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Weekend Away:

Our trip to the Aran Islands proved to be great success - 23 of us headed out to Inis Oirr, the smallest island, last Friday. There was good weather, good company, lots of Guinness and, of course, lots of photo opportunities.

Follow our antics on Flickr!

While we were there, the Saturday 4pm 'Moment in Time' challenge took place. Wherever you were at that time, members were urged to join in by taking a photo - send images in to Joe in the usual way (info@boylecameraclub.com) and we'll see what the result is!

Competition:

TOP (the fuel company – formerly TOP Oil) is running a photography competition which is open to any amateur photographer, of any subject, taken anywhere in Ireland. The winning photos will be compiled to make the TOP Calendar for 2011 – distributed to 50,000 homes. More information can be found HERE. Entries can be sent to photo@top.ie with the why, when and where the photo was taken. The closing date is 30th June.

Exhibition 2010:

Don't forget, the deadline for entries to our Summer Exhibition is Friday next, June 18th. Send your best two pictures in via e-mail, but also send high resolution images for printing to: Boyle Camera Club, c/o The Greenway Emporium, Market Yard, Boyle, Co Roscommon, either on a CD, or on a USB drive.

LGC

What will YOU be up to on Saturday at 4pm??

• A moment in time – even if you can't be with us in the Aran Islands, you can join us in our just-for-fun photo exercise on Saturday afternoon. Wherever you are, whatever you are doing, take a photo at exactly 4pm on Saturday, June 12th, and send it in to Joe at info@boylecameraclub.com in the usual way. The subject can be anything you like, but it MUST be taken at exactly 4pm. Its just for fun – and we'll show the images at one of our upcoming meetings (don't forget, we have ways of checking that you haven't cheated with the time keeping!!).
• We're off on our weekend away tomorrow, Friday. Photos will, of course, be posted on Flickr and we will probably meet for a whole evening to show Aran Island images, separate from our monthly meeting – watch this space!
• If you've ever used your camera for making phone calls, then you'll have found Tony Murphy's talk about Camera Phones inspiring. An un-edited image from a phone (composition is paramount here) is our next Motivation.
  Portrait Photography was the June Motivation, with last month's speaker, Tony Geoghegan choosing the top three images from each category. Read more about our June meeting here.
• The deadline for entries into the Summer Exhibition in the Libary during Boyle Arts Festival is next week. Send your best two shots (suitable for printing to A4 size only) in to us in the usual way by Friday, June 18th (late entries won't be accapted). You also need to send your images in their original format (for printing) on a CD or USB drive to: Boyle Camera Club, c/o The Greenway Emporium, Market Yard, Boyle, Co Roscommon. Entrants will be required to pay €12 each (towards costs) and will have to agree to do some sitting time on the rota. A mounted print of their exhibition picture will be available for each entrant at the end of the Show. Throughout the Exhibition (which runs from July 21st to 31st) pictures will be for sale, with proceeds going to charity. For more information contact Louise on 086 0814683.

LGC

Lots of dates for your diary!

The deadline for the monthly Motivation is almost upon us - Tuesday, June 1st, is the day to get your Portrait pictures in. As always, send them (correctly sized and formatted) to info@boylecameraclub.com.

Tuesday is also the day for a get together of the people going on the annual outing. If you want to hear all the info about where we're going, who's included, what we're going to do when we get there, car pooling to get to the airport/ferry port etc., then come along for an informal briefing at Dalys in Bridge Street, Boyle, at 8pm on June 1st. This won't be a lengthy meeting (we hope!), but will give us a chance to talk about what we can expect from the weekend away. Peter should have the packs of information available to hand out, so if you are involved, please try to be there.

The deadline for entries into the summer exhibition is June 18th. 'Give it your best shot!' is the title of the exhibition, which takes place in Boyle Library during Arts Festival week. Send your two best shots (any subject, the choice is yours!) in to the usual address, re-sized and formatted for e-mail - but we also need you to send them to us on CD or on a USB pen drive, in their original state for printing. This is just an advance warning - you'll get more details at the monthly meeting on June 8th! We'll have an interesting evening for you, as always, starting at 8pm in the Royal Hotel, Boyle.

