Freshers Group

Leader: Chris Wray

The Freshers Group has the aim of guiding new Club members towards a deeper understanding of photography, particularly "Club Style" work, and helping them to get improved results from their cameras and materials. The group is limited to approximately 14-18 members who meet at 3-4 week intervals during the Camera Club season and occasionally through the summer break.
Evening meetings, location trips, critique sessions, and special projects are arranged covering photographic topics such as composition, use of colour, getting a personal style, producing the best from an image, the relationships of shutter speed/aperture/depth of field, exposure metering, the effect of changing ISO speeds, and editing to maximise impact.

Print finishing and mounting for competition work is demonstrated, with advice on printing. Categories such as close-up work, portraiture, natural history, landscape and urban photography are covered, with obviously, much attention given to digital photography output. Picture composition is covered by the constant appraisal of members' submitted work and the setting of specific photographic projects, designed to gain experience of a wide range of subjects. Members are encouraged to enter the Club's regular competitions, which has in the past produced considerable success for our entrants.

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Abbey Horizons Group

Leader: Brian Horrobin LRPS

This Group is a natural follow on to the Freshers Group, where basic camera skills will have been mastered.

The Group's aim is to develop members' creative, artistic and practical photographic skills by providing the encouragement to take more photographs and to show and discuss their work in an informal and friendly forum. The regular membership is relatively small which makes a great deal of interaction possible. The objective is to enable every member to be the best judge of their own work and confidently produce quality prints or projected images for possible entry into Club competitions.

Meetings are held on the fourth Wednesday of each month throughout the year, normally at the Abbey Meadows Community Centre, but with occasional outings. A small charge is made for each meeting to cover rent and refreshments.

The meetings programme is largely decided by the needs of the membership although every month critiques of members' work are offered by all group members. The more experienced members will often facilitate discussions on a variety of technical or artistic techniques and occasionally illustrate some of the options available by working on a common image.

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Portrait Group

Leader: Steve Morrell

The Portrait Group provides the opportunity for Club members to practice and enhance their photographic skills in all aspects of portraiture. The group aims to teach less experienced Club members how to work independently in a studio environment, and also provide more experienced members with the opportunity to meet and work with like-minded photographers.

The Club owns a substantial range of studio flash equipment which is often supplemented by members bringing their own equipment along to studio sessions. Club members are also able to rent this equipment for their own use.

The group works mainly with models drawn from the personal contacts of individual group members.

A subscription of £3.00, covering the hire of the hall, is payable on the evening. All club members are welcome.

Meetings are held at the Church Hall of the Good Shepherd Church, Mansel Way, Cambridge CB4 2EU from 7:45 pm to 9:45 pm.

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Aperture Group

Leader: Ann Miles FRPS, MPAGB, EFIAP

The aim of this group is to facilitate the exchange of opinions and offer advice to those who may wish to extend their photographic skills beyond the club environment. Although not in any way compulsory, the group encourages members who wish to try for photographic distinctions and to submit work to national and international exhibitions and competitions. All members of the group will be encouraged to actively participate by presentation of their own work and by offering advice and discussion to others. Projects within the group may be individual or group based. Group projects may be arranged in order to experiment with themes and techniques. The group will call on external expertise where necessary. Meetings held monthly on Thursdays at Foxton Village Hall.

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Digital Techniques Group

Leader: Ian Wilson ARPS

The Digital Techniques Group aims to complement the various digital workshops, run throughout the year, by providing an informal and friendly environment for members to improve all aspects of their digital processing skills. As well as providing the opportunity to revisit some of the workshop topics in more depth, meetings will also allow new areas to be tackled as well as providing one-on-one help if required. The group meets on the 2nd Thursday of the month in Foxton Village Hall.

The sessions will concentrate primarily on Adobe Photoshop and LightRoom, but other packages and plug-ins will be tackled as necessary. All skill levels are very welcome, but total beginners would be advised to attend the Photoshop course, run in the Autumn. Sessions are primarily practical in nature, and members are encouraged to bring laptops and/or images on which they would like help and advice.

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Nature and Travel Group

Leader: Sarah Latham

The Nature and Travel Group aims to give members an opportunity to share their photographs and compare images with like-minded friends in a non-competitive situation. Outings will be arranged both locally and, hopefully, further afield. Some meetings and outings will be specifically planned with either natural history or travel in mind and follow-up sessions will look at the images taken on such outings. Meetings could also be arranged with independent speakers if the number of people attending the Group warrants this additional expenditure.

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