 colour prints, 11 mono prints and 33 DPIs entered which were all to a high standard. Amanda held back a good proportion of the images to which she awarded, commended, highly commended, 3rd, 2nd and 1st places in each of the 3 classes. The results will be uploaded to the website shortly. Congratulations to all those who’s images received an award and thank you to everyone who entered images into the competitions. Even if your image did not receive an award, it is all part of the learning process and I hope Amanda’s comments were a help to everybody in their quest to improve their photography. Amanda kindly sent the following message;

“Thanks again for the invite to judge for WPC last night. I had some lovely encouraging and complimentary chats with some of your members as well as yourself so thank you.”
If your print received an award please remember to send a digital copy to the Image Bank, details of how to name and send your images are on the website.

Next Thursday we have a Club Night when we will be focusing on Prints v DPIs. At this meeting we will be joined by Mike Martin who is an Ambassador for Fotospeed who are all things associated with printing including running courses. The event will cover;
• How to gets prints done if you don’t have a suitable printer
• Different types of print paper and their impact on the photo
• Profiling your monitor to accurate colour reproduction
• Mounting prints including demonstrations
and much more.
A message from Andy King about the event;
“For the print-vs-dpi club evening next week it would be great to have a few more images where we can compare how we experience an image as a dpi or print. The paper used for a print can also make a big difference to how it is seen. If you’ve got a print you can bring along and email me (wpcprogramme2526@gmail.com) a dpi version of it by next Wednesday (29th) I’ll get it set up so we can see the two side by side.

Also as Amanda mentioned on Thursday several of the dpi images entered in the competition would make good gallery prints – and it would be great to see some of those as well.

I’m expecting we'll have a lively interactive evening with a mix of informed discussion and technical input to explore the pros and cons of the two ways of presenting images.”

Finally, remember that there will be no meeting on the 6th November because on Saturday the 8th November we are having our first Photo Day Out of the season to Bristol. Please put this date in your diary, more information will follow.

Look forward to seeing you next Thursday.

Regards

Paul Ross

Chairman & Membership Secretary

Newsletter 16th October 2025

The ‘Introduction to Photography’ course commenced last Tuesday and it has been well received by those who have signed-up. The course material will be made available in the Members area of the website in due course. If you have not yet done so and would like to sign-up please contact Andy King.

On Thursday evening 27 members were in attendance for a talk by Simon Booker titled ‘’Strictly Nature’’.Simon is a local amateur wildlife photographer based in South Stoke in Oxfordshire and most of his wildlife photographs are taken in the local area. Simon took us through his philosophy of the art of successful wildlife photography which includes a lot of perseverance, getting up early, practice, knowledge and a bit of luck. Simon’s presentation was both informative and entertaining, which even involved him dressing up in his elaborate camouflage attire to show us how he gets close to the action. His passion for his subject shone through the presentation which was interspersed with stunning images and videos most of which were shot by him locally. All-in-all it was a thoroughly enjoyable and entertaining evening.

Simon shared with us that he suffered a stroke in 2022 and he now supports The Stroke Association to which he donates a percentage of his earnings from photography. Simon has messaged us to say, ‘’Please send my heartfelt thanks to the members, your generosity has enabled me to donate £17 to the Stroke Association’’

Next week we have our first competition, NSS 1, when our guest judge will be Amanda Wright. Hopefully you brought along your prints to last night’s meeting. Digital images will need to be sent to wpc.competitions@gmail.com by midnight on Sunday. Please ensure that you follow the correct protocol when you size and name your images, information and instructions for which can be found on our website at, www.wallingfordphoto.club/competitionrules. Also, if you send in two images please identify your first and second choice in your email as we may have to drop second choices from the competition if we have too many entries. If you need any help in, sizing, naming or sending your images please ask.

On Saturday the 8th November we are having our first Photo Day Out of the season to Bristol. Please put this date in your diary, more information will follow.

Look forward to seeing you next Thursday.

Regards

Paul Ross

Chairman & Membership Secretary

Newsletter 9th October 2025

On Thursday evening we had a healthy turnout of 25 members and one guest for the Critique Evening. We are indebted to Dave Griffiths who stepped in to run this event and act as our judge. Unfortunately Gordon Roberts is currently unwell and was unable to run the event. We all send our best wishes to Gordon, wish him a speedy recovery and look forward to seeing him back at the Club again when he is better.

