By David Burton

By David Burton

By David Burton

With an overcast sky, we knew there would be no chance of a good sunset while the park’s vibrant colours were challenging to capture without direct sunlight (but the flipside was, no blown out highlights) Nevertheless, the St Kilda area was abuzz with families due in part to the popular Sunday St Kilda Esplanade Market.

By Peter Myers

By Peter Myers

By Peter Myers

Luna Park is returning gradually to its former glory after a few faded decades and has been a Melbourne landmark since it opened in 1912, now with the world’s oldest, continually operated rollercoaster, the Scenic Railway.

By David Burton

By David Burton

By David Burton

Within the park we were presented with two general subjects of photography – the vibrant architecture or the candid expressions of the people on the moving rides.

By David Burton

By David Burton

By David Burton

Later in the day some of the members wandered down to the St Kilda Pier for a few evening shots.

David

Location:
1450 Ballarto Rd, Clyde.

Date:
29 Jan 2011, Open from 4.30pm to 1am

Admission:
Family $60
Adult $25
5 – 16 years old $15
Under 5 – Free

The Facts:
- It’s the biggest Victorian rodeo of the year with 10-15,000 people.
- Full line up of rodeo events as well as live music, amusement rides and dirt bike riding.
- Any excuse to wear a cowboy outfit!
- Rodeos are great fun and rarely so close to Melbourne

Map:

View Larger Map

The restaurant owners are willing to open exclusively for us on a Tuesday night however we do need a minimum number in attendance, so please feel free to optionally bring any family, friends or partners.

The menu can be customised to our liking, along with some ‘show-cooking’ at the table and should come to between $10 to $20 per person (drinks extra)

If we can get the numbers it promises to be a good night (and we will try to incorporate a slide show or photo viewing into the night as well) We will be sending another email in the next week to confirm final numbers attending, for hopefully, a tuesday night.

RSVP with us ASAP if you will be coming along.

Anyone who has ever been in front of a camera at a portrait workshop will know it’s definitely not as easy as it looks, but these women were in their element and made it look so easy (even with limited directing.)

With the Knox Interclub being held on the same night, we were a few members down from past nights but  with a few newbies coming along, there was a cosey ratio of models to photographers.

A special thanks to Cassie, Jodie, Monica and Ted for making the night a success.

The WCC Portrait & Flash Group is held on the fourth Wednesday of the month at 7:30pm. New members are welcome!

With Stephen Edmonds on props, Pete Davies at the light switch and some generous supplies from some forward-thinking members, many party-poppers were detonated at various angles and millisecond delay settings; no single one popped the same: some fizzled, a few backfired onto Stephen’s fingers, some hit Dave Sumner in the head – entertainment on its own! Using the club’s sound triggered flash system (built by Craig Terry), in a dark room with about 15 open camera shutters, those attending got the opportunity to photograph some unique action,especially towards the end of the night when positioning and timing of the flash had been perfected.

Some more members brought a few [increasingly rare] tungsten lightbulbs to smash up with a metal wrench (these glass bulbs proved surprisingly difficult to shatter!) Keeping to the pyrotechnic flavour of the night, the workshop finale involved an exploding apple that had to be seen to be believed.

A fun night of photography and many a laugh was shared between club members for another highly successful WCC workshop.

Dennis Eric Creasy, 1931 – 201ish or so

Born in London, Dennis was one of a very rare vintage: 1931 was the year of the lowest birth rate ever recorded in both Britain and Australia. Surviving 250kg aliquots of HE, V1s and V2s he was finally bequeathed his mother’s Box Brownie during his last years of schooling. Hard economics set in: two rolls of “120” film = 16 exposures of 2¼ x 3¼ = One week’s pocket money. Fortunately his father was an amateur photographer so he learnt early to do his own processing (in open dishes) with the cost of chemicals “on the firm”. Developing tanks were unheard of in his household.

With his second roll of film he cycled down to his old haunt where he had been a war time evacuee for a while and photographed the old Saxon church near Didling, W. Sussex, at the foot of the South Downs.

This was a church noted for having kept its head down and hence was overlooked during Henry VIII’s gold grab of 1536 to finance his many girlfriends. This effectively destroyed any vague interest Dennis may have had for bricks and mortar but not for girlfriends.

Ten years later his father bequeathed to him his “620” Kodak folding camera. Frustrated by this continued “large” format being wished on him while “everyone” else had 35mm he opened it up and glued a mask inside to give 16 half size negatives. Consequently he then had to build an enlarger.

Another decade rolled by and, in spite of the cold war, Russian cameras were in the shops. Now he had a wife, a mortgage and money in the bank! Gentlemen, he advised, should always marry a rich woman. So he splashed out on a “Zenith E”: 35mm and colour prints at last!

The “E” saw him through the next 1½ decades and into Australia. But by now Anno Domini had caught up with him and his arms had grown too short for him to be able to read his slide-rule (Slide-rule? What the hell’s that?) let alone focus his camera.

Fortunately for his coronary and blood pressure, autofocus widgets were appearing in the shops and in 1986 a quick trip back to Britain facilitated the duty free acquisition of an autofocus Minolta 7000 and extra lenses. Right up until the death of film, the 7000 never gave him the slightest trouble.

Being an old fashioned “see the wheels go round” engineer, Dennis did not welcome the advent of the digital age. So much so that he retired early to avoid having to use the ghastly electronic widget with which his employer insisted on decorating his desk. Rumour has it that he was latterly in possession of some form of digital Sony gadget which enabled him to use his 7000 lenses. However, he professed to the very end that until he had confined the progeny of his 1469 rolls of film safely into albums he had no intention of getting involved with “all this new fangled digitry”.

In order to preserve a level of insanity he took up playing cards and also became a rowing coach.

In mid 1992 a portrait of WCC then President, Marcia Brown, appeared in the local rag and he immediately applied to join the club. By 1996 he had graduated to Club secretary and also succeeded Christine Anfried as Newsletter editor for several years (with the able assistance of Prue McColl) In 2005 the WCC held an exhibition at the Highway Gallery and beside his two offerings was Epitaph 1:

“Dennis Creasy is a retiring retired engineer. He is very selfish and takes snaps purely for his own personal erotic pleasure with no interest whatever in what others may think. Those who view his images must be prepared to put their own brains into gear if they wish to get anything out of them”.

Eventually he joined that noble band of A Graders. Not, he would hasten to point out, because he was a good photographer but because, like any devious student, he read the (then) rules and then religiously applied them. His mental state declined as he lamented the mutation of the Newsletter to the Blog and he appeared not to have had a remission. He had always hoped that one day he would have had his own private studio in his home and taken pictures of women which they would one day have been proud to show to their grand-daughters.

“The report of his death was an exaggeration” (with apologies to M. Twain) but he will leave a wife, four children and ten grandchildren.

Epitaph 2: “Come back hard copy; all is forgiven!”

A highlight of the night was Leif Anderson’s demonstration of his polarised light box, where plastic objects were lit and photographed through polarised filters with colourful effect.

Despite an overcast day and some challenging shooting conditions inside the large dark hangar, there were many photo opportunities for those with an off-camera flash – jet turbines, piston engines, a fighter jet and more; while outside were several large commercial aircraft on display; 25 in total.

Putting claustrophobia in her stride, Dale got some exclusive cockpit time at the controls of some historic wartime flying machines while Stephen, John, Natalie and myself tinkered about and discussed the workings of a jet engine on display.

An enjoyable and interesting day was had by all.