Ashford Photographic Society News

Zuzana Valla has recently completed a project on some of the key workers that we never see during lockdown. While we all see media reports about, for example, health and social care professionals, teachers and supermarket workers, there are some other groups of key workers hidden from view. Zuzana has documented some of the people who are among those involved in food production, helping to feed the nation.

The project is posted on her website at https://www.zuzuvalla.com/home

We thought that this project would be of interest for members of APS to hear about, so Anthony Baines interviewed Zuzana for us.

A worker at Premier Foods, in and out of overalls and hairnet. Picture © Zuzu Valla.

For those Ashford Photographic Society members who don't know you well, can you tell us a little bit about yourself?

I've been a member of Ashford Photographic Society for three years now. I have a part-time job as an Improvement Technologist at Premier Foods in Ashford and the rest of my time I dedi…

Report by Marjorie Burge

An amazing evening of photography on Friday 6th March when Jack Taylor DPAGB EFIAP of Seaford & Hailsham Camera Clubs, and a former member of Eastbourne Camera Club, was our chosen judge for the Projected Digital Image Theme Trophy competition. There were winning qualities in every one of the entries and our judge said they were ‘excellent work’. Jack viewed the images initially separately and then as a complete collection, emphasising that a theme is not the same as a panel – ‘it all depends on how they hang together as images’ – and where he felt that an image strayed from this rule, explained his reasons with care. He was full of praise for our photographers. Jack held seven themes back and was apologetic that he had to eliminate some powerful images in order to make his final choice. It was a good evening at APS, our photographers presented some amazing work, and Jack was absolutely the right judge for this competition.

Martin Till was the overall winne…

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…