Roger introduced the meeting with a few notices.
“The World of Denis Thorpe” Exhibition
We are mounting another exhibition of Denis Thorpe’s superb monochrome prints from 17th to 27th March at the Café Adventure in Hope.
Social Media
At last month’s AGM, Zoe Sampson kindly offered to serve as our ‘social media officer’.
Les Nixon
It is with great sadness that we’ve learned that Les Nixon – formerly a long-standing member of our Society – passed away on 17th February. His funeral will take place at 2pm on 20th March. RIP Les.
The guest presenters for the evening were both Sheffield based photographers, Phil Smith and Mark Tomlinson.
“A Project-based Approach to Photography“
Phil introduced his photography by talking about his “Projects” which embrace a variety of topics. Street Portrait was one of his favourites but we were also treated to images from several others; Protests, Smoking, Scruffy Dogs, Shadowlands & Seaside Decline to name but a few.
Phil introduced his photography by talking about his “Projects” which embraced a variety of topics.
The spectacular images of the rocks known as the “Wheels” gave him the chance to introduce an app he finds very useful. Photo Ephemeris helps you plan outdoor photography in natural light. According to the website “it’s a map-based Sun, Moon, and Milky Way calculator”. Sunrise or sunset from a particular location can be planned with perfect precision as you can see at what compass bearing the sun will be, given a specific location and time.
The second app Phil recommended was Ventusky, an application that allows a display of the development of pressure, wind, cloud cover, precipitation, and temperature at a chosen location. Phil uses the app to see what cloud cover will be like from a particular view and even what height the cloud might be thus making sunrise photos a little less hit and miss.
The photographs below represent a tiny fraction of the variety of images that Phil has produced and to see more it would be worthwhile visiting his Instagram or Facebook pages.
Mark Tomlinson was our second presenter following a short refreshment interval. The theme was “Dark Satanic Mills“
Mark has been involved with the production of steel throughout his career and had many stunning images to show us from the heart of the foundry, starting with an explanation of how steel came to be at the centre of Sheffield’s history from the need to produce millstones through the production of scythes and the part that rock, river and lime played in the development of the industry.
Mark was at Sheffield Forgemasters when he was asked by his boss to take a photograph to enter into a prestigious industry competition. Winning 1st place not only pleased the boss but lead to Mark being asked in subsequent years to take further photographs. He obliged and won the competition twice more! Not only did the success benefit the company but Mark found he could take photographs in parts of the foundry that would be off limits if he was not an employee. This did lead to one camera being melted but fortunately it was a company one not his own!
Images of the sparks flying, molten metal being poured and a colossal press were enthralling as were the three audio visual shows Mark included in his presentation. He also explained that although some processes have been automated, there is still a huge amount of human judgement required to produce the quality products for which Sheffield is still renowned.
You can see many more of images and the much wider diversity of Marks photos at Sheffield Photo Society Members Gallery.
Roger thanked both Phil and Mark for a fantastic evening warmly appreciated by all the members and guests.
Next meeting April 10th when two of our members, Ian Stanyon and Steve Elliot will be our presenters.