Inside:

Club News.

March

Comp Results. April 2016

Newsletter Coming up Club News: at the Club - Vale: plus some of the March Ray Wendt. Face Book Photos! Passed away 19th March. Ray was one of the Club's Founding Members and will be fondly remembered and sadly missed. Inter-Club Comp.

Off To Tassie! Portraiture Workshop - a very well presented workshop led by Bronwyn Flack and Eric Bunn was held on Wednesday 9th March. Everyone enjoyed the "excursion outside" to practice portraits! As the light failed it was back inside and we were treated to the Technical opportunity to take more portrait photos. stuff (Sources: Magazine content)

Proposed Changes to The Awards System.

Freebies and websites.

March 2016 Competition Results.

This was the first month that we entered our print edi's at the same time as our normal digital images. Well done to everyone for entering both sets on or before the time limit! It was much appreciated.

Advanced A Group EDI. Set Subject: Animals, Birds, Insects.

HC & 1st: Mr. Percival by Eric Bunn. HC: Black Swan by Mattie Page. HC: Drink Up by Eric Bunn

C: Lily by Jill Bell.

C: Wisened Pondering by Nathan Stanley

C: Wobbly Kea by Mattie Page .

Advanced B Group EDI - Set Subject Animals, Birds, Insects.

HC & 1st: The Sentinel by Gary Green.

HC: Baby Gorilla by Glenn Carpenter.

HC: Hanging Around by Andrea Enever

C: Is She Getting My Dinner by Marilyn Prime

Regular Group EDI- Set Subject: Animals, Birds, Insects

HC & 1st: Don't Mess With Me by Christine Raymant.

Winning Prints from the March Competition. Set Subject: Look Up

Advanced A Group.

HC & 1st : Catherine Of Sienna by Eric Bunn. HC: Look Up For An Eiffel by Eric Bunn.

C: Forest Fungi by Jill Bell.

C: Temple Head by Nathan Stanley

Thanks to our Member Judges Judy Archer and

Bronwyn Flack for their very fair and un-biased critique on the images presented for judging at the March Competition.

The introduction of the "Print EDI's" for the March

competition went well and did a lot to help the judges make their final decisions when the final decisions were made.

Advanced B Group Winning Prints. Set Subject: Look Up.

HC & 1st: Dark Side Of The Moon by Gary Green.

HC: Dark And Stormy by Gary Green

HC: Bittern by Glenn Carpenter.

Next Competition:

Inter - Club Comp with Point Cook Camera Club.

Judge: David Rendle.

Set Subject EDI: Silhouette

Set Subject Print: Nautical

Please see the Inter Club Comp page for details!

Coming Up At The Club

Next Workshop: Wednesday 13th April, 2016.

Black And White Conversion - a Tutorial presented by Nathan Stanley.

Due to the Rules for the up- coming Inter-Club Competition,

all prints must be presented on the night in a White Mat.

If you need a White Mat cut, come along to the club at 7pm on

the 13th April ( the next Workshop night) and we will help you to prepare your print for presentation in a White Mat. There will be three mat cutting machines available to use - and help

will be available if you need it. White mat board will be available on the night - or you can bring your own mat board.

We want to present our prints as well as we can, so if you can help, please come along early and help others . If you have

some spare white mat board, that would be a great help as well!

Some of the March Face book challenges!

Next Competition Night: It's Inter - Club Competition Night!

Wednesday, 27th April, 2016. Judge: David Rendle.

The Inter- Club Comp is our first one. We are pleased to be hosting this Competition with Point Cook Camera Club and it will be an OPEN Competition - meaning that all entries will be judged in an OPEN environment. There are no "sections" - but points will be scored and adjusted to be fair to both more experienced and less experienced photographers in both clubs. There will be a special prize for the Print of the Night awarded.

