Blackwood Photographic Club Annual Exhibition 2021
Our Annual Exhibition was held on Thursday November 18th with a good turn-out of members to celebrate our achievements for the year.
It was great to see some different faces among the award recipients, including Sheila Gatehouse who won Top Colour Print with Lily, Ray Goulter with Top PDI, Lillies after Rain and Heather Connolly with the Top Album Print, Wanderer Feeding. Judy Sara’s Spoonbill Perching was the Top Monochrome Print and also earned the Nature Award. Judy also did extremely well in Aggregates!
The Australian Landscape Award was won by Steve Wallace with Lindsay Waterhole and the Portrait Award went to Parry by Frances Allan.
The awards were presented by Julie Goulter, the club’s president.
The full list of awards was as follows:
Projected Digital Images
1st Hutt St Photos Award – Ray Goulter – Lillies after Rain
2nd Vicki Kramer – Hear the Little People
3rd Sam Savage – Screech
Merit James Allan – Wood Duck Nesting
Merit Heather Connolly – Magpie Lark
Merit Paul Hughes – Much Easier after Covid
Click HERE to see a video presentation of all the projected digital image entries.
Aggregate – PDIs
1st Photographic Wholesalers Award – Judy Sara
2nd James Allan
=3rd Vicky Kramer & Jenny Pedlar
Monochrome Prints
1st Judy Sara – Spoonbill Perching
2nd Frances Allan – Pimelia
3rd Di Gage – On the Prowl
Merit – Frances Allan – Parry
Merit – Judy Sara – Poppy
Aggregate – Monochrome Prints
1st Blackwood Times Award – Judy Sara
2nd James Allan
3rd Vicki Kramer
Colour Prints
1st Fotoswift Award – Sheila Gatehouse – Lily
2nd Sam Savage – Beautiful Firetail
3rd Judy Sara – Up, Up and Away!
Merit Di Gage – Coming in for a Landing
Merit Steve Wallace – Lindsay Waterhole
Merit Helen Whitford – Bee, Mama!
Merit Helen Whitford – Cormorant Preening
Aggregate Colour Prints
1st Blackwood Photographic Club Award – Judy Sara
2nd James Allan
3rd Vicki Kramer
Album Prints
1st Ege Malpas Award- Heather Connolly – Wanderer Feeding
2nd Sheila Gatehouse – Sean
3rd Helen Whitford – Willie Wagtail
Merit Sheila Gatehouse – Sunflower
Aggregate – Album Prints
1st Vicki Kramer
2nd Helen Whitford
3rd Heather Connolly
Landscape Award – Steve Wallace – Lindsay Waterhole
Nature Award – Judy Sara – Spoonbill Perching
Portrait Award – Frances Allan – Parry
Thank you to our judges, Brad Hodge, Suzanne Opitz AFIAP AAPS and Peter Barrien EFIAP FAPS.
Service Awards
Di Gage was presented the Bill Templer award for service to the club.
Julie thanked the following people for their assistance throughout the year.
Birds in Nature – Competition October 21st 2021
The Set Subject of Birds in Nature joined Head and Shoulders Portrait as our most popular this year, each accounting for over 70% of entries respectively. This demonstrates where our photographic passion lies!
Still, only 12 members entered the competition and it would be great to see more members enter the fray!
There were some stunning photographs with beautiful captures of birds in action – flying, feeding, calling and interacting but images of birds simply perching and resting were also impressive.
Don was impressed overall with the standard of our bird photography and loved Judy Sara’s Fish Dinner, Screeching Seriema, Spoonbill Perching, Landed, Wren Huddle and Cape Grassbird.
Frances Allan demonstrated a talent for capturing the moment and the light and was rewarded by judge, Don Brooks, with multiple 10s. Her Splendid Wren in How Splendid wowed everybody and The Smile made everybody smile, despite Shoebills being an “ugly” bird according to the judge and Art Deco Eyes was something a little different.
Di Gage’s Coming in for a Landing, Eastern Yellow Robin and Fairy Wren, Helen Whitford’s Am I Welcome?, Bee, Mama!, Cormorant Preening and Lori, James Allan’s Tell the Truth, Hope to Die, Ansty Osprey and Feeding Time, Sam Savage’s On the Move and Screech and Sheila Gatehouse’s Fairy Wren in the Rain rounded out the Set Subject high scores.
There were also some beautiful photographs among those which didn’t make the top scores as the competition in this Set Subject was fierce. And I haven’t even mentioned the Open category!
For all of the high scoring images, including Open Section photographs, go to Top Prints and Top Projected Digital Images
Love Story – Competition Sept 24th 2021
This competition saw an almost equal number of entries in the set subject and open categories. Members’ interpretations of the subject was quite varied, with many images depicting love between animals as well as humans.
Vicki Kramer’s entries were all in the set subject, with Labour of Love, Loving Sons Bidding Farewell and Twins Love among the top scoring images.
Paul Hughes entered a collage, Walter and Doris, showing aspects of a couple’s loving life together.
Judy Sara’s Cormorant Love Story was a clever interpretation of the topic.
In the open category James Allan’s Landscape gained the top score. The Judge, Geoff Smith, was impressed with the composition and lighting; a great shot both technically and aesthetically.
James also had success with Dunes and Collapse of Greater Plains
Di Gage’s Fairy Wren and Sam Savage’s Morning Light were also among the top scoring images.
Copycat night
At the Peer review workshop next week we will be looking at imitation as a technique to unleash creativity. To kick off the discussion I would like you to look at these famous monochrome portraits, select an image and have a crack at emulating the style. Bring your images along to the workshop where we can discuss how it went. Regards James.
Not sure what to do? Here is an example.
Above is an image I took that was inspired by the famous image below.
I am interested to see what you all come up with. Regards James.
Zoom Burst – Competition August 12th 2021
Following our creative workshop on Zoom Burst last month we checked out some of the results and images inspired by the night in Thursday’s competition. For the most part members were not keen to print these images, with few entries in Set Subject in the prints but in PDIs Set and Open were equally represented.
Judy Sara and James and Frances Allan were rewarded for their creativity with Banksia, Art Gallery, Zooming on Traffic on a Wet Night, City and Let’s Celebrate.
In Open, Vicki Kramer’s Outback Sunrise impressed judge, Peter Phillips, who felt that it took him straight into the Nullarbor. We sincerely thank Peter for rushing his dessert, dropping everything and coming in at the last minute following a judging mix-up. Peter gave positive, thoughtful commentary on each image with lots of helpful tips.
Judy, James and Frances continued to make an impact in Open with Inside the Poppy, Waterfall and All things Citrus.
Click the links to see all of the Top Prints and Top Projected Digital Images.
Half the Story – Competition July 15th
In a rather different night, we broke with tradition and ran this competition with “community
judging.”
“Half the Story” proved challenging, with only one third of the 64 entries being in Set Subject, most
of which were images showing half of an object or creature.
Vicki Kramer’s “Fill in the Blank” was probably the most creative take on the theme.
With the exception of Judy Sara’s Delicious, images showing a whole image or scene which was half
of a story requiring interpretation did not fare as well.
In Open, Di Gage impressed with Blue Heights and Chameleon, Frances Allan’s Parry got everyone’s
vote and James Allan’s From another Dimension was popular.
It was an interesting change which gave everyone the opportunity to step into the judge’s shoes for
a night. Some liked the fit, some didn’t but there was general agreement that the right photographs
rose to the top.
Thank you to James for organising the evening!
Follow the links for Top Projected Images and Top Prints.
Head & Shoulders Portrait Competition – June 3rd 2021
Members embraced the Set Subject of Head and Shoulders Portraiture with more than two thirds of entries being portraits. There was some stretching of the Head and Shoulders definition though which gave judge Brad Hodge a few headaches.
