Ashford Photographic Society News

Report by Marjorie Burge

On Friday 21st February Andrew Scriven entertained us with ‘Meditation, mindfulness and photography’.  London-born Andrew from an early age wanted to go out and explore the world and has taken his passion for photography with him on his travels, sailing to Antartica, trekking the Himalayas, cycling the west coast of the United States, Hawaii, the Middle East, Japan – I think he has been everywhere and recorded beautiful moments along the way.

His approach to photography is to eliminate distractions by listening to music (ambient music), earphones essential when out with his camera - and meditation and mindfulness, being in the present, connecting to the moment, and finding out who you really are. Music alters your mood, and focusing on individual items – a particular colour, texture lights and reflections, just part of the scene - can make you see things differently. We all joined in and sat quietly with our thoughts. It was all good stuff and made for a very…

Report by Marjorie Burge.

Clive Tanner FRPS DPAGB of Maidstone Camera Club was our chosen judge for the Janet Morris Memorial Record Trophy Competition on Friday 14th February. Clive is a KCPA Premier Judge, Chairman of the KCPA Judges Panel, an ex-President of the KCPA and ex-council member of the RPS so we knew we were in safe hands for this rather serious competition. There was quite a small entry in the competition but those who had entered gave us some excellent images. Some photographers had clearly chosen images to give us a smile and lift the seriousness of this competition, and others had taken their images with winning in mind. Clive approached the competition with his usual care and attention and, interestingly, was not opposed to ‘a little bit of work’ being undertaken - not, of course, to alter the subject in any way, but to adjust the lighting, darken the corners, tone down, focus attention on the main subject - highlighting bright sunshine, over exposure and minor dist…

Report by Marjorie Burge.

It was a Club Evening on Friday 7th February and two of our APS members, Phil Drury and Chris Rogers, had prepared presentations of their travels abroad with their cameras.

Phil with ‘Where my camera takes me’ took us on his trips to Finland and the Lofoten Islands. Low temperatures – minus 25 – giving beautiful ice and snow images, the trees like marble statues, even the waterfalls frozen, wonderful gentle light. His bird photography – always a favourite with Phil – was amazing, the golden eagles stealing the show, spreading their wings against the snow-covered background. There were some beautiful landscapes – mountains, lakes, snow – lovely sky and aurora images.

Chris was in Chile and Argentina – Torres del Paine – also with some striking bird photography taken in the natural habitat of the mountains amongst some rare and beautiful wild flowers. Not so cold here – the middle of their summer – but snow on the mountains with some amazing views, and the Parqu…

Report by Marjorie Burge

Friday 24th January


The talk by Polina Plotnikova ARPS EFIAP was all about the Lensbaby and ‘Capturing the mood with special effect lens’, and there are many lenses to choose from. Polina’s speciality is fine art photography, particularly using flowers and still life, and most of her work is studio based. She has described herself as ‘a control freak’ and constructing her own images within the studio allows her to have complete control. Her resulting images are very creative and personal. Using the Lensbaby lenses allows pin sharp images within a gently blurred background, all in camera, as Polina explained ‘creating imperfection quite deliberately’. Polina does occasionally venture into the outside world and we saw some stunning autumn scenes taken in Sheffield Park, with variations on what she termed ‘the slice of focus’, sometimes upright, sometimes horizontal. Polina explained meticulously how to use each lens for different effects and showed us some stunn…

Report by Marjorie Burge.

On Friday 17th January our 4th PDI League competition was judged by Zoe Garnham-Archer of Invicta Camera Club. Not quite as many entries as we usually have - perhaps people were still recovering from Christmas when it came to hand-in – but a good variety of excellent images from those who did enter.  Zoe commented on all images – she seemed to have a liking for mono over colour, felt some areas were soft, some areas too bright, and encouraged cropping, she was inexperienced in some techniques used by our photographers but was always conscious of the difficulties facing the photographer in capturing the final image. Because of the quality and variety of images, Zoe had great difficulty in choosing the winners in each section, holding back eight images in Division 1 before settling on her final choice. Two more PDI competitions before the end of the season, so plenty of time for us to take and enter.

Division 1:

1st Garry Shorter with Wheel to Wheel



2nd Phil D…

Report by Marjorie Burge

A fascinating talk on Friday 10th January given by Antony Penrose under the title ‘Lee Miller & Picasso’.  This was the story of his mother – Lee Miller – Vogue cover girl, model, friend of Man Ray and Picasso, and of his father – Roland Penrose – English surrealist painter, photographer, poet and biographer of Pablo Picasso. Lee Miller moved from being in front of the camera as a model to establishing herself as a fashion and portrait photographer and then becoming a photo-journalist in war torn Europe – from images of beauty to the horrors of war. I must admit that some of the images from the liberation of Paris were just a little too horrific for me, and I closed my eyes, but Lee Miller kept her’s open and recorded events as they were Working in Paris put her amongst the Surrealist movement, and she mixed with many of the great photographers and artists of the day. Pablo Picasso became a firm family friend, even visiting her later in life when she marrie…