PORTRAIT EVENING AND THREE WAY COMPETITION
09th November 2026
The last week was a busy one with a practical evening on Monday 9th November followed by a competition against other local clubs.
We were grateful to Russ Smith for coming to the club with his model to help us get the most out of our opportunity to try some portraiture with lights which could be positioned to create various effects.
Russ came set up a neutral backdrop and positioned his lights nearby. One had a reflective umbrella and the other an enclosed structure with light fabric sides which let diffuse light pass through. This is called a soft box.
Russ began with an introductory talk on strobe lighting, flash units, triggers and camera settings. He then introduced his model, who later sat patiently throughout the session, posing as members worked at capturing good images.
Using a flip chart, Russ explained the fundamentals of the system and the required settings. He continued with an overview of the different portrait lighting setups such as the frequently mentioned Rembrandt and Butterfly lighting techniques. He discussed the advantages and disadvantages of using one or more light sources before doing a quick demonstration and allowing the members to work with the model.
It would be impossible to manually press the camera button in time with the flash units and to handle this part of the process electronically there are devices which slip into the hot shoe mount on top of the camera. These are called triggers and when the photographer presses the button to expose the shot, they fire the lighting in synch with the shutter. Russ described the triggers he uses, which are generic and work with most brands of camera.
Russ described his kit and said that although it looked complicated it was in fact an easy process! He suggested starting with a camera setting of 125th second exposure, f8 and ISO 100, although it turned out that a DSLR and a mirrorless camera need quite different settings.
Following the demo, members were then able to try for themselves, with varying degrees of success! Inevitably there was a queue to borrow the available triggers, but despite this it was a very good evening – and there was always the tea and biscuits to entertain anyone not shooting at the time.
PHOTOGRAPHY BY BEN SEARSON, ANT ARCH, JENNY SMITH, ROB NEAL
Next week we look forward to welcoming Stephen Dean who will be talking about ‘More Themes and Journeys’.
The busy week for members continued on Wednesday 11th when we were warmly hosted along with Doncaster TTL club, by Axholme club for our first three-way competition in a good number of years. Each club selected a set number of images for the print and projected image classes. Retford’s entries were chosen from the top scoring images in the competitions so far this year with the goal of representing as many different members’ work as possible.
It proved to be a fantastic evening, with incredibly close contests in both the Projected and Print categories, which were decided by the independent judge engaged for the evening. Retford had good cause to celebrate, coming joint first with Axholme in both categories. The results were:
Digital Images: Axholme - 161 Retford - 161 TTL - 155
The accolade of Best Image was awarded to Rob Neal of Retford with ‘Swallow Calling Out’
Print Results: Axholme - 162 Retford - 162 TTL - 149
In this class the accolade of Best Print went to David Wagstaff, also of Retford, with ‘Against the Blue’
With both categories ending in a tie, Retford was declared the overall winner thanks to having the highest number of 20-point images, with 5 compared to 3 for Axholme. This was a result the club can be genuinely proud of, with some exceptionally high-quality photography on display throughout the evening.
A huge thank you to our hosts at Axholme for their excellent organisation and generous hospitality and we hope that the competition becomes a regular feature on our programmes in future.
The 2026/2027 season continues until 26th April 2027, with weekly meetings on Mondays at 7.30pm in St Joseph’s Hall, Babworth Road, Retford. Guests are welcome for £5 a night and have three no obligation visits to decide about becoming members.
Full details about the club are on our web site: http://www.retford-photographic.co.uk
We were grateful to Russ Smith for coming to the club with his model to help us get the most out of our opportunity to try some portraiture with lights which could be positioned to create various effects.
Russ came set up a neutral backdrop and positioned his lights nearby. One had a reflective umbrella and the other an enclosed structure with light fabric sides which let diffuse light pass through. This is called a soft box.
Russ began with an introductory talk on strobe lighting, flash units, triggers and camera settings. He then introduced his model, who later sat patiently throughout the session, posing as members worked at capturing good images.
Using a flip chart, Russ explained the fundamentals of the system and the required settings. He continued with an overview of the different portrait lighting setups such as the frequently mentioned Rembrandt and Butterfly lighting techniques. He discussed the advantages and disadvantages of using one or more light sources before doing a quick demonstration and allowing the members to work with the model.
It would be impossible to manually press the camera button in time with the flash units and to handle this part of the process electronically there are devices which slip into the hot shoe mount on top of the camera. These are called triggers and when the photographer presses the button to expose the shot, they fire the lighting in synch with the shutter. Russ described the triggers he uses, which are generic and work with most brands of camera.
Russ described his kit and said that although it looked complicated it was in fact an easy process! He suggested starting with a camera setting of 125th second exposure, f8 and ISO 100, although it turned out that a DSLR and a mirrorless camera need quite different settings.
Following the demo, members were then able to try for themselves, with varying degrees of success! Inevitably there was a queue to borrow the available triggers, but despite this it was a very good evening – and there was always the tea and biscuits to entertain anyone not shooting at the time.
PHOTOGRAPHY BY BEN SEARSON, ANT ARCH, JENNY SMITH, ROB NEAL
Next week we look forward to welcoming Stephen Dean who will be talking about ‘More Themes and Journeys’.
The busy week for members continued on Wednesday 11th when we were warmly hosted along with Doncaster TTL club, by Axholme club for our first three-way competition in a good number of years. Each club selected a set number of images for the print and projected image classes. Retford’s entries were chosen from the top scoring images in the competitions so far this year with the goal of representing as many different members’ work as possible.
It proved to be a fantastic evening, with incredibly close contests in both the Projected and Print categories, which were decided by the independent judge engaged for the evening. Retford had good cause to celebrate, coming joint first with Axholme in both categories. The results were:
Digital Images: Axholme - 161 Retford - 161 TTL - 155
The accolade of Best Image was awarded to Rob Neal of Retford with ‘Swallow Calling Out’
Print Results: Axholme - 162 Retford - 162 TTL - 149
In this class the accolade of Best Print went to David Wagstaff, also of Retford, with ‘Against the Blue’
With both categories ending in a tie, Retford was declared the overall winner thanks to having the highest number of 20-point images, with 5 compared to 3 for Axholme. This was a result the club can be genuinely proud of, with some exceptionally high-quality photography on display throughout the evening.
A huge thank you to our hosts at Axholme for their excellent organisation and generous hospitality and we hope that the competition becomes a regular feature on our programmes in future.
The 2026/2027 season continues until 26th April 2027, with weekly meetings on Mondays at 7.30pm in St Joseph’s Hall, Babworth Road, Retford. Guests are welcome for £5 a night and have three no obligation visits to decide about becoming members.
Full details about the club are on our web site: http://www.retford-photographic.co.uk