NEWSLETTER NOVEMBER 2009
FORTHCOMING PROGRAMME
DEC 8th: Monthly Competition - Pairs
Annual Competition - Open Portfolio
Foto Forum - TBA
JAN 12th: Monthly Competition - Theme TBA
FORTHCOMING EVENTS
Dec 8th: Monthly Meeting
The Meeting (start time 2000hrs) will be at our normal 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 monthly competition theme is 'Pairs'. Send your digital files to Bob (anthonyrez30@tiscali.co.uk ) and please include BUPG on the subject line. Unsure about entering? Even if you don't feel you have any winners, send some in to benefit from the audience feedback - it's an ideal way to learn.
It's portfolio season and we will have our annual Open Portfolio competition. There will be a feedback session following this competition .
The Foto Forum will discuss the monthly theme for January 2010 - TBA
RECENT EVENTS
October Meeting
Monthly Theme Competition - Open
This was a popular theme with over thirty entries but, with our new format of more feedback time, it was culled to a max of two entries per person giving a total of twenty two entries. The standard was high but there was no clear favourite - perhaps due to the 'Open' theme. Four entries received two votes each and tied for top spot, followed by seven entries with one vote apiece.
With no time limit on images for this competition, a high number of images over two years old were expected. In the event, only two such images were submitted.
It was interesting to note that the top four images were portrait orientation which goes against the current thinking that landscape orientation does better for digital projected images.
| An attractive use of Photoshop by Tamsin Eyles received two votes. |
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Trevor Rees entered this image somewhat tongue in cheek and was quite surprised when it received two votes. He had previously seen an image of a crab larvae hitching a ride on a medusa jellyfish and thought it would be fun to create his own version. |
| An image of light patterns in an empty pool by Anna James received two votes. |
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Also receiving two votes was another image by Tamsin Eyles - image shot in Malta (starfish added using PS)
Seven images received one vote apiece: |
| Chris Court used a Canon G9 in an Ikelite housing to capture this image of a scorpion fish |
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An attractive deep wreck shot by Chris Simons |
| A hermit crab given the monochrome treatment by Arthur Kingdon |
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A very pretty nudibranch by Martin Bailey |
| Another good image from compact user Chris Court |
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A Swanage pier tompot given the monochrome and history brush treatment by Jim Drake |
| The most stunning image of the night? Probably but it only received one vote, possibly reflecting a prejudice against pool or studio shots. By Anna James |
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Best of British Portfolio Review/Portfolio Tutorial
All entries for our own British Portfolio competition, held last month, were discussed in turn and this proved a useful exercise.
Trevor Rees gave a short presentation on his winning entry in the BSoUP Best of British Portfolio competition:
Trevor discussed each image individually and his reasons behind his image selection and layout. As Trevor has won this competition for the past three years, he can be considered as the foremost authority on the subject. To see more of the entries in this competition, go to the BSoUP website.
Arthur Kingdon gave a tutorial on how to put together a portfolio, covering: image selection, layout, re-sizing, use of PowerPoint or Photoshop etc. Arthur is more than willing to assist any of the newer members in putting a portfolio together - get in touch if you want to enter the Open portfolio but need some help.
Lightroom Introduction - Jim Drake
Unfortunately, we ran out of time so this presentation has been postponed until next year.
MISCELLANEOUS
Epson Red Sea Challenge
Rob Bailey had a very successful week in the Eilat Shoot Out picking up nominations in the Professional Portfolio and Fish of the Year categories. See the full results and I'm sure you will agree that there was very little separating the top five in these categories. Rob will give a presentation on his experiences during the Eilat Shoot Out at our January Meeting.
Keep bubbling,
Arthur