Latest

BPC vs EPC Interclub – 7-Jul-2011

Last Thursday the Blackwood Photographic Club hosted the annual Interclub with Edwardstown Photography Club.

In all three formats – colour prints, monochrome prints and projected images it was a close match, but at the end of the night Edwardstown were victorious by a small margin.

The results were:

Mono Prints:           Blackwood    97            Edwardstown   107

Colour Prints:         Blackwood  111            Edwardstown   112

Projected:                Blackwood  179            Edwardstown   189

Aggregate:               Blackwood  387            Edwardstown   408

Congratulations to our 18 entrants in the competition.  All BPC members submitting entries were represented. Overall the scores were good and everyone who took part should be proud of their contribution.

Our judge, Lou Marafioti, provided some amusing quips throughout the night and also offered what he felt were constructive comments and suggestions.  We will never agree with everything a judge says, but overall it was quite enjoyable.

Edwardstown was represented by a small number from their club who braved a very cold and bleak winter’s night to join us.

Thanks to those Blackwood members who provided a wonderful selection for supper.  A hot cuppa and something tasty to eat was a fitting end to the night.

We look forward to next year’s event, so start thinking about what you can contribute.  The committee may tap you on the shoulder at meetings in the coming months to suggest you submit one of your images for the Interclub.  Don’t be bashful, if someone else likes your image, have a go.

And for those that missed the night – the slideshow below shows you all of the BPC projected images entries!

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Julie Goulter

Secretary Blackwood Photographic Club

Posted by  |  13/07/2011 | Categories: Blackwood Photography Club News, Competitions | Comments Off on BPC vs EPC Interclub – 7-Jul-2011

Smaller than a breadbox competition – 23-Jun-2011

Busted! - Jo TabeInteresting title – and some interesting close-up and macro images tested our judge as a result. There were 42 prints and 34 digital images to judge – some simple, and some cleverly creative. Once again, Jo Tabe scored a bunch of 10s – with some potentially scoring an 11 (our judges words!) – particularly that print of the mouse in the bread box you can see here! 😆 Never-the-less a few of member such as Helen Whitford are keeping close. Overall, there were quite a few high scores in the prints from many club members. We are certainly good at close up work!

Our judge Peter Mastrenko gave detailed and constructive comments and reminded us that light was our best friend – or not!

Please check out the Digital Entries page for our projected images 9s and 10s in both the Set and Open categories – along with a few editor’s choice of course!

Chris 😉

Posted by  |  13/07/2011 | Categories: Blackwood Photography Club News, Competitions | Comments Off on Smaller than a breadbox competition – 23-Jun-2011

Queen’s Birthday long weekend in the city – 13-Jun-2011

A cold, cloudy long weekend bordering on dreary – but some intrepid BPC members went into the city on Monday afternoon and tried to capture some images as the afternoon turned to dusk around the Central Market area.

Ashley, Shelley, James, Mark,  Richard, Yvonne & I wandered down Grote Street from Victoria Square in search of inspiration.  Its interesting to note how much goes on around this area, even on a public holiday. Chinatown is quite busy,  families arrive for dinner, people walking around, and the endless traffic.

James sadly had another camera incident – a flat battery and no spare. Being the trooper he is, he rushed home and came back. Fortunately, we hadn’t gone that far, and at dusk he rejoined us. We continued around the block toward Gouger Street, fascinated by the doors and artefacts in the windows.

As dusk fell, new opportunities arose with the lights of the city appearing around us. There were so many opportunities on the street as darkness fell, that we really must have a night shoot.

Afterwards, as we wandered back to our cars – James wandered off to the fountain and the St Francis Xavier Cathedral.  Shelley commented to me as she left how she’d enjoyed herself in chatting with everyone, learning a few new tricks and the opportunity to try new things. I’m sure we’ll all be back for another session down here.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

I’ve put the images sent into the  slide show above – and a Flickr! link to one of Yvonne’s images (can’t import them here due to licence issues)

Chris 😉

Posted by  |  26/06/2011 | Categories: Blackwood Photography Club News, Club outings | Comments Off on Queen’s Birthday long weekend in the city – 13-Jun-2011

PhotoShop workshop – 9-June-2011

Whales & sky merge using PhotoShop layer mask and alpha channel!Having given many a taste for image manipulation in the GIMP workshop earlier this year, and having covered a few of the PhotoShop basics last year, we felt a few advanced techniques should be covered.

Ashley & I had prepared a workshop based on the manipulation of layers – so armed with some images, a bunch of laptops and a few helpers we set to work .

Ashley started proceedings and established the basics effectively by covering blurring of backgrounds with layers, the clone tool and Gaussian (not Goozean :lol:) filters along with a swag of shortcut keys……which will make life a lot easier if your in Photoshop a lot.

I followed with a presentation covering adjustment mask and layer masks – with a way to remove/replace backgrounds using simple masking tools (or if you wish to be more complete exploit the Alpha channel) and then replace with your own sky. Replacing a boring cloudy background with a brilliant blue or firey sky if done well can lift an image. There are a few club members who use such techniques already – and are often rewarded with 10s by the judges.

The image above shows this sort of layer selection and merger – although its a bit extreme as the light is coming from two directions and I haven’t taken care to blend the image edges well – but you get the idea…..

Mark Pedlar then demonstrated the use of layers in creating a whole new image – his clever Heligan Apples.

Remember though, when you alter your image be very careful in how you blend them, choose the light direction carefully as the image will appear as a cut out rather a seamless merge and don’t work on the original image (use a copy).

Ashley & I have created PDF notes of the presentations you can download – just click on the links below:

We hope you got some useful tips out of the workshop and look forward to some interesting backgrounds – keep a stock of interesting skies as Mark does!

Chris 😉

Posted by  |  12/06/2011 | Categories: Blackwood Photography Club News | Tags: | 1 Comment

Yellow to dominate competition – 26-May-2011

Blooming - Jo Tabe (set)Talk about Mellow Yellow. We had an interesting and quite varied collection of yellow images in all categories with 105 entries in all, including 1 monochrome effort in the set subject – good thinking there!

Our judge Trevor Bower gave us useful comments on our efforts and used a pretty full range of scores in judging those efforts. Trevor also remarked that the set subject images all fell well in category.

A few useful comments to note were:

  • that when doing macro or close up work good detail is required across the whole image
  • backlighting can be useful in close up
  • when photographing limited colour images take advantage of patterns and try to break them up

Once again, Jo Tabe set the standard in the Set competition prints with a clever use of a garden hose on a window – well done Jo (I’ve posted the image above)! It was good to see the other club members trying to follow Jo’s lead – and many are not far behind!

Please have a look at the images in the Digital Entries page – as well as the Editor’s Choice 😆

Chris 😉

Posted by  |  12/06/2011 | Categories: Blackwood Photography Club News, Competitions | Tags: | Comments Off on Yellow to dominate competition – 26-May-2011