About GNPC

Local Membership

The club is a local club having been established in July 2008 by a small handful of people from the Great Notley area. Whilst we use Flickr as a central tool of the club, we rely on face to face meetings. This ensures we have a vibrant membership who can meet up and build relationships. It also means we have a close association with the local community to which we contribute through exhibitions, village fêtes etc.  From its inception, the club has grown from 5 to more than 70 members. We have a broad range of ages with the average being circa 35. We also have an equal mix of male and female members. This all contributes to the vibrancy of the club.

“It’s all about the Image”

It is important that the club was set up as a ‘photography’ club and not a camera club. From the outset it was the end result (photo) that mattered and not what was used to take it. This approach encouraged an influx of new beginners when the club started. These members have progressed rapidly for the reasons that will follow. During our first year and a half we were very internally focussed, only running internal competitions and all talks and workshops were led by more experienced members. This approach fostered a friendly atmosphere in which members were encouraged to contribute. It also meant that we were able to coach and educate members about constructive photo critiques. This closed environment helped build their confidence.

Flickr

We have used Flickr as our central tool/forum right from the start. This is a fantastic resource which enables members to share photos with each other, seek and provide knowledge and build their own portfolio. We have never held a print competition and it’s not hurt us!! In fact it’s improved the accessibility of the hobby to members by reducing the costs. We do provide workshops and training to improve the technical skills and quality of members work such that they are producing quality work that if printed would stand up to scrutiny.  The true benefit is that members interact on a daily basis via Flickr and every day new images are added to the pool for critique.  This provides for a steep learning curve and further develops relationships and a sense of community within the club.

Internal Competitions

Our approach has always been to encourage members to get out and use their cameras. For this reason we have always had the rule that internal competition entries must not be older than 3 months. This is enforced using the EXIF data and has only been infringed on 2 occasions.

We run quarterly open competitions with external judges and themes competitions on the intervening months. Themed competitions are judged by the membership. Once again this promotes participation and helps hone members skills, especially in terms of composition. We now run a league table system with entry, advanced and premier levels.

External Competitions

Only during the last 12 months have we entered external competitions as a club. We came 19th in the February 2010 EAF competition. Since then we have entered the North Essex inter club competition and won and, of course, the DSLR User magazine 2010 battle of the clubs competition which we also won … our finest hour to date!!

Part of our success in external competitions (as well as the fantastic work of our members) can be attributed to our selection process. We use a panel of 4/5 experienced members. The panel assesses images from the club and critiques and discusses the merits of each in the similar way to a judging panel. This has helped ensure that we select strong images with impact, emotion and high technical quality.

Member Development

This is perhaps another of our real successes. The friendly atmosphere, workshops, trips and use of Flickr has resulted in the rapid progression of members skills and artistic expression. We have a number of members who joined the club with compact cameras, developed their skills, and progressed to DSLRs in order to fully express themselves artistically. In fact 2 images entered by the club in the DSLR user magazine competition were by such members. They are now helping develop newer less experienced members.

Club Trips

We arrange numerous trips throughout the year to a range of local destinations nothing usually more than 90 minutes drive. Members have the opportunity to suggest future locations which helps to ensure they are relevant and motivational for them. Attendance has been very good due to the friendly atmosphere of the club. We also encourage members to arrange ad-hoc trips and to invite other members. This has also been very successful. Members have also undertaken landscape trips to the Lake District and Snowdonia.

Ambition

The club has always tried to be ambitious in the goals it sets for itself.  In 2010 the committee decided with the assistance of Digital IQ to approach Joel Grimes a world famous photographer from Arizona , USA to come to the UK and present his unique style and techniques at two seminars and a weekend workshop.

Some Future Plans

This year GNPC hopes to further extend the idea of special interest groups within the club.  This is now easier since the club has grown to just over 60 members.  There has been a Strobist group within the club that has met a number of times to share information and work together using portable flash guns to photograph a specific subject matter.  We intend to extend this idea and hope to see further specialist groups start up over the next twelve months.

The club has outgrown the local community centre and has hired a hall in a new Church within Great Notley that also has wifi.  Having wifi available on club nights will provide the means to train new members on the benefits and usage of Flickr which has proved an important resource for the club.

Going forward, GNPC hopes to attract other world class photographers to the UK so that the members can learn from the very best.