Thinking of joining a local camera/photography club

[Wreckdiver]

I've been fully retired for about 18 months now and I've never been so busy; home improvements and the building of a new woodworking workshop. I delayed retiring completely as I loved my job (still love my electronics) but Dyson thought better and dismissed over 1000 of us engineers in 2024. The workshop is almost completed and I now need to spend more time with my camera and "get out more". What I miss most from not working is the company of my ex co-workers and friends; being at home all the time can be very isolating and, at times, depressing. So I am thinking of joining a local camera/photography club, the one in Royal Wootton Bassett looks extremely well organised and run. I would also really like volunteering using my woodworking skills, tools and now new workshop with local groups who could benefit from small jobs they may need doing.

I would imagine that many here on this group are members of clubs (?) Portrait photography and Christmas/birthday/family photo-shoots hiring the local community hall appeals enormously. Just looking for ways to get involved with my local community and making goods use of assets I have available. What do other retirees do?

Just having a moment with my thoughts. Thanks for reading.

[Camera Gent]

Yes, tis great to be free of work after a lifetime of devotion but it can be quiet.
Our local photo club is great. 70 members. One has used his woodworking skills to make stands for photo prints top be displayed in competitions.

Do you have a Men in Sheds in your area? EDIT: you do, they have a facebook page.

[Wreckdiver]

Yes, tis great to be free of work after a lifetime of devotion but it can be quiet.
Our local photo club is great. 70 members. One has used his woodworking skills to make stands for photo prints top be displayed in competitions.

Do you have a Men in Sheds in your area? EDIT: you do, they have a facebook page.

I have heard of Men in Sheds but not looked into it, I will do some research. Cheers 😊

[blackfox]

Having been retired now for 16 years plus , I take photos of birds and wildlife , play games on my I.pad , watch u.tube and to stop getting bored go on online forums and facebook etc and cause as much havoc as my brain allows 😵💫😵💫😵💫😜. It’s a good recipe and keeps me sane allegedly 🫣🤪🫣

[mikero]

The Western Counties Photographic Federation gives a list of camera clubs in its region. I feel it's important to join a strong club which will be more stimulating and push you. Most federations run interclub competitions, so you can look at the results and home in on the most successful clubs (which may not actually be the closest).

I find photography takes up a lot of my spare time now retired. There are club competitions, and club talks which I occasionally give. I'm also External Competition Secretary, which means I'm responsible for selecting images for our club's external competitions, both print and PDI. So after joining a club and settled in, you might consider serving on the committee - they're always keen on finding volunteers. Further, I've worked for and gained several photographic distinctions, and enter competitions nationally. I've no idea how I found time to go to work.

Mike

[Wreckdiver]

Cheers Mike, that’s very encouraging. Thanks for the link also 👍

[Dennis Russ]

Chose the right club and it will do you a Wonder of good.I'm a member of 3 clubs, a judge on the welsh & Bristol circuit, plus I'm a presenter of PDIs & Prints. Mind you, I get Brain Fog on times and find I don't want to do anything. I guess that’s a part of being old. GOOD LUCK!

[Wreckdiver]

Cheers Dennis 😊

[Bikie John]

From time to time I look at the programme for our local club, of which a few friends are members. So much of it is oriented towards competitions, which I know from previous experience is not interesting to me. Sure, it can be a good way to improve. But the local federation has an exhibition from the inter-club competitions which comes here once a year and too often I look at the entries and feel that they have just been made to win competitions. The photos are really "good" but I find it all rather sterile, and that is not a direction I want to go in.

Different strokes for different folks, of course. You have nothing to lose by joining a club and giving it a few weeks or seasons to see if it suits you, and you should find a new circle of friends. Go for it!

John

[LadyG]

Having had to retire through ill health (and also the reason for the change to OM) it's been very busy since I retired due to health issues and house move but definitely for the better.

I'd been a 'Flickr friend' with someone for years, not really noticing where she lived but once I moved she noticed that I was posting local pictures so invited me along to the camera club where she's a member (Biggleswade). I can't say my nature pictures have caused any ripples, but my music photography certainly has and I've won or placed in the top 3 in a couple of club competitions.

I like that they don't have competitions every week - it's generally every 2 or 3, the other weeks are talks from visiting speakers and most of them have been pretty interesting. They've put one of my pictures forward for display in the East Anglian Federation so I'll know this or next week whether it's made it - not that I'll be driving to Bury St Edmunds to see it on display.

I joined because I thought it was a good way of meeting new people after the move. Really must do the same in the village, haven't found something I want to join yet!

And apart from Men in Sheds do you have a local Repair Cafe? They seem popular around here.

[Wreckdiver]

Interesting Carol. I can understand why nature photos don't cause much of a stir as every man and his dog are doing that. But your music photographs are something else and a genre that, I suspect, is a lot more specialised. It certainly requires a lot more skill to photograph bands/groups under difficult lighting conditions and getting into the right position amongst a crowd. So, there would be less competition. I haven't heard of "Repair Cafés" until now and that certainly looks interesting. I used to run my own TV/Video/Audio/anything else electronic repair business on Anglesey many moons ago and so that is right up my street. I will certainly look into that, thanks for the info 😊

Like John above, entering photos for competitions and judging other photos is not really my thing. But like you, meeting new people and sharing photo trips is far more important to me.

[Phill D]

I was going to suggest a repair cafe too. It was one of the things I thought I'd get involved in when I retired but haven't yet. I did join a very informal local photo group that really suited me plus I've joined the local mill support trust which has really taken over a lot of my time. Chatting with Ian at the NEC he said why haven't we heard more about this! So maybe I will post a few photos and stories when I get chance.

