This month our Set Subject is “High Key” . This is a style of photography having mainly bright or pale tones. Shadows can exist, but are minimal should not dominate in any way. We had a mix of both colour and monochrome images across a number of genres
Image of the Month: Mario Mirabile, Shoo fly
In our first club competition for 2022, our Set Subject was Contrast. We encouraged to explore this in the concept of “difference”. eg light versus dark, big versus small, old versus new or young – you get the idea.
Image of the Month: Mario Mirabile, The upstart
2021 was a tough year for photography. With all the lockdowns, photo opportunities were often limited to our own back yard. This theme runs through many of the winners, either in the subject, location or inspired creativity. Field trips too were mostly cancelled, replaced with “virtual” field trips where we took photographs on nominated subjects locally according to the restrictions at the time. One of these had a subject of “Eggs”. where creativity came to the fore with two of those images amongst the 2021 winners. Take a look for yourself.
Image of the Year 2021: Mario Mirabile, Lockdown is easy
This is a print competition only, with a winner only
1st: Gary Bereford, Golden Morning Mist
November was our last competition for the year except for the upcoming End of Year event. It was notable because 2 inexperienced judges sat alongside one experienced judge from the club.. It’s a chance to put your skills and confidence to the test, scoring and commenting on the entries. Along with the Open subject competition, the set subject of Unusual Viewpoint tested the judges mettle.
Image of the Month: Gwen Richardson, Above Below
In October the Set Subject was Motion Blur. There can optionally be ,sharp and distinct elements as long as there is significant blur somewhere. Techniques could have included panning, intentional camera movement, unintentional camera movement, subject movement and zooming during exposure.. Take a look, including winning images from our Open competition.
Image of the Month: Gary Beresford, CoVid Blue(s)
In September we tackled the Set Subject competition “Give me the Night”. Not twilight, not blue hour, night. Take a look at the winning entries along with those from our Open Competition.
Image of the Month: Kath Gillies, Flowing flowers
This month our set subject is Bokeh / Selective focus. This aims to present a high degree of selective focus to isolate the subject, or where the quality of the out of focus areas of the image (the bokeh) are an important part of the image presented.
Image of the Month: Kath Gillies, Apricot Azaleas
Each year Paul Robinson, the founder of Caulfield Photographic Society sets members a challenge to compete for the perpetual trophy on offer. This year, as we are spending a lot more time at home, Paul chose Still Life, with the important elements to focus on being the arrangement of the objects, lighting and the symbolism.
Image of the Month: Mario Mirabile, Black with two
After a year when isolation has taken on new meaning, we tackle this as our June 2021 set subject. Images interpret the theme of isolation, but do not have to relate to pandemic isolation. For example, it can explore isolation such as minimalism and use of negative space.
Image of the Month: Geoff Edwards, Solo Explorer
Back in St Peter’s Hall for a Macro Workshop, after a LONG 490 days
Monday 2nd March 2020 was the last time we met in person at the Club Rooms at St Peters Hall in Carnegie for what was then the first Club Competition in that year. After 490 days we finally returned to our club rooms for a hands on workshop. Whichever way you cut it, that’s a long time. 490 days or 16 long months or 1 year and 124 days.
The thought of heading out in the middle of a Melbourne winter, after attending meetings from the comfort of our own homes, took moment to adjust to, but about twenty brave souls did just that. For some it was their first time at a physical meeting as they had joined the club during the last year. For others it was the chance to get together again that overcame the dread of a cold hall. As the President, getting to ring the bell for attention instead of having to ‘mute’ people gave me great joy (I did miss that mute button a bit)
Masks and QR code’s were the order of the day as we got started on our Macro Workshop. With several stations set up around the hall and great enthusiasm we got back to what we did best, learning and sharing our passion.
What we have learnt from the last year and a half is that we can combine both virtual and physical meetings with no loss of experience and this is something we will carry forward for the rest of 2021 and beyond.
Thank you to all those club members who brought their equipment in and for their help and guidance on the night.
As it turns out, the Hall wasn’t as cold as I remember now I know how to turn the heater on.
Gwen, President’
Blue can be a colour, feeling or even a musical style. Mmebers interpret “Feeling Blue” for out Set Subject competition.
Image of the Month: Mario Mirabile, COVID Blues
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 - Mario Mirabile, Mask
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 - Karen Tregonning, A cut above the rest
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 - Geoff Edwards, Questioning Cat
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
