At our last meeting we presented the club members with their photographs that will hang in our exhibition which is scheduled to open in the Tralee Library at 6.30 pm on June 5th. The photographs are all 15” x 10” and are presented in a 20” x 16” black frame which in contains a 15” x 10” double mount.

The mount is made from a neutral ph non acidic white core which means it will stay white for the lifetime of the board. The pictures are printed on fine art paper, using inks that will not fade, to give a totally professional finish. All of this means they make an excellent value purchase for the price of €50, which they will be on sale for, during the exhibition.

Our next meeting is scheduled for 17th May we hope to have an outing to the Fenit Area on this date if the weather permits. We will meet in the car park beside the playground and make our way around the general area to the Marina, the Port, the Statue of St. Brendan and we will also take a trip out to the swimming club and the beach adjacent to it. If the weather is not suitable then we will have an open competition with a €5 entry and cash prizes.

There is also a joint outing with the Killarney Club this Sunday the 13th of May, anyone that intends going should meet up with the Killarney members at the Heights Hotel at 8.30 am. Bring a packed lunch if you intend to stay the full day. Let me know if you intend to go and I can inform Seamus of who will attend from our club.

For further information contact Francis Foley on 087 905 4161 or francis.foley@live.ie or visit our website at http://ardfertcameraclub.weebly.com. Remember that we always welcome new members and guests to the club which has a relaxed and friendly atmosphere, no need to have a fancy camera, come along and learn how to take better pictures. Francis Foley

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We met last Thursday night and went through the pictures that have been selected to date for the exhibition in the Library in June. In total we expect to display around 40 pictures which will mean that some members will get 2 of their pictures on display. All of the pictures will of equal size, the prints will be 15 x 10 with a double mount in a high quality black frame. The finish will be to professional standards and very appealing to potential buyers, judging by the sample we saw at the meeting. All of the pictures will be on sale at a very attractive price of €50 each.

At next meeting which is happening a week early as we will be getting members to frame their own pictures. Each picture frame will have its picture cord set in a jig so that all the pictures will be correctly aligned when they are in hung in Library. The dates for the exhibition are June 5th to June 16th are the public are invited to attend. We are at present looking for a VIP to open the show and I will keep you up to date on who will get the honour.

There is an Open Competition scheduled for May 5th but this may have to be reschedule due to the meeting next week and the nearness of the Exhibition, again I will update our website and email and text the members with the schedule. I am also hoping to organise an evening outing sometime in May and we must discuss the trip to the animal and bird sanctuary in Killmallock.

The tip for this week concerns the amount of pictures that digital allows us to take and the problem that it leads too. It is very easy to take hundreds of digital pictures often of the very same scene with only subtle differences between shots. When you download them to your computer immediately do a cull a keep only the best. This will save on hard drive space and consequently probably prolong its life as the disk won't be clogged up with fragments of files.

In short: Keep the best and delete the rest.

For further information contact Francis Foley on 087 905 4161 or francis.foley@live.ie or visit our website at http://ardfertcameraclub.weebly.com. Remember that we always welcome new members and guests to the club which has a relaxed and friendly atmosphere, no need to have a fancy camera, come along and learn how to take better pictures. Francis Foley

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Preparations are well under way for selecting, printing, mounting and framing pictures for our second annual exhibition to be held in the Tralee Library in June. Members are urgently required to email their pictures to francis.foley@live.ie so that the selection committee can select the pictures that they feel best represents the talent of the club members.

We had an open competition at our last meeting and it was won by Ian Willey with a picture he took in Monument Valley, Utah, USA. Anyone who has seen John Ford's film “The Searchers” starring John Wayne will be instantly familiar with the landscape of the area. In second place we had Yvette O'Shea with a picture taken of the Cliffs in the Dunquin area of the Dingle Peninsula. Brian Fitzgerald came home in third with a portrait shot he took of the man taking the part of the Captain of the Titanic musical which was held recently in the INEC in Killarney.

The top five places and their marks in the competition are:

Name                Total
Ian Willey            117
Yvette Shea        110
Brian Fitzgerald   108
Joanne Crowley   108
Dillon Boyer        106

The top 5 places in the Photographer of the Year Competition are:

Name                  Total
Dillon Boyer         156
Tommy Toomey    123
Maura Miller         103
Francis Foley         98
Steve Baker           91

At the next meeting on the 19th of April we will be showing the pictures selected for the exhibition and also showing pictures taken at a recent workshop by a few members in Dillon Boyers home in Listowel where we got to work with studio lights and a model. We will also discuss a proposed outing the the Animal Magic facilities in Killmallock, County Limerick, where members will get the opportunity to photograph birds and animals up close and also in flight.


