The practical group is currently being reborn.

Practical Group Meeting 19th January.

Firstly I would like to thank the 16 members who were able to come and support the Group on Thursday evening and thank you to the other members who sent their apologies and said they would be supporting the group in future.

It was decided to run the Practical Group on every 1st and 3rd Thursday of the month, and to run outings as and when the opportunity arises. It would be helpful if members could pass on information about anything that they think would be of interest to the group to me at rdps-practicalgroup@hotmail.com. Also, if you know of anyone that wants photos for a portfolio, events or days out etc. please pass it on.

The Photoshop evenings will continue, it was suggested that we take laptops to work along with the instructor and work in a buddy system therefore helping each other out. A picture will be sent out in advance so that we all work on the same thing. These evenings will be fitted in occasionally and will be posted in the calendar for the Practical Group on the website.

Image critique evenings will also take place, members may show them anonymously is they wish, the aim is to learn from everyone's work and for constructive comments to be made.

Days out and night photography were firm favourites as well as still life photography and macro.

It is the intention to get as many people as possible to contribute towards the running of the Practical group and if everyone just suggests one topic, event, model etc. it will help to keep the group going, it's your club and it's what you make of it.

We decided to run a group next Thursday to get the group up and running and from then on it will be the 1st and 3rd Thursdays
Please check the Practical Group page on the website or email me for info.

The term critique is just a 'handle' for the evening, no one will really be criticising! Feel free to bring along up to six images on a pen drive or CD to be looked at. The aim of the evening is for newer or less confident members to bring along images they are thinking of entering into competitions but are not 100% if it is good enough, and for more established members to bring along images that others could learn from, or they want suggestions on. Other members can then pass on good feedback and kind suggestions for improving the image. Images can be shown anonymously if you so wish or you can put your name to them and explain something about the image.

** Please Note - Model sessions - when we have volunteer, i.e. unpaid, models the usual thing is to provide them with some images from the session. So, it is expected that each photographer will provide at least six images from a model shoot session. These should be passed, in digital form, to Davina within ten days of the shoot so that she can pass them on to the model in a timely way.
In the past it has been difficult to get the photos for the models and this is unfair on people who give up their time to help us, and also unfair to make a promise and then not keep to it. If you want to attend a model session but feel you can't keep to this arrangement please speak to Davina about it.

Model sessions will usually be subject to a limit regarding the number who can participate. This is because only one photographer can shoot at a time and so, in order to allow each person a reasonable time to take some pictures, there is a limit to how many people can be accomodated.

Membership & Attendance

Membership of the practical group is free, but you do need to be a member of the RDPS. If you would like to come to the Practical Group we ask that you 'sign up', i.e. speak to Davina about it. This is so that numbers can be estimated as some events are, by their nature, restricted on how many can participate.