Motivation Themes from March to September 2015

This month's Motivation theme is "PANORAMIC".
The deadline for receipt of entries is Friday 6th March 2015.

Only photos taken since September 2014 are eligible for entry in this year's Motivation.

Reminder; the title of each photo should be;
"MEMBERS NAME - CATEGORY (Beg, Int, Adv), IMAGE TITLE and MEMBERSHIP NUMBER" e.g. “John Fox - Beg – Autumn Evening Reflection – 104.jpg”

Entries should be re-sized so that a landscape format photo is 1024 pixels wide or if in portrait format the photo is 600 pixels high. Des has placed a note on how to re-size photos HERE. Tony has a video for anyone using Picasa HERE.
The Motivation Themes for the year ahead are;

• March - Panoramic
• April - Open - Print
• May - Portraits Without Faces
• June - Forced Perspectives
• July/August - Open - Print
• September - Water

Happy Shooting!

Weather Warning for Tomorrow's Proposed Photo Shoot

Regarding tomorrow's proposed photo shoot; some sources are predicting BAD WEATHER for Sunday so just in case this materialises, we will postpone the shoot until next Sunday. So if you're greeted with rain in the morning, stay in bed! We wouldn't normally be put off by a bit of rain but on this occasion, the location would not be conducive to photographing on a wet day.

CLUB PHOTO SHOOT - Sunday 22nd February

This month's club photo shoot will take place at the Barons de Freyne Estate and visit other site of interest in area surrounding Frenchpark, Co Roscommon.
Members should aim to meet at The Douglas Hyde Centre on the Ballaghaderreen Road (near the 'Into The West' pub) for 10am.
Car Pool from Boyle - meet on The Crescent at 9.30am. We look forward to seeing you all.

Agenda - Club Meeting Tuesday 10th February

The Agenda for the February meeting is as follows;

• Chairperson's Address;
• Presented by our Chairperson, Andy Rimmer.

• Presentation - Tonight, Boyle Camera Club are delighted to welcome Sligo based landscape photographer, Ciáran McHugh, who will talk to us about his work. Ciarán’s photography is focused on the landscapes of Sligo, Galway and the West of Ireland. His aim is to capture these stunning landscapes at their very best and where possible from an off the beaten track vantage point.

• Tea/Coffee Break

• Motivation Slideshow and Critique presented by Joe Kennedy and judged by Ciaran McHugh. This month's motivation theme was 'MORNING LIGHT'.

• Groups - Beginners and Intermediate Groups will continue examining camera skills with Peter and John. Beginner members participating in the camera skills group - Please remember to bring your camera and samples of images for review. This month's emphasis will be APERTURE! Advanced Group; Back at the December meeting, members were challenged to produce a photographic Typology on a subject of their choice. Tonight, members are expected to present their 12-image panel in print or digital format. Time will be given to discuss and evaluate work and consider a follow-on challenge in the months ahead.

Members should note that annual membership fees are now due. The fees remain unchanged; Full Membership €45. Unwaged/Pensioner/Student €15. Members are reminded that a monthly meeting fee of €3 exists. For special guest presenters, the meeting fee is €5.

We look forward to seeing you all.

New members always welcome.

Landscape Photographer Ciáran McHugh to Talk at February Meeting

Boyle Camera Club are delighted to welcome Sligo based landscape photographer, Ciáran McHugh, to our February meeting.

Ciarán’s photography is focused on the landscapes of Sligo, Galway and the West of Ireland. His aim is to capture these stunning landscapes at their very best and where possible from an off the beaten track vantage point.

He says of his work; "The format of photography I work with most is panoramic. I feel this wider view best captures Sligo’s stunning sweeping vistas; from the iconic slopes of its mountains to its dramatic coastline and lakes. When I come across a scene that I want to capture in a photograph the main challenge can be deciding what to leave out!"
We very much look forward to Ciáran's presentation.

Club meeting is on Tuesday 10th February at 8pm in St. Joseph's Resource Centre in Boyle. Full agenda for the meeting to follow shortly.
New members always welcome.

Club Meeting - Tuesday 20th January

Due to poor weather conditions, the January meeting was deferred from 13th to 20th January.

Welcome
The meeting was conducted as outlined in the agenda.

• Andy reminded members that annual subscription fees were now due. Membership fees are unchanged with subsidies existent for unwaged, pensioners and students. There is a monthly door fee for club meetings. This is €3 and covers the cost of renting the venue. In the case of visiting presenters, the door fee is €5.
• Members are asked to continue to add comments to the ‘Suggestion Box’ that will be available at each meeting.
• There was a Print Category for this month’s motivation which was judged by committee members. The next scheduled Print Motivation will be in April and Andy proposed that it be judged by a combined group consisting of a Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced member.
• Andy asked the question if at this point, one meeting per month is adequate to conduct club business. It had been suggested some time ago that perhaps the club should consider meeting formally every two weeks or twice monthly. Andy said he would post his proposal in the club Forum where members can voice their opinions in advance of any decision being made.
• Members are asked if they are aware of available venues, locally or other, to accommodate potential photography exhibitions over the course of the year.
• On a related subject, the club will have representation at the Boyle Enterprise Town 2015 event towards the end of February. More on this at the next meeting.

