The second meeting of the year at Ardfert Camera Club for 2014 took place at Ardfert Golf Club on Thursday 31th of January at 8.00pm. After refreshments in the golf club’s cosy atmosphere, the group welcomed two potential lady members from Tralee wishing to improve their picture taking. The evening was very clear outside so under the tutelage of club secretary Francis Foley, we adjourned to the car park where we brought our cameras and tripods and took pictures of the night skies and surrounding countryside. As it was dark the settings on the cameras had to be long shutter speeds of around 30 seconds and an aperture setting of approximately f4. There were some stunning shots including a terrific one taken by club member Yvette O’Shea, which is pictured. Not only did she capture the branches on the nearby trees which were lit up by a torch, but stars from the clear night sky as well. We then experimented with light painting which entailed our cameras on tripods again with similar settings again (long shutter speeds 20-30 seconds). A member was then asked to to shine a torch-light slowly around a subject. The resulting image was heart shapes, people shapes, catherine wheels etc. limited by your own creativity! The results were spectacular! The next meeting of the Club will take place on Thursday the 6th of February at 8.00pm. The club have been asked by Tom Lawlor to take portraits of several members of the Golf Centre. For this type of shot we will be setting up a white backdrop and using our studio lights. As usual all new members are welcome. If you would like more information visit our website at ardfertcameraclub.weebly.com
Report: Steve Baker
The second meeting of the year at Ardfert Camera Club for 2014 took place at Ardfert Golf Club on Thursday 31th of January at 8.00pm. After refreshments in the golf club’s cosy atmosphere, the group welcomed two potential lady members from Tralee wishing to improve their picture taking. The evening was very clear outside so under the tutelage of club secretary Francis Foley, we adjourned to the car park where we brought our cameras and tripods and took pictures of the night skies and surrounding countryside. As it was dark the settings on the cameras had to be long shutter speeds of around 30 seconds and an aperture setting of approximately f4. There were some stunning shots including a terrific one taken by club member Yvette O’Shea, which is pictured. Not only did she capture the branches on the nearby trees which were lit up by a torch, but stars from the clear night sky as well. We then experimented with light painting which entailed our cameras on tripods again with similar settings again (long shutter speeds 20-30 seconds). A member was then asked to to shine a torch-light slowly around a subject. The resulting image was heart shapes, people shapes, catherine wheels etc. limited by your own creativity! The results were spectacular! The next meeting of the Club will take place on Thursday the 6th of February at 8.00pm. The club have been asked by Tom Lawlor to take portraits of several members of the Golf Centre. For this type of shot we will be setting up a white backdrop and using our studio lights. As usual all new members are welcome. If you would like more information visit our website at ardfertcameraclub.weebly.com
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Ardfert Camera Club Notes – 14th June 2013
Last night was the final night of the 2012/13 season which has been our most successful year since our initial meeting in 2009. We began the night with an outing to the town park in Tralee and then went to the Golf Club where we discussed our season and then adjourned to the Abbey Tavern for some drinks. Luckily for us the weather held for us and we had a beautiful evening for taking pictures in the Tralee Town Park. Unfortunately for us, there was a serious dearth of roses and flowers in general on display in the Park. We met Don Nolan of Liscahane Nursery in the Park who was preparing for the Feile na Mbláth festival which is happening the weekend in Tralee and he confirmed for us that everything is 4 weeks behind due to the very poor spring weather we experienced. We returned to the club when the midges appeared and decided that the really liked to eat us. We discussed the season and we are really delighted with the exhibition which is finished today. The club would like to personally thank the County Librarian Tommy O’Connor for permitting us to use their excellent exhibition facility. The club are also extremely grateful to Dillon Boyer for all his help and expertise in printing and putting together the pictures. Finally the club would like to Tom Lawlor of Ardfert Golf Club for continuing to allow us to use the Bar of the club House to hold our meetings. The outcome of the Last Competition was: Advanced: Dillon Boyer Intermediate: Donal Stack Novice: Marion Barnes The Photographer of the Year Winners are: Advanced: Dillon Boyer Intermediate: Tracy Fitzgerald Novice: Teddy Moynihan Our next meeting is Thursday September 5th at 8pm in the Ardfert Golf Club. Remember if you would like more information visit our website at http://ardfertcameraclub.weebly.com Penultimate is a fantastic word, it’s a fancy way of saying second last and last night we had our penultimate meeting of the season. We had our ultimate Open Competition and organised the final meeting of the season and put the finishing touches to our exhibition.
We open our third annual exhibition of photographs in Tralee Library on Tuesday 4th of June at 7 pm and all are welcome. Every members has a least one picture on display and all of them are for sale. The larger framed pictures will cost you €50 and the smaller ones are going for €40. These pictures are really good value with similar one made with inferior materials selling in the shops for double the price. The competition was split into 3 groups again last night and we had 24 entries of a very high standard. Some of the memorable shots for me were one taken of the Red Arrows performing at a show in the UK taken by Donal Stack, a picture of the wrecked boat on the beach in Rossbeigh in South Kerry. Two pictures taken on a recent outing of Ross Castle in Killarney with David Hogan acting as the mentor also stand out. Finally there was a beautiful shot taken of the Holy Trinity Church in Cork City a building I really never noticed before and one I must add to my list in the future. Our concluding meeting of the season will be held on June 13th and we are hoping to begin at 7.30 pm in the Tralee Town Park and return to Ardfert Golf Club for the final hour. I will email and text to let everyone know what is happening on the day. Remember if you would like more information visit our website at http://ardfertcameraclub.weebly.com 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 Ardfert Camera Club Outing to the Ardfert Cathedral and Friary. Three-cornered Garlic / Three-cornered Leek Allium triquetrum Creamh garraí 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 |
AuthorFrancis Foley - Club Secretary Archives
January 2014
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