28 Saturday Apr 2012
Posted in News
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Greetings from the convention which is underway at Invercargill. We have four KCPS members here, all enjoying the fellowship and learning experiences. Southland is doing a great job of hosting us. And there’s oysters too.
Here’s Shona delivering her first address as the newly elected President of PSNZ at this morning’s AGM. I’ve also been elected to the PSNZ Council, so KCPS is well represented.
There’ll be a lot more about what happened at the convention in our meeting on 14 May.
17 Tuