Chris Schultz and Ashley Hoff At the Mitcham Council Grants Reception
As the members of The Blackwood Photographic Club would know, in 2011, we received another grant from the Mitcham Council. This grant was used to purchase a Spyder Pro Monitor and Projector calibration device.
In Mid December, Chris and myself were invited to attend the official Community Development Grants Reception, which was held at the council chambers.
Our thanks and gratitude goes to the Council and the Grant Committee for accepting and approving our grant. We truly appreciate their continued support.
We traveled to BPC via some form of transport to see what methods could be used to get there. Two of our visitors from the last meeting – Chris and Peter – returned for another look too.
Our judge for the evening was David Smith who is a member of Eastern Suburbs Camera Club and has been involved there since 1987 entering at the local, SAPF and International level. A former Mitsubishi engineer, he cast his eye over our transport methods and found a few he wanted to take home!
There were some quite amazing images which you can see on the Top prints and Top digital entries pages. I’m going to indulge myself a little here and put up two images I liked (and have access to) from the night. My own Personal Transport Only (the Ferrari above) and Matt Carr’s Apocalyptic Future which you can see on the clubs Flickr page. Matt’s is particularly interesting as its a composite of several images with some strong elements that you need to look for – its not just a picture, but a short story.
A couple of reminders before I finish up:
We need your entries for the SAPF club set now – entries must be in by 1-Jun-2012 with SAPF!
Don’t forget the SAPF exhibition at the Parade Ground – Darkroom to Digital
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 😆
Yes – I’ve been a very bad boy. I should have posted the updates on the last two workshops but other things got in the way! So here we go – complete with YouTube slides for you to read!
The first workshop (held on 15-Mar-2012) about Low Light was prepared and presented by James.
James led us through an array of low light situations – and importantly, got us to try out some of the techniques with our own equipment and the lights turned out in the club rooms. A few of us ventured outside to create ghostly images in the spirit of Darren Siwes whilst others shone torches through wine bottles to paint light, took photos by candlelight and generally had a good time experimenting!
Rather than include images, I’ll just link you to James’ PowerPoint presentation (on YouTube) and wait for the images in the Low light competition later in the year (27-Sep-2012 to be precise)
The second workshop (held on 12-Apr-2012) was meant to be a session on Print Making – but due to unforseen circumstances we had to find a quick presentation.
The night was fairly well attended, with 3 guests – Peter, Trevor (from Noarlunga & Southern Districts Camera Club) and Chris (a long time follower of this blog) – welcome gents!
Fortunately, Matt & I managed to shift our workshop on Selective colour, put yourself into history and image stacking together fast enough for everyone to have a go at these techniques. It looks like the night was a success from the number of stacked and altered perspectives of history that have surfaced on the club’s Flickr page. Anyhow, rather than rehash the methods, check out the slides and see if it helps.
For those in search of references, have a look at the following links:
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:)
Blackwood Photographic Club of South Australia Inc. 