Meanwhile, members may be interested in a weekend away, the week following our annual trip. Professional photo journalist Peter Wilcock (who gave an interesting talk about press photography to us a while back) has teamed up with Sligo Park Hotel (www.sligopark.com) to bring 'Snap into Summer' a course in photography on June 18th - 20th. Call 071 9190400 for details.

LGC

Moments in Time - Powerscourt Gallery, Dublin

The Powerscourt Gallery would like to invite club members to the opening night of Moments in Time, a new exhibition of original photographic views of the old and new world.

On the opening night there will also be an exposition and discussion of time-travel devices from a past age presented by Seth and Star Hooker.
The launch takes place in Powerscourt Gallery on Thursday the 3rd June, at 5pm.

Refreshments will be offered and admission is free.

MAP to Gallery is HERE.

TM.

Perfect Portraits...

Portrait photography was the subject of our May meeting, with professional photographer Tony Geoghegan sharing some of his tips for getting the best shots. Tony, who has a studio in Knockvicar, regaled members with anecdotes about how he managed to achieve the pictures he showed us, and he gave some valuable advice about lighting techniques and equipment. Camera Club members are now tasked with taking their own portrait pictures, of themselves, their pets or their friends and relatives, as the motivation for the next month. Tony will be the judge, the deadline is Tuesday, June 1st.

The 'Nightscapes' motivation pictures were shown and Tony Murphy read out the comments of the judge; Fine Art Photographer and NCAD Lecturer, Fiona King.

Winners as follows;

Beginners: First, 'Walk on Water' by Benny Sheerin, with Maeve Cormican in second place and May Costello third.
Intermediate: 'Night Reflections' by Mary Lane in first place (above), with Andy Rimmer second, and Rob Wheeldon third.

Advanced: Conor Dowling's ' Night Dust' in first place, with Joe Kennedy second and Paraic Brennan third.

A more detailed report of the judges comments can be viewed HERE.

The annual exhibition in the Library is our next big focus and a working party is being set up to get this organised - volunteers are still needed! The exhibition will take place during Boyle Arts Festival and as in previous years, photographs will be for sale, with the proceeds going to charity.

A trip to the Derreen (bluebell) Wood, Knockvicar is planned, which should happen some time during the next few weeks. Members will be notified by text, so keep your phone switched on!

LGC

New time for the gee gees...

Our photo outing on Sunday next (May 9th), will now start a little earlier than we'd first expected. The trip is to the Sligo Race Course where there will be a Point to Point meeting taking place, starting at 1pm.
So, we will now meet in the Crescent, Boyle, for car pooling and a briefing at 12 noon.
Please note, that because of insurance restrictions, this will be a members-only event, although the Point to Point is, of course, open to the public.

Busy, busy, busy!

Activities continue apace as we gear up for a series of outings and meetings, plus our annual exhibition in the Library during Boyle Arts Festival at the end of July. A working party is currently being set up to organise this year's exhibition (if you'd like to get involved, please make yourself known to the chairperson, Louise Cole at the Greenway Emporium, Boyle, on 071 9664090 or 086 0814683). We will be inviting members to submit two of their best shots – find out more at the next meeting!
Meanwhile, the deadline for the monthly motivation looms: Tuesday, May 4th, a week ahead of the meeting in the Royal Hotel on May 11th. The motivation, set to inspire members to take more pictures, is 'Nightscapes'.
The *speaker for the May meeting will be Tony Geoghegan, who makes a welcome return to the club to talk about taking portrait photographs. There will also be slideshows of the two most recent photo-shoots, one to Cavan County Museum and another to the Marble Arch Caves.
An outing is planned to a Point to Point meeting at Sligo Racecourse on Sunday, May 9th. This will be an afternoon trip, meeting at 1.30pm in the Crescent, Boyle, for car pooling and briefing. (Please note: This is a different type of horse racing to the Sligo Races event advertised for May 2nd). We also plan a visit to the bluebell woods near Knockvicar - we'll let you know at a later date when that will be.
Our annual weekend away is getting closer – 27 members will head for the Aran Islands on June 11th - 13th.
Boyle Camera Club continues to prosper, with almost 50 paid up members, regular outings, and meetings in the Royal Hotel, Boyle, on the second Tuesday of the month, starting at 8pm. As ever, new members are always welcome. We cater for beginners, improvers and experts and have an eclectic mix of ages and professions of both sexes. You can see some of the images created by members on our Flickr site.

