If you are new to our camera club, you can find out more about us (where we meet, how much it costs, etc) by clicking here. Visitors to our club evenings are always welcome: the programme for the next few meetings is outlined below - just come. Club evenings start at 7:30pm.

•  Bradford Abbas Shield 2024: "Trees"   Well, we did our best, but still only made it to 4th place out of 5, and (if truth be told) a bit of a gap between us and 3rd place. Congratulations to the Sherborne Bradford Abbas Camera Club who were the winners. Congratulations also go to Alan Williams and to Steve Cooper for their photos "Dank Wood" and "Bent Tree" respectively which were our joint top scorers with 18/20 points. (Click on any image in the slideshow to see it enlarged).

After great discussion and deliberation the Sherborne Bradford Abbas CC has chosen the following theme for 2025/26 Bradford Abbas Shield as: "Farmers and Farming". This is a wide-ranging theme which should challenge us - and stimulate opportunities for us all! By way of some guidance this theme is intended to "include the activity or business of growing crops and raising livestock and poultry". The competition will take place on 24th March 2026.

•  Club Meetings:   meetings have resumed with in-person sessions at the Blake Hall on the first Wednesday of the month and Zoom meetings on the third Wednesdays from October to March. One of the unexpected lessons of the last year has been that we can get some very good speakers from more distant places on a greater range of topics by going on-line. You can see the full programme using the link below.

Bradford Abbas images 2024 - 'Trees'

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Visitors are welcome to join us for in-person and/or for zoom meetings - please e-mail for further details. Meanwhile our Monthly Challenges continue to run on-line with the images also being shown at our 1st Wednesday club nights.

•  January 7th   "Techniques and Ideas for Travel Photography".
Our first meeting of 2026 features Steve Davey, a writer and photographer was based in London before moving to south Somerset recently. His self-confessed low boredom threshold and fascination with the sights and cultures of the world has lead to be an avid traveller all of his life. In the course of his work, he has travelled to some 87 countries photographing and researching a range of stories. Some of the highlights have included photographing the Maha Kumbh Mela at Allahabad – the largest gathering on the planet; hanging out of a plane whilst photographing five countries in Southern Africa and snowmobiling in the Arctic.

Visit Steve's website here: www.stevedavey.com

•  January 21st   "Post processing hints and tips".
Jonathan Vaines joins us by Zoom from the south-east of the country where he is a multi award-winning photographer, judge, advocate and educator. Take a look at his work and it is evident that his photography is much more than recording what the eye sees: it is not an option in his work. He uses the camera to create, paint and even manipulate an image using a number of in-camera and post-processing techniques. He describe his eye as Visual Art and his product Wall Art, often abstracts or a twist on real life. He frequently works with images in groups, sets or panels. With every image produced his aim is to convey the feeling he experienced at the time of taking and offer an opportunity for the viewer to see the subject in a different way. It’s not a quick process.

Visit Jonathan's website here: https://blueroomphoto.site123.me/

•  November Challenge: "Bottles"  

Immediately you'll be thinking "Bottles .... mmm .... something alcoholic" and there are indeed some of those in this month's entries. But there's more as well: some old, some discarded, some used for decoration, and some given a creative, 'still life' treatment. Congratulations to this month's winner, Andy Lord, whose favourite tipple it seems we now all know.

"One down - One to Go" by Andy Lord
See a quick summary of the results of voting on the challenge here:     as a video:   --->   mp4     or     as a pdf:   --->   pdf
See all the results of the voting   here.

Programme 2025-6   --- >   (in brief) here   < ---

Visit the South Petherton Photographers Facebook page   --->   here   <---

The SPPS South Petherton Calendar has become something of an institution over the years, and very well supported by sales it is too. Many thanks to the photographers who provided images this year of South Petherton and the area around: Steve Cooper, Carolyn Edwards, James McInnes, John Nicholson, Dave Simpson, Jenny Wade, Alan Williams and Robert Williams - and to the image selection panel, and the editor, James McInnes.

2026 Calendar We are always looking for fresh images to include in the next edition of the calendar. As you take them throughout the year, please send your South Petherton and locality images for collation and possible selection to .

The area included as 'South Petherton and its locality' can be displayed below: click on [Open Map] below to reveal the map.

Each month the club members are set a photo challenge to produce digital images on a set topic. The images are then reviewed at a subsequent club night and voted on to select the winner (who gets a round of applause and our heartfelt admiration).

•  You can view entries from past 2023/24 challenges and earlier here

Challenge topics and deadlines 2025/26      You can view all of the past challenge entries here.

Entries: (please make no smaller than 1Mb and no larger than 2Mb - as a guide, about 1200 pixels along the longest edge is plenty big enough for your image to be projected with good quality) can be e-mailed to .
Click here for the rules of the Monthly Challenge competition.

On-line voting: members can vote for their favourite challenge images (up to 2) each month - log into the Members' Area and follow the 'Monthly Challenges' link. The results of the vote will be announced at the following in-person club meeting (and shortly after on the club website).