Blue can be a colour, feeling or even a musical style. Mmebers interpret “Feeling Blue” for out Set Subject competition.
Image of the Month
Image of the Month: Mario Mirabile, COVID Blues
April 2021 Club Competition Winners
Where there is smoke there is fire right .. maybe not, at least for our April 2021 Club Completion. We took a relaxed approach; If it looks like smoke, it is smoke! It can be the main subject or an important element of the story. Take a look at how our members interpreted the Set Subject “Smoke”, along with our Open subject winners.
Image of the Month
Image of the Month - Mario Mirabile, Mask
A Grade Open
Set Subject - Smoke
March 2021 Club Competition Winners
This month, as well as our Open section, the Set Subject was Complementary Colours. These are that colours that are are opposite each other on a colour wheel. The goal was to prominently feature one pair of complementary colours, whilst remembering composition and story. Here are the winning entries
IMAGE OF THE MONTH
Image of the Month - Karen Tregonning, A cut above the rest
A GRADE OPEN
SET SUBJECT - COMPLEMENTARY COLOURS
February 2021 Club Completion Winners
We are back in 2021 and have kicked off our first club competition for the year. The rules have changed this year and we no longer have A and B Grade. Instead we have an Open and Set Subject which are further divided into Print and Projected categories..
Image of the Month
Image of the Month - Geoff Edwards, Questioning Cat
A Grade Open
Set Subject - Monochrome
CPS member Mario Mirabile featured on Frames YouTube Channel
Caulfield Photographic Society is very excited that club member Mario Mirabile’s featured on the Frames Magazine YouTube channel critiqued by Tomasz Trzebiatowski. Tomasz is a Polish fine art photographer living in Switzerland. The Channel was only launched on September 14th 2020 but is gaining lots of traction. You can view more of Mario’s work on Instagram
Caulfield Photographic Society is busy during Melbourne Lockdown
We have been keeping busy during the Melbourne Lockdown. We recently had our annual competition with Southern Suburbs Photographic Society, which proceeded using video conferencing. We came 2nd!! Of course our regular Club Meetings are also being held via Video Conference, but we have injected some additional activities to keep the inspiration going.
Cakes, who doesn’t love a Cake..
A two pronged attack to keep busy during lockdown. A subject of “Cakes” means you have to bake it first!
We have started weekly photographic challenges and virtual field Trips that you can do within the confines of your home. One of the weekly challenges was Cakes; first to bake a cake and then photograph it. Ingenious.
Textures
Another Weekly Challenge gave us to opportunity to explore Textures. Plenty of those in and around your home and is fantastic to be able to share our results and keep the conversations happening.
On The Street Club Competition
Our August monthly competition was set subject “On the Street”. Club member Mario Mirabile gave an inspiring talk to members earlier in the year in preparation. That gave us the opportunity to get these shots before restrictions. Mario then invited fellow Australian association of street photographers Inc. (AASP) member Adrian Whear to judge. Adrian had never judged before, but his critique was excellent. You can view some of Adrian’s work on the SSPC Website.
You can view all of the awarded image on our August 2020 Comp Winners Gallery.
Unscheduled Meetings
We are experiencing an unprecedented number of entries in our Club Competitions, perhaps because people have more time at home to sort through their images? This means that it is impossible for judges to give a critique on every image. We are making up for this by calling an unscheduled club meeting where members can discuss each images and offer their own critique. An excellent opportunity for all to sound out their own perspective and in particular those not experienced in critiquing and an opportunity to learn from more experienced members. All in all, I think Caulfield Photographic Society is keeping the connection going and helping to retain our sanity.
Finding inspiration in Lockdown
COVID-19 is certainly ruling our lives at the moment. In Melbourne we are in Lockdown 2.0 with level 3 restrictions. As we could not meet as a group and opportunities to leave home are limited, we created a virtual field trip. The brief included a range of subjects to be photographed on the same day. This enabled us to think outside the square in a time where our photographic inspiration may be waning. With topics such as flowers, fences, not quite right and social distancing, we set about the challenge. Take a look at our results.
Tip: after clicking the button below a pdf document will open. To view as a slideshow select full screen mode (if it opens in Adobe Reader, select View > Full Screen Mode (or CTRL L on a PC). Alternatively, just use the page controls.
Enjoy.
Photo Composition
For now we have suspended Club Meetings at Caulfield Photographic Society whilst we monitor the unfolding COVID-19 crisis. Club Competitions are continuing under modified conditions. In the interim, we thought we would stimulate your creativity on Composition. We’ve heard of the rules, the most prominent of which is the rule of thirds. There are many more, such as The Golden Ratio, Leading Lines, always leave enough space for a moving object to move through the image, odd numbers are better that evens with 3 being the perfect number; Landscapes must have a foreground, middle ground and background; and many more. Following these rules will give you great results, but of course rules are meant to be broken. For each rule, there are great images that break the rules. We encourage you to revisit composition. An image can be technically perfect, but needs a good composition to hold the viewers attention. Examine each rule, then challenge yourself to take photos within each rule and then break them.
Adobe Lighroom and other editing programs have features that allow you do toggle through different composition guidelines, so see if any suits your image. Try these out on your images.
One of the Crop Guides Available in Adobe Lightroom. Image courtesy of Linda Donald
Have a look at the following resources to get you started on your journey:
Digital Photography School: Beginners Composition
And now to Break the rules, PhotographyLife: Breaking the rules
Club Successes in 2019
Caulfield Photographic Society enjoyed considerable success in 2019. We are a small club with less that 50 members but we have some excellent photographers. Many have been involved with the club for a long time whilst others joined as beginners, enthusiasts or completed our Introduction to Photography Course. Take a look at some of the successes.
Post Processing – The Many Faces Of Matt
Caulfield Photographic Society hosts a “Club Night” 3 or 4 times each year. This means that the speakers or activities come directly from our own members rather than from outside the club. Recently we had a post processing exercise where a number of RAW files were shared with members before the night. The idea was that each member would post process each file and share the results on the club night.
Melbourne Cricket Ground
Fifteen Caulfield Photographic Society Members met at the Melbourne Cricket Ground and were given an excellent personalised MCG Tour by a volunteer guide. He modified his standard talk so we could focus on our camera work but was happy to answer questions. The feedback was very positive with the participants finding it most interesting. There were no events on and the stadium was empty. I think it helped to understand the enormous size of this complex. It was also amazing to think that 70,000 were packed in there the night before and somehow the cleaners had been through the place before we arrived. A colossal task.
Korumburra Weekend
Caulfield Photographic Society Members enjoyed a great weekend at Korumburra. Located in the foothills of the of the Strzelecki Ranges provided us opportunities to photograph rolling landscapes, autumn colours, farm life, birds, Markets and Coal Creek Community Park and Museum. Comfortable accommodation across two neighbouring houses made for a relaxing social weekend (albeit for the early rises for landscapes!).