4th Quarterly Competition

Time once again for my competition entries. This time for the 4th Quarterly (Yardley Photographic Society)…..

Tide out, Mist In
Tide out, Mist In

Dead Tree
Dead Tree

Not sure about either image to be honest – the full size versions work well, but when resized down to 1024×768 it loses the detail. Both images have been manipulated a little bit in Lightroom first and finished off using some Nik plugins i’m testing at the moment.

Oh, an update from the Rose Bowl comp – my surfer picture won.

Winning.

Not looking to be a big head as I know there’s many better photographer than me out there, but it’s nice as an amateur to get recognition for some of my images. Previously I’ve sold images out a couple of outlets and that’s a nice feeling that someone considers you work to be nice enough to purchase. Anyway I’m waffling on a bit.

So…….

A few weeks ago the judging for the Yardley Photographic Society’s competition was held. And I won the John Heath trophy (1st) and the Judges Ribbon (2nd) for Project Digital…..

Trophy and Ribbon

John Heath Slide/Digital Trophy - Awarded by Malcolm Ranieri - FRPS, MPAGB, BPE5*
John Heath Slide/Digital Trophy – Awarded by Malcolm Ranieri – FRPS, MPAGB, BPE5* Image Title:Storm

Malcolm Ranieri - FRPS, MPAGB, BPE5* Ribbon
Judges Ribbon – Malcolm Ranieri – FRPS, MPAGB, BPE5* Image Title:Flying Legend.

To be fair I was very happy about this and tonight……

It was announced I won the Amateur Photographer Magazine Forum competition for October!

AP Winner chosen by Damien Demolder - Editor of Amateur Photographer Magazine

About Yardley Photographic Society:

Welcome to Yardley Photographic Society’s website

Yardley Photographic Society is based in East Birmingham and has been in existence in various forms since 1903 when it was originally known as Small Heath and District Photographic Society.

We are a very friendly, flourishing club with an ever-growing, diverse and active membership who are enthusiastic about their photography.

New members, regardless of their level of knowledge, are always made welcome, and whether your interests lie in black and white, colour, digital or film you can be sure that you will be inspired and encouraged by our visiting speakers and existing members during the varied programme of events throughout the season.

Meetings are held every Tuesday evening between 7:45-10:00 PM at the Trust School, next to Yardley Parish Church, Yardley, Birmingham from September to May.

The Society is affiliated to the Photographic Alliance of Great Britain through its membership of the Midland Counties Photographic Federation.

http://www.yardleyps.co.uk

About Amateur Photographer Magazine:

Amateur Photographer is world renowned for its authoritative and comprehensive equipment reviews. It is first for news, events, prices plus features on techniques, equipment tests and darkroom advice. Also contains readers’ pictures, profiles of professionals and advice from experts. Appeals to those interested in buying photographic equipment or wanting advice about improving their picture taking.

http://www.amateurphotographer.co.uk/

Macro night

It’s a bit like the model night, only smaller. So small models I hear you cry, well no. It’s close up shots of things.

This time I took my setup to the hall (light tent, flashes, laptop and camera), set up on a table and shot away……

Pentium

Memory

big ring

small bracelet

6p

The setup is no different from what I’ve used before, but it’s nice to have the time and space to set up the shoot. Also it’s nice to share and pass on knowledge about the setup. One thing is for sure, I really could do with a Macro Ringlite (well specifically the Canon MT24EX Macro Ringlite). Odd colours are from using a mixture of cool and warm up filter gels over the front of the 580MkII flashes.

Thanks to the members of Yardley Photographic society who came along 🙂

Portrait Night

I don’t really photograph people, well except for strangers in the street and the family – so you’d have thought tonight was the night for me to avoid at Yardley Photographic Society as it was Portrait night (run and studio gear provided by Martin Coffey & Dave Boyce). But I thought i’d go along and have a go.

The old school hall does convert rather well into a temporary studio (at this point I should have took some shots of the setup for the purpose of this blog – I didn’t so use your imagination about what a temporary studio in an old school hall looks like).

The setup was a high-key type (white background) and four Elinchrom flash heads. The front lighting setup used Elinchrom BXRi 500 style units (not too sure about the exact models) and the white backdrop was illuminated using a couple of older Elinchrom D Lite style units.

The flashes are triggered using Elinchrom Skyports (which are little hotshoe based triggers). So how did I get on then?

Actually I enjoyed it, we had a mixture of models to shoot (I will get the names and post them!)……..

Yardley Photographic Society - Portrait Night

Yardley Photographic Society - Portrait Night

Yardley Photographic Society - Portrait Night

Technical data for those that are interested: All shots taken using a Eos 5D MkII, EF24-105 f/4 L, ISO200, F/13, 1/125.

Apologies for those that hate high key and clichés. I enjoyed myself and that’s the important thing.

Camera Club

Well I am 40 so it’s a natural progression to go to a camera club. You see I’ve always been a bit dismissive of the whole idea, I mean meeting up with like minded photo enthusiasts who’d want to do that.

With that thought in my mind I ventured out to my local camera club (Yardley PS) to see a presentation from @peteashton about TTV (Through The Viewfinder photography). I’ve known that Pete has been doing this for a while now, but never got a chance to speak about it with him.

Anyway, I went along and enjoyed it. The people were a friendly bunch, seems to be no pretension from the gathered audience and I got to look at a Pete’s stuff in greater detail than before. So will I join, not too sure. I may be one to just dip in and out initially (at £1.50 a pop it’s not an issue).

TTV Pete

Pete having picture taken by @Katchooo, taken by me using a very poor quality iphone camera (nb not representative of my photography)