Wednesday 27 April 2011

SPA ICC Round 2 results

Results from Round 2 of the InterClub Competition are now available on the website and confirms the finalists in Prints and PDI's
In the DPI section League 1,  Malden camera Club with 69.00 came ahead of Kingston 68.50 Richmond & Twickenham 65.00 but after Epsom who scored 72.50

Full details

Changes to the SPA Inter Club Competition (ICC)

Fri 22/04/2011 15:37

From Tony Charters Surrey Photographic Association.
"I am very pleased to say that, by a 25:1 majority, the clubs represented at the meeting on April 21st supported the proposal by the ICC Sub Committee to move away from a knock-out competition to two annual events, one for prints and the other for PDIs, to be run along the lines of similar PAGB events with silent judging replacing critique.

Armed with that decision, the ICC Sub-Committee will now work on the fine tuning and shall aim to publish the details as soon as possible.

As clubs wish to finalise their programme for the 2011/2012 season, any weekday dates reserved for ICC events may now be used for other things as the proposed annual events will be either a Saturday or Sunday. The timing of the new events depends on location and availability but November for PDIs and May for prints will be considered."



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Monday 25 April 2011

How to make money from your photos

BBC Click

Could the photos you take for fun actually be worth something? Many amateur snappers are now making money by selling their shots online. In fact it's getting so popular the professionals are starting to complain. Dan Simmons looks at some new shortcuts to cashing in.

CLICK Video

Tuesday 5 April 2011

What is Photography? Capturing an image with light sensitive materials.

From the Amdig web site
What is Photography? Capturing an image with light sensitive materials.

In the beginning,  most camera clubs were really darkroom clubs – people who not only took photographs using film but also enjoyed processing in the darkroom – itself also a light sensitive process. We gradually embraced the notion of ‘trade processed’ film and prints but there was little room to influence the final result other than by ‘getting it right’ in the camera or the exercise of some quite difficult and skilful cropping, dodging and burning in the darkroom.
As far as slides were concerned it was even more essential to get it right in the camera ! Indeed, I can remember sending photography students out with a roll of slide film secure in the knowledge that, once the film was processed, they would be able to see just how good their camera skills were -  to plagiarise WYS I WYG – What you shoot is what you get !
Printing from a slide was, although technically demanding, helped by the fact that you could actually compare the print to the original slide. How on earth do you do that when the original image is a mass of binary data on a computer hard drive or memory card?
Shadows, highlights, gamma curves – are all ‘real’ photography issues but there is a new generation now that regards these as ‘digital’ matters and are completely unaware of their ‘real’ photography origins. Without a real understanding of light, the subtleties of light and shade, brightness and contrast lose their creative impact when reduced to moving a few sliders in an imaging programme.
There used to be an all too common attitude that believed that sticking the camera on automatic and fixing it in the darkroom was an OK way to take pictures.  Now, fixing it in the darkroom has been replaced by fixing it in Photoshop.
Photoshop, whilst providing us with a digital route for processing our digitally captured images, in fact goes far further than anything we could have dreamed of doing in the wet darkroom. Personally, I would suggest that it has provided us with image manipulation opportunities that go too far and are not necessarily good for the exercise of true photography.
Believe it or not, Photoshop is now 20 years old and this week saw the announcement of its latest incarnation CS5. A new feature – ‘content aware fill’  is already creating something of a storm and will, for many, be yet another ‘must have’ reason for spending some more disposable income.
So, I ask you – is your club a real photographic club that teaches and promotes/embraces digital techniques or are you becoming an imaging club more dependent on the computer than the camera itself to create pictures?
Yout thoughts and comments would be appreciated

Stunning photographs of Richmond Park

A photographer who rose every day before dawn for a year has unlocked the secret world of London's majestic wildlife.

The stunning scenes, which occur right under the noses of the eight million people living in the capital, were captured on camera in a series of incredible pictures.

Dedicated Alex Saberi went out every morning before work to scout out the beautiful sights that most city dwellers would expect to travel to the New Forest or Exmoor to find

But Alex, 34, travelled around Richmond Park, south west London, on a bicycle to find the fairytale scenes of rutting stags and swans swimming through the eerie dawn mist.

His outstanding shots include pictures of majestic deer roaming placidly under beams of sunlight and rabbits rising from their warren on a dewy morning.

An inquisitive squirrel is caught on camera hunting out his breakfast while a kingfisher surveys the silent morning.

Alex, a web designer from Putney, said: 'I used to live right next to the park and I would go every morning to take pictures.

Report in the Daily Mail

Alex Saberi web site   flickr

Monday 4 April 2011

Saguaro Trophy for slides and digital images & Irene Foster Rosebowl for prints

Saguaro Trophy for slides and digital images & Irene Foster Rosebowl for prints  takes place on 14 th April
Roland will be collecting the digital entries, Brain Bailey prints, Simon Lane slides.

The Saguaro Trophy is for digital images and members can submit 2 sets of 3 images, each set being on a theme of their choosing. Please submit your files in the same form as used for club digital competions ie JPEG, sRGB, 1024 x768 but add the number 1,2 or 3 to the front of the file name to ensure that the images are projected in the correct order eg "1 Theme Name % Roland Adams.jpg".

Please can you get your Digital entries to Roland by Sunday 10th April.


Irene Foster Rosebowl for prints
o   Competition date: late April, in conjunction with Saguaro Trophy for slides / digital images
o   Closing date: one week prior to competition
o   Classes: open, i.e. no separate classes
o   Categories: open subject matter, each panel on a single theme
o   Number of images per member: maximum 2 panels of 3 images (delete "per member", already mentioned)
o   Labelling: on back - title, author and marked L-C-R
o   Judging: at the competition by club members. Each member selects his/her choice of best three panels in order, awarding first (5 points), second (3 points) and third (1 point)
o   Awards: trophy to overall winner, i.e. with most points.
Saguaro Trophy for slides and digital images
o   Competition date: late April, in conjunction with Irene Foster Rosebowl for prints
o   Closing date: one week prior to competition
o   Classes: open, i.e. no separate classes
o   Categories: open subject matter, each panel on a single theme
o   Number of images per member: maximum 2 panels of 3 images of slides or digital images or one of each with (i) slides displayed simultaneously on three projectors and (ii) digital displayed consecutively
o   Labelling: as for Internal League Competition with spot marked (i) slides L-C-R and (ii) digital 1-2-3
o   Judging: at the competition by club members. Each member selects his/her choice of best three panels in order, awarding first (5 points), second (3 points) and third (1 point)
o   Awards: trophy to overall winner, i.e. with most points.