With over 100 entries this was by far our biggest competition so far this year, with Curves and Angles proving to be a popular Set Subject.

Judge, Robert Dettman, was impressed with James Allan’s style, with many of the top scores going his way including for Canoe Sculpture, The Savage House, Remember Dr Duncan and Curves and Lines in the Set Subject.

With many places where curves and angles can be found there were a good variety of subjects, though architecture dominated.

Judy Sara’s Unfurling showed the simplicity and beauty of a new fern frond and Different Structures showcased contrasting architectural shapes.  Ray Goulter’s Dawn – Elliston challenged the judge, Di Gage highlighted the well-known curves of the Opera House, David Hancock took the Footbridge and Sam Savage showed an iconic French landmark.

Others to do well included Sheila Gatehouse’s Blue Steel Angles, David Hancock’s Curve Net and Across the Chasm, Meredith Retallack’s Stark Contrasts and Gordon Lindqvist’s Iconic Bridge. Judy Sara was the most successful entrant in the Set Subject with Decorating the Cake, Autoclave, Palace of Charles V and Windows to the Courtyard also faring well.

In Open, Michael Holmes joined the ranks of members with top photos with Happy Honey Eater and Portrait of Daisy. 

Click the links for the other Top Prints and Top Digital Images.

This was always going to be a challenging subject as most people cannot access and photograph Dance performances so it was not surprising, but somewhat disappointing for our dance specialist judge Suzanne Opitz, that most entries were “movement” rather than “dance”.

In fact, of the “movement” photographs, most were of subjects other than people.  Still we had an interesting array of images.

Frances Allan’s The Splash and Helen Whitford’s Flight Path both impressed Suzanne with quite different captures of movement.

Other Set Subject photos to do well included Sheila Gatehouse’s 1,2,3 Up you Go, Judy Sara’s Butterflies Rising, Don’t Land Here and Aussie Rules, Meredith Retallack’s Still in Motion, Helen Whitford’s Eye on the Ball and In Tandem and Ray Goulter’s Practise 3.

Overall, Suzanne found the Open sections to be stronger with top scores for Sheila Gatehouse’s These Boots are ready for Working!, Helen Whitford’s Galah Pair, Frances Allan’s Dusky Robin and Xenica in my Garden, David Hancock’s High Tide, Judy Sara’s Emu and David Hancock’s On the Beach.

Suzanne gave a balanced assessment of each photo and, while she again suggested cropping and vignetting a number of times, also commented on other aspects and found plenty to like in many of the images.

Follow these links for all of the Top Prints and Top Digital Images.

Our Set Subject of Water was very broadly defined, resulting in everything from seascapes to macro droplets on miniscule dandelion seeds.

Entries were fairly evenly divided between Set and Open but numbers were again relatively low, with just 24 prints and 43 digital images.  This meant that judge, Peter Phillips, was able to give time and thought to every photo.

Whilst he looked for impact first he had many tips for technical improvements and, whilst claiming not to be a “cropaholic”, he did suggest tighter framing for quite a few of the images, mostly to remove distracting elements.

The very highest scoring photographs are shown below.

Click the links for all of the Top Prints and Top Digital Images.

It was a bit quiet at BPC on Thursday night, with just 55 photographs to be critiqued by judge, Don Brooks.

There was an interesting variety of “Frames” used to present the images, from tree branches and old stone walls to drain pipes and glass blocks.

(Insert Judy’s Knobbed Hornbills, Meredith’s Kanyaka Stone,  Libby’s Viewpoint, Helen’s Mythical Moose)

The depth created by a frame of receding pillars impressed Don in Steve Wallace’s A Distant Doorway and Di Gage’s Framed by Pillars.

(Don generally preferred images in which the frame retained detail rather than simply being a dark shape around the subject although he still awarded Judy Sara’s Split – Old and New a 10 for the well-presented scene.

In Open subject Judy’s exquisite Sunflower received a glowing review and Don was impressed by Sam Savage’s Unwanted Distraction, Helen Whitford’s Post Coital Screech and Di Gage’s Gnarly Tree.

Overall Don gave constructive comments and took the time to properly evaluate each image.

It was an early wrap to a good night.

On Thursday February 24th a panel consisting of James Allan, Judy Sara and Helen Whitford, with supplementary comments from Steve Wallace and MC, Mark Pedlar, answered a range of questions relating to photography which had been posed by club members.

The following questions were posed to the panel.

1. Do I really need a tripod/ monopod if my camera has good image stabilisation. Please comment for A) Landscape and B) Birds.
2. I would like to be able to view my photographs and get rid of the bad ones before I load them into Lightroom. Is there a way to do this and is it the best thing to do?
3. What are the best settings for star photography?
4. What are the advantages (and disadvantages??) of mirrorless cameras compared with DSLRs and which would you recommend?
5. How should I prevent and/or correct colour cast in my photos?
6. How does multi-point focus work – how does it decide which focus points to work on.  Is single point focus better – is multi-point just a lazy way of doing things?
7. How do I improve the quality of my competition entries?  Please comment on such things as bright/over exposed spots; over-sharpening; distracting elements; principles of effective composition.
8. Panoramas – what are the best settings?  What are the key issues in producing good panos?
9. How do you use off-camera flash??
10. A club member has had his photos downloaded by an acquaintance who has claimed them as his own. What redress is there? What would you do? And how can he stop it happening again?
11. What’s one thing you always take on a shoot?
12. Of the photo gear you have bought, what wouldn’t you buy again?
13. Is it possible to use flash units from the pre-digital era with digital cameras without frying the electronics?
14. What’s the difference between “grain” in film and “noise” in digital?
15. How is an “unsharp mask” used in digital and what is its purpose?
16.  Can anyone recommend a SLR film camera repair person/business.  I have an old Pentax that may need attention.

Answers and other related documents are available as pdf’s; located in the Reading and Reference section of the Website (See tab at top of the Home page.)

Thanks to Paul Hughes who collated the questions and to Mark Pedlar for acting as MC.

Thank you to those who asked and answered questions!