Dave had 46 images to critique, his comments were insightful and I think everyone agreed, they were very helpful, with plenty of tips on how to improve the images, with the aim of doing better in competitions. I hope all the authors took away something from Dave’s critiquing which will help them improve their photography.

Next week we have a talk by Simon Booker titled ‘’Strictly Nature’’. Simon is a local wildlife photographer based in South Stoke in Oxfordshire and I am told he has a great presentation style and he is making a mark on the national scene. Having had a look at his website, he has some stunning images taken locally and further afield. I would recommend you clear your diary and come along to this talk.

Looking further ahead, on the 23rd of October we have our first competition NSS 1, when our guest judge will be Amanda Wright. This competition has three classes, colour prints, mono prints and digital images. Each member can enter up to 4 images in total with not more than 2 in each class. This season we are limiting the total number of entries to 60 to allow the judge time to discuss each image. So if you submit more than one image in any class we would like you to identify your 1st and 2nd choice image as we may not be able to include both of them if the total number of entries exceeds 60. Please identify your 1st and 2nd choice, on the back of prints and in the email when you send in your digital images.
Prints for the competition will need to be brought along to next week’s meeting whilst the digital images will need to be submitted, by email, by midnight on Sunday 19th October.

Please ensure that you follow the correct protocol when you size and name your images, this information and instructions can be found on our website at, www.wallingfordphoto.club/competitionrules If you need any help please ask.
The ‘Introduction to Photography’ course will now be starting next Tuesday. If you have signed-up you will receive a link to enable you to join in the course.

Look forward to seeing you next Thursday.

Regards

Paul Ross

Chairman & Membership Secretary

Newsletter 2nd October 2025

In place of the postponed ‘Critique Evening’ on Thursday evening we were able to get Steven Galvin to come along and present his talk titled ‘The Neuroscience of Photography’ at which 17 members and 2 visitors were in attendance. During the first half of his presentation Steven outlined the theories and history of the study on neuroscience in relation to art and photography. He introduced us to Gestalt Psychology which we were told is a school of thought that seeks to understand how the human brain perceives experiences. It suggests that structures, perceived as a whole, have specific properties that are different from the sum of their individual parts.

In the second half of the presentation Steven showed examples of images, both famous and his own, that demonstrate the principles and we discussed how altering a photograph can lead to a more pleasing image. Steven went on to discuss how these factors might affect how well an image does in competitions.

I sent out an email on Thursday advising that we are planning to run the postponed ‘Critique Evening’ event next week. As I explained in the email, Dave Griffiths has agreed to step in to run this event. Dave is a very experienced photographer and in his long association with the Club he has gained an in-depth insight into how judges assess images. This is a great opportunity to get an insight on how your images may be assessed in a competition and how they might be improved. Dave will provide positive and constructive feed-back with advice on how the images might be improved.

The images can be on any subject and might be an image you are thinking about entering into our first competition of the season NSS1 which will be held on the 23rd October. This event will be of particular help to new and less experienced members who have not had much experience of competitions and judges.

For this event to work, we need members to send in images on which they would like to get an understanding of how a judge might view them. We would particularly encourage new members to submit images. The event will be for DPI's (digital images) only, although you can submit a digital version of an image you may be considering entering as a print. You can send as many images as you like but we will be limited to looking at 40 maximum so not all images will be used. We will however endeavour to look at at least one image from each member who submits. We would like you to submit your images by midnight on Sunday the 5th October to wpc.competitions@gmail.com. Please use the naming protocol as set out on the website. If you need any assistance in preparing and submitting your images please ask.

The ‘’All things camera phone’’ event originally programmed for next week will be run later in the season.

Look forward to seeing you next Thursday.

Regards

Paul Ross

Chairman & Membership Secretary

Newsletter 25th September 2025

On Thursday evening 19 members and 3 visitors attended a talk by Gareth Watson on, ‘Astral Landscapes’. In the first half of the evening Gareth showed us some of the kit he uses to capture his brilliant images, some of which he included in his presentation. He also talked about camera settings necessary to take successful astral landscape photos and touched on post processing software and Apps he uses to assist his photography. After the refreshment break, we went out to the river next to Wallingford bridge to try out astrophotography for ourselves. Gareth was on hand to give advice on camera settings to get the best results. Fortunately, the weather was fair and the sky was clear with a good display of heavenly bodies for us to have a go at capturing, with mixed results, if mine are anything to go by!

