Photography
The group meets fortnightly on Friday afternoons from 2-4pm at The Old School, Fairfield & Howley.
The levels of skill and experience are wide-ranging and beginners are welcome, although it helps to have a basic understanding of the subject.
Meetings are intended to offer a relaxed group forum to provide mutual help mixed with competitions and reviews with constructive criticism.
Meeting notes are circulated to members afterwards. Typically we have the following types of meeting:
EXTERNAL SPEAKERS – once or twice per year we get a professional photographer to come and speak to us about their speciality.
GROUP MEETINGS/INTERNAL SPEAKERS – a mixture of talks by members about software, techniques, projects or of practical sessions to try something out.
BI-MONTHLY COMPETITIONS on a specified theme – members are encouraged to submit (usually) 2 A4 prints. There is no obligation to submit photos and you can still take part in the judging.
PHOTOSHOOT & REVIEW – these take place throughout the year, shoots are organised at a variety of locations in the area. At the following meeting there is a print review and a review of digital images. For the print review, members are encouraged to bring (usually) 4 A4 prints. Again there is no obligation to submit prints and you can still take part in the assessment, or just listen and learn from others' comments.
ANNUAL EXHIBITION – at the end of the year we hold an exhibition This is a social event with food & wine for other U3A members, families and friends. Members are invited to submit up to 5 images taken during the year (not necessarily for U3A group projects), mounted and labelled to a common format. These are displayed in the gallery at The Old School and a further exhibition of a smaller group may be arranged in Warrington town centre.
There is also an ANNUAL MEAL around Christmas time and a photography HOLIDAY usually around May.
We have a PRIVATE FACEBOOK GROUP where members can post photos or details of events that may be of interest and where we will display the photographs that do well in our challenges. We are also using a Dropbox gallery to submit and judge competition entries.
For those wishing to get familiar with their camera and photography we also run a short Creative Photography Course for Beginners from September to December each year, meeting before the main group session. This covers how to set up your camera or phone to take the best pictures in different situations. It allows beginners to concentrate on taking more creative photographs while the camera does most of the work! It includes taking portraits and groups of people, landscape photography, techniques for taking close-up, wildlife and action pictures as well as simple editing.
The Group Coordinator can be contacted by clicking on the Contact link at the top right-hand corner of this page.
Click on the Programme link for the current year's programme