Club Night - That's a wrap!

Tonight brought a close to another industrious and fun year for Raw Photographic. It was also lovely to welcome a new member to our ranks – Frank Rock has joined us, having just moved to Lisburn.

The year has been jam-packed with activities both on club night and monthly outings. Our club nights have hosted fantastic talks from professional photographers working in different fields, such as wildlife and journalism. We also enjoyed practical sessions on Macro, light painting and lighting techniques for portrait photography.

Outings took club members to all manner of locations, from the streets of Belfast, the squirrel hide at Cregagh woods, racing at Ashvale and the most recent portrait shoot in Botanic gardens. Thanks to Eileish for organising these outings and also our social events.

One firm favourite for the majority of club members is the friendly competition ‘Photo of the month’, co-ordinated and run superbly by Reggie. This challenges members to focus their attention on a theme each month and submit 3 images. It is a great way to keep the camera clicking all year long and fantastic images always emerge. This year, the overall winner was Bobby McGlade, a man who is always happy to share his expertise with other members. Well done Bobby!

Thanks go to Colm McMullan for co-ordinating and running the Print Battle and leading our club to success over Focus Camera Club.

Thanks to Bobby and Edgar for overseeing the printing and collation of prints for our fantastic exhibition at the Island Arts Centre. It is always great to showcase the images from club members.

Finally our thanks go to Michael for running the hugely successful Novice Workshops. This gives everyone in the club, regardless of their level of experience, the opportunity to learn about or refresh their understanding of how to use their camera effectively to create great images. Michael put a huge amount of work into running these workshops and has kindly agreed to run the programme again next year.

Thanks also to Des for taking on the role of club treasurer and to Paul for acting as our link with NIPA. Paul is keen for members to take images under the heading ‘A great summer’s day out’, which could then be used for the NIPA Panel Project.

The programme for next season will be published soon, along with the themes for the monthly photo challenge. This gives us all the opportunity to keep the camera clicking during the summer break!

Until September, have a happy and productive summer. Lets hope the sunshine comes back.