I’m In A Camera Club – Again

When I left my local camera club, more on that later, I sort of lost interest in photography. In recent months I have joined a new club, (Deeside Photographic Society) some distance away from my hometown, but well worth the travel involved to get to a meeting. Even on a cold, wintry, wet night, driving along a road that is only partially lit.

Quite by chance, I received an invitation to try the new Bing AI – Search yesterday. It’s sort of like ChatGPT, but with some differences. As I was going to be writing a post, I thought I’d give the AI a chance and see what it come up with. Here’s what Bing AI – Search had to say.

Joining a camera club can be a great way to learn photography fundamentals and techniques, as well as how to use photography software to enhance your photos¹. You can participate in competitions, receive feedback, view and show photo slideshows, go out on photo outings, and be inspired to take more photos¹.

In addition to learning new skills and techniques, joining a camera club can also provide you with opportunities for human interaction with fellow photophiles². You can talk photography or get simple critiques of your work².

Not much, but lets consider the points…

Boring! Boring! Boring! This is a blog about photography so let me show you some photographs

Deeside has regular club competitions and this photograph and the two others that I’m going to show where all entered into a Landscape competition.

To make things fair the photographs are projected onto a large screen to be graded on a score from 1 through to 20 by an external judge. The judge will also comment on the photograph, giving reasons for the grade applied. This one scored 17, but so did a lot of other photographs from club members.

This next one didn’t do so well, only scoring 16. The judge did say it was a good photograph but there were others he liked better

My final image also scored 16. The judge felt that there was lot of “dead space” to the right of the photograph and that maybe I should have cropped in tighter to the boats. Perhaps making the photograph in portrait mode instead.

I’ve been at Deeside for several months now, made new friends, had days out with like-minded photographers, taken part in competitions and visited other photographic clubs for inter-club competitions.

I did mention at the start of this post that I would say more about my old camera club and why I left. On reflection, “why dwell on the past”. I’m looking forward to the future and getting back in the photography groove again

Source: Conversation with Bing, 03/04/2023

(1) Benefits of joining a Camera Club. http://www.chilliwackcameraclub.com/articles/benefits-of-joining-a-camera-club/ Accessed 03/04/2023.
(2) Why You Should Join a Camera Club or Photography Meetup Group. https://www.joeedelman.com/why-you-should-join-a-camera-club-or-photography-meetup-group Accessed 03/04/2023.