2022/23 GBPS Season Review

The season began with a return to the Great Barr Social club for Thursday meetings and the resumption of what we have always regarded as normal activities.

As ever, competitions proved to be popular with members, and the judges provided lots of positive feedback on the entries. It was also pleasing that so many judges praised the overall standard of the entries. Face to face meetings enabled a welcome return for the colour and mono print competitions giving members the chance to enjoy a range of printed images, in addition to the DPI competition that had been able to continue through lockdown. As the season started to draw to a close, the annual competitions took place leading to the prestigious best-of-the-best event that pitches the winning images from all events across the season against each other.

The audio-visual competition was well attended comprising a good selection of entries from members who like to present a set of images as a story, with music or with a spoken narrative.

In addition to the mainstream competitions, we held a Creative competition for those members who like to make images that are ‘intentionally made more unique’, and hence more creative than the norm.

The strong set of entries in the competitions provided a healthy selection of images to use in the season of friendly battles against other clubs across the West Midlands. We fared well, winning most battles, but Stourbridge once again proved to be our nemesis.

Despite a backdrop of rising prices, we hosted an interesting and varied set of lectures, with interesting speakers showing inspirational Portfolios as well as explaining a range of techniques, for creating images, with post-processing techniques as well in camera methods.

Practical evenings at the club were again very popular and definitely lively. Topics covered in the practical evenings include studio nights, with men, women and snakes modelling for us. At other practical evenings we tried new techniques with lights, filters, smoke and still-life compositions. These evenings give members the opportunity to practice techniques in a friendly, supportive environment.

We also took the opportunity to display the travelling portfolio by the Midland Counties Photographic Federation, and celebrated Christmas with a trip to the Hamstead pub. As ever, the AGM brought the season to a close and triggered the start of the new one.

Mike Willams (Treasurer)