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Hi Darron,

I just wanted to say how much I thoroughly enjoyed last night!
From someone who is new to the club and totally lacking in confidence, your pictures were really inspiring, the stories going with them both entertaining and valuable in advice.
If I can manage to take a picture as half as good as your first I will be immensely happy!! I will never look at a Yale key in the same light again!
Thank you again for a truly wonderful night.

Kind Regards Carol (Harris)
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Hi Darron,

We would like to thank you for a very entertaining and Informative evening, feedback from our members show that everyone enjoyed the relaxed atmosphere and humour you put into the evening, your work was exceptional, we loved your nature pictures and your 'creative' side, I wish i could replicate this alone!
Very best wishes for the future, we look forward to seeing you again.

Carole & David Perry
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Last week we were really back on track with our Guest Speaker. Darron Matthews entertained us with his presentation titled 'My Camera Club Journey'. Darron provided us with an excellent evenings entertainment. Darron is a member of Lichfield Camera Club of which he joined because his first choice club held their meetings on the same night as he played pool. Darron has since given up pool to concentrate on photography. This is definitely photography's gain as Darron demonstrated his skills in various photographic genre, including landscapes and abstract, but most of all in macro nature photography. It's no exaggeration to say his macro images were stunning. Even those members with Insect phobia couldn't help but be impressed. Not only were the images excellent, but Darron was a thoroughly nice chap as well. Having a whole alphabet of letters after his name certainly hasn’t given him airs and graces. Hopefully he can come back with another presentation soon.
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We had the most wonderful evening and members were still talking about it, weeks later.
We expected to see your stunning wildlife images but were amazed by your enthralling landscape images too. A few members said they had visited some of the places featured but said they hadn't seen them looking that good. One of our members, is an avid caravanner and has been to many of the places you have been. She was making copious notes all through your talk and commented how much you inspired her. I also have the feeling that our next Three of a Kind competition will be very colourful too. Also, the last time we had so much enthusiasm after a talk was after Gianpiero Ferrari gave us his talk "One Year of Wildlife" and before that Michael Windle's "A Stroll on the Wild Side".
However, I cannot remember many more occasions.
Thank you very much from Aston and Erdington members, it was lovely to have an evening where everyone enjoyed and appreciated your images, it doesn't happen very often!

Best wishes and good luck with your FRPS panel.
Linda Johnson
Programme Secretary
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Hi Darron, We would like to thank you so much for judging 'The George Lamb Trophy' competition for us on Monday night, It was a great evening helped tremendously by you, I can't believe it was your first time for live judging, you were excellent, good critique with advice when needed, served with enough humour to make the evening go well, I don't think you planned the end decision to go as it did but believe me you could hear a pin drop in that room, everyone was almost holding their breath waiting with anticipation for your final decision, it was brilliant.
Once again thank you so much, members feedback was that they really enjoyed the night and thought you were a great judge.
Thank you for donating your fee to St. Giles Hospice our chosen charity.
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Just a quick note to thank you for visiting our club and judging our internal club competition themed on the colour red. You did a great job at keeping the evening moving along. You made some incisive comments about the images, offering advice for improvement and explaining how you assessed the image, and came to a conclusion on marks and placings. This was educational and instructive and kept us engaged throughout. Most of all though, and based on comments I got about the evening, it was entertaining! Your style of delivery went down very well with our members and, to be honest, I think your natural humorous asides and engagement with the audience elicited more laughter than I’d heard in our previous recent competitions. While that is not essential for a competition judge, it did make for a fun and relaxing evening and everyone went away happy (regardless of their scores or placings!). I heard members say that they were pleased that you would be back with us later in the season to give a talk - that’s music to the ears of the programme secretary, a great success! Thank you.
With best regards,
Rob Sample

Programme Secretary
Rocester & District Camera Club
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Thanks again for your excellent talk at Smethwick yesterday, I've had excellent feedback from lots of members.
It's always great to see super images, but even better when you explain how you achieved them, even if it's rather more difficult than even I thought!

Tim Pile (President 25/11/22)
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Hello Darron,
I am writing on behalf of Stonnall Conservation Society to say a big thank you for your presentation of wildlife photography to our members last night. We had a lot of positive feedback and the family of the lady who was being remembered were delighted with the evening.

Kind regards Linda Birchall
Speaker Secretary
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Dear Darron,
On behalf of Ashbourne & District Camera Club I just wanted to say thank you for your interesting, enlightening and very entertaining talk last week. You showed a variety of images from different genres with a lot of tips and hints as how you got to that final image. I think we all agreed that your recent nature pictures are superb and received quite a few admiring noises from your audience!
There was a lot of information to take in and I am sure that members will be trying out some of your suggestions. We look forward to seeing you again in April for the Image of the Year Competition, you never know I may have even tried something in RAW by then !!

Warm regards
Taryna.
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Just like to "Thank You" on behalf of the SCPC for delivering your insightful and wonderful event “A CLOSE ENCOUNTER WITH NATURE”.
Certainly, inspiring and informative presentation overall. Amazing images and you must be very proud and fortunate to be in the position to photograph wildlife on a part time basis. I personally think your delivery was just right and pitched to the audience to understand the principles of Macro Photography.
Hopefully, you had a wonderful time and enjoyed the evenings activities at our small club last Friday. Hopefully, we can talk again later in the season when you return to the club in the capacity as our esteemed judge in January 2024.

Yours sincerely,
Paul M Cook. SCPC Programme Secretary.
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Thank you so very much for you terrific presentation last night entitled 'A Close Encounter With Nature'.
I remember when I originally booked you over the phone saying that as WPS Programme Secretary 'I like to start each New Year with a bang' ~ well, you definitely met that remit in spades!
The way you explained your photography and its methodology was both fascinating and certainly eye opening.
For example, I was really impressed with the equipment you had built to achieve many of your stunning images plus the terrific level of fine detail you achieved in your images which was jaw-droppingly unbelievable!
Like most of us, I always try to pick a 'favourite image' when we have a speaker visiting us but, in your case, it was very difficult. If I had to pin myself down I would pick your 'bee in flight' image strongly supported by your explanation images of what it took to achieve this truly remarkable shot!
All in all you definitely gave us a fascinating evening which we really enjoyed and I'm sure it will encourage some of our membership to push their self-imposed boundaries and try their hand at Macro work.
Once again Darron, a really BIG THANK YOU from all of us at Wolverhampton PS for giving us one of the best evenings we've ever had in my 35+ years of membership.

Alan Laurence ARPS (Programme & Committee Secretary ~ Wolverhampton PS)

Wolverhampton PS Facebook Blog

We had an amazing guest speaker last night! Darron's work on photographing insects in macro was truly superb. Not only does he understand his wide array of subjects and their behaviour, he also has the skills and passion to take utterly mesmerising images. On top of all this he was happy to answer any questions no matter how complex or straightforward. Darron has definitely earned all the photographic accolades he has obtained.
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Hi Darron, As programme secretary I was delighted to find your delivery clear and engaging and your images were stunning. I was disappointed at first not to be able to see some landscapes as I know from your website, you also have a talent for that genre. However, when we were privileged to have such an excellent presentation of nature and macro images, I could see why it would be much better if we asked if you could come back next season to deliver a landscape talk.

Jan Harris

Programme Secretary
Bromsgrove Photographic Society
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