This was our last meeting before the Christmas break and it inevitably was influenced by the holiday spirit! We began by exchanging our Secret Santa gifts. We continued by getting to know the work and life of the monstre sacré of photography, Henri Cartier Bresson. An all-encompassing repetition of technical subjects to solve any questions that might pop up and fill the theory gaps of those who missed a few meetings. Lastly, we took a group photo.

Just like every photographer that... respects himself, we got the, so called, “normal” lens. It’s no coincidence that top photographers like Henri Cartier Bresson used this lens rather often, if not exclusively.

"If you try to please audiences, uncritically accepting their tastes, it can only mean that you have no respect for them: that you simply want to collect their money" writes Andrei Tarkovsky in his book “Sculpting in time”. This opinion of his doesn’t need a lot of comments, yet we began our lesson by discussing it. Afterwards we occupied ourselves with the work of Gary Winogrand, who was quite possibly the photographer who enjoyed the process of shooting photos more than any other, especially if we take into consideration the fact that he shot hundreds of thousands of pictures that he never saw printed! Then we relaxed by doing the draw for the clubs Secret Santa which will take place next Sunday as Christmas is drawing closer. We can’t wait for it! After that we got to know the use of various filters like the colour ones on black & white photography, the UV filter, the polarising filter and the neutral density filters. The usual critique...

Today’s meeting begun by expanding upon the histogram; an important tool allows us to check if our picture is properly illuminated. Then, we analysed the functions that cameras offer us and specifically the “PSAM” functions. After that we saw the best photos our members shot during November as well as the one that Mr.Vassileios Dodis chose to be the best of the month. Subsequently we tested our knowledge on some technical matters, so as the programs coordinator teacher can be sure that we’ve understood them. In the following picture you can see us fill in the test’s questions. Dough! What do we have here? Is somebody cheating? A presentation of Robert’s Frank’s work followed. Did you know that during his trip, that lead to the infamous book of his, “The Americans” being published, he traveled for 16,000 km and shot 767 films worth of pictures? After all that a little recreation was necessary as you can see in the pictures below: At some p...

How does a photometer work? Do the values it recommends always lead to the right exposure? And if not, what do we have to do to correct the exposure? What do High Dynamic Range and exposure compensation mean? These are the technical matters that we occupied ourselves with at the beginning of today’s meeting. Afterwards, we got to know the work of one of the pioneers of photography, Eugene Atget. We finished by critiquing photos members of our team have shot, a procedure that absorbed us so much that we even forgot to shoot any photos! Unbelievable isn’t it? Unbelievable yet true! To be precise though, there might have been a few that played the goat with the camera a little bit...

Today’s meeting differed from the usual ones. Even though it was a   longer meeting (4 hours), we devoted but a few minutes to photography and specifically a technical subject, sensor sensitivity, also known as ISO. What did we do with the rest of our time? We made some Christmas decorations for our schools’ library and multipurpose hall! Check out the photos below to see what we’ve made…

Our meeting lasted quite a bit longer this time around. There are two reasons why this happened: Firstly because we prepared a couple of calendars with photos from our nighttime excursions and secondly because the critique of the photos we shot is taking more time than scheduled as our new members are pretty lively and creative! When we had finished, we explored how a photograph can be affected by changing the values of the shutter speed and aperture of the lens. By using a faster speed, we can ‘freeze’ an image, whilst with a slower one, we can capture the movement of the object we’re trying to photograph. You can look at some examples down below: In our next photograph you’ll see a lit spinning top that even though it is currently spinning appears to be still as we used a 1/1000 speed. By using slower speeds, the same spinning top looks different...Notice that in the following photos the slower the speed we use the more lights are captured... ...

Today we begun our class by critiquing the photos we shot. The new members are gradually starting to comprehend the elements that compose a good photo... We continued with the presentation of a photographer’s work, who originates from the town of Katerini and lives in Paris, whose name is Vasileios Ntontis. From now on, we shall work as a team with Basil, as the best photo of the month, will be selected based on his preferences. Afterwards we occupied ourselves with the diaphragm-shutter speed combinations and how they can be equal when it comes to exposure. Then we got to know the work of one of the great photographers, Walker Evans, and learnt several biographical facts about him. To finish, we got the cameras in our hands and posed for the lens...

A few hours after our morning meeting, we met again at the old village of Vrondou to capture the trails of the stars. We chose to aim for the Polar Star so that the orbits of the neighbouring stars would form a circle around it. We set our tripod, adjusted our intevalometer and let our Nikon D750 camera capture about 250 photos. Thence using the program StarStaX we combined these photos and here's the result: Impressive, isn't it? Our three hours of wait time for the process to complete, there were quite a few so we played around with our Nikon D3200 camera creating photos like this one:  Here are the brave ones (the team's boys didn't follow us today) who defied the cold weather and took part in this activity:

Our team does not lose its inner stamina, not even on the on the brink of a holiday!   In fact, this Sunday we met earlier in order to prepare some calendars with our photographs, as we do every year. This time around we chose a picture of the Milky Way we shot. Afterwards we discussed about matters like “Where does an artist draw inspiration from?   And black & white or colour photography?   . Finally, we explored a technical subject regarding the lens of a camera (focal length and diaphragm). However, we are not quite done yet for today. We adjourned our meeting until the evening. We set a meeting point the old town of Vrondou. Our goal to photograph the trails of the stars…

Another Sunday morning was full of life for our school thanks to the Photo Club meeting! Many new members attended, so we focused on the basics regarding the body of a camera: the shutter, the mirror, the viewfinder and the photometer! We also watched a video in which Platonas Rivellis talks about the qualities a photographer must possess. And off course we had fun by playing yet another game... At the end, as usual, we shot pictures of each other!

Why should one concern himself with artistic photography? What kind of subjects do we choose to photograph? Does a picture have to provoke the viewer’s emotions? These are some of the topics that we discussed during this meeting. On a positive note we have new members joined our team. We welcomed them and threw them right in at the deep end. And of course, we played yet another ice-breaking game. When we were done, we visited one of the village’s taverns to satisfy our hunger and get to know each other a little better.

At our first meeting in the library this year, many new members attended, painting a rather optimistic atmosphere! Firstly, we began with an ice-breaking game. Afterwards we discussed about the content of the meetings that will follow, matters regarding the team’s way of operation and of course..... we shot lots of pictures with the 3 DSLR Nikon cameras we had at our disposal.

Our first meeting for yhis year took place at the old village of Vrondou, during the night, as the conditions were ideal for a photoshoot of the Milky Way. Even though the new members might not be familiar with the technical details, the enthusiasm was agreeable for all of us. Down below are some of the photos we shot:

This time around we weren’t as lucky. We visited the chapel of the Holy Trinity at Vrondou and we tried, once again, – with our new DSLR camera – to take a picture of the Galaxy. However, the sky was cloudy, so this couldn’t be done. This is the best shot we managed to capture: Here are the members of the team that participated: Once the clouds had fully covered the sky, we experimented with a glowing hula-hoop ring. It was quite interesting... Check out what we managed to shoot below: