Ardfert Camera Club Notes – 17th May 2013

There was no meeting last night due to the Open Air Mass held in the Cathedral last night. This mass was part of the Diocese of Kerry celebration of The Gathering and held on the Feast of St. Brendan. St. Brendan is almost a local, reputedly born on Fenit Island in or around 484, but baptised in Tubrid and as well as his famous voyages he went on to found a monastic settlement in Ardfert on which the present run of the cathedral now stands.

Our next meeting is the penultimate of the season and we also have our last Open Competition hence Miriam will expect to have received all of your entries by Monday May 27th. Now that we have the long evening all we are short is some decent warmish weather and we can all go out and get some pictures. Give yourself a challenge and decide on a project that you do virtually anytime and will last a few months or even a whole year. Some of the ideas for this project are:

Wildlife in your Garden or Locality:

There are loads of opportunities here. Capture all of the Wildflowers you can see, all of the weeds and the general flora that live in the area. Then there are all the different types of insects that abound, butterflies, moths and caterpillars. Other small animals you will come across are millipedes, worms, slugs and snails. Then there is the birdlife and animals you may see rabbits, hares, foxes, badgers, frogs, newts and lizards depending on where you live.

The scene outside your door:

Once or twice a month take a picture from the same place with the same view and around the same time of the day. Then after the year is up put you pictures in a slide show and you have a nice record of the changing of the seasons.

Project 12\52\365:

This project is similar to the one outlined above but can be more demanding depending on the subject and project selected. A project 12 is one monthly picture of the same person, object or location. A project 52 is a weekly picture and 365 a daily picture. Many people start this project for taking a daily self-portrait as I did a few years back it becomes a bit of a chore but a least you are forced to use your camera every day and your camera skills are creativity will increase as a result.

I am also hoping to organise an outing before we finally break up for the summers and I hope to see you all on the 30th of May and if you would like some more information on our club then visit our website at http://ardfertcameraclub.weebly.com

 Since it’s now the first week in May and with the long evenings we planned an outing to the Cathedral and Friary, however the weather being what it is this year disappointed as usual. We were all back in the warmth of the club by 8.30.

The evening itself was dry but the sky was fairly overcast and the strong biting wind did not tempt the 15 or so photographers who turned up to linger any longer than necessary. Our first stop was the Cathedral where there is much to admire, the architecture, the stone work, the setting and the wildflowers growing in the cemetery. James O’Loughlin was on hand to point out some of the features that are not immediately apparent such as the faces on two of the waterspouts. We spent around 45 minutes here before moving on to the Friary.

The Friary is another treasure in the village of Ardfert with many of the buildings dating from the 15th century and standing for around 600 years. There are many beautiful details to capture such as the cloister and the carving around the windows. After around 30 minutes the cold got the better of us and we headed back to the clubhouse to a warm fire in the stove and a hot cup of tea supplied by the host Tom Lawlor.

As such there will not be a meeting on May 16th because on that date the village will be celebrating the feast of St. Brendan with an Open Air Mass in the Cathedral followed by refreshments in the Community Centre an Exhibition of Local paintings, pictures and memorabilia in the hall. Donal Stack and Steve Baker are organising a stand for this purpose and if you have any items of a local flavour that you would like to display then drop it into Steve premises. I leave you with this picture of Three Cornered Leek I found growing in the grounds of the Cathedral.

On the 30th of May we will have the last of our Open Competitions and if you would like some more information on our club then visit our website at http://ardfertcameraclub.weebly.com

An outing was on the agenda for last night’s meeting but the poor weather conditions put paid to that plan, luckily we had planned for this contingency. We had a very large turnout and even had a few members from the Listowel club come along to see how we do things.

Our contingency plan was a slide show from two of our most experienced and well-travelled members Ian Willey and Dillon Boyer. Ian was first up and he arranged his photographs into a number of different categories. He started with portraiture with some very memorable pictures of a bearded friend of his and a striking portrait of a Masai Warrior. He then showed pictures of flowers and a particular favourite of his was his bird shots with some beautiful shots of Owls that stuck in my mind. He then moved on to framing and how he used natural and manmade objects to frame his subject. He demonstrated this in his use of doorways, car interiors, windows, trees and holes in rocks to frame the picture. Then Ian moved on to colours and how they can enhance a picture, some very beautiful were taken on a recent trip down a part of route 66 in the USA. Another firm favourite of Ian is wildlife and he showed us picture taken on 4 of the 7 continents namely Europe, North America, Africa and Antarctica.

Our second show was put together by Dillon; these were arranged in random order and again showed scenes from all over the world. In America we had pictures taken in the Grand Canyon, Bryce Canyon, Monument Valley AKA John Wayne Country, Yellowstone National Park and the Tetons Range in Wyoming. In the UK we were enthralled by pictures taken in the Lake District, Scotland, the Cullins Hills in the Isle of Skye and many other chocolate box picture locations throughout the country. Iceland is another favourite location of Dillon’s and we were treated to pictures of the countryside, glaciers and the city of Reykjavik. All of these pictures were interspersed with the local beauty spot and again this picture has all the hallmarks of well taken shots. The composition was top class, we have something in fore, middle and backgrounds, the followed either the rule of thirds or one of the diagonal compositions. The colours and lighting were striking and the pictures were sharp.

