President's Exposure
April 2009

Welcome to my first President's Exposure column. Thanks (I think!) for electing me.

Can I start by saying a huge thank you to John and Janet Greenwood for the effort they have put into the Club over the last few years? The Club membership is healthy and enthusiastic and there is lots of interest from potential new members. Your Committee will do its best to maintain this progress.

When I first came to New Zealand just over 3 years ago, I had no contacts over here and no job lined up. Rather than spend time staring at 4 walls and contemplating the meaning of life, I decided a good way to integrate myself was to rekindle my interest in photography by going to one of Tom Martin's evening classes. Tom is a great teacher and source of inspiration and suggested I might be interested in joining WPS. I did so and have not looked back. I have learnt so much from being a WPS member over the last 3 years or so that my interest in and knowledge of photography has never been greater and now plays a key part in my life. Thanks guys.

My vision is for WPS to be an inclusive, non-elitist, relaxed Society which helps everyone from beginner to expert in their medium of choice to get what they want from their photography. Note my use of the word "helps".

Whilst your Committee will set the best and most varied programme it thinks fit, it does not claim to read minds or enjoy a monopoly on organising meetings or developing ideas. If anyone has a burning desire, for example, to run a field trip, contribute to or organise a Society meeting or set up a special interest group, the Committee will be delighted to do what it can to help that idea take shape. Just get in touch with me or any Committee member and we will see what we can do.

We have now put a programme together to take us to mid year and we have done our best to provide something of interest to everyone. But if you want to contribute to any of our sessions, or want to do something for the second half of the year please let us know before the calendar starts to fill up.

Elsewhere in Aperture you find a list of the competition set subjects for the rest of year so hopefully inspiration will flow and we will see some great work. I have to say that there are some superb images appearing these days so keep up the good work.

We have a session coming up in the winter on the Basics of using Flash followed by a second session on Advanced applications – gels, off camera flash, diffusers etc. Speakers or practical contributions to both these sessions are welcome. Later still, in the spring, we are hoping to hold an outdoor portrait workshop where we can delve more into the use of outdoor fill flash, diffusers and reflectors plus how to pose individuals and groups. Details are still being worked out for this.

Cheers, Geoff Dickinson