PCC News of the Week:
This week’s PCC Committee Zoom Meeting on Monday discussed progress with regards to this season’s programme, the new Lockdown III competition and Zoom Club Meetings etc.
As we know, due to Covid 19 we have a slightly reduced programme and it is nearly ready as we finalise the set subjects and the judges.
The latest Lockdown series is now alive with some great member support both in entering images and voting.
We continue to monitor Cornwall Council’s assessment regarding C19 restrictions and so Zoom meetings will continue for a while yet. On that subject we have decided to arrange for a dedicated Penryn Camera Club subscription which will allow us to hold unlimited timed meetings for all our members.
It would be really great if we could have a decent number of members entering the Charles Hosken competition, so we would like you all to start thinking about organising your images ready for the January 21st hand-in. We have seen some really good images through our Lockdown series and hence you should be confident in your entries. More details next week regarding image delivery.
Some of you may remember that next year marks the 50th Anniversary of the Cornwall Photographic Alliance (CPA). We have now finalised the text and images to represent the club in the Anniversary booklet and the text and a few images from past and existing members are enclosed below.
Penryn Camera Club
Meet at The Space, Penryn RFC every Thursday. See www.penryncameraclub.org for details.
Penryn Camera Club first started in the committee rooms of the Temperance Hall Penryn in 1980 by some local photography stalwarts Ken Skellern, ex-teacher and pro-photographer who owned the Penryn Photo Centre and Ken Farnell, who was principal of Camborne Technical College. Our first Chairman was Doug Phillips and our first treasurer, who served us for over 40 years was Jack Condy who sadly died, in post, a couple of years ago.
The club soon set about organising “slide shows” and we were lucky to have a very keen bird photographer Stewart Hutchings, who was not only a good photographer but also quite an important figure locally on Penryn Council. Stewart put on a show for the club in 1982 which was very favourably received and showed the way ahead. Success almost came very early on in the club’s history when in 1983 we almost won the forerunner of the Charles Hosken competition – even without the requisite number of slides!
The club soon became popular attracting mainly local people, who were keen to share their photography as well as help one another and within a few years had swelled to over 30 members. This has meant us having to move premises several times and our location at The Space adjacent to Penryn Rugby Club now offers us all the space we need as well as a warm environment with all the security required for our equipment and a handy car park.
The club has gone through several phases of expansion and contraction over the years as member numbers have waxed and waned and we found this was often due to members moving in or out of the district. However, new members have always had a warm welcome and we pride ourselves on the friendly atmosphere we try to maintain.
We regularly organise photography excursions and early ones featured trips to the Pony Centre in Devon, a Butterfly farm and steam trains. A particular visit to Culdrose photography department back in the ‘80s is well remembered due to the Hasselblads they carried in their helicopters which were used to photograph any Soviet warships they encountered. We were surprised to learn that their lenses were locked at the appropriate hyper-focal distance so they couldn't be re-focussed.
The club believes strongly in helping members to develop their photography to the highest level they can and help is always at hand by way of experienced club mentors who can guide and advice. We regularly support the CPA by way of annual and inter-club competitions and often provide approved judges for CPA member club competitions. Over the years we have had many individual and team successes with 3 winners of the WCPF Knightshayes Trophy – the last one being in 2017 - and also one member in 2006 making a clean sweep in the WCPF Members Exhibition, winning the prestigious Millennium Trophy, the Reece Winston Trophy and a PAGB Gold Medal.
Every year the club holds an Annual Exhibition in Penryn Town Hall which not only gives all members the opportunity to display their work, but also gives local residents the chance to see what the club does and what we have to offer by learning new skills or further developing existing ones. Here we have static displays, looped digital presentations and practical demonstrations of aspects of our photography such as live portrait sessions. In this way we have gained many a new member over the years by way of offering 3 trial meetings to ease any thoughts of obligation from the individual.
