Yes – I know…..why have we had to wait this long to hear about the Book Title competition? Life folks – this little black duck has been occupied with many other things 😉

Anyway, on to the competition night.
Firstly, the news!

• We welcomed Graham Field as a new member – welcome and thanks for joining
• We also welcomed the SAPF Secretary (and Port Adelaide Camera Club member and judge), Lydia Strutton as a guest. Lydia (and the new SAPF executive) are following the mantra of engaging with clubs and this was a tangible example of just that! Matt and I attended the SAPF AGM as delegates and will keep you informed of new things from SAPF President Alberto Giurelli (Para Camera Club) and the new committee.
• A reminder that the interclub with Edwardstown is coming up on 17  July – so start getting your images and digital entries sorted
• You should also be getting together any digital images for the SAPF Annual Exhibition which must be in by 1-Jun-2012. The committee will need at least 1 image from each member to try and represent our best work. You may also enter your own entries (digital or print) – visit the SAPF web site for more details.
• The SAPF is holding an exhibition to mark 100 years of South Australian photography
  “Darkroom to Digital – 100 years of S. A. Photography”
  This special exhibition will be open from Wednesday May 15 till Saturday May 26 – daily from 10.00am until 4.00 pm at the Drill Hall, Torrens Parade Ground, Adelaide
• A reminder that we need to have your orders in very soon (by 10 May 2012) for the disposable camera competition!

On to the competition. After much searching, our Judge communications secretary Julie found a well read judge to examine our images in the Book Title competition. David White is a former member (and President) of BPC and visited us with his wife Jean. David has wide interests including ornithology, photography, square dancing and bridge. With that array of interests David set forth in evaluating our efforts – with some rather interesting titles if not images. Think of Puss in Boots, Eat Pray Love, Through the Looking Glass, Jonathon Livingstone Seagull, Riddle of the Sands, Steve Jobs and the Thin Blue Line and you get the idea.

You can see David’s top images in the Digital Competition page and of course some of the Editor’s choice for a different perspective 😆

Enjoy!

Chris 😉

Man vs nature – a tricky topic!

The night saw new members and guests – swelling our numbers a little for the evening. We welcome Henk, who attended our Natural Light Portrait workshop and liked what he saw!

A few visitors attended the evening as well:

• Robert – and exchange student from Germany staying with James
• Terry – an ex-ABC cameraman (and friend of our new member Henk)
• Howard – who also attended our Natural Light Portrait workshop and told me afterwards he’ll probably join us regularly

Before I get on to the nights competition, a reminder of several important bits of news:

• We noted the passing of Barbara Mullins, a leading figure in photography and the SAPF for many years. As a mark of our respect, we made a donation to the Cancer Council of SA as requested by the family in lieu of flowers. Barbara will be missed by many people in the SA photographic and AV community!
• Jenny will be retiring as Treasurer at the next AGM – so if you believe you can take on this role, please have a chat to her about it and see if you can step in to help. Training will be provided!
• James is seeking more articles for Camera Clips – new things you have tried, what inspires you, how you’ve changed as a photographer. Please have a think about how you can add to this valuable resource for our members and talk to James.

So on to the evening of Man vs Nature. We had 84 entries for the night – not all in the set subject, but interesting regardless. Due to some timing miscalculations, our SAPF judge for the night could not attend. Fortunately, Ray Goulter (who has also trained judges) was able to step in and take up the challenge of judging our work and both judge and provide constructive criticism. Ray prefers to judge on the merit of the individual image rather than normalise the range to the best image of the night in a section. He certainly had his work cut out for him at times and some superb images were displayed – there were 10 images in the Colour Prints section that gained 9 or 10 points!

Once again, we’ve posted as many of the top prints of the night as well as the top digital images for you to view (as well as those pesky Editor’s choice images :lol:)

Cheers

Chris 😉

AND we are off and running for 2012!  The first competition for the year was themed ‘Mitcham’ – Images from the City of Mitcham.

The night was judged by Edwardstown member, Chris Carter, who had to contend with a smaller than usual entry list of 84 images (17 Album, 3 slide, 24 digital, 30 Colour Prints and 11 Mono prints).  Don’t forget to check out our gallery to view our top digital entries and (new for 2012) our top print entries.

Also new for 2012 was the re-appearance of the Peoples Choice award, sponsored by The Blackwood Pizza Bar.  This week, the Peoples Choice was taken out by Jo Tabe with her Lenswood Ruin image.

It was also good to see a few visitors on the night.  Peter, Gloria, Sue & Barbara from the newly formed Adelaide Hills Photographic Club made an appearance, to see how we do things.  We wish them all the best on their venture.  It was also good to see another visitor, David, who saw our images at the Stirling library and wanted to see what all the fuss was about.

Anyhow, looking forward to seeing you all again on Thursday the 16th of February at Marks and Jennys for the natural light portrait night

Cheers, Ashley