Gareth certainly knows his stuff, (I guess working in a camera shop helps). His talk was a bit techie and I understand that less experienced photographers, (of which I count myself), may have had difficulty in grasping the jargon and technical nature of the subject. However from the initial feed-back many members enjoyed the event particularly the hands-on have a go bit.

We were planning to hold the ‘Critique Evening’ next week, unfortunately Gordon Roberts, our retired judge, has not been too well recently and understandably does not feel up to doing this event at the moment. We have therefore postponed this event and in its place, next Thursday, we will be welcoming a guest speaker.

The guest speaker will be Steven Galvin and very much in contrast to this week’s meeting, he will be talking to us on the subject of the Neuroscience of Photography. This talk explores how our brains process and react to photographic images, delves into the cognitive and physiological aspect of photography, examines how images are perceived, stored in memory, and influences our emotions and behaviours. He describes the neural basis of recognising objects and scenes, and the impact of photography on memory, attention, and even artistic appreciation.

Steven describes how neuro-aesthetics investigates the neural mechanisms underlying our appreciation of art and photography, how this science seeks to understand why some images are more memorable and successful, and what factors contribute to their artistic impact. Steven says; ‘By understanding the scientific fundamentals, rather than just the empirical “rules” we’ve historically been taught by rote, we can more deeply appreciate how to take and appreciate our images, and how and why we all do so uniquely’. It sounds like a fascinating subject so don’t miss it.

Just a few reminders.

The Introduction to Photography Course starts on Tuesday 7th October,. If you would like to enrol and have not yet done so, send an email to, wpcprogramme2526@gmail.com
Our Summer Competition closes for entries on Tuesday 30th September.
If you would like to join the Club’s WhatsApp group email your mobile number to wallingfordphotoclub@gmail.com

Look forward to seeing you next Thursday.

Regards

Paul Ross

Chairman & Membership Secretary

Newsletter 19th September 2025

We had a fantastic turnout for our first meeting of the 2025/26 Season with 20 members and 14 visitors in attendance. We were particularly pleased to see so many visitors who are showing interest in the Club, some of whom have already signed up as members and we are hoping more will follow suit.

Our first gathering was the ‘Welcome Evening’. We started the evening with an EGM to discuss whether the members wish to amend the Club’s Constitution to remove the restriction on the Chairman serving not more than two terms. After a discussion, the members voted by a majority to remove this restriction from the Constitution.

Following the EGM, we went on to review of the Clubs activities over the summer break, which included; The Walled Garden event, the Community Hub event, Cholsey Village Fair, the Lightroom Workshop, London street photography outing, Silverstone Trax event, the Annual Exhibition and the Summer Photo Competition. The Summer Competition is still running and closes on the 31st September. We would encourage everyone, who has not yet done so, to enter. Details of how to enter can be found on our website following this link. Wallingford Summer 2025 Competition WallingfordPhotoClub .

Some of our summer activities raise funds for the club, with a total of £290.00 raised including £150.00 Exhibition sponsorship from Home Base in Wallingford. I would like to thank all those who contributed to the summer events and made them a great success. You know who you are!

We then went on to give an update on current membership, introduced the Committee for this Season and presented the new competition scoring system and DPI sizing guidelines. Detailed information on these changes will be made available via our website.

After the break, we handed out the trophies to last year’s winners. Congratulations to all those who received a trophy. After the presentation, Andy King took us through the Programme for this season and went on to outline the proposals for the ‘’Introduction to Photography’’ course that we will be running for members this season. Further information on the Course and how to enrol will be set out shortly.

Next week we welcome our first speaker of the season, Gareth Watson. Gareth is the manager of London Camera Exchange in Oxford and has opened the season for us before. His personal passion is Astral Landscape Photography. During the first part of the evening Gareth will talk about what inspires him about this type of photography and how he goes about it. He will use some of his stunning images to illustrate the talk. After the break the plan is to go outside and try the techniques out for ourselves. Bring along your cameras or phones and maybe a tripod if you’ve got one. If the weather isn’t cooperating you’ll have the chance to have more in depth conversations with Gareth.

Thank you to all the visitors who attended on Thursday evening, I hope you gained a good idea of what the Club is about, its aims and values. If you have not yet done so and you would like to join, on this website simply click on the ‘Join the Club’ button which will take you to the application form.

Look forward to seeing you next week.

Regards

Paul Ross

Chairman & Membership Secretary