BCC Flickr Pool - Photo of the Month
Each month, club members registered with Flickr are encouraged to put their photos into the Boyle Camera Club Flickr Pool. From the pool, a committee member selects an image and discusses it at the beginning of the meeting. This month Joe Kennedy selected and discussed Des O’Dwyer’s blue-hour photo of St. Mel’s Cathedral in Longford and Brian Munnelly discussed Peter Kelly’s BW photo of a Parisian street scene.

Groups

John Walsh took the Beginners Group and gave a summary of the areas he and Peter Kelly covered during recent meetings as an introduced to Basic Photography Skills.
During the November meeting suggestions were taken from the group as to what topics should be covered. Suggestions included; better exposures, use of camera controls, use of photo editing software. The second half of the session introduced the group to shutter speed and how a cameras shutter mechanism works.
The December meeting continued to discuss shutter speed. Photographs taken at various shutter speeds were analysed. John and Peter spoke in more detail about the effects of shutter speed, how to choose the correct shutter speed and permissible shutter speeds for hand held shots. Subsequently, members were encouraged to try a number of shots at different shutters speeds and bring the results to the January meeting for a discussion.
The first half of the January session John reviewed shots where members had tried out skills learned in previous sessions. John moved on to explain Aperture; its effect on exposure and depth of field and the importance of correct focusing when using wide apertures. Beginners are asked to bring samples to next session for discussion where John will discuss in more detail how aperture and focal length effect depth of field.

Tony Murphy took Advanced and Intermediate members. The conversation continued on the subject of Photographic Typologies. Members are asked to present their finished project at the February meeting. More details in THIS POST.

Print Motivation - OPEN theme

This month’s Print Motivation was judged by Kit O’Connor and Brian Munnelly. The winners in each category are as follows;
Beginners - Tristan Otto, Intermediate - Ciara Maher and Advanced - Tony Murphy.

Projected Image Motivation - OPEN theme

This month’s Motivation was presented by Joe Kennedy and judged by Peter Kelly. The winners in each category are as follows;

Advanced

1. Des O'Dwyer - 'Seascape'
2. Joe Kennedy - 'Ram'
3. Margaret Dolan - 'It's All in the Timing'

Intermediate

1. Steve Dobson - 'Water World'
2. Marty Cooke - 'Dusty Trail'
3. Norman Little - 'Fun in the Park'

Beginner

1. Sally Moffatt - 'Reflections'
2. Margaret Mulligan - 'Spring Daffodils'
3. Tristan Otto - 'Snow Scene'

The February Motivation Theme is 'MORNING LIGHT'.
Only images taken AFTER 1st of October 2014 are eligible for Motivation entry!
Members can submit up to FOUR images.

A reminder also that the title of each photo should be;

"MEMBERS NAME - CATEGORY (Beg, Int, Adv), IMAGE TITLE and MEMBERSHIP NUMBER" e.g. “John Fox - Beg – Autumn Evening Reflection – 104.jpg”

Entries should be re-sized so that a landscape format photo is 1024 pixels wide or if in portrait format the photo is 600 pixels high.

February Motivation Entries on or before Friday 6th February to;

motivationpics@gmail.com

Conclusion

Next club meeting; Tuesday 10th February.
New (and former) members are always welcome.

Club Photo Shoot - Sunday 1st February

It was far too beautiful a morning last Sunday to spend it at the Resource Centre under studio lights so we headed for the Curlew's to tramp through the snow covered boreens. We took our chances on an ice covered 'Old Sligo Road' and abandoned our cars on the Garrow Road. We had a very relaxed and easy ramble, taking a few snaps along the way. Very refreshing! Well done to the survivors!!

Typology Challenge Presentation at the February Meeting.

Boyle Camera Club, Advanced and Intermediate Group members will hopefully be bringing their work on the Typology Challenge to a conclusion about now for presentation at the February meeting. Tony has prepared a short podcast which talks members through the process of using the Presentation Templates that were discussed at the January meeting. The templates are in JPEG format so can be used in any image editor that operates Layers. For members that do not use Photoshop or GIMP, I recommend using Pixlr (select Open image from Computer in Editor). This is an 'on-line' image editor that has a Layers function similar to Photoshop.
Printing the panel is the preferred option as it is very difficult to appreciate a typology in digital format. However, if you have difficulty with printing then send the finished panel in JPEG format to tony@tonymurphy.ie and I will insure they are included for view.
Printing - Conor Dowling has agreed to print members panels. Full details on how to get your panel to Conor, HERE.

It you haven't done so already, you can download the Presentation Templates HERE.

We look forward to seeing the work.

View Podcast Full-Screen HERE.