The perils of Texting.

So a group of us all decide to meet at Chew Valley Reservoir to try and get some pictures of the full moon. As it was going to be at it’s closest point to earth for 19 years. We’re all having a laugh and joking around when I get a text message from Kev saying it was cloudy where he was (he’d gone of to Hayling Island for the weekend). We replied back and then just carried on with what we were doing. Then I got another text! I’m hoping he accidentally left out a word. If not he and his wife have some serious explaining to do when we see them next.

Highlights without the Hair Dye!

Last night we had our lovely little friendly competition on the theme of Highlights. A great night but something just didn’t seem right, could it have been the strangely calming music that was being played. I know I heard a few snore’s from the back of the room. The lack of heckling was strange. Normally one corner of the room turns into the balcony in the Muppet theatre (do I have to hide now?).
The Overall Winner was Kev Spiers with his picture of a Foggy Cadbury’s. Shame he didn’t stay to collect his prize. Nope we’re not going to tell him what it was. We’re just going to keep reminding him he didn’t get to have it.

Second place was Eddie House with his photograph Brandon Hill Sunset	Antony Bezer came third with his Lighthouse photograph

Well done all of you and thanks to everyone who entered.
_{All pictures remain the © of the original artists and are posted with permission.}

Come get yer 'air dun!

Don't forget this Thursday is our Digital Projected Competition with the theme Highlights. No points or prizes it's just for fun. The only rule (well 2 rules) are you're picture must be on the theme of Highlights and sized correctly (1400 pixels on the longest edge if Landscape orientated or 1050 pixels if Portrait orientated). We'd also love it if you name the file in the same way as you do for club competitions, but that's not essential for this. If your going to Dropbox or email your entries please do so by Thursday lunchtime as I need to have them to bring to the meeting. You can of course also bring them in on a memory stick if you really have to.

Also it's your last chance to submit your Trio entries. If your submitting digital images then you need to have them named correctly. It's not hard to do and here's three examples;

01_my picture title_my name.jpg
02_my other picture title_my name.jpg
03_my last picture title_my name.jpg

You might notice a pattern there. Please note it's an UNDERSCORE and NOT a hyphen or minus sign. On most keyboards you can find the underscore right next to the 0 (zero) and to use it just hold the shift key down whilst pressing that key. Why am I going on and on about it? Well when the pictures are collated to be sent of to the judge we use a bit of software that automates the printing of the score sheet and removes & renumbers the files so the judge doesn't get to see who created the photographs. This software works on a pattern recognition system. Which means it knows that after the first underscore is the title of the picture and after the 2nd underscore is the photographers name. If it doesn't find an underscore it doesn't work and we have to rename the files manually. Which can get annoying when you consider for the last competition we had over 40 digital images. So please do take the time to name your files correctly. If you use Lightroom there is a walk through on our website which creates a preset so you can simply click one option and it resizes and renames your files for you. If you still need a reminder of what the Trio involves then just follow this link.

Round 4 Winners

 

Yet again some fantastic photographs were entered.  Thanks to Paul Kessler LRPS for proving to be an excellent and entertaining judge.

The pictures either link to the version on the photographers website or Flickr account, where possible, else they link to the clubs Flickr account. If the photographer has a website or Flickr account then their name sends you to that.

If you have put your winning picture online somewhere or would rather have the link point elsewhere, please let me know.

Thanks to everyone who took part and congratulations to the winners.

_______________________________________ Winning Print The Fighter, Rich Price	___________________________________________ Winning Digital Image Tidal Curves, Roy Williams
-------------------------------------------------- 2nd Place Print Shadows & Reflections, Theresa Driscoll	-------------------------------------------------------- 2nd Place Digital Image Great Tree Nymph (Idea Leuconoe), Mark Stone
-------------------------------------------------- 3rd Place Print Hands of the Vampire, Ian Coombs	-------------------------------------------------------- 3rd Place Digital Image King of the Jungle, Dan Thomas
-------------------------------------------------- Commended Print Holler, Alison Davies	-------------------------------------------------------- Highly Commended Digital Image Unbroken Gaze, Alison Davies
-------------------------------------------------- Commended Print My Gentle Friend, Alison Davies	-------------------------------------------------------- Commended Digital Image Shadows, Adrian Cook
-------------------------------------------------- Commended Digital Image Riddles in the Dark, Ian Coombs	-------------------------------------------------------- Commended Digital Image Heading Home, Ruth Doyle

Reproduced here with permission. All © remains with the original photographer.

Showing what we do.

On Thursday we had several members bring along photographs and talk about the reasons why and how they took them. We also had two people who decided to give talks about a couple of techniques used to create or process their photo's. Danny gave us an insight into why and how he take all his pictures in Raw whilst Rich took us through a technique called focus stacking. Both very interesting and useful techniques. Thanks to everyone that took part and to those of you that were inspired, it's your turn next year!