Brad gave thoughtful comments and clearly explained his thinking, taking a casual and amiable approach which put members at ease. Sheila Gatehouse’s strength emerged in this Set Subject,
She was joined “on the podium” by Judy Sara and Vicki Kramer.
It was great to see a good number of prints and an increase in monochrome photographs.
Other high scoring images can be seen here.
Click the links for Top Prints and Top Projected Images
Blue Hour – Competition May 6th 2021
Thursday night saw us feeling blue, but not in a bad way! Finding lovely Blue Hour light can be quite a challenge, requiring you to be in the right place at the right time, and to have a bit of luck, so in this competition our Set Subject images were significantly outnumbered by Open section photographs.
Helen Whitford’s Double Bolt got a “Wow!” and Judy Sara’s Ghost Mushrooms impressed judge, Peter Phillips, in both the image and the degree of difficulty, while Vicki Kramer’s Melbourne Blue and Judy Sara’s Brisbane River were seen as classic Blue Hour shots.
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Helen Whitford – Double Bolt -
Judy Sara – Ghost Mushrooms -
Vicki Kramer – Melbourne Blue -
Judy Sara – Brisbane River
In Open Subject a number of images caught Peter’s eye. Top Print images will be added as they are received.
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Frances Allan – Raw Energy -
James Allan – Landscape -
James Allan – Architectural -
James Allan – Bristled -
James Allan – Migratory -
James Allan – Rhinoceros -
James Allan – Granites -
Judy Sara – Autumn, Mt Lofty -
Judy Sara – Red Arch
NOTE: Apologies – the Top Images Gallery and Top Prints and PDI pages will be updated later. WordPress has completely revamped the way it is used. The easy “Classic Editor” which I always loved using seems to have disappeared and I am stumbling my way through trying to work out where to find things in the new system, when I really don’t have time. Not happy, WordPress!
Helen
In the meantime, the Top Open PDIs are here.
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Frances Allan – Reflections of Boat Shed 2 -
Gordon Lindqvist – Shearer at Work -
Vicki Kramer – Mt Gambier Goal -
Gordon Lindqvist – Comb Crested Jacana -
Peter Schmid – Self -
Di Gage – Sunrise at Milang 2 -
Judy Sara – Talia Splash -
Ray Goulter – Yellow Bongo
What a Load of Rubbish! – Competition April 8th 2021
Thursday was a rubbish night with our Set Subject being Rubbish/Trash. Being just after Easter it was in danger of being all over very quickly with very few entries but we rallied and had just enough to make a competition. (Yes, we’ve learned a lesson – no comp just after Easter!) Few members were willing to commit to printing their Rubbish photos, with only six prints in Set Subject, while 23 were in Open.
The challenge was to “capture the subject artistically”, which proved difficult for some. The only photograph which convinced judge David Rowlands that it had done so was Jenny Pedlar’s Elsehul Wilderness.
Jenny Pedlar – Elsehul Wilderness
Some others seemed to achieve the goal to a lesser degree.
In Open subject Jenny and Mark Pedlar impressed with Sea Ice, Drive Safe and Survival! along with Vicki Kramer’s The Orphan and Helen Whitford’s MY Grevillea!
In projected images these were also of interest.
For Top Prints and Top Projected Images from this and other 2021 competitions click the links.
A Surreal Evening – Competition March 11th 2021
Our Surreal competition was a challenge to everyone – entrants, viewing members and the judge! Members came up with a wide variety of interpretations of this set subject which stretched our imagination. Here is a selection of the more creative entries.
Judge, Tim Newberry, seemed to get caught up in the “dream” part of our definition “Surreal – Seeming like a dream or Fantasy” but he appreciated the creativity in images, as long as they didn’t include a cat!
It was great to see the top scores spread around a bit, including to new members. View Top Prints and Top PDIs here.
Landscape/Seascape Competition February 11th 2021
“If at first you don’t succeed, read the instructions.”
