MEMBERS and guests gathered together this afternoon (Sunday, 7 November) to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Thurrock Camera Club.

They were welcomed by club chairman Paul Taylor and a presentation on the history of the club followed from Secretary Sue Hughes.

Preparations for today's celebration event at Cowdray Hall in West Thurrock began last November when Thurrock Nub News reported on the run up to the anniversary year.

In the intervening 12 months we have been delighted to regularly feature the club's regular competitions and bring our readers expert tips from club members.

Some of the features are linked below.

Life lessons

Reach up and improve

Why a third is important

Top of the crops

Leading lines

The club is always looking to attract new members and visitors are welcome to attend two meetings before joining in order to get a feel for the club and its activities prior to committing to join. Members are keen to share their skills and tips with newcomers and you can view some of the members' work here.

Sue's presentation:

A Centenary of Photography.

AS a relative newcomer to Thurrock CC (joined in 2014) it has been interesting over this past year looking back at how the club was formed and the many changes that have taken place both at the club and with photography itself.

In those early days, photographers were expected to carry out the whole process from taking photographs, developing and printing them. Some of the chemicals used to process the images were quite dangerous as they were acid based and if you didn't put neutraliser with it before you tipped it away you would end up with holes in your waste pipes.

The club's inaugural meeting, under the name of "Grays and District Photographic society, was conducted on 7th November 1921 and was held at the Victoria Café Assembly Rooms, High Street, Grays. The first Chairman of the Club was The Rev A. E. Fox. Over the next 100 years the club operated with a variety of names until 1938 when it became "Thurrock CC" and held its meetings at numerous venues around Thurrock until 1984 when it found its current home – Cowdrey Hall, West Thurrock.

It left its Tilbury venue due to the constant vandalising of the cars.

It was interesting to note that the syllabus for that first year had a lecture on "Developing plates and papers" and the following year included a lecture on "Gaslight Printing".

As we look forward to this year's syllabus, we have had a lecture on "Luminosity masks" by Tim Burgess and Dave George will be sharing his knowledge of Photoshop in "Actions – their use in photoshop and elements". So, in essence things have not changed that much - we are still keen to develop the skills of our members.

Our current chairman Paul Taylor (who joined in the early 80s) recalled the fact that all images still had to be processed by the member, and most images were B&W simply due to the cost of colour printing at home.

At a talk on his reminisces of the club. He spoke of a black and white image that he had taken with a pylon in it that spoiled the effect of the image. He was told that if you used a Cyanide based chemical you could bleach out the pylon. He tried this and was really pleased with the effect and the image was displayed in an exhibition at the Thameside complex.

After telling someone at the club what he had done he was asked if he had used a fixer on it as if you didn't the part of the image that you had got rid of would come back brown. Sure, enough he went to the exhibition and there was the black and white image with a brown pylon slowing appearing as if by magic.

You can see we also have some B&W images on display from James Rhodes who was a member in the 70s and 80s. He was a civil engineer by trade and enjoyed photographing ships among other subjects. If you look at the reverse of the images you can see his journey from beginner to advanced.

He was also very interested in slides and again photographed a wide range of subjects but particularly focused on close ups. He donated the Rhodes Trophy given to the winner of the beginner print of the year.

The introduction of slides brought about a change and colour images could then be trade processed. Slide competitions were then inaugurated to run alongside the print ones until 2007/08.

The digital age came, and once again the club took up the challenge.

The changeover to digital processing was welcome as you didn't have to put up with the smell of the chemicals and the heat from the dark room although there was some diehards who thought you would not get rid of the dark room.

The club would project slide images onto a screen and now we send them via email and use zoom to display our images – the slide competitions were replaced by DPI competitions in 2008/09. Reading the trophy book gives an insight into the changes to the internal competitions over the years. Our most recent change was to initiate the Chas Tagg Triptych Competition to replace the print panel in memory of our DPI officer of many years.

The club has always taken part in external competitions with local clubs including Barking, Hornchurch, Dagenham, Benfleet, Leigh on Sea to name but a few. Some of them are "friendlies" we particularly enjoy our Home and Away Christmas battle with Dagenham with the social evening afterwards.

Some competitions like the Hornchurch Diamond Trophy and the Alan Coleman B&W cup are more serious. As a club we also host two special competitions and invite local clubs to participate. Five clubs are invited to the Pegasus Trophy in January which combines strategy as well as good images.

The Thurrock Challenge Cup again invites 5 clubs to participate in 6 themed rounds 3 in mono and three in colour. Unfortunately, these have not taken place recently due to the COVID restrictions, but we hope to start again in the near future.

In 2014/15 the club had some success at Regional and National level. Chris Aldred recalled the EAF Print competition at Fulbourn Cambridgeshire, we were among 35 clubs entering from throughout East Anglia, we achieved second place in the competition which was an excellent result for a club with a small membership, this result qualified us for the PAGB (National level) competition in the October. In October five members made the trip north to Elsmere Port to compete in the National Print Championships, for the first time in club history.

The competition was in two rounds, the top 10 clubs from the first round went on to a final, the remaining clubs entered into a second completion called "The Plate". 37 clubs from across Britain were invited to compete in the Championships, Thurrock came 14th so did not qualify for the final and were entered into "The Plate" where we came 9th. Thurrock were awarded the "Best Rookie" award for our performance. We also collected an award from the volunteers – they voted Thasan's "The Human Reflection" the best in the Championship.

Two years later, we had success at the EAF Championships at Fulbourn but this time in the PDI Championships, where we gained second place, qualifying for the PAGB Championships at Warwick Univesity in June. One of our members, Brian Titchener, was awarded best image in the championship, for his "Silver Surfer" Sadly we did not do as well that time, but at least we were not last!

For the 90th anniversary in 2011the late Jonathon Catton (a local historian from Thurrock Museum) came to the club with slides showing Grays from the 1920s and 30s. He showed club members where the original Victoria Café was, and he told us that if you go along Grays High Street and look up you will see a cameo of Queen Victoria where the building used to be. He researched and shared much of the early history of the club.

As part of the 90th Anniversary celebrations a competition was held taking images from around Grays and Jonathon Catton was asked to select the images to be used for the 2012 calendar to raise funds for St Luke's hospice. This year we are again asking members to take photographs of Thurrock which will be used in a book entitled "Thurrock – through the lens of TCC.

2020 was a challenging year for everyone. A global pandemic Covid-19 swept through the countries of the world. For us at the camera club we had to consider how to keep the club running when there were no meeting facilities. It was agreed to trial Zoom meetings to keep in contact with our members. We found many benefits from the introduction of Zoom - we were able to meet regularly with members some of whom now lived in Wales, and we were able to engage with judges and speakers from further afield which added a richness to the club's syllabus.

We have embraced the use on zoom to create hybrid meetings in the hall which enables members from far away – Wales and Switzerland and those still shielding to take part. We thank Cowdray Hall for the installation of Wi-Fi which enables us to do so.

One of the things many members enjoyed over the years were the visits out both local visits to place such as the RSPB at Rainham, bluebell woods at Danbury and further afield to Eagle Heights, Woburn Deer Park, Cambridge and France. It is good to practise your skills with other members and we are continuing with monthly get-togethers.

Looking ahead to the future we are hoping to continue with a balance of competitions both internal and external as well as opportunities for club members to develop their skills. But most of all to promote a love of photography.