Photography Master Class

Following discussions after the Bird Club Photographic competition Dave Thomas and Robin Gossage have kindly agreed to run a photography workshop for those wishing to improve their editing skills.The aim is to provide a discussion to help develop your skills and techniques to get the very best out of your camera equipment and photographs. Skill sharing and editing advice will be very much part of the workshop.

As judge of this year's photographic competition, I thought many entries in the birds categories could have been improved by simply cropping differently; example of John's winning entry in Northants Birds shown below. 

It's a free event for photographers and non-photographers alike and we're hoping for some lively debate. 

Date and time: Saturday 22nd August, 9.30am onwards.

Venue: The Fishing Lodge, Pitsford.

Please confirm attendance to Robin.Gossage@Sky.com

Original entry with distracting foreground and fly in top righthand corner

Cropped example in 3:5 format

And The Winner Is...

The winning photo for the Northants Bird Club Photographic Competition 2025 as selected by the audience on the night is John Fuller's White-faced Storm Petrel.

Well done, John, an excellent image! All winning photos have been uploaded here -

https://northantsbirdclub.blogspot.com/p/photographic-competition-winners-2025.html

John being presented with the Graham Soden Trophy by Chairman Bob

The Bird Club Photographic Competition 2026

The most anticipated date in the Bird Club diary is almost here, and with 265 entries across 13 categories, it's going to be an entertaining night. If past years are anything to go by there's going to be tension, surprises, disappointments and controversy with a good dose of banter thrown in. Will you agree with the judge's decisions? 

The audience gets to vote for the overall winning entry on the night from 5 winners picked by the judge. See you there on Wednesday 4th February for a 7.30 pm start, anticipated finish around 9.30.

Last year's winner - Fieldfare by Dave Thomas