[Wreckdiver]

I would be interested to see the photos Phill

[BDennis]

An interesting thread. To be honest I’m not really sure where the time goes in retirement and how I had time to do some things that interest me during work life.

I retired 5 years ago also through redundancy during the pandemic. I’d been working part time and planning to retire before covid came along so the redundancy nudged me out of “one more year syndrome” with work. It was a bit strange being made redundant under the covid restrictions as I didn’t get to walk around the office personally wishing my colleagues farewell. I do miss a few people there and I did feel a disconnect after working at a place for 23 years and being made redundant by video call. I don’t miss working there though as it was getting mired in management politics and the company was being split up by the private equity owners.

I miss working on software code and tech stuff like that as it was my passion but the corporate life knocked it out of me in the end - I dabble around with something occasionally. I wouldn’t mind getting back into electronics and trying to repair things like an old HiFi amp I kept - it was my interest in electronics that got me into learning software coding in my youth.

During the pandemic I got to know a few a people in the village despite the isolation and some folks saw my wildlife photos on a local Facebook group and contacted me to see if I wanted to join their committee for a wildlife and walking interest group in our village. My main interest through that has been helping look after our local nature reserve which involves some hands on work maintaining a hide, a small liner pond, clearing vegetation and putting up bird boxes. I’m hoping to do more wildlife monitoring this year with some camera traps and passive audio devices.

Apart from the village group I’ve also been volunteering for the RSPB at a local reserve on the reception hut helping people with information on the reserve and wildlife they’ve seen. Have met some interesting people doing that and it provides a social connection. We also do butterfly monitoring surveys in our local wood and joined the natural history society and bird club in Bedfordshire - they organise some interesting trips out and meetings which helps to discover new places.

I haven’t joined a camera club - like Bikie John it’s the competition side that puts me off as it’s not really my thing but meeting people and sharing ideas and interests is good. Maybe I should look into some local clubs. I’ve been thinking about going on a landscape photography workshop this year but it clashes with planned holidays and my partner isn’t into photography which sometimes raises issues about me going on trips without her! Will have to watch a few more YouTube videos perhaps.

One thing to watch out for when you get involved in various groups during retirement I’ve found that when they realise you have free time they want you to be on their committee as a treasurer or something. It’s fair enough for them to ask but it’s not really my thing being on loads of committees. I think a read something somewhere saying you should avoid things like this during the first year of retirement until you’ve found your feet. Some people of course love being on all these committees and do a good job of it but it’s not really my thing.

Bill

[Wreckdiver]

Very interesting Bill, especially the 'electronics' bit. I have in mind building a 433MHz radio camera remote control system. I almost completed a project for Dyson before we got dismissed, fortunately I have the schematic designs, PCB designs and all the software safe on my PC here and it's all tried an tested. A few tweaks to suit AF and shutter release functions over two channels and it's ready to go. I have a very well equipped and stocked electronics workshop with loads of ideas of things to make, I love a challenge to design bespoke things that are not available to purchase.

I used to be on the committee for a local Dive Club in Swindon - I was the media secretary designing and maintaining the club's website (all hand coded HTML and CSS), organising dive trips abroad and also acting as membership secretary. I enjoyed it very much until the club moved direction in how they ran the club and I left. Good times though!

My partner isn't into photography either but is quite happy to come along and enjoy the view whilst I take photos. It isn't the same though as having someone along who is also a photographer and I feel uncomfortable disappearing for hours alone.

I would have stayed at Dyson for a few more years, I was working 4 days per week when I left and was planning to reduce to 3 days but JD brought in someone to review the Dyson business and he immediately saw the opportunity to close over 500 labs and get rid of over 1000 staff. So, my decision was made for me, albeit a bit sooner than expected. Ho-hum!

[BDennis]

It sounds like you were doing some interesting projects at Dyson Steve - sorry to hear you got made redundant, I think you posted about this before. It can be hard being laid off from somewhere with project work you enjoy. I got made redundant 3 times during my career, the first one was the hardest as I really liked the job and people.

Before retiring I was working part time only 2 days for the McAfee the cyber security company - I ended up with them due to acquisition of a British company Dr Solomon's software. It was partly for medical reasons I got the part time gig - asked for 2 days thinking they would negotiate it up to 3 but they just said it was OK! It's hard to do a software job 2 days a week unless you can get out of a lot of pointless meetings but the manager folks eventually figured that out. It lasted for about 18 months until the redundancy came along and was a good glide path into retirement for me.

I was thinking of trying to fix a NAD 3220 PE amplifier I have which I think has a problem with either capacitors need replacing or the power transistors. It fires up OK then the audio dies out after a few minutes as things warm up or something like that. I need to get up to speed on some circuit diagnostics and maybe get some test gear (just spent savings on a car and new lens though!). I also have a NAD CD player which works but the back-light lamp for the LCD display needs replacing, another desoldering problem! My other half uses it but forgets to turn it off so the filament bulb behind the display must have burnt out.

The other thing is trying to fix a 1980s Compaq original portable PC ("luggable") which won't start up - I think that is also a smoothing capacitor across the PSU DC output that's maybe gone and shorting, an online fix suggests to try just snipping it off and seeing if the PC boots up. Not sure about that, but might be worth a quick try.

A few things to have a go at! I need to practise desoldering maybe on an old ADSL router I was going to put in the recycling.

Bill

[Wreckdiver]

With old equipment it really pays to replace all the electrolytic capacitors, don’t bother trying to test them just change the lot. The symptoms you describe point at the electrolytics.