Ards Camera Club

Hi just a couple of reminders... 1. Christian Brothers, Antrim rd Print battle thursday 20th Feb 2 NIPA Rd5 open Competition. Friday 21st Feb
We have had a lot of Competitions this year, in very quick succession but you all have done the club proud. We need 1 more push in Round 5 to do well in the competition, so i would encourage you to get you prints and pdis in on time.... Dropboxes were uploaded earlier.
It's also been really encouraging, as Competition secretary, to see a number of our overseas members still entering the competitions and indeed doing well. Ards is indeed a great club.
So get your images in for Round 5. And hopefully see you on Thursday night. Marlene
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On Friday night past, due to unforeseen circumstances Eileen McCausland from DungannonCC, was unable to deliver her lecture. It fell to Jacqui Agnew to hastily arrange a practical night on portrait photography. Interest was sought and time slots arranged for those who wished to participate. Darren Brown came along with his softbox and a selection of reflectors and a large gray background, and he demonstrated how the softbox gave a much more even light distribution. This combi...ned with a carefully placed reflector gave a very pleasing effect. The 25+ members watched and listened to those came to do the portraiture. There was plenty of assistance from Darren and plenty of suggestions from the onlookers. It was a very enjoyable evening and some nice images were obtained, some of which, no doubt will appear on our boards in due course. I would like to thank those models who sat for the photographers and allowed themselves to be poked , prodded and moved into some odd poses without complaint. Thanks to Rodney, Earl, Linda, Chris and the main man, Sean. I would also like to thank Darren for bringing and lending us his equipment, and the dogs who also managed to get in on the act. The previous night we were up at Westcourt for a print battle, and although we were few in numbers we were ably led by Sean and Irvine. Single images were put up against each other, commented on and marked by an independent judge. It was a reasonably close affair and towards the end Westcourt were just edging it. Just before the last print was judged Westcourt asked the judge to mark it out of 3. This would mean that either Westcourt would win or Ards would win by 1 point. Ards got the shout! Martin Speckman produced a rather odd perpetual trophy (a vertically pointed finger??) and asked that it was delivered to Leslie. Leslie was duly presented with the trophy on Friday night which he accepted on behalf of Ards Camera Club. We have another print battle on Thursday next with Christian Brothers up the Antrim Road in Belfast. It would be good if Ards could be well represented at the meeting and I urge all who can go, to go and support the club. Thanks.
Chris
Chair
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Please see updated Novice /General dropbox. Hopefully you will have no more problems
https://www.dropbox.com/request/WVHisqhEm H8L5Bs7Eqqg

Hi folks on a wet and windy night there's a great opportunity to get processing all those images for Round 5. We are sitting in 3rd place with only a few points between us and second place...that's a real possibility. So can I encourage everyone to get some images into the Round, We have 2 amazing groups - Advanced and General and you have all done so well, this far....all we need is one more push.
Below are the 2 Dropboxes for the P...DI's - 1st Advanced, then General. (Sarah will as always be issuing an email with these in it. Please note that your naming convention should follow the following: Advanced_Name_Title
Closing date for PDI's Wednesday 19th February midnight Prints Friday 21st February 7.30pm
As always feel free to contact me if you have any difficulties - I hope the links work lol
Advanced - the General below https://www.dropbox.com/request/1YjSyo9MV PhAG99GgiBD…
https://www.dropbox.com/…/General%20Ent ries%20-%20Round%205…
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Friday night was a special night! It was a Sinclair night, and guest of honour was the man himself along with his friend Noel. This was the first time that he had managed to get to the club this season due to ill health and we are grateful to Carol for the transport. We created a special night for him to help celebrate his 96th birthday on Saturday 8th There were 35+ members, including some of his old friends, Vittorio Silvestri, Martin Speckman and Stanley and Maureen Match...
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Hi folks you've already seen Sarah's email by now about Wednesday night. It is a practical night and should be great fun and a chance to learn. Robert is bringing his bicycle which because of its colour will be great experience managing whites and blacks....something I don't do any well. So dust off your clicky machines and we will see you there.

