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What is The Mentoring Group?

The Mentoring Group is open to all paid up members.

Where: Wadham House (upstairs), 52 Wadham Parade, Mt Waverley, 3149 (behind the Library)
When: Wednesday 23rd Jan 2019 starting at 7.30pm

For those who don’t know, the initial aim of the Mentoring Group which was originally started by the late John Hadfield at his home, was to help members with photographs that they perhaps intend to enter into club monthly competitions. However, when I took over the group from John, we opened it up to all members and used Wadham House as the classroom. I did find that on occasion there was a need for people to also discuss their photographs more generally as some people needed more basic assistance in deciding on whether they even had good photographs in the first place. Inevitably, discussing photographs often led to discussions about sharpness, composition and getting it right in camera etc. This in turn led to more in depth discussions about other aspects of photography such as focus, depth of field and other more technical subjects. So, I decided to introduce a 30 minute session at the start of Mentoring based around feedback from members and what problems they were struggling with so we could discuss it at some depth.

The night is about you and your images and I like to promote a relaxed environment and encourage open discussion. If you are new to the club and are unsure about other people seeing your images please let me know at the start of the evening, there is no pressure to be involved. I do like to ask for everyone’s opinion not just my own on the photographs people bring along so this is a great opportunity to introduce new members to other people seeing their images for the first time and have them commented on. We only provide positive comments and there is strictly no rude or derogatory behaviour allowed, the night is about learning and moving forward with your photography skills.

What Happens on the Night?

1. Come along to the meeting and bring with you a USB stick with some images that you think have potential or you just want to discuss. If you shoot RAW and/or have done some editing already to a JPEG, please bring the original file and the edited version.
2. We’ll start by discussing a particular topic for about 30 minutes. In January we will discuss ‘Club Competitions an in depth look at what happens’, from editing and labelling right through to who sees the images, how they are judged and who knows which image belongs to who?
3. We will then discuss as a group in a casual environment, the images that people have brought along, we can also do some basic editing in Photoshop and discuss images generally. I am a registered judge so we can look at both a judge’s perspective and from the group’s personal one. If you don’t want to discuss your images as part of a group then that is fine and I can talk to you at the end of the session or take them home and provide feedback via email.
4. We normally wrap up about 9.30pm but, I realise people work and need to get up early so please don’t feel you need to stay until the end.