For further information contact Francis Foley on 087 905 4161 or francis.foley@live.ie or visit our website at http://ardfertcameraclub.weebly.com. Remember that we always welcome new members and guests to the club which has a relaxed and friendly atmosphere, no need to have a fancy camera, come along and learn how to take better pictures. Francis Foley

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At our last meeting on March 22nd we decided to take full advantage of the predicted good weather forecast for the weekend and we organised an outing to the Dingle and Slea Head area. At that meeting we also had a workshop on using the minimal amount of gear to take portraits. Out next meeting is scheduled for April 5th for which we will be running an Open Competition.

A dozen members met up at O’Donnells pub in Mounthawk at 2 pm on Sunday 25th of March and as forecast we had glorious warm weather but unfortunately there was a hazy sky which was not conducive to taking landscape photography. Before the off we set ourselves the following goals and photograph as many of the following as possible:

Harbour scene, beach scene, wildlife, architecture, a ruin, flora, landscape, candid street scene, pub or shop front, a portrait of a member and finally take a picture using fill flash.

We arrived in Dingle around 3 and gave ourselves 40 minutes to have a walk around the town to take pictures of Street Scenes, Doorways and Buildings. We then left for Slea Head and the Grotto and those of us who stopped managed to get some fine shots of very obliging Herring Gulls who allowed us to get very close. From there we went to Dunquin and stopped at a car park with spectacular views of the Blasket Islands and we then had a well-deserved coffee break in the Dunquin Pottery Shop and Cafe. After that we made one more stop at the Kilmalkedar Romanesque Ruin near the village of Murreagh. We lingered in the area for a long time soaking up the beauty of the landscape and watching the sunset. All in all it was a great day.

At the March 22nd meeting we watched around 20 minutes of an hour long video with Jeff Cable on how to take good portraits with as little gear as possible and then we put some of it into practice. The main shot we tried to replicate was to shoot a picture that only lit the subject and consequently did not show any background clutter. After getting the set up to work correctly all of those with Canon Cameras achieved the shot unfortunately those with Nikon’s and Pentax could not as the cable would only work with the Canon brand.

I hope to see you all at our next meeting on April 5th and I look forward to seeing you best shots in the Open Competition for which there will be a €5 entry fee.

For further information contact Francis Foley on 087 905 4161 or francis.foley@live.ie or visit our website at http://ardfertcameraclub.weebly.com. Remember that we always welcome new members and guests to the club which has a relaxed and friendly atmosphere, no need to have a fancy camera, come along and learn how to take better pictures. Francis Foley

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Natural light indoors was the theme for our meeting held on the 8th of March and it proved to be one of the most difficult themes that we have had this year with many people including myself struggling to get a decent picture that complied with the theme. Dillon Boyer was a worthy winner in the end with a beautiful picture he took at the entrance to a museum in France. The second place went to Yvette Shea who took a stunning portrait of one of her best friends on a recent visit to London and Tommy Toomey came home in the third spot with his photo of the water font in his local church. Both Tommy and Yvette recorded equal marks (124 points) in the competition but Yvette gets the second spot because she got a higher number of maximum marks.

The Top Ten in the Competition were:

1.     Dillon Boyer                  126
2.     Yvette Shea                  124
3.     Tom Toomey                 124
4.     Donal Stack                  117
5.     Siobhan O’Connor         114
6.     Margaret Raggett          111
7.     Maura Miller                  111
8.     Paul Keeling                  110
9.     Francis Foley                110
10.  Steven Horan                110

The Top 5 in the Photographer of the Year Table is:

1.     Dillon Boyer                                          135
2.     Tommy Toomey                                    108
3.     Maura Miller                                          94
4.     Francis Foley                                        86
5.     Steve Baker & Margaret Raggett            73

We have decided to drop all meeting competitions and only have Open competitions from now on and the next competition will be held on April 5th which is just before the Easter weekend. At our next meeting on March 22nd we will run a workshop on Portraits and we will also show some tutorial videos. We are planning to have a club outing to the Dingle Area on March 31st or April 1st, all of people who attended the last outing in Killarney enjoyed the event and leant a lot by taking part.

For further information contact Francis Foley on 087 905 4161 or francis.foley@live.ie or visit our website at http://ardfertcameraclub.weebly.com. Remember that we always welcome new members and guests to the club which has a relaxed and friendly atmosphere, no need to have a fancy camera, come along and learn how to take better pictures. Francis Foley

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_ We have just competed in our first Inter Club Photography Competion organised by the Southern Association of Camera Clubs (SACC) and held in Carrick-on-Siur on February 26th. Five of us travelled to the event, Francis Foley, Steve Baker, Dillon Boyer and Seamus O'Donovan and it was a long day. We left at 7 in the morning and did not arrive home until 8 that evening.