Rules for the Competition as agreed by both Clubs:

Set Subject: EDI - Silhouette - ONE EDI per Member ( both Clubs)

Set Subject: Print - Nautical - ONE Print per Member ( both Clubs)

Reminder: EDI's for BOTH Prints and normal EDI'S must be sent in at the same time and are due in on or before the 13th April, 2016. To be emailed to me at [email protected].

Each Club will enter at least 10 entries, if there are un-equal entries, the scores will be averaged and the winning club will be the one with the highest average.

How to name your files:

EDI'S: Club Code Member's club number_EDI_Title.jpg

Example: BM_52_EDI_As The Sun Sets.jpg

Prints: Club Code Member's club number_Pr_Title.jpg

Example: BM_52_Pr_We Are Sailing_jpg

Sizes for EDI: 1920 pixels on the longest side, 1080 on the other side. At least 1mb, but less than 3mg.

Mat sizes: Must be matted in White - up to a maximum of 400 x 500mm.

On an 8 x 12 print, the size could be 320 x 420mm.

Definition for Nautical:

Anything relating to boating, shipping etc, such as equipment, ropes, bells, lifejackets for example.

Boats can be a tinny, motorboat, yacht or even a container ship. Photography Tour: with Luke Brien Photography.

Jill Bell and I have recently returned from a trip to Tasmania where we joined up a tour with Luke O'Brien Photography. We flew to Tassie with Jetstar ( don't sit down the back with all the kids as they kick the back of your seat - thank goodness it's just over an hour to Hobart!) We were picked up by Luke the next morning at our accommodation and driven up the East Coast to our first stop at Kate Berry's Farm where we sampled some of the wonderful jams on sale and grabbed a quick takeaway coffee. The next coffee was a long time away!

We stopped off at Coles Bay and Luke had arranged a lunch pickup for us there, so we took that with us and continued on to the and the Wineglass Bay Lookout - I whimped out on that longish walk and chose to stay at the National Park where I had a lovely wander on the Beach - it had another name - Richardson's Beach. are a mountain range located in the Freycinet National Park on the east coast of Tasmania, Australia. The range is positioned between Coles Bay and Wineglass Bay and are said to be named after local whaler, African-American Captain Richard Hazard.

Next it was onto and we spotted a Pacific Gull there which was pretty cheeky and looking for a free hand-out!

We arrived at The Tidal Resort at St Helen's and settled in, then it was time to meet up with Luke again for some tuition, camera tips etc before an early Dinner at the Hotel and then off for our first Sunset shoot - at Binalong Bay, which is around 10kms from St. Helen's. Luke had done a lot of research on the best places for photo shoots and had some other places "up his sleeve" in case of in-clement weather! We were lucky and got some pretty good photos that first night.

After getting up very early the next day, we arrived at another of Luke's special spots at Binalong Bay for the Sunrise, lots of other people where there as well, so it must be a good place for a sunrise.

After breakfast, it was off again to Eddystone Point Lighthouse.

After lunch we travelled to The Gardens to check out where we would be going the next morning for our sunrise shoot. Apparently this area was first discovered by the wife of the Governor of Tasmania and she thought it resembled a garden back home in England, so it was named The Gardens. Sunset shoot that night was again at Binalong Bay, but in a different location than the first night. The next morning we were up super early to arrive at The Gardens - no coffee shop there, either! Lots of wildlife on the roads when it's still dark, so we had to allow plenty of time to get there and set up before the sunrise. Did I mention that there are no coffee shops there?

We were incredibly lucky to see an amazing sunrise that morning - which Luke assured us was one of the best he had seen there. The sun rose from the horizon like a giant ball of fire. (What a shame that I had a 10 stop ND filter on - a very long exposure!) At least I was able to watch the sunrise while I waited!

After breakfast, we packed up and left the Hotel for the trip to Picnic Rocks at Mt William National Park and spent some time on the beach there before heading off to the rainforest area at St. Columbia Falls.

We had lunch at an amazing dairy farm where the cows are milked "on demand" via an automatic milking system! What clever cows they have in Tassie! After a fully packed three days, Luke dropped us back at our accommodation in Hobart and we set out to explore Battery Point - and the local pub for Dinner!

