Barry Mead

This week we have Barry Mead visiting us and to steal the heading from his website

The main categories of work are Wildlife of Namibia, Zambia and the Falkland Islands. The images from Namibia are the result of a number of trips in recent years and the Zambia images from a trip to the South Luangwa National Park in 2003. The Falkland Islands were visited at the end of 2006. Landscape images come from a number of trips to the USA as well as images from Namibia and the UK. The Creatve work has a strong Sci-fi and Fantasy influence. Recent images include Kenya,Florida,Yellowstone and Greylag Geese as well as new work taken at Slimbridge.

It should be a good night and if you want to take a look at some of his work before Thursday you can visit his website by following THIS link.

Practical Night

Last night was our second practical night of the year. We had demonstrations on editing
using various different pieces of software, Macro Photography, mount board cutting and how
the different apertures affect the depth of field and we also tackled a lot of question's. Although how to add
zombies to a graveyard photo was probably the most original one of the night. It was a great evening
and everyone who attended said they had learned something new. Which was exactly what we
hoped would happen.

The feedback we had was great and we’re already planning the next practical night in February.

Cutting mount board

What's new

Unless someone just poked your eyes out you will notice that over on the left of your screen is a new addition to the Blog. We now have a Facebook page. If you scroll down a little bit more you will also notice that there is a section called "You might like....". What someone has dug your eyes out with a spoon! At least that explains why no one has commented on it yet. Anyway, inside that section you will find links to a whole page dedicated to the various Exhibitions & Salon's around the country, listed in month order. Our very own Dominique compiled it for you all so a big thank you goes out to her for doing such a fantastic job. Also there's a link for "Where to go and What to do!" that page is still being worked on but all the information that is being used was collated by Hanneke. I've been a bit slow to put up the information but I am doing it slowly.

Anyway tonight's the practical night so bring along your camera's, questions, laptops and anything else you want to use or learn about. We're going to try our best to impart as much knowledge as possible to you all. So please do make sure you come along. If you think tonight would be a waste of time for you then come along, help out and share some wisdom with those of us less fortunate one's.

Round 2 Results

The results of the 2nd Round of our Annual Open Competition have been announced! It's great to see so many of you taking part and submitting such wonderful photographs. I've managed to get all but one of the winners to show here. Hopefully next time I'll be able to get them all.
Our thanks also go to  Eddie Lane for taking the time to go through and judge them all.

I've tried a slightly different way of laying out the shots on this blog. Please let me know if it works for you or if it still looks as though I've randomly thrown the images across the screen. They really need to sort out a decent system for laying out multiple pictures on these blogs.


The winner for the Digital Projected Image Category was Adrian Cook with his picture entitled Kilve

In 2nd place, Digital Projected Image was Richard Price with Flaming Rose


Adrian Cook also managed to get 3rd place in the Digital Projected Image's with Tokyo Station
 
Barrie Tovey claimed one of the Highly Commended spots with his Digital Projected Image, Puffin in Flight

Highly Commended Digital Projected Image, Roy Williams with Bluetit
 
Last Drop by Julie Coombs, Highly Commended Digital Projected Image
 
Rosie Tomlinson Highly Commended Digital Projected Image titled Do It later
 
Simon Xu with the Digital Projected Image Mask at St. Mark's Square Highly Commended

Highly Commended Digital Projected Image Ian Coombs with The Mystic

The winner of the Print category for Round 2 was Richard Price with Brown Lipped Snail

2nd place Print was Barrie Tovey with Monkey

3rd Place print was Ian Coombs with The Lord is My Shepherd

Highly Commended Print. Amber Glare by Alison Davies
 
Ian Coombs Highly Commended Print with Surf Rider



Also Highly Commended in the Print section was Joe Scudamore with Whose Looking at Me.
Unfortunately I'm unable to display his entry here as I have no access to a digital version.

Congratulations to everyone who placed and a big thank you to all that entered.

Ding Ding Round 2

It's that time we all dread, hate and loathe but just cant resist turning up for. It's results night for round 2 of the open competition. After last time when Ian wiped the floor with us it's time for revenge. It seems he decided to photo-shop moustaches onto every entry this time! Very strange way to try to win but apparently someone told him the judge likes moustaches. Yet again we had lots of entries and which means the judge has loads of pictures to get through. So please do your best to be punctual.

Shadow's

Congratulations to Dominique on winning our Shadow themed print competition. The pictures below are the only ones entered into the competition that I have either been sent or have been posted on Flickr. The top one is the winning entry from Dominique. The second picture is also from Dominique and grabbed a runners up slot. The third shot is from Teagan who was also a runner up. Congratulations to you two and also to the other runners up. Sorry this is only a short post but Blogger is being a pain in the ass as usual when I have to post more than 1 picture in an article.

Printing Shadows

Next meeting we have our annual Print only competition. This year the Subject is "Shadows". Later in the year we have the companion to it with the Digital only competition and the subject for that is "Highlights". If your really paying attention to the programme then you'll notice that there is also a "Trio" competition and the John Hankin & Stan Scantlebury Shields. Why am I mentioning this now? Because when I first joined and saw these were coming up I wondered just what they involved and got a bit confused by the answers I was given. So I'm going to try and explain them to you over the course of this and the next few Blog posts.

Now I very rarely enter prints into any of the competitions, not because I don't like to see my pictures in all their glory, but because my middle name is Scrooge. So if I get anything to do with the print side of things wrong I hope someone who knows better will let me know and I'll correct it.

The Print Competition
In theory you can enter absolutely any size print you want as long as it fits onto a piece of mount board that is 50 by 40cm. The reason we have that as the maximum size is it's the recognized standard size for National and International Photographic Competitions. The size of print that we have found fits best in that size mount is 16 by 12inches, 40 by 30cm. Those are the size of the pictures you most often see when we have a guest speaker who shows their mounted prints. The best place to get your photo's printed? Well a lot of the club tend to use Keynsham Photographic, mention Reflex Camera Club and you might just get it at a better price. There are lots of places that you can use, even the local supermarket if you want. The choice is yours.

Sorting out the Mounting of the pictures is something that I haven't quite got my head around but lots of club members are very good at it and if you ask then someone will be able to help you with it. I'm supposed to be writing a tutorial on that but I've only ever done it once and watched it done twice. So if anyone wants to write it up then go ahead and we'll gladly let everyone else know that you've done a fantastic job.

You don't have to have the print as large as possible within the mount. You can mount a 5x7 print into a full size piece of board. You also don't have to have the board at the maximum size. Any variation is allowed as long as the mount board is no larger than the maximum size allowed. Smaller mounts or small pictures in full size mounts are fine. If the picture is strong enough to suit a different size of mount then go for it.

Of course if you can't for some reason get it printed at the preferred size or mounted then there is nothing to stop you from bringing in a normal print and using that for the "Shadows" competition. Although for the open and external competitions your pictures HAVE to be mounted. So make sure you bring along a shadowy picture to enter on Thursday. Any size, mounted or not. Just take part and have some fun.