Deliberately mess it up.

If you came along to last nights meeting you would of been sat there bored, listening to me tell you how to edit your photographs, but wait a minute. I didn’t tell you how to do it. I showed you how I would edit three of my pictures and hopefully started you thinking what you could do to your own work to make it stand out a little.  I didn’t want any of you going away from last nights meeting thinking you had to do exactly what I said. I desperately wanted you NOT to do that and I really hope I succeeded.

I honestly think that everyone should take the pictures they want and edit them (or not) however they want to. They are after all your pictures. But I also think that if you do want to process your pictures you should try and make them the best they could be. If no one else likes what you’ve done to a picture, who cares! As long as your happy with it that’s what counts. But you have to admit it’s nice when someone tells you they like what you’ve created.

You may take something, look at it on the back of the camera and think “well that’s crap”, but I hope that the last two weeks have shown you that no matter how bad it looks on the camera screen it can be turned into a good picture with just a little bit of work. Now that’s not to say that you shouldn’t try and take the best photograph possible and get as much as possible right in camera, but if something goes wrong or you forget to change a setting because your in a hurry then its not the end of the world.

If I can create the picture on the right from the total mess on the left there’s no reason you can’t either! I guess what I’m trying to get you to understand is don’t be afraid to try doing something different when your editing your pictures. See what you can get out of the ones you think are beyond hope. You never know what you’ll get.

I know what you did last summer!

This week its bring your summer photo's in and show us just what you got upto during the break. (See what I did with the title clever wasn't it!) Don't be shy pick out the ones that show your holiday, day at the park, whatever you got up to. Well maybe not everything. Just the legal and non perverted stuff! It might seem scary to have your shots on show to everyone but it's great fun and you'll not only enjoy yourself. You'll probably get some constructive comments that could make you think about how you take pictures. I know I have!

Also don't forget to bring in your Print entries for the First Round of the Open Competition. The rules and some walk throughs on how to resize your pictures have been posted on the Website and Blog. I've also sent out an email with them in. If your going to enter Digital Files for the Projected Image section then please email them in NO LATER THAN midday on Friday See if you use email you can get an extra day to prepare them. Of course you can bring your digital files in on a memory stick and hand them in on the night but the preferred method of entry is by email. So please, if at all possible, email them in. Also try to remember that they should be named Similar to the following examples

01_My Title_Fred Bloggs.jpg
02_My Other Title_Fred Bloggs.jpg
03_My Last Title_Fred Bloggs.jpg

My pictures shrunk in the wash!

If your on the clubs mailing list you already know that we have a couple of PDF's doing the rounds on how to resize your pictures so they can be entered into the club competitions. I'm basically just going to bore the pants off you now by repeating myself. We've got, not one, not two but THREE! (see surprised you there didn't I) tutorials on the website dealing with resizing your pictures. Two of them you already know about, the one's for Lightroom and Photoshop. The third was created by our very own Steve Hallam (there now he gets the blame if any of it is wrong) and shares the arcane art of resizing in Paint.net. If you've never heard of it then you should check it out. It's totally free and very good. The have a great community on their forums with lots of people regularly posting help and advice to anyone using the software. If you need a good piece of editing software for your photo's the best free option, if your using a windows pc, is probably going to be Paint.net.

To find the tutorials on resizing visit our website and goto the links page. Find the Reflex member downloads part and all of them are listed there. At the moment you only have those three tutorials and the competition rules available but we are planning on adding more soon. So if you want to know how to do something in Photo Editing Software or what settings you should be using to take a particular shot. Basically anything photo related. Get in touch!

Reflex Camera Club Competition Rules

Below are the rules of entry for the Club Competitions. I know at first glance they seem daunting and confusing but they are pretty simple really. If you want to download them to your own computer to print or read them at your leisure then they are available to download in PDF format from the club website HERE. If you need it then Adobe's free PDF reader can be downloaded HERE. Make sure you remove the tick in the box that says you want the McCaffe Security Scan Plus.
Please do take the time to read through the rules if you are planning on entering. As there is important information in there. They tell you everything you need to know on HOW to enter the competitions. What they don't tell you though is how to prepare your images. However, if you keep an eye on this blog then you will see over the course of the next few days a series of articles explaining how to resize your pictures using Photoshop, Lightroom and how to resize them for printing if you are planning on entering prints this year.