When we arrive we has a lot of work to do as our panels of photographs had to be fixed to the boards provided by the host club. The panels must be laid out so that it is appealing to the judges eye and care must be taken so that the top of photographs are level. Then the judges come in, we leave for and marking commences. We took the 3.5 hour window to travel around the sites in Waterford and build up our portfolio however the weathr was not that kind as overcast skies does not deliver for landscape photography.

Over we were pleased with our result coming in a respectable 13th place in our first outing. We learnt a lot on how judges mark photographs and this will be put to good use in the next competition we take part in which will probably be the National Club Finals in Athlone in May. The pictures that got the best marks for us were:

17 Points – Maura Miller – Half Dome Yosemite Valley Park – Projected Panel
15 Points – Mike Brosnan – Rossbeigh Strand – Colour Panel
15 Points – Dillon Boyer – Dingle Storm – Black and White Panel
15 Points – Francis Foley – Fenit Triathlon – Black and White Panel

The results of our Open Competiton held on February 23rd is as follows:

      1. Francis Foley – Canal Basin Tralee Night Time

      2. Peter O'Donnell – Locked Out

      3. Maura Miller – Wise Monkeys

The Photographer of the Year Competition top five is:

  1. Dillon Boyer 120

  2. Tommy Toomey 95

  3. Maura Miller 85

  4. Francis Foley 79

  5. Steve Baker 72

Our next meeting is on March 8th and the theme is Natural Light Indoors.

For further information contact Francis Foley on 087 905 4161 or francis.foley@live.ie or visit our website at http://ardfertcameraclub.weebly.com. Remember that we always welcome new members and guests to the club which has a relaxed and friendly atmosphere, no need to have a fancy camera, come along and learn how to take better pictures. Francis Foley




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_ The preparations for our first national photography competition are well underway. At our last meeting we elected a sub committee to select the images that we will enter into the competition. The members of the committee are Dillon Boyer, Steve Baker, Maura Miller, Francis Foley and Paul Keeling. Time is short and there is still alot of work to be done as the competiton is taking place on Sunday 26th February in the Carraig Hotel in Carrick-on-Siur.

Our next meeting is to be held next Thursday February 23rd at the Golf Club at 7.30. The theme for the club competition is Open and a €5 fee will be taken for entries. We will be starting early to allow us to view the panels for the Interclub National Competition and we also want to discuss how to judge pictures.

Spring has well and truly arrived and we're seeing a little strech in the evenings so take the opportunity to get out and take that shot for our club meeting of March 22nd. There are loads of suitable photographic subjects to be taken over the next few weeks, snowdrops and daffodils, tulips, flower and tree buds, cherry and apple trees will soon start to blossom. In the fields look out for lambs, the March hare, frog spawn and birds nesting. Don't leave it until the last day and come empty handed by wasting the possibilites that abound now.
  1. Use Motion Blur: that is get your camera to follow a moving subject, this keeps the subject sharp but blurs the background.

  2. Silhouettes: Only the outline of the subject is visible but the background is properly exposed.

  3. Alter your perspective: Shoot from low down on you haunches or belly or from the top down, use a ladder our out an upstairs window.#

  4. Dramatic Light: How the subject is lit can dramatically alter the look of your picture. Light from the top or side or under, don't just shoot head on the whole time.
I am grateful to the www.digital-photography-school.com from where I get many of the tips I have published over the last few months.

For further information contact Francis Foley on 087 905 4161 or francis.foley@live.ie or visit our website at http://ardfertcameraclub.weebly.com. Remember that we always welcome new members and guests to the club which has a relaxed and friendly atmosphere, no need to have a fancy camera, come along and learn how to take better pictures. Francis Foley

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Ardfert Camera Club will be entering into our first inter club competition which will be held under the auspices of the Southern Association of Camera Clubs (SACC). The event will be held at the Carraig Hotel in Carrick-on-Siur on Sunday 26th of February. The SACC is one of two sub regions of the Irish Photographic Federation and it covers all clubs south of the line between Arklow and Clare. We will be entering into 3 events namely a Colour Panel, a Black & White Panel and a Projected Panel.

Each panel requires 10 photographs to be mounted on a display board of size 8ft x 4ft and trhe maximum size of each mount is 20 x 16 inches. A committe will be formed at the next meeting to vet the entries and each member is requested to bring along a memory stick with at least 6 suitable images to our next meeting which is to be held on Thursday 9th of February at 8pm in the Golf Club in Ardfert.

