CLUB Trip to Dunns Lab

On Wednesday evening, Fotofilia's CLUB visited Dunn's photographic lab in Cradley Heath.

It's been about 15 years since I did this same trip with the camera club I was then a member of and I hardly recognised the place! Gone are most of the film processing/printing units (although Dunn's still do this) and in their place is some amazing digital kit. I kinda missed the smell of photo chemicals.

I was especially surprised to hear that larger prints are now being made digitally rather than photographically and that as the old photographic printers wear out, they will be replaced with digital printers.

We were given a full tour, and demo of the "Flex" system as used by (mainly) schools photographers. I was especially impressed with their new software and book-making facilities.

I'd like to thank the Dunn's team for their wonderful hospitality. I think they won a few converts.

David

THE CLUB

We started a monthly photographic club here at Fotofilia a couple of months ago in answer to students' requests for something to do once their courses had finished.

While i wasn't sure initially what kind of club I wanted here, i did know the kind of club I DIDN'T want - namely the kind of inward-facing, girlie-shoot-obsessed, hostile-to-outsiders, unwelcoming, mysoginistic clubs that I was a member of in the past. I believed instead that there was scope for an ambitious, all-welcoming society that inspires and develops its members' potential.

THE CLUB, as we imaginitively call it, is now up to full capacity for its first year's subscription with 40 paid-up members.

I've confirmed the details of what will happen at the next 2 meetings and am now looking at 2011's meetings.

Sadly I have had to turn away other prospective members but there is the possibility that I may eventually run the club on 2 evenings to allow extra members to join. I'll see how things go.

Either way, I'm very excited about this new direction. Because of the club's success I'm able to bring in some excellent guests with a wide range of expertise that I believe fulfills my original aims.

David

So here it is...

Okay, so it might take me a few days to get this thing entirely how I want it but this is how it starts, I suppose.

I'll be putting together some images and slideshows to load up by next week but for now i'm afraid this is about it.

The coming week is half term which means I get a week off from my regular teaching at Brum Botanical Gardens (3 evenings and all day Saturday), MAC (2 classes on a Monday), plus the ones I run here at Fotofilia.

However, this sadly doesn't mean I'll get the chance to put my feet up - far from it. This is when I have to catch up on all the other admin stuff, editing etc and not to mention formalising the dates and details of some future courses/workshops.

Last week we held a Live Music shoot with a couple of great bands - Mezzotonic and Rudie & The Revolvers. Despite pottering about between the assembled photography trainees, i still managed to knock out 300 images, all of which have to be edited a.s.a.p on top of my usual stuff. It was a brilliant night though, and we hope to re-run this event again in a few months.

More stuff to follow...