NEWSLETTER NOVEMBER 2007

FORTHCOMING PROGRAMME

Dec 11th: Two competitions, plus mince pies

COMPETITION PROGRAMME

Dec 11th: Monthly - British, plus Annual Open Portfolio

FORTHCOMING EVENTS

Dec 11th: Monthly Meeting

Please note that the Meeting (start time 2000hrs) will be at our new  venue - The Casson Centre, Rodway Road, Patchway, BS34 5DQ (map)  It is  easiest to access it via Durban Road, off Highwood Road - you can turn right at the traffic lights if coming from the Gloucester Road direction. The Casson Centre is the left hand part of the Patchway Community Centre, immediately next door to the Patchway Town Council Offices. There is off road parking adjacent to the Centre and further spaces along Rodway Road, near to the local Spa shop.

The December Meeting is a bit of a social gathering, with a shorter programme of two competitions and no formal presentation (ad hoc's allowed), giving more time to have a chat and a mince pie or two. The monthly competition theme is 'British'.  Even if you don't feel you have any winners, send some in to benefit from the audience feedback.  Send your digital files to our new Competitions Member Kathryn Rosling (kathryn.rosling@blueyonder.co.uk)

We also have our Annual Open Portfolio Competition, it's great fun so have a go. Sort out your six images and send them as one jpeg (1024 x 768 @72 ppi) to Kathryn. If you are unsure how to put the images together, see the Tutorial report below. If that doesn't help, just send the individual images, with layout instructions, to Arthur on akdiver48@hotmail.com and he will combine them and send them to Kathryn.

If you have any difficulty getting through to Kathryn's email, send your competition entries to akdiver48@hotmail.com  and Arthur will pass them on.

RECENT EVENTS

November Meeting

This was our first meeting at the new venue and it proved to be a success. Everyone seemed to find the place OK and parking was not much of a problem, despite having a protest meeting going on at the Council Offices next door.

Monthly Competition - Symbiosis

Last year this theme caused a few problems with interpretation, so, prior to the Competition, the Secretary sent out a link to a website which gave a balanced definition of Symbiosis and also widened the scope considerably - resulting in a large number of entries, although not everyone checked the link. The overall standard was high and there were some amusing entries.

There was tie for First Place between Kathryn Rosling and Arthur Kingdon:

Kathryn's image of a pair of clownfish and anemone was taken in Thornbury. Yes, Thornbury - Kathryn has a marine aquarium and these are some of the occupants. Please note that our rules currently allow for aquarium and pool shots in the Monthly Competition.

Arthur's image of an anemone crab was taken on a night dive in Lembeh. The crab was conveniently perched on a piece of sponge a few inches above the black sand bottom. With at least seven anemones, it posed quite happily - rather than scuttling away as they normally do.

In Third Place was another image from Arthur - this one, of a lionfish with cleaner wrasse, was taken on a recent visit to Nuweiba

Three images tied for Fourth Place - a lemon shark with remora from Tamsin Eyles' trip to the Bahamas.....

.....a pair of clownfish and anemone from Anna James..

..and a batfish with cleaner wrasse from Arthur Kingdon - another shot from his recent trip to Nuweiba.

Picking up the final vote was another image from Anna James - a lions mane jellyfish with juvenile fish amongst the tentacles.

Although it did not get a vote, it is likely that this image from Trevor Rees, of a gold sinny with an isopod, would have done so if everyone had known that a parasitic relationship was acceptable as 'symbiosis' for our Competition.

Alan James is Back!

Looking very healthy, Alan made a welcome return to the BUPG at the October Meeting. It was great to see him there and, as a token of our appreciation for all that he has done for the BUPG, he was presented with a Lifetime Honorary Membership certificate.

You can't keep him out of the water for long and he had been in Stoney Cove just the day before, on his first dive since the operation. Not having been to Stoney for many years, he had come away quite pleased with the potential for the underwater  photographer. He showed several shots of the aquatic life, particularly the pike and perch.

Portfolio Tutorial - Arthur Kingdon

With our Annual Portfolio Competition next month and the BSoUP Beginners Portfolio a week after this Meeting, this was a timely presentation on how to go about putting a portfolio together. A précis of the tutorial follows:

First of all, create a separate folder and paste your 'possibles' into it. Select a dozen or so of the most promising and resize to around 320 x 240 pixels at 72ppi (they are likely to need sharpening when reduced to such a small size). This will allow placement anywhere within the layout but the sizes are not rigid and you can alter them to suit your taste and space available. They do not even have to be rectangular! All you need  is two rows of three images.

When selecting 'possibles' look for strong images without too much fine detail. At the small size each image is projected, your super shot of a transparent shrimp may not show up too well. Also remember that you only need a small image, so look for images that can be cropped from wider shots as in this example:

Make a blank slide in PowerPoint or Photoshop, sized to 1024 x 768 @ 72ppi (around 36cm x 27cm in PowerPoint). Insert your images and try them in various positions, aiming for a balanced, overall appearance to the slide. Generally, have divers, fish etc swimming into the slide rather than out of it (flip images if necessary) and try to have similar colours side to side or across the diagonals. Remember that the audience will only see the slide for a total of twelve seconds, so the overall impression is very important. That favourite shot you wanted to use, may just have to be left out if it spoils the overall effect. However, you may want to do something entirely different!

When you are happy with the layout, select a border for each image and a background - usually a thin white border with a black background works best but the choice is yours. Note that BSoUP requires a black background but we leave the choice to you. You may wish to make several different versions, viewing each before making your final decision.

There is a good article on this subject on the BSoUP website This uses Photoshop to create the slide but PowerPoint does an equally good job and some may find it easier to use. There is also a good article on how to choose your six images:

Don't forget to check our Competition Rules.

Best of British - Trevor Rees

Trevor Rees recently took First Place in the BSoUP Best of British portfolio competition and he gave a short presentation on how he went about putting the portfolio together. This created a good deal of interest and there was plenty of audience participation.

There is a comprehensive write up on the BSoUP website

More BSoUP Success

Beginners Portfolio

The week after our Meeting, BSoUP held their October Meeting and it featured the Annual Beginners Portfolio. This proved to be a great success as far as the BUPG is concerned with Anna James taking First Place, Tamsin Eyles taking Fourth Place and Martin Bailey coming in Fifth. To have three in the top six is a great achievement.

© Anna James

© Tamsin Eyles

© Martin Bailey

Once again, the BSoUP webmaster is on the ball (thanks Brian) and there is a full write up of these portfolios on their  website, so take a look and find out all about them.

Focus On Final  

We tend not to enter too many of the BSoUP monthly theme competitions (called Focus On) but one success this year was Bob Anthony who took Second Place in the July competition - Temperate Green Water. Bob's image of a wreck and diver in Newfoundland did not appear on the BSoUP website at the time. All First and Second placed images go through to the Grand Final in October and Bob took Fourth Place - even beating one of Alex Mustard's images!

The top six images can be seen on the BSoUP website

Miscellaneous

Arthur