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Monthly Archives

August 2015

Val placed in top 20 in APOY 2015 Round 5

By Members Successes, News

Val has continued her good form in the Amateur Photographer Of the Year competition this month. This month’s theme was Macro photography. Val’s image of a snowdrop gained 17th place. The judges commented “By using a shallow depth of focus, Val has isolated this single snowdrop”.

Val was also placed in the top 50 in last month’s round on the theme of ‘Shallow Depth of Field’.

Well done Val.

17.-Val-Lear-331x500[1]

Val & Mark awarded exhibition grant for Barnaby next June

By News

More good news for Camera Club members Val Lear and Mark Helliwell who have been awarded an exhibition grant for next years Barnaby festival for their work with a local lady, Rachael.

Rachael is a hoarder who was first diagnosed with OCD some 35 years ago. She recently made contact with Val and Mark through the Camera Club, seeking help from willing photographers to help her construct a record of the process  of decluttering the many living spaces in her home. She feels this is vital to her recovery, and hopes that it will lead to her home becoming once again a liveable/navigable space so that some degree of order and contentment will return to her life.

To address the above Val and Mark are designing an exhibition with the aim of :

  • providing a more informative insight into the thoughts and feelings of a hoarder
  • using multi-media to convey the clutter and cumulative claustrophobia of the living space
  • showing how the space changes as the hoarder sorts and clears.

The photos below shows Rachael watching tennis in her armchair , one of the few spaces available to her. Also, a pile of paper that has been used by Rachael to collect and sort her hair.

Well done Val and Mark a terrific accomplishment , I am sure all the club members will come and support you at the exhibition next June.

Barnaby-2 Barnaby-4

Competition Rules Now Updated

By News

The Internal Competition rules have now been updated and can be viewed under the ‘Images and Competitions’ tab.

There is also additional info under ‘This Seasons Competitions’ about the judging method of each competition and, where appropriate, the name of the external judge.

Brian gets commendation in flower show competition

By Botany, Competitions, Members Successes, News

Stefan Buczacki Photography Competition

You have to be in it to win it, as the saying goes: although he didn’t win, Brian Law did get a commended in this year’s Stefan Buczacki Photography Competition and two complementary tickets to the Southport Show. This flower photography competition is a regular part of the annual Southport Flower Show. The competition had 4 sections: British Plant Portraits, British Garden Views, British Natural History and Wildlife, all of which were print classes, and a digital class, British Garden/Plant related. Brian said he took the easy option and entered the two permitted images into the digital class the poppy bud image, below, got the commended award.
The subject matter for this image came from his garden and was the result of an accident when he knocked the unopened bud off the plant with a lawn mower when cutting the grass. Brian took this unopened bud into the house left it on the sideboard for a couple of days and took a few shots of it as it gradually unfurled. He used a sheet of white mount board as the background and available light from the window with the camera tripod mounted. The image was processed with Nik Color Effex Pro.

Brian