This was a “meme” before anyone had heard of memes and I have to admit it popped into my head a number of times during preparation for this competition. I don’t usually do these write-ups from a personal perspective but I feel the need this time as so many of the members who entered had issues with their entries – “out of category”, too big, incorrect file names, titles provided not matching title on print/file, category not nominated etc., almost all of which could have been avoided by carefully reading the subject definition and the entry instructions.
At the risk of sounding like a teacher, I do ask that everyone please take care to avoid these mistakes because each one of them makes the task of putting the competition together take that bit longer. Gordon and I are very happy to manage the competitions but it is frustrating when it takes twice as long as it should. OK, whinge over. Thanks for “listening” – Helen
Now to the competition! We had a good number of entries, with 82 photographs from 14 different members, and the entries in the Set Subject of Landscape/Seascape well outnumbered the Open category.
Despite photographing a spot which is becoming an iconic location, James Allan made an impact with From the Clifftop. Jenny Pedlar’s daring Impressionist Hay Plains did impress judge Keith Seidel, who was in his element judging Landscapes, and Helen Whitford’s panoramic Parachilna also caught his eye.
(Click on any image to see it at full size.)
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- James Allan – From the Clifftop
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- Jenny Pedlar – Impressionist Hay Plains
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- Helen Whitford – Parachilna
In the Print sections, Vicki Kramer’s El Capitan’s Fluffy Hat, Mark Pedlar’s 69 Degrees South, James Allan’s Remarkable and Judy Sara’s At Horizontal Falls were the most successful entries in Set Subject. (Photos coming soon!)
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- James Allan – Remarkable
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- Judy Sara – At Horizontal Falls
In Open category Keith commended Vicki Kramer on “breaking with convention” in baby photography with Baby Liam and he admired the simplicity of Judy Sara’s The Curl.
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- Vicki Kramer – Baby Liam
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- Judy Sara – The Curl
Keith gave thoughtful, constructive comments and offered useful tips on ways to improve technical aspects of the photographs. It was a great start to our competitions for the year!
For more Top Prints come back in a few days for an update. Top Projected Images are available for viewing now.
BPC Annual Exhibition and Presentation of Awards December 3rd 2020
2020 has been an extraordinary year, full of twists and turns and surprises, including the postponement of our Annual Exhibition due to the brief Covid 19 lockdown two weeks ago. Happily, we were able to hold the event live on December 3rd with 25 members present.
As our 2020 competitions were revamped to include only Projected Digital Images the evening took a slightly different format, with no prints on the walls, but with twenty members entering a total of 163 images we had a strong competition and a fabulous display of the talents of our members.
Congratulations to Suzie Smith and Frances Allan who emerged to challenge the regular strong performers, James Allan, Judy Sara and Helen Whitford and it was great to see the awards spread between 8 members.
We introduced two new award categories this year – Nature and Portrait. The images were all judged in Open category but the highest scoring image nominated in each of these categories (and the existing WEA Australian Landscape category) won the award.
Nature was won by Suzie Smith with her exquisite Pink Robin.
Portrait was won by Frances Allan with Surfing Pondalowie.
The WEA Australian Landscape Award went to James Allan for Last Light on Rawnsley Bluff
Colour Projected Digital Images
In the Colour PDI section Suzie Smith’s Pink Robin was First.
Helen Whitford’s Feather came Second
James Allan’s Last Light on Rawnsley Bluff was Third
Merits were awarded to:
Frances Allan for Pied Kingfisher and Shaped by Prevailing Wind
James Allan for Mist on the Water
Mark Pedlar for I Beg your Pardon
Jenny Pedlar for King Penguins
Steve Wallace for Ever Watchful
and Helen Whitford for Pearls and Bonney Light
Monochrome Projected Digital Images
In the Monochrome PDI section Suzie Smith’s First Train of the Season was First
Frances Allan’s Surfing Pondalowie was Second
and Helen Whitford’s White Cheeked Gibbon was Third
Merits were awarded to:
James Allan for Hooded Robin
Di Gage for Had Better Days
Suzie Smith for Reynisfjaara
and Helen Whitford for Timid
Aggregates 2020
The Aggregate Awards for competitions throughout the year were also different in 2020. As Print categories were not possible we ran just two sections – Colour PDI and Monochrome PDI.
Colour PDI Aggregate 2020
First – Helen Whitford
Second – Judy Sara
Third – James Allan
Monochrome PDI Aggregate 2020
First – Judy Sara
Second – James Allan
Third – Helen Whitford
Thank You to our judges Peter Phillips SSAPS, Brad Hodge and Sandra Goulter.
The Bill Templer Award for Service to Blackwood Photographic Club over the past 12 months was presented to Helen Whitford
See below for the slideshow of all entries and awards.
October 2020 Camera Clips
Posted on October 27, 2020by James Allan
The banner this week is a montage of what I considered were the great character portraits from the recent competition. The Authors were, Frances Allan (1&3), Shiela Gatehouse (2&4), Helen Whitford (5) and Steve Wallace (6). I chose these images because of their unwavering gaze. I was not the judge, but there would be several 10’s in this collection if I was.
The alternate (second) Banner comes from Vicki Crammer from the product photography competition with a strong image called the handbag. Of course all of the original images and a write up of the competition can be found on the club web page.
It is time to choose your favourite images for judging. The end of year competition looms. Of course this year the competition is only projected images, with 2 categories, colour and monochrome. In addition there are 3 special prizes, one for Landscape, one for Portrait and one for Wildlife. Entries are due in early November, refer to the wabpage.
This month I have articles from Mark Pedlar (A photo journal of his Antarctic holiday) and Ray Goulter (Baby Brownie Camera). To that I have added a write up of another photographic location in South Australia, the Paiwalla wetland near Murray Bridge.
So this month I am going to start a new feature. As there is a lot of trial and error in photography, I have decided to look at the problem solving aspect of capturing an image. This week I will pose a problem and once you feel you have the answer, have a look at the answer page. Best of Luck.
Enjoy this edition of Camera Clips.
James Allan
Post script:
There is a change of format this week. Word Press has updated it’s editor and I can no longer nest the pages within each months newsletter. Accordingly I have made each of the articles a post on the home page. However you can navigate to the articles in the usual way from the table of contents below.
Contents:
Character Study – Competition October 22nd 2020
The Set Subject of Character Study was embraced by the 12 members who entered, with about 60% of entries in the category. The inclusion of Animals in the definition surprised judge, Geoff Smith, but he embraced the concept, appreciating that animals can indeed display character in their expressions and actions.
Geoff was impressed with Huli Wigman by Judy Sara and Helen Whitford’s Quizzical.
In Open category he liked new member Frances Allan’s In the Moment and Heather Connolly’s Painted Lady.
Rounding out the high scores were James Allan’s Climbing Boy, Duart McLean’s Linked Pair, Paul Hughes Love at First Sight and Judy Sara’s Elle.
As an Editor’s Choice I select Frances Allan’s Playing with Light, which I saw as a beautiful serene scene, although it perhaps didn’t display as well on the large screen as on a computer.
Frances Allan_Playing with Light
That’s it for regular competitions in this unusual COVID year! All that’s left is the Annual Exhibition and I would encourage EVERY MEMBER to ENTER! Even if you don’t feel “competitive” this is your opportunity to share your work and and have it seen in a public space! We anticipate showing a slideshow of images in a public display after the Annual Exhibition and Awards night and all images will be displayed on this website. Why not join in and perhaps put yourself in the running for one of the special 2020 trophies for Portrait and Nature images! Entries are due by 7pm Monday November 2nd.
Here is a slideshow of ALL of the images in this competition and you can look back over the best images throughout the year here.
BPC Annual Exhibition 2020
Hi BPC Members
It’s that time of year! Time to hunt through your best images, or go out again with your camera, and get your entries in for the Blackwood Photographic Club Annual Exhibition 2020! You have until 7pm Monday November 2nd to enter.
