It should be noted that most groups levy a modest charge per meeting or additional annual subscription to cover the cost of hall hire and refreshments.

Freshers

Leader: David Hone LRPS

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

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, put it in context with the standard offered by their peers and confidently produce quality prints or projected images for 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. Last year there were two "Points of View" evenings. 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. It is usually a mix of presentations and reviews of group members' work. Expert club members give presentations or facilitate discussions on a variety of technical or artistic subjects. Critiques of members' work are offered by other group members or at times by a more experienced club member.

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Portrait

Leader: Charles Hall

The Portrait Group encourages its member to practice and enhance their photographic skills in all aspects of portraiture and lighting from studio work to available light 'on location' shooting. The group works mainly with amateur models drawn from the personal contacts of individual group members. The Club owns a good range of Studio flash equipment which is often supplemented by members bringing their own equipment along to studio sessions.

For the 2009/10 season the group will usually meet on the second Wednesday evening each month during the Club season for studio sessions. There will also be additional meetings to review the images taken at the sessions. It is also planned to attend events outside the studio, and hold location shoots during the summer months. Members of the group are asked to provide a selection of prints for the models or groups photographed. To ensure that each photographer gets sufficient time to work constructively with the models, it may be necessary to limit the numbers attending a studio session.

A subscription, covering the hire of the hall and some equipment maintenance, is made.

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Aperture

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 are held bimonthly on Thursdays at Foxton Village Hall, alternating with the Digital Techniques Group.

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Digital Techniques

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 bi-monthly on Thursday evenings in Foxton Village Hall, alternating with the Aperture Group.

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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Audio Visual & Video

Leader: Brian Jenkins LRPS

AV sequences bring together images and sounds to make a coherent whole, usually lasting between 3 and 8 minutes. The images can be in the form of 35mm slides or digital files and the sound element can be music, commentary or a blend of both. The Club has most of the necessary equipment for making and projecting both traditional and digital sequences. The members of the AV&V Group meet regularly to work together on all aspects of the planning and making of individual and joint sequences, supplementing the Club's equipment with items of their own when necessary. Most sequences are currently put together on the computer using programs such as Pictures to EXE and either ProShow Gold or ProShow Producer.

Recently, the Group has extended its range to include video, either as a separate production or incorporated into AV sequences. The AV&V Group is small but active and members are currently working to produce an AV Evening for the club in February 2010.

Meetings are held on the 1st Wednesday of the month (except for December, April and August) in Foxton Village Hall.

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Nature and Travel

Leader: Patricia Kreyer ARPS

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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