On Friday last it was only the die hard’s who turned up for the quiz night. The bulk of the membership went to hear Joe Cornish at Bangor. They missed a very good and entertaining night! Our thanks go to Marlene, aided and assisted by Claire for running the quiz. They were able to keep order (and the scores), whilst remaining impartial and neutral. There were enough members present to split into three teams, Clickets, Team Eddie and Critter’s Corner (Where is the photographi...c connection in those names?) We had six rounds including the proverbial picture round. The questions were a potpourri of photographic questions and others that were loosely based on photography. I was impressed by the number of people who knew that the most photographed Page 3 girl was Sam Fox and embarrassed that I couldn’t name all the current members of the Committee. I hang my head in shame!! It was an evening of fun and good natured banter (what else would you expect?) and I’m sure we all learnt a little bit about the history of photography through the questions. And the final scores were: - Clickets 72, Team Eddie 72½ and Critter’s Corner 85½
It is not the winning, but the taking part that counts, but just for the record I was on the winning side!!
Chris
Chair
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On Friday last the room was full with 40+ members and friends for our first print battle of the season. It was with our old Adversary, City of Belfast (Peter Knott with his other hat on.) and he had brought along several members, who were all made very welcome. My thanks go to Marlene for getting Ards prints in for consideration and to our panel of advanced members for choosing the prints for the battle. We welcomed as our judge for the evening Chelle McGaughey LRPS from CPA,... along with her daughter Maia. The battle consisted of two panels, one mono with 15 prints and a colour panel also of 15 prints. They were displayed with Chelle out of the room to ensure that she was unaware which print was from which club. There was a good variety of genres on display from landscapes through portraiture, architecture and wildlife. Chelle commented on each print as to how she saw the subject matter portrayed. Backgrounds and highlights were mentioned, as well as contrast. In the portraits were she felt that some required a little more separation from the background. Portraits were all about the eyes and she highlighted how each of the different prints focused on that point.. In general all the prints displayed good use of depth of field and all were well exposed. She marked each print out of 5. Six prints received the maximum mark. At the end of the colour round the score was Ards 55 and City of Belfast 51. These results were not made known to the meeting to keep the excitement going. After our tea it was the turn of the colour prints. Again there was a wide variety of genres and again Chelle commented on each print. Maia, had spotted a print during the viewing at tea break, and her mother asked her to comment on it as she was in complete agreement with her remarks. It was a shot of a Brown Hooded Kingfisher. Maia felt that the sharpness and clarity of the picture enabled the viewer to see makeup of every feather, the colours were vibrant and popped out and the depth of field used made the background blurred. All in all an excellent picture! At the end of the colour round the score was Ards 67 and City of Belfast 50. The overall score was Ards 122 and City of Belfast 101, which reversed the result from last year. It was left to Leslie Armour on behalf of Ards to thank Chelle and Maia for their judging and comments. He commiserated with City of Belfast (in his usual style) saying that there always was next year!!. In his remarks Lawson Piggot on behalf of City of Belfast, was gracious in defeat and looked forward to next year. He also thanked the judges and Ards Camera Club for an enjoyable evening. My thanks to all, for entering into the spirit of things and making the evening a success.
Chris Chair
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Hi folks can I ask that anyone who was successful in getting an image through to Round 4 upload their PDI to one of the Dropboxes or email the jpeg to me. Thank you
Looking forward can I just encourage everyone to getting snapping and sift through their photo library for Round 5. We need 1 more shove for Round 5 judging on February 21st. We are lying in 3rd place but there are only 8 points between 1 - 3 places, so it is still all to play for. Lets give it a go.

Well done to all the folk who had images into NIPA Round 3 tonight. You did us all proud. Yet again we had a number of 10, 11 and 12's. Sooo close, but the points just keep adding up...and we are sitting in 3rd place, still with 2 rounds to go. Alan,well done on your stars, great images. All in all for Ards..it was a good nights work

The entry deadline for the NIPA AV Festival has been extended to Monday 3rd FebruaryThe entry deadline for the NIPA AV Festival has been extended to Monday 3rd February

Hi folks, I'm stretching the old grey cells over Wednesday nights at the club so if its possible can you give me 1 thing that you would like to be covered....what would it be

Friday 24th January is our print battle with the City of Belfast Camera Club. We came away empty handed last year, and this year we hope to even things up. So dust off your best images (either 16x12 or 12x8) and bring them along to Antrim on Wednesday night (22nd) or leave them down to the clubhouse on Thursday night between 7 - 7.45pm. Each club member can enter 3 images - colour or mono and then 3 of our respected advanced members will choose the prints to be used in the actual print battle.

