Awards

Well I had my eyes well and truly opened with the Skittles  match during last weeks awards, I am not exagerating when I say I genuinely feared for my life sitting next to the alley, how there weren't holes made in the floor I will never know :)

It was a great turn out with most of the club coming along for the social meet and  Im sure we managed to stink the club out with garlic too :) Thankyou Alison for arranging the food for us all.

The award winners -

 Winner of the tickets to Fairford - Michelle Donohoue

Novice of the year  - Julie Coombs

 Print photographer of the year - Richard Price

 DPI photographer of the year - Angi Nelson

John Hankin Shield Best Print - Mark O'Grady

Stan Scantlebury Shield Best DPI - Angi Nelson

 Photographer of the Year - Richard Price

Now we are entering the summer months and the committee plus a few extra members have put together a programme to keep us occuppied whilst those other lucky few are away in pursuit of summer sunshine abroad. This week we start with Barry taking us through images he has judged for other clubs.

R.O.C Round 3 Results

 

First off I’d like to thank Roger Mallison for taking the time to cast his expert eye over and  judge all of the images.

Here are the winners from Round 3 of the Reflex Camera Club Open Competition.

(As usual images link to the image on Flickr (or the creators website) Names link to Flickr or website)

1st Place Digital Projected Image Bubbliness by Angi Nelson	1st Place Print Marie Anne by Ian Coombs
2nd Place Digital Projected Image Eye on the Ball by Richard Price	2nd Place Print Rhossili by Richard Price
3rd Place Digital Projected Image Alfie Reflection by Eddie House	3rd Place Print Very Moorish by Sian Perry
	Yet again hasn’t bothered to send in a digital version
Highly Commended Digital Projected Image Remembrance by Adrian Cook	Highly Commended Print The Beach by Ian Coombs
When he remembers how to switch his computer on I’ll have it…
Highly Commended Digital Projected Image Evening Light by Roy Williams

 

Congratulations to the winners and a huge thank you to everyone that took part.

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Frogs, Snakes & Light Painting

We had a bit of a gap in our programme as our scheduled speaker had to cancel. Luckily for us club members Angi Nelson & Myk Garton offered to fill it for us. So instead of having to sit quietly and listen & look at someone else’s images we had a practical night.

Now practical nights can be a bit of a hit or miss affair. Sometimes we don’t get many people attending. Other times we get nearly every club member turn up. This Thursday was definitely one of  those times that nearly everyone turned up! Angi supplied us with various Frogs, Snakes & Reptiles plus a load of props & studio lights whilst Myk took charge of the Light Painting side of things.

After setting up the tables, props & animals Angi and her daughter with the aid of Richard Price gave those that wanted to stay inside and take images of the animals advice and help with the settings on their camera’s if they wanted or needed it.

Whilst all that was happening Myk Garton & Kevin Spiers took a group of members to the park across the road so they could create some Light Painting Images.

If your interested in seeing more images created on Thursday night then you can go to our Flickr Group where they are gradually being added by club members.

Frog Image copyright Michelle Lou. Light Painting Image copyright AJA Photography

Everything was going really well, until the splash….

We started the day at Woodchester Mansion which is an unfinished Gothic style mansion. A great place inside and some wonderful grounds to walk around and take pictures. The front of the mansion is mostly complete but unfortunately they seemed to think that the addition of a huge, white, 30 foot long marquee outside the entrance would be a good idea. That kind of ruined the chances of getting any good shots of the house as the back was covered in scaffolding and you could see the marquee from the side of the house as well. Cloning things out from between tree branches isn’t my idea of fun so I quickly dismissed even taking a shot.

I had a nice long walk around the Orange route with Rich as we were going to find the boathouse and see if we could get a decent shot or two of it. As we were walking down from the house we bumped into Christine and found that her day wasn’t going to well. She’d removed the SD card from her camera the night before for some reason and had forgotten to replace it. So no pictures for her and a totally wasted trip out. As we continued on the Orange route we kind of missed a turn when a couple of cows decided to object to our presence. Which led to us taking a two mile round trip around a couple of lakes instead of only having to walk about 500 yards from the house to the boathouse! Next time I’m definitely bringing a jar of mustard to threaten the cows with.

When we got back to the mansion to our dismay the tea room had already shut and we were forced to endure a dry wait for the minibus to take us back up to the car park. The less said about that journey the better if only for the fact I want to forget that at one point the van was leaning over at 45 degrees when the driver had to reverse and went up on the bank. When we got up to the car park we found Myk & Angi waiting for us. It seemed that everyone else had decided to call it a day and gone home. We were also treated to a great display from the local Glider club as the flight path in to land went directly above the car park.

We all headed, literally across the road to the car park at Coaley Peak, which is a popular hang gliding spot. After capturing a few shots of the sunset we moved up to a more secluded part of the picnic area to do a little bit of light painting. That went really well but it seems we won’t be buying our wire wool at B&Q again as it lasted all of about 10 seconds once it was lit. After a little bit of discussion we decided to head through Dursley, via a fantastic fish & chip shop, to Purton Hulks. Where the plan was to go and do some light painting down amongst the decaying hulls of the boats. We arrived and promptly set off down the towpath to find a suitable spot. Stopping at one of the Hulks we set up and had a bit of fun with lasers, sparklers and various kid’s toys! If you’ve had a go at light painting before you know what I mean. We moved on again to another hulk and created some images  there. Then we had a great idea. Lets go back to the car park and spin some orbs & wool spin off the bridge over the canal! Great, what could possibly go wrong? So we start to set up and Angi decides to go down the tow path a little and try a different angle towards the bridge. She spots some steps going down to what, in the moonlight, looks like a solid piece of concrete. Unfortunately it was just algae covered water! Splash in she went, camera, tripod and mobile phone. Right up to her neck! Now on the bridge Rich was heard to say, bloody hell Angi you’ve scared the birds and spoilt the reflections! Myk jokingly said “It’s only Angie falling in”. Then we heard a HELP! And it was “Oh shit she has!”. Rich & Myk helped her out and I got my camera (I can’t see anything wrong with my priorities). As you can see from the picture she tried to take half the canal home in her shoe.