* The talk about picture framing due to take place at the April meeting will now be re-scheduled for later in the year, after the speaker, Michael Ewing, was unable to attend at the last minute due to a bereavement.

LGC

Club Meeting - Tuesday 13th April

Joe Kennedy - The Winner

This was a busy a varied meeting, despite the absence of our guest speaker Michael Ewing, who was unable to attend. Peter Boalch hosted the event which began with the presentation of this months Black & White Motivation, judged by local photographer and club member, John Reynolds.

John gave an excellent critique of a selection from this month's members images and subsequently demonstrated a variety of digital darkroom techniques on the most effective way to convert digital colour files to Black & White.

Later in the meeting, Tony Murphy gave a presentation on the subject of Autofocus - What it is, How it works and unravelling the multitude of camera settings in order to get the most out of this often misunderstood and under-utilised function of the digital SLR camera.

Members are asked to note the following dates for their calendars;

Sunday 18th April - Photo Shoot to Marble Arch Caves - Co. Fermanagh

Sunday 18th April - Photo Fest Ireland 2010 - Dublin Airport

Wednesday 24th & 25th April - IPF National Club Finals - Athlone

Wednesday 28th April - Committee Meeting

Tuesday 4th May - 'Nightscapes' Motivation Submission

Tuesday 11th May - Next Club Meeting, 8pm Royal Hotel, Boyle

Full Minutes from this month's meeting HERE.

TM

Photo-shoot on Sunday next 19th April to Marble Arch Caves

The Porridge Pot - Marble Arch Caves, Co. Fermanagh

Our next Photoshoot will be on Sunday 18th April.

We are going underground at The Marble Arch Caves near Enniskillen, Co Fermanagh, for a photoshoot on Sunday next. The trip will include a boat trip underground through the caves and members should wear comfortable walking shoes and a sweater or fleece. Should make for a great day out. The cost of admission will be £7 STG.

As usual we will meet in the car park at the Crescent, Boyle at 9 am.

For insurance reasons, photo-shoots are only available to paid-up members of the club.

PB

photo courtesy Marble Arch Website

More competitions...

If you are interested in competitive photography, then there are a few competitions around at the moment, including one from Irish Forestry. Together with the Institute of Photography, Irish Forestry is running a competition with the theme of ... forestry. All entries will be displayed on the IPF website, with the winner being announced in early July. Prizes and entry details are on http://www.ifsam.ie/. Age Action, a charity which promotes positive ageing and better policies and services for older people has an annual photo competition. Visit http://www.ageaction.ie/ for details.

The deadline for our monthly Motivation - this month, its black and white images - is up today, as always, a week ahead of our next monthly meeting.

Picture framer Michael Ewing will be at our meeting on April 13th to talk us through the endless possibilities of frames and mounts for changing the finish on our printed photographs. There will be slide shows of our trip to County Cavan Museum and the results of the Motivation, plus a short talk on auto focus by Tony Murphy. The meeting starts at 8pm (sharp!) in the Royal Hotel, Bridge Street, Boyle, and new members are always welcome.

You can view images from club members here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/boylecameraclub/sets/

LGC

Photo-shoot on Sunday next

The County Museum of Cavan in Ballyjamesduff is our destination for a photo-shoot on Sunday next (March 28th). This will be another learning opportunity for members to swap information and techniques out in the field. The museum has a wealth of historical artifacts and interesting displays - plenty of scope for creative photography indoors and out.
As usual, we will meet at the Crescent Car Park in Boyle for car pooling and a briefing. Meet at 9am prompt (and don't forget, the clocks will have changed!).
The cost is €5 each, which includes admission to the museum and tea and scones on arrival.
For insurance reasons, photo-shoots are only available to paid-up members of the club.
LGC

Club Meeting - Tuesday March 9th

Sean Kennedy of Dublin Camera Club was the guest speaker at our March meeting. Sean has been a keen photographer for many years and showed us some inspiring prints of his award-winning, black and white photography. In the early days, he only used film and did all his own processing, but he has had to move with the times and now takes digital images. He explained that all cameras will take a colour image and convert it to black and white, which poses certain challenges. Following on from his talk, our next motivation will be 'Black and White' – any subject, but it must be monochrome!