Luke was an amazing guide and photography tutor and helped both of us so much. The cost of the tour was chicken feed when you consider how much time he put in for just the two of us. We were on the go from "'stupid o'clock" in the morning until dark at night! St Helen's Resort was a great base to stay at and we were very well fed there! All meals and accommodation at St Helen's Resort, plus lunch during the day were included in the tour cost. With such a fully packed short tour, there was little time left for post processing/critique, but Luke was happy to assess our photos at any stage.

Conclusions: great trip, very early mornings, amazing photo opportunities, not enough coffee stops, fantastic trip / photography tutor and so well fed - we came home with extra weight! Thank you, Luke!

Check out Luke's website here:

http://www.lukeobrien.com.au/

Wandering around Hobart - walking is good, there is a Hop On Hop Off Bus tour which is pretty expensive for the time - there is an hour's wait for the next bus. The local buses are probably better.

Plenty of great harbour areas of course - and some lovely waterfront views. Battery Point is wonderful, some lovely old houses there! Airport transfer bus is excellent, except for the traffic congestion in Hobart city. Can take a about 25 minutes in peak hour. The view approaching the bridge into town is stunning.

The Saturday morning market at Salamander Place is packed with stalls - and tourists! Well worth a wander through.

Technical Stuff.

The Proposed Changes to the Awards System we currently use:

At the last meeting, Eric advised that the Committee has been considering a change to the way that our Competition entries are rated. As we are still in the July 2015 to June 2016 Competition year, there are no changes at this stage. The proposed changes will be an Item on the Agenda for the AGM which is scheduled for August.

The system rates the entries into the following classes and corresponding points as set up below.

There are a lot of VAPS clubs now changing over to the Honours system.

Honour = 10 points.

Merit = 7 points.

Acceptance = 3 points.

Non - Acceptance = 1 point.

Honour - an entry showing excellent technical and compositional skill.

Merit - and entry with only good technical or compositional skill.

Acceptance - an entry of average technical skill and / or lacking in composition or choice of subject.

Non -Acceptance - an entry not meeting the required rules of the competition or set subject ( ie: did not fit the brief)

With this system, a Member can gauge the standard of his/her entries and at the same time it allows the Club to aggregate the scores.

Under our current system, all entries in competitions are scored out of 15 points and the results of each competition are entered in the Aggregate scoreboard.

The Committee is open to comments on the proposed changes. We feel that it will be easier for Member Judges as there would no longer be the stress of the current 15 points system. It can be very difficult to award a HC and First place when more than one entry has achieved a top score of 15 points.

The Committee wants Members to discuss this and give us your thoughts on the proposed changes to the Awards system.

Freebies and Websites to check out:

http://www.picturecorrect.com/tips/beginner-workflow-for-macro-photography/ http://www.picturecorrect.com/tips/a-new-photographers-guide-to-composition/ http://www.picturecorrect.com/tips/photographing-the-moon/ https://www.karltaylorphotography.com/blog/category/photography-knowledge/beginner- photography/ https://www.karltaylorphotography.com/blog/photography-lighting-basics/?utm_campaign=Blog+- +Lighting+Basics+- +14032016+%28World%29&utm_source=emailCampaign&utm_medium=email&utm_content=

http://www.digitalcameraworld.com/2012/05/04/99-common-photography-problems-and-how-to- solve- them/?utm_source=Adestra&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=14237&utm_term=6802546&utm_c ontent=234612

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nn7c9VXsXyo&featue=youtu.be&mc_cid=a7902296b4&mc_eid=8 6a8b1aece

And now for the Freebie of the month! Google have just released the Nik Collection totally free. Download before they decide to charge again!

It's an interesting preset program which integrates quite nicely with Photoshop ( I have not tried it in Light room) It even comes with a Help section. https://www.google.com/nikcollection/

Thanks to Eric for the post on Face book page about this exciting news.