As
I had so little response from members, over the past months, as the Didcot
meeting grew closer I was left wondering if there would be, not only,
enough material to put on show but not many members in attendance. As it
turned out `9` members, including myself, turned up, these were:- Pete Guy
(Hon. Secretary), Glen Wilgrove, Frank White, Arthur Cemer, Beryl Moore,
all from Area 20, plus Eric Dugdale (Area 15) and Geoff Lowe (Area 14).
Initially, this was disappointing, but our small band were very
enthusiastic and the friendly and relaxed atmosphere made for a very
enjoyable day.
Likewise,
the programme was very small, but included an excellent A/V by Glen
Wilgrove. Glen was a previous member and had just rejoined the Club after
meeting Pete and Kevin (Craske) at the BACC Exhibition at Buckingham, a
couple of weeks before, as indeed did Beryl Moore.
Glen
decided to spilt his A/V over two half hour periods, which was a very good
idea, as often and A/V can start to drag on a little bit, but this helped
to keep the interest going. This was a series of short programmes each
running between 5-10 minutes, starting with one of the most colourful
selection of slides I have seen in a long time. the first selection was
"Spring" consisting of various types of Tulip, they stood out
with bold clean colours with colourful background of blues, yellows, reds
and greens.
The
second section called "Spring" moved away from the standard
slide projection in that all were exposed through Filters and/or with
Vasaline smeared over them giving some very interesting, almost `abstract`
effects.
Summer
was portrayed by a peaceful stroll "Along The River Bank", in
this case, the river Thames at Abingdon with very interesting sky and
river reflections concluding in a couple of fine sunset shots.
"Autumn", along with the general multi-colours of the season
Glen managed to include more delicate sky and water reflections which
showed a fine eye for the slightly different and soft light.
Thinking
these presentations were hard to follow, the final A/V in the first part
of the programme was "Images" which was a superb selection of
different subjects....
This
was followed by a 60 slide selection by myself of general slides taken
during my latest visit to my home town "Aberdeen". These were
the Club`s Konicachrome 100 film processed in the latest Chrome-Six Plus
which I described in the October CRC News.
Frank
White followed with a half dozen slides of prints copied directly to
Konicachrome Reversal Film. Along with Frank`s main example of getting
good quality copies, these also demonstrated the results from using the
modifications he made to the CRC`s E6 Formula, for the Reversal bath,
again described in the October CRC News. It certainly looks as if Frank
has beaten the possibility of that `Tobacco` effect, which has bugged me
for so long. I am looking forward to trying some W&M before too long,
in the hope of proving this.
Nick
Williams then presented a selection of slides taken on a recent visit to
the Orkney Islands. To say that there was possibly the smallest airport in
the U.K. here seems to have been proven by a building looking like a large
Garden Shed with a sign stating "Beware of Propellers" and a
large bin of `Flares` outside the main doorway.
Next
Pete Guy presented a series of Fuji
Provia film, processed in ------ taken on a tour of Egypt, showing some
interesting desert scenes including Tutem Comun`s tomb,
Cammel sales and a colourful market.
This
was followed by an interval where Tea & Coffee and light refreshments
were available. The food was made up by my Daughter Mandy and all agreed
that it was a nice spread. As there was so few in attendance it was agreed
that instead of the usual individual charges, we agreed to put £2 each
into the kitty to help Mandy cover the expense involved. For their £2
members were left to help themselves during the periods refreshments were
available.
We
returned to the projection room for the final half hour of Glen`s A/V
programmes. First "Waltz of the Flowers" another fine selection
of flower slides set to! Well I leave you to imagine which
piece of music accompanied this selection!!
"Lakeland",
like the earlier "Summer" selection, presented tranquil views
around the lake District. Again with bright and clear daytime shots Glen
managed to capture some really delicate lighting of fine sky and cloud
scenes interlaced with reflections on the lakes.
There
was an obvious train of thought that Glen has a strong interest in
abstracts using filters etc. and reflections and his final selection
"Reflections" appeared to contain blended images,but we were all
surprised to learn that everyone was a true reflection shot. Some of the
contrasts and broken images made this difficult to believe and Glen was
given considerable acclaim for his keen eye in searching out what many of
us would have missed or passed by. One interesting Tip which Glen gave was
that you don`t require every reflection to be from a crystal clear pool
and one very fine shot was actually taken from a pool of brown-muddy
water. Apparently the film still records the sky as being `blue`, so why
not try this for yourselves. If Glen had shown nothing but this final A/V
he would have given an excellent presentation.
I
would like to give my special thanks to Glen for volunteering his work at
such short notice, and as things turned out gave us our only A/V
presentation of this year`s meeting.
My
thanks too, to Mandy for her assistance in making up refreshments. This is
the last time she will be able to give this service. Likewise, as I got so
little response to the meeting, and our numbers were small I initially
considered making this the last Didcot meeting. However everyone who
attended agreed how sad this would be and after discussing it I decided to
give it one more go, next year. As here would be no food available members
would have to bring their own, though tea, coffee and soft drinks would
still be available. The Staff Club Bar is open all day and there is a
"corner" shop across the road from the Club and, for those
wishing something a bit more substantial there are two excellent Hotels
across from the station.
While
I can`t set a date at this time, it would most likely be on the same
Sunday in October, next year. We shall give fuller details in the July
News and hope that more of you will take some pictures with this in mind
and plan to come along. Those of you who do A/V and Reversal Printing
could do likewise. Please give this serious consideration. We have enjoyed
some excellent meetings at Didcot and it would be a shame to loose one of
the only two opportunities for our widely scattered membership to get
together. The Repton meeting includes the A.G.M. which is necessary, but
uses up a fair bit of the available time, but as the Didcot meeting is
free of this item, there is plenty of time for general chit-chat and view
a good number of slide and print presentations. I don`t apologise for
using Kevin`s comments at the end of his October article ... "You
either use it, or loose it". It really is up to you.