For our next meeting we plan to have the cancelled outing and hopefully this time the weather will oblige. We will meet at the Ardfert Cathedral at 7pm and I will send out a text that day to remind the people and let them know if it is going ahead. If you would like some more information on our club then visit our website at http://ardfertcameraclub.weebly.com

At last night’s meeting we held our Easter Open Competition and had 25 entries to judge. We discussed outing plans for the next meeting and also spoke about the upcoming exhibition in the Tralee Library.

We changed the format for judging in this competition in that each of the 3 categories was shown separately. We began with the novices, and then moved on to the intermediates and finally ended with the advanced category. The most memorable pictures for me ended up winning their respective categories. In the novice category the picture that won was called Nectar of Life, I not sure who took it as they were not present last night but it was a remarkably beautiful study of a hornet feed on a white flower that any of the advanced category members would be proud of taking.

The winner of the Intermediate Category was Tracy Fitzgerald’s picture titles “The Citrus Splash” and title tells the story of the picture. It consists of a lemon and lime entering the water together. The colours of both fruits were vivid and contrasted with one another beautifully. In the advanced category Dillon Boyer came up trumps again with his picture titled Peaceful Moorings. This was taken in Scotland and had everything that a good picture should have, it was sharp, well lit and was well composed, something in the foreground, middle ground and background and it had both a boat and a tree to catch your eye on the third lines.

Our next meeting weather permitting will begin at 7 pm in the Ardfert Cathedral and then we will return to the club house at 8.30 for our normal meeting. We will discuss how we got on at the outing and we also intend to have a slide show of member’s pictures.

The official opening of our exhibition will take place on Tuesday June 4th at 6.30 pm in the Tralee Library and all members are requested to submit at least one photograph but preferably 3 to Francis Foley before the end of April. This is to allow the committee to select, print and frame the pictures that will be displayed. If you would like some more information on our club then visit our website at http://ardfertcameraclub.weebly.com

We had a remarkable turnout for last night’s meeting when consideration is given the dreadful gale force weather conditions. Last night we covered a number of topics including getting the most out your camera indoors, the forthcoming exhibition in the library and the competition that is to be held at the next meeting.

We began the meeting with obligatory cup of tea and after a small delay due to technical difficulties with the Wi-Fi connection moved on to a discussion on how to get the most out of your camera indoors. The main points to be learnt are that if it is during the day open back your curtains and blinds and leave in as much light as possible, bump up your ISO and use a wide open aperture and position yourself so that the light is shining on your subject. Another invaluable tip is to de-clutter the background or use bare wall as a background. Photographs with busy backgrounds are generally poorly perceived as the eye is wandering all over and does not on concentrate on the subject.

Our third annual exhibition is scheduled for early June in the Tralee Library and we have set a deadline of the first meeting in May to have all the photographs in so that we can select, print and organise those that will be displayed. We ask each member to enter a least one photograph of what they consider their best work.

The next Open Competition will be held at our next meeting and there will be a slight change to the format. From now on each category will be shown separately beginning with the Novices, then the Intermediates and finally the Advanced Category. This will allow the members to mark the photos more consistently and we also discussed the best way to mark a photograph. The key points to consider when judging a photograph are its composition, the sharpness, the colours and the impact. If you would like some more information on our club then visit our website at http://ardfertcameraclub.weebly.com

 The club met again last night to discuss the forthcoming Southern Association of Camera Clubs (SACC) forthcoming competition. We also discussed a request from Fenit Coastal Cycle to take pictures of their upcoming event.

The SACC hold their annual interclub competition on Sunday March 24th in Hotel Kilkenny. The club plans to enter in the 3 competitions which are the Colour Prints, Black and White Prints and Projected Images. The club need to enter 10 images in each category and no more than 2 images can be from any one member in each category. We also need 2 extra images for substitution in case of disqualification of an image.

There is a lot of work to be done in a short time to select and print the images and the club has selected a committee to oversee and manage the process. We entered this competition for the first time last year and we hope to significantly improve our results this year.

Steve also put the request from Fenit Coastal Cycle to capture images of their event which is scheduled to take place on Saturday 23rd of March. The cycle takes in Fenit, Ardfert, Ballyheigue and Kerry Head and the proceeds of the event go to St. Brendan’s National School in Fenit.

Our next meeting will he held on the 21th of March and for more information visit our website at http://ardfertcameraclub.weebly.com.

At our third meeting this year, we had our biggest ever competition entry and also great turnout from the members who also got to view their work from the studio lights session that they undertook at the previous meeting.

As usual our camera club begins with the cuppa and a chat and last night our cuppa was brightened by two of our members bringing along some of their home baking. Adrienne McLoughlin brought a delicious tea brack already buttered for our delectation. Low and behold not 5 minutes later Linda Baker came along with an equally delicious orange cake, needless to say both were eagerly devoured by the members.