If you have any comments or need something explained you can either get in touch at the usual email address or ask on a Thursday night. There are two other ways that you can get help though. One is to sign up to Flickr and ask in our Clubs Group page (you will however need to be a fully paid up member of Reflex to join our Flickr Group), or you can ask in the Comments section of this Blog as we have now turned comments back on.



Open Competition

1. Members may enter up to three prints and/or three digital projected images in each round.
2. Prints and Projected Images are judged separately.
3. Prints may be of any size as long as they are mounted on card not larger than 50 x 40 cm.
4. Digital projected image entries: see Appendix for conditions of entry
5. Entries should be handed to the competition secretary by the closing date, as displayed on the notice board and in the programme.
6. An entry that has been awarded 1st, 2nd, 3rd or Highly Commended may not be entered in the Open competition again. Any not placed may be entered once more in another round.
7. Entrants are awarded points according to the scheme shown below.
8. At the end of the season, the entrant with most points in the print section will be awarded “Print Photographer of the Year”. The entrant with the most points in the projected images section will be awarded “Projected Image Photographer of the Year”. Points gained in print and projected images sections will be accumulated and the entrant with the greatest number of points overall will be “Photographer of the Year”.
9. Entries should reflect the entrant’s recent work.
10. All entries must be the work of the member. However, trade-processing of prints is permitted.
11. Any variation to these rules will be announced at club meetings and shown on the notice board.
12. The Competition Secretary’s decision is final, and he/she may:
a. Refuse to accept any entry that they consider does not comply with the spirit of these rules.
b. Vary the rules in exceptional circumstances provided the spirit of the Club is not prejudiced.
Points system
1. Entrants will be awarded one point for each projected image or print on the first occasion it is entered in the open section.
2. Additional points will be awarded for “placed” entries:
First - 8 points, Second - 6 points, Third - 4 points, Highly Commended - 1 point.
Trio Competition
All rules as “Open” but with the following changes:
1. The competition is judged “live” on the night.
2. Points awarded count towards print, projected image, and overall photographer of the year.
3. You may enter up to three sets of three projected images and/or prints, to be judged as sets. See appendix for special rules for digital projected images.
4. Entries may be brought on the night, but earlier submission will help the Competition Secretary.
John Hankin Shield (prints) & Stan Scantlebury Shield (projected images)
All rules as “Open” but with the following changes:
1. Each member may enter prints, projected images or both, up to a maximum of 3 each.
2. The judge will select the best image, print & projected image.
3. No points will be awarded.
4. Only images that have been entered in the Open section during the current season can be entered, including those that have been “placed”. Individual images from Trio entries are acceptable.
September 2010

Appendix
Digital Projected Images – conditions of entry for all Club Competitions

1. Images will be projected in a landscape format of 1400 by 1050 pixels maximum and should be sized accordingly.
2. Portrait (vertical) images should be no larger than 1050 pixels high.
3. Images must be correctly aligned for projection.
4. The image must be in jpeg (.JPG) format with sRGB colour space. The JPG should be saved at maximum quality (this is not a requirement but is in your own interests!)
5. A title MUST be provided for each entry – the title will form part of the name of the file.
6. The file name will consist of:
a. A serial number (01, 02 or 03) followed by an underscore (_)
b. The title of the entry (which may include letters, numbers and spaces but NO other characters) followed by an underscore
c. The name of the entrant (which may include letters, numbers and spaces but NO other characters)
d. As an example: “01_My wonderful image_Fred Bloggs”
7. Entries may be submitted by email, on CD, or on a memory stick.
a. PLEASE ENTER BY EMAIL IF POSSIBLE! Send an email to reflexcc@gmail.com with the image files as attachments.
b. If you have to submit entries on CD or memory stick, you MUST create a folder with your name (e.g. “Fred Bloggs”) containing your entries. This allows rapid copying of entries on Club nights
Digital entries for Trio Competition
1. Your sets of three images must be contained within SINGLE jpg files.
2. The overall projected image size limits are the same as for all other Club competitions
3. As long as the above rules are observed, you are free to do what you like with your images.

NOTE
External competitions (such as the WCPF inter-club digital image competition) have their own entry requirements which are different from ours. PLEASE READ THE RULES CAREFULLY before submitting entries.