The results of our Black and White themed competition held in January 26th is as follows:

  1. Tommy Toomey – Man on Shop Street Galway
  2. Steven Horan – Wethers Well Chairs
  3. Marion Stack – Long Eared Owl
  4. Dillon Boyer – Meenogahane
  5. Margaret Raggett – Roots

The Photographer of the Year table is as follows:
  1. Dillon Boyer – 100
  2. Tommy Toomey – 86
  3. Maura Miller – 62
  4. Steve Baker – 57
  5. Francis Foley – 54

We have cancelled the next competition to allow us to select and organise the photographs for the next competition, however we will also run a workshop on Group Photography on the night.

For further information contact Francis Foley on 087 905 4161 or francis.foley@live.ie or visit our website at http://ardfertcameraclub.weebly.com. Remember that we always welcome new members and guests to the club which has a relaxed and friendly atmosphere, no need to have a fancy camera, come along and learn how to take better pictures. Francis Foley

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_ Since the last notes were published the club has had two meetings, the first took place on January 12th and we added an extra meeting to our programme on January 19th. The January 12th meeting had the theme of Low Light \ Night Photography and we had 19 entries and we concluded the meeting with tutorial videos on Black & White photography, which is the theme for our next meeting on January 26th.

At the request of the membership we included an extra workshop meeting in January and we expect this to become a regular feature of our program with 1 workshop or outing per month until the end of the season. We broke the workshop into four mini-studios; two each devoted to Black & White and Macro Photography. Basic studio lighting rigs were used and each member got an opportunity to use equipment they may not normally have access to. At the end of evening Dillon Boyer gave tips on taking macro (close-up) photographs in the field. He described how to attract butterflies and bees by injecting sugar and water solutions into the base of flower so that the insect life would linger for longer and help you achieve that shot. He also showed us how to keep flowers steady in windy conditions. Overall it was a very enjoyable night and I look forward to our next meeting and workshops.

The results of the Low Light and Night Photography Themed competition are as follows:

1.      Tommy Toomey – Ha’penny Bridge Dublin

2.      Francis Foley – Aqua Dome in the Moonlight

3.      Dillon Boyer – Sunrise on Tetons Range Wyoming USA

The top five in the Photographer of the Year are as follows:

1.      Dillon Boyer         88

2.      Tommy Toomey    71

3.      Maura Miller         53

4.      Francis Foley         52

5.      Steve Baker           50

The club has joined the Southern Association of Camera Clubs (SACC) and it will shortly be joining the Irish Photographic Federation which will allow us to take part in national and international competitions. There is an inter club competition taking place in Carrick-on-Suir on Sunday February 26th and the club intends to enter this.

For further information contact Francis Foley on 087 905 4161 or francis.foley@live.ie or visit our website at http://ardfertcameraclub.weebly.com. Remember that we always welcome new members and guests to the club which has a relaxed and friendly atmosphere, no need to have a fancy camera, come along and learn how to take better pictures. Francis Foley

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Firstly I begin by wishing the members and readers a very Happy and Prosperous New Year. The second part of the Camera Club season kicks off on the 12th of January and our meeting theme is Low Light\Night Photography. The themes for forthcoming meetings are Black & White, Macro and the second meeting in February is an Open Competition with a €5 entry fee. Other items to look forward to are our Second Annual Exhibition to be held in the Tralee Library in the early summer.

At the end of December the top 5 in the Photographer of the Year Competition were as follows:

Rank Name Total

1 Dillon Boyer 75

2 Tommy Toomey 56

3 Steve Baker 44

4 Shane Turner 44

5 Maura Miller 44

 

Dillon is away out in front however because of the numbers attending the meetings and the number of entries in the competitions we have decided to increase the number of places getting points to 15 in themed competitions and 25 in Open Competitions. This means a total of 240 points are available which is easily enough to overhaul anyone in the top 10 places.

 

I will now outline some tips for better Black and White Photography. Shoot in Raw this will give the most control over the final image in post-production. Secondly shoot in colour and convert afterwards this option is almost as good as shooting in raw. Use as low an ISO number as possible add noise later if you want that grainy effect and finally shot in low contrast light. Overcast days like we have at this time of the year are great for Black and White shots.

For further information contact Francis Foley on 087 905 4161 or francis.foley@live.ie or visit our website at http://ardfertcameraclub.weebly.com. Remember that we always welcome new members and guests to the club which has a relaxed and friendly atmosphere, no need to have a fancy camera, come along and learn how to take better pictures. Francis Foley

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