We had 26 entries to our competition and I was gobsmacked by the brilliant standard of the work by our members in the 3 categories, but before it begun we all surprised Steve Baker by singing Happy Birthday who still has a few years before he gets the bus pass. Some of the shots that stood out for me were the first picture to be shown which was taken by a novice. This picture was a simple but effective arrangement of three lit candles, it was well composed, sharp and well exposed. Another example from the intermediate category that comes to mind is of a bicycle parked on a Portuguese street. It was converted to Black and White, had an excellent diagonal composition and the title was apt for the scene. A scene with horses in a barn all looking at the young girl feeding them was all memorable both for the composition and the title. I eagerly await the results.

For our next meeting I have organised a talk by Anthony Kearney on Black & White Photography we will also have a slide show session on the pictures that we took on our first night back. That night we concentrated on low light photography without the use of flash. So I want to see your work from that night, we took still life shots indoors and outdoors we did light painting and starry skies so don’t be sky and bring along your work. If you would like some more information on our club then visit our website at http://ardfertcameraclub.weebly.com

Last night Thursday January 25th we held our second meeting of 2013; this was a workshop on the use of studio lighting. The turnout was fantastic with most our members in attendance when one considers how cold, miserable and icy weather was all week.

We had two sets of studio lights; the clubs own purchase was in use and Dillon Boyer brought along his personal set. Dillon’s set up replicated light coming in from a sunny window something that we all encounter in our own homes and it is good training to be able to take those kinds of shots. In the other set up we varied between using 1 and 2 lights and also reflectors. This permitted the members to witness the different results obtained by using these tools.

The next meeting will be an Open Competition Night where we will also display the results of the work we did last night. The entry fee for the competition is €5 usual and the final date for entry is Saturday 2nd of February which is 5 days before the meeting, no excuses, so don’t be late with your entry. I am organising a presentation on Black and White Photography for the meeting on February 21st.

I finally got around to publishing the results of the Christmas Competition and the results are:

Advanced:                   Dillon Boyer                Get On With It, I Need My Catnap

Intermediate:              Tracy Fitzgerald          Is this Smile Big Enough For You?

Novice:                        Marian Barnes                        Come On Baby Light My Fire

I leave you with this reminder of this week’s weather. If you would like some more information on our club then visit our website at http://ardfertcameraclub.weebly.com

Normality has resumed, the season of eating too much, drinking too much, lazing on our sofa’s getting fatter by the minute while tucking into fistfuls of Roses or Quality Street is over. It is January the leanest month of the year and time to actually start doing those resolutions made suffering a massive hangover on New Year’s Day. Those of you who purchased or got a present of a new camera from Santa and want to learn how to use it are welcome to come along to our club.

We met last night for the first time in 2013 and we had a large attendance at our workshop on low light level photography without the use of flash. Those who could bear the cold went outside where we concentrated on taking shots of the night sky and also light painting. For many it was there first time to experience this activity and despite the cold everyone managed to get a beautiful shot of the starry sky that obliged us last night. The wimps, sorry those members who dislike the cold stayed indoors and experimented with taking shots using desk lamps and candles and even taking pictures of the flaming logs in the stove.

Our next meeting on January 24th will also be a workshop at which will concentrate on using studio lights to take portraits of people, babies and perhaps even nude models if we can find a victim! Leelo researched a photography trip to her native Estonia which we hope to undertake in late September and the cost will work out at around €450 per person for 4 days. I hope to have a firmer price by the time the next meeting comes around. We will have an Open Competition for our February 7th meeting and I am hoping to have a presentation on Black and White photography organised for the February 21st meeting.

I leave you with another picture taken of the newest edition to my family Tristan Foley born a few weeks before Christmas.  If you would like some more information on our club then visit our website at http://ardfertcameraclub.weebly.com

‘Tis just before the dawn of the shortest day of the year as I write this, I’m still alive and the Mayan end of the world prophesy has yet to be fulfilled. Since there is a slim chance that the world is not going to end it falls upon me to wish all the members of Ardfert Camera Club and my loyal readership a Very Happy Christmas and A Prosperous New Year.

I have not had a chance to collate the results of the last competition into the different categories but the top 5 in marks are as follows:

Marks   Name                                    Title

132         Tracy Fitzgerald                 Is this Smile Big Enough For You?
119         Dillon Boyer                        Get On With It, I Need My Catnap!
116         Joe Hennessy                    1, 2 , 3 Woof
114         Tommy Toomey               Ah Dad, Not that Camera Again!!!
110         Siobhan O’Connor           I Love Jumping in Muddy Puddles

I want to remind you again of the outing we are planning to hold in the Black Valley Area on Friday December 28th if the weather permits. We will meet at O’Donnell’s in Mounthawk Tralee at 10 am and car pool before proceeding to Molls Gap and making our way back to the Gap of Dungloe in the evening. We will pair an experienced photographer with every 3 or 4 less experienced members.

I leave you with this appropriate picture of the Christmas Season it is my newest nephew Thristan Foley snuggled up in Santa’s arms. If you would like some more information on our club then visit our website at http://ardfertcameraclub.weebly.com