FOR this month's feature, Kirkbymoorside Camera Club has focused on creative photography.

Of all the genres of photography many of us find "creative" the most difficult. You often hear members say "I’m not creative" as if it is some gift we are born with.

We had a superb, creative photographer – Nicola Taylor - visit the club recently and she explained that creativity is a bit like playing a musical instrument, no matter how gifted the individual is, without doing the exercises and practice you will never progress. I think that most of us aren’t prepared to work at it and just hide behind our excuses.

I think the creative process can kick in a one of three separate occasions.

The first one is before we even pick up the camera, something produces a creative spark, it may be an object or a piece of music, something that triggers an image in your mind. You then maybe acquire props or start to produce the photographs that will make up the image.

The second is when you have your camera, you see something and decide to take it in different way, it could be a reflection and rather than take the object and its reflection you just focus on part of the reflection, or you may something and intentionally move the camera while capturing the image.

The third one is after the basic photograph has been captured, you look at it and decide that it can form the basis of an even stronger image by amending it in some way or adding or removing elements.

I think the presented pictures show examples of all of these.

Kirkbymoorside and District Camera Club meets on the first and third Thursdays of the month at the Moorside Club (previously known as the British Legion Club), Shaw Drive, Kirkbymoorside, at 7.30pm.

New members of all standards welcome. For more information, go to kirkbymoorside-camera-club.co.uk

Mike Ward – Amaryllis

Amaryllis not only growing from a bulb, but in a bulb. Sometimes an object just sows the seed of an idea in your head and you’ve got to run with it. Sometimes it works and other times you find you’ve just wasted a couple of hours.

Mike Ward – Hell and Back

The model motor cycle was a gift but it sparked the idea of a skeleton on his motor bike. having a great time in the local fields. I had to buy a plastic skeleton, it wasn’t the right size for the bike so that increased the challenge, the background was made from several images taken locally

Mike Ward – Whitby Panorama

The view from the Whale Bones was super but the resultant image was like thousands of others, I wanted something unusual. The polar coordinates filter produced the basic image, I created a gap as the entrance to the harbour and added the pirate ship.

Julie Cowdy - Creating a Cascade

This is one of those images where the idea came first. I wanted to create a ‘trompe l’oeil’ effect, so I combined my photo of a waterfall in the Blue Mountains of Australia with a close up of my hand pouring water from a bottle. I used Photoshop to achieve the effect. I like the way it makes the viewer look again to work out what is going on.

Julie Cowdy - Artifice

This was created by combining my drawing of a jam jar, which I use when painting, with a photo of my hand dipping a paint brush into the water. I enjoy creating unusual effects which trick the eye and did the processing using Photoshop. With creative images I usually come up with the idea first.

Harry Kingman - Finishing Touch

Whilst crossing the road at Black Friars Bridge I got a view of the completed Shard behind the edge of the new station to the right was a massive crane involved in the construction of another building. Which started me thinking how a crane could be involved in constructing the Shard.

Harry Kingman - Hedge Parsley

Taken in the arboretum. The camera was intentionally moved during the exposure. Different effects are produced depending how the camera is moved, sometimes it works and a pleasing image is produced, more often than not it is rubbish.

Joyce Kingman - Water Tapestry

This image began life as a reflection under a brightly painted bridge in London’s Canary Wharf. There was a breeze causing ripples across the water and distorting the regular pattern of the bridge’s uprights. By selecting, just, a portion of this pattern and turning it through ninety degrees this tapestry effect was created.