Photographs on Texture and Pattern, which was last month's motivation, were shown, followed by images from the photo-shoot to Lough Arrow.

The committee recently reviewed the categories for submissions, and so a number of members have been 'promoted' to a higher level (no-one got demoted!).

Members' photographs can be viewed HERE.

We have a Flickr Workshop booked for Saturday, March 20th. Paraic Brennan and Tony Murphy will help beginners set up their own on-line Flickr account. There are limited places, so book now if you are interested! More details HERE.

Our next photo-shoot will be to Ballyjamesduff, County Cavan on Sunday, March 28th. Meet at 9am in the Crescent Car Park, Boyle, for car-pooling and briefing.

Members are encouraged to attend the St Patrick's Day Parade in Boyle, which starts at 3.30pm on Wednesday, March 17th.

You can read Dermot Devine's account of the March meeting HERE.

LGC

International Photography Competition - Italy

The Association "Orizzonte Cultura" in partnership with the Council of Quarrata and the Province of Pistoia (Tuscany - Italy) organises the 4th edition of "Immagini" photography competition. The special prizes "Tiziano Terzani" and "O.C. International" will be awarded respectively to the photograph which best expresses the concept of love for nature and to the foreign best photographer. Deadline: 20th March 2010.

Please see previously exhibited images,videos of prize-giving receptions, winning photographs, competition rules and request form on: www.orizzontecultura.org.

LGC

Chilled Out Photo-Shoot!

A group of intrepid members got together on Sunday last for a photo-shoot around Lough Arrow. We were down on numbers (it seemed we'd chosen a day when lots of people had other commitments), but we were not short of enthusiasm as we faced the elements. Not for the first time recently, we faced the photographic challenges of colourless skies and damp, miserable surroundings - with snowfalls visible in the distance and sticky mud underfoot. We took in some nice views of Lough Arrow, had a good look around Ballinafad Castle, and then went on to Ballindoon Priory. At that point, we could see the visibility in the Bricklieves was poor, so we decided against heading out for the Carrowkeel Tombs. We'll save that trip for another day - hopefully when the weather improves. You can view some of the day's photos here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/boylecameraclub/sets/

Next on the club agenda is the deadline for the texture and pattern motivation - March 2nd. Our monthly meeting follows, on March 9th, when the theme will be black and white photography.

LGC

Photo-Shoot Sunday February 21st

A Photo-shoot has been arranged for this coming Sunday, February 21st.
We'll meet at 9am in the Crescent Car Park, Boyle, for car pooling and a briefing. We plan to take in Lough Arrow (not Lough Allen as was previously mentioned!), stopping off for a look at the Castle in Ballinafad and then onto the Carrowkeel Tombs, via a different route to our last trip there. Be prepared for all weathers and bring your own refreshments, just in case we don't find anywhere open for coffee so early on a Sunday morning...
As always, for insurance reasons, this is a members-only event.
Former members are invited to re-join the club; we've plenty going on for folk of all abilities, from juniors to pensioners, and of either gender. All you need is an enthusiasm for digital photography, access to the Internet for information and a mobile phone, which is our favoured means of communication. Oh, and you'll also need €50 to join from January to December (or €30 for juniors and the unwaged).
LGC

53rd World Press Photo Winners for 2009

The 53rd Annual World Press Photo of the Year has been awarded to Italian photographer Pietro Masturzo, for his image of women shouting from a Tehran rooftop on June 24, 2009, in protest of the contested Iranian presidential elections.

World Press Photo's 2009 winners were announced on February 12th in Amsterdam.

World Press Photo is one of the most widely followed photojournalism competitions. It is unique in selecting one photograph as the year's top work of photojournalism. It also recognizes dozens of other images in twenty other categories.

See all the winning photos HERE.

TM

What About The Weather??

There was a far from frosty reception at our February meeting as we viewed chilly images entered in the 'Wintertime' competition and then motivation entries on the subject of 'The Weather'.

Clearly lots of members have been out and about in the recent icy conditions with their cameras. Congratulations to the winners:

Advanced: 1. Tony Murphy - “December Dawn" 2. Peter Boalch - "Cold Feet" 3. Joe Kennedy - "Evening Light"

Intermediate: 1.Peter Kelly - "untitled" 2.Margaret Dolan - "Morning Glory" - 3. Martina Morris - "untitled"

Beginners: 1.Mary Lane - "Winter Time" 2.Mary Lane - "My Dog" 3.Maeve Cormican - "Roosky"

We were treated to some interesting surreal and abstract shots from Joe Kennedy's recent trip to Paris, and Paraic Brennan talked us through setting up a Flickr account.

We have decided to scrap the quarterly competitions and stick to the monthly motivation - and we will revert to our original system of points and a league table.

The next motivation will be 'Texture and Patterns' This month, you can go up close and personal with macros for some weird and wonderful shots of nature - but try thinking outside the box. Look at the patterns and texture in architecture, clothing and landscapes. The deadline is; Tuesday, March 2nd.

From now on, include your membership number (not your name!), your category and your image title in the name of your file - up to two entries to: info@boylecameraclub.com. (For example, the name of the file should be like this: 8-Intermediate-Morning Glory.jpg. And don't forget to re-size the image for sending via e-mail!).

Participants in the IPF workshops at Athlone IT will be meeting at 9.30am for a 10am start on Saturday next (February 13th). Follow the IPF link for Google maps on how to get there.

Everyone going to the Aran Islands (June 11th-13th) is invited to a brief get together on Wednesday next (February 17th)to discuss the arrangements. Meet in Dalys's Bar, Bridge Street at 8pm. Don't worry if you can't make it - we'll keep you posted!

Details to follow of our next Photo-shoot to Lough Allen on Sunday, February 21st.

Minutes of February's meeting HERE.

Next Club Meeting; Tuesday 9th March 8pm, Royal Hotel, Boyle.

LGC

Picturing New York: Photographs from The Museum of Modern Art

Picturing New York: Photographs from The Museum of Modern Art

25 November 2009 - 14 February 2010

Unititled Film Still #14, 1978 Cindy Sherman

If you are visiting Dublin in the next week or so, or have a desire to treat yourself to a day out, then make every effort to see this historical event! Picturing New York comprises 145 masterworks from the photographic collection of The Museum of Modern Art in New York, covering the period from the 1880s to the present day. It celebrates the tradition of photographing New York, a tradition that frames and influences the perception of this vibrant urban centre. Including photographs by such influential photographers as Berenice Abbot, Diane Arbus, Garry Winogrand, Lisette Model, Alfred Stieglitz and Cindy Sherman, it explores both New York and its inhabitants, highlighting associations – from the vast, overwhelming architecture and bright lights, to the diversity of people that lie at the soul of the city.

... more

TM

Mill Cove Gallery is celebrating its 10th Anniversary

The Mill Cove Awards are for outstanding works in painting, print or photography. First prize €1,000 and entry open to everyone.

The Awards Exhibition opens at Mill Cove Gallery, Castletownbere on 4th April 2010.

Entries close on the 5th March.

There will be a collection of the work from city centre locations in Dublin and Cork if there are sufficient submissions . Watch web page for details.
This will incur an additional carriage and return charge of €8.

Full details HERE.

TM

Photography Weekend Workshop in Galway with Joe Geoghan

Local Galway photographer, Joe Geoghegan and Glenlo Abbey Hotel in Galway have teamed up to provide a series of Midweek and Weekend Photography Breaks for Spring 2010.

Joe has sent on details in a document viewable HERE.

TM