On Friday night, 30+ members turned out for Round 4 of the NIPA competition. It was on the theme of TRANSPORT. Our guest judge for the evening was our friend John Belshaw from Shorts Camera Club. There was a good selection for John to digest and comment on and our thanks go to Marlene and Claire for their work in ensuring that everything went off smoothly. In the General section there were 11 B&W and 13 colour prints submitted. In the Advanced section there were 18 mono and ...22 colour prints submitted. In the PDI section there were 29in the General section and 22 in the Advanced section. He demonstrated how on the judging day how the prints would be passed through quickly to the judges for them to ascertain the overall quality. They would go back again just for a few seconds for the judges to score the prints. As usual for us the judge had time to view and speak on each image. John first confirmed that the image in this instance met the criteria of Transport . Some were clearer than others, and some required a little (lateral?) thinking. He gave his views on each image, some were stronger than others, and some he felt could be improved by cropping the image. Some of the images told a good story and packed a punch and some were perhaps a little over fussy. For the PDIs he first viewed them all to get a feeling for the subject matter. Again he critiqued each image pointing out the strong points and were he felt the image might be improved. At the end of the evening he selected the best images for our club competition and from these he selected what he thought might be the strongest entries that best embodied the transport theme and put them forward for the NIPA competition. Congratulations to all who submitted images for the competitions, and to those who were successful in getting their images chosen to represent us in the NIPA competition. Finally it was left to Peter Knott, on behalf of the club to thank John for his time and considered comments. He felt sure that the meeting had learnt from the images submitted.
Chris Chair
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Good luck to all entrants in the Inter-Regional Wildlife competition, taking place at the Discovery Centre Oxford Island (viewing from 1pm).

Folks with the next competition coming up, can I ask for a few things to help the evening run smoothly. Round 4 1. All PDI’s must be uploaded to the Dropbox by Midnight Wednesday 15th January. There is a lot of work to be done to enable the evening to run smoothly. NO LATE PDIs will be accepted 2. All entrants must complete their details on the sheet at the front of the clubhouse – or else any points they earn will not be added to the annual club competition... 3. All prints must be set in the appropriate holder by 7.30pm, Friday 17th January. 4. No exceptions will be made. 5. If you cannot be there on the night, please ensure that someone is designated to completed the entry sheet, write your details on the back of prints and put them into the appropriate pile of images. This didn’t happen in the last round and 1 colour image was inadvertently set in the Black & white pile of images. 6. I will ask someone to help putting up images, if I need help, so just sit back and enjoy the competition. 7. Please try not to interrupt the Judge while they are giving feedback. There will be an opportunity at the end to ask questions – judging is a nerve wrecking thing. I really appreciate your help with this – here’s hoping that we do well in Round 4 and keep up the pressure on the other clubs.
Dropbox links for Round 4 Transport
https://www.dropbox.com/request/T4MPqQCLI bjqn4BVZfKq
https://www.dropbox.com/request/QtIQqY3zO AOncHRXLZiT
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To keep your cameras busy over Christmas here is the new guidance from NIPA for the Transport themed round “Guidance for transport To transport something is to move it from one location to another. Modes of transport both past and present could include, but are not necessarily restricted to: air, land (rail and road), water, cable, space.
So let's see your images of something being moved from A to B by something else or indeed images of the transport systems that could be used.” Note: not NIPA approved photos

Hi folks, please see the link with an extension for the Inter-regional wildlife competition. All the details are on the NIPA website - attached -the extension to 29th December might give a few more of us a chance to enter. As always...Happy snapping
https://www.niphoto.co.uk/inter-regional- wildlife-competiti…