This year has been like no other and if you’ve never entered our “Annual” before now is the chance to take the plunge. It would be wonderful to have at least one or two entries from every member and, as the entire competition is digital, there’s no cost involved. Entries may have been entered in competitions throughout the year, shared in Peer Review or on social media or never seen by us before! The only restriction is that they must not have been in a previous BPC Annual Exhibition. The competition will be judged by a panel of three experienced photographers from outside of the club. If you’re not heavily into competition think of it instead as an opportunity to showcase your work and celebrate your photography with your fellow members. We hope to display the digital exhibition in a public format later in the year.
This year brings more opportunities with new awards for Portrait and Nature and most of this year’s awards will be individual “keepers” as our perpetual trophies will hibernate until 2021.
Here is the BPC ENTRY FORM Annual Exhibition 2020 which includes important entry information. Email the completed form, along with your digital image files to bpcdigitalentries@gmail.com by 7pm Monday November 2nd.
Go for it!
Helen
BPC Competition Secretary
Product Photography – Competition September 24th
We had fewer images than usual but a small, enthusiastic audience enjoyed those that were on show with our judge, Susie Lipert, providing thoughtful comments.
The Set Subject, Product Photography, may have been a little daunting for some members – perhaps part of the reason for the low number of entries – and in fact the most common criticism from the judge was the lack of contextual detail in the images to help “sell” the product.
The most “advert-like” images were probably Judy Sara’s Bluetooth Earphones and Helen Whitford’s DeLonghi….for Living. Meredith Retallack’s Bake your Own made quite a strong Product image though it could have benefitted from contextual elements.
Although perhaps not seen as a strong Product image Susie was intrigued and impressed by Vicki Kramer’s The Handbag – an interesting and quirky composition.
Vicki Kramer_The Handbag
The Open section entries were quite varied in subject matter but it was a couple of nature shots which most impressed Susie.
All of the images from this competition appear below and the Top Images from all of the 2020 competitions can be found here.
We have one regular competition remaining, “Character Study” October 22nd, before our Annual Exhibition competition which will be judged off-site on November 7th.
Like everything else the Annual will be different this year with a digital-only competition. Members will be able to enter up to 6 Colour images and 6 Monochrome images. Within these 12 images members can nominate any number to be in contention for the WEA Australian Landscape, Portrait or Nature trophies. Colour, Monochrome, Nature and Portrait winners will receive a one-off individual award while the WEA Australian Landscape trophy is a perpetual shield. The other perpetual competition shields will not be awarded for 2020 as those competitions were cancelled.
So start preparinging your entries and take a chance on bringing home one of these unique COVID year awards!
Details of the competition and Entry Forms will be emailed to all members soon.
August 2020 Camera Clips
Yes both the wind power, and the letters and number competitions took place in the last month. The Banner above comes from the wind powered competition. In this edition of camera clips we also have a write up of Howard Seaman’s workshop, 3 of the travelogue topics; Pildappa rocks, Rogues point and The Lavender trail and an explanation of Community judging. The answers are not blowing in the wind, they are buzzing in the ether. So check out this months edition of Camera Clips.
James Allan
Wind Powered – Competition August 13th
A competition with a difference! As our scheduled judge was reluctant to meet online we took the opportunity to try community judging on Thursday night. James and Duart found a way to make it work and although only a dozen members joined in it was an interesting and empowering exercise for all.
Entry numbers were down but interestingly monochrome images were up, particularly in the Open section. All of the entries were available for preview on our members’ Facebook forum and indeed are still available fpr view and comment.
James Allan’s Southern Cross in Action was acclaimed as the image which best captured the power of the wind with real impact and Judy Sara’s The Old and the New made the biggest impression in Monochrome Set Subject. There were quite a few windmill shots!
In Open, Helen Whitford’s Feather and David Hancock’s Happy Wash appealed to the majority of member judges.
It was an interesting experience having everyone participate in picking the best images and listening to the reasons why certain images held appeal for different people. It was generally agreed that the results were probably similar to what they would have been with a single, experienced judge.
Here are all of the images.