Welcome to the BPS
- Details
- Published on 29 August 2012
- Written by Kath Bonson
Our friendly and informative meetings run from September to May, and are normally held at the Upper Bolton Conservative Club on Thursday evenings from 7.30pm until approximately 9.30pm.
You can find our syllabus for the year under the Meetings section, or download a PDF. Prospective members are welcome to attend a meeting free of charge before (hopefully) deciding to join us.
Our members have a wide range of photographic interests, experience, and equipment. You can see examples of our photography in the Gallery section. We look forward to meeting you!
Meeting "The Owl Man"
- Details
- Published on 22 November 2013
- Written by SandraC
On Thurs 21st November we had an interesting guest speaker Mr Howard Toller, also known as "The Owl Man", come to give members a talk on Owls, also accompanied by "Henry The Horror", a wild Tawny Owl, rescued by Howard.
Henry was found in brambles with an extremely damaged wing, which Howard proceeded to tell us of the rescue. Unfortunately Henry will never be released in to the wild, as his left wing is rendered useless. Howard's talk was interesting, witty, friendly, and above all very informative. He described in detail, using projected images, how an Owl differs from other Birds of Prey or Raptors, and at times, in length, interesting aspects of Owls in general.
Members who attended the meeting asked questions, and were intrigued with what Howard had to say about his passion for Owls and the general upkeep of maintaining rescued birds.
Once Howard had finished his excellent talk, members who brought their cameras, were invited to take images of Henry, who, very obligingly posed for us on the makeshift perch made from logs, leaves, Ivy, and Holly, that we made for him!
An interesting meeting indeed!
Landscape Training Evening
- Details
- Published on 07 October 2013
- Written by TomH
For our first training evening of the new session on 3rd October, we tried a new format. The topic was 'Landscape' and members were invited to submit questions in advance. These were packaged into small sets and each set was answered by a volunteer with some experience of the topic to offer.
Considering first the pre-expedition stage, Michael Myers opened the proceedings by addressing the decisions we need to take about the weight of equipment then Paul Richards made us pause to consider our Personal safety and the sort of planning that should go into an outdoor shoot.
Next was 'Getting the Shot'. Don Crabtree took us through the elements of compostion then Steve Swiss demonstated the important effect of light. The need for a tripod and the choice of lens was demonstrated, with hands-on examples, by Imran Mirza while Sandra Cockayne showed her methods for creating impressive skies and sunsets.
After each short presentation, other members were invited to offer their views and any follow-on questions were addressed. Quite a variety of angles and opinions were aired and some useful debate was generated.
The evening was rounded off by Kath Bonson showing us facebook pages and web sites siuted to further study and well as some that are pure inspiration. Links are now available on the members forum.
In all the evening provided some sound information and I would be surprised if anyone, however experienced, came away without some food for thought - a new angle on how you have always done it or a flash of the blindingly obvious, even!
There will be a club outing to put some of this into practice at the end of the month.
