Dear All,
I hope all is well with you.
This week is quite an important week as there are a number of items of club related items of which to inform and educate. As things in the outside world start slowly to return to some form of normality, things too in club world are taking that all important first step.
This first step was the convening of a committee meeting which took place last night (Thursday) and is the reason for the delay in the Newsletter. I thought it better rather than write we are holding a meeting, to wait when I can say we have held a meeting. It was the first time that more than one member of the club had been in the Space since our last meeting in March. There will be more on the results of this meeting dreckly and I think am correct in saying that our acting secretary will be sending out the minutes of the meeting in a day or so. This has got to be seen as a significant step forward and it gave the members of the committee time to have a chat and address a number of issues which are facing the club as we advance towards what would be the start of the new season. However it is known that there will be major hurdles to overcome before the club can begin to operate as it did last year, but steps are being taken, and I think this is important. One thing I can say with certainty is that as members of Penryn CC we are not alone, as a similar situation will be felt by our friends in our clubs in Cornwall.
Regarding the lockdown competition, which is something that I hope most members will partake in. The first trial run has been completed and as said a week or so ago, Congratulations to Stuart for his winning image. We have a new subject this week which is MONO. As I said in the email relating to this, the idea was to have an "off-camera" type competition where the only alterations/modifications to an image were :
1) Resize to 1600x1200 Landscape or 1200xY Portrait as per our normal competition rules.
2) Cropping and straightening.
3) I hold my hands up for this one as it hadn't struck me till after I had sent email and was also questioned correctly by Mandy, and that is the taking or converting to MONO. Some will have a setting on their camera which allows them to take an image in MONO, but there is also a likelihood that some of you will have suitable colour images which might look good in MONO, so with this in mind, you may use what ever software you like to convert and only convert your images from colour to mono with no further adjustment once mono except for those items in (1) and (2) above.
It has been proposed that not only the name of the winning photographer is named, but that a breakdown of the voting for each image entered is also given.
To ensure that our competition continues through the summer, I would like to propose that you the club members send via email to me any suggestions for suitable subjects. It has been thought best that we need to present all the subjects to you in one go and then inform of which need to be entered and when. In practice this means we have another 9 competitions for which we need subjects for. I would like to think that by opening the ideas for subjects to you all, that we shall have some interesting ideas. It is more than likely that we may end up with ideas which are similar from a number of members. Once we have a final 9 subjects these will be sent to you all. It was felt that by doing this, if you were out and about with your camera, then you might see images that would fill a number of subjects rather than taking one and waiting for the next subject a week or so later. I think it also gives people a better chance of having a think first about the various subjects on offer and hopefully coming up with some interesting photography.
Thanks to the two people who found time to not only comment on the critique images from last week, but also for sending their comments to me for inclusion this week.
The first comment is full marks for trying something new. However when processing images, care must be taken, as to not over do it and as a result of processing affect the overall sharpness of the image which is something that can be seen in both processed images. I happen to like the processed sky in the coloured image, but again, care has to be taken here as to not over do the effect and end up with an image that looks false.
Mandy has taken time out to create a word search for those who might like to attempt it. I have included it as an attachment, I have been informed that the full answers will be available next week.
Paul has again sent in a couple of images which he has been tinkering with. The first shows the set up and the second image is the result after a little photoshopping as he put it.
Finally after a long wait, the chairman has a nice new white front door, which is so white that I couldn't take an image of it without burn out - or that required the use of my big stopper !
I look forward to your entries for the MONO competition. Please remember to send all images to my home email please.
Until next week,
Stay safe
Your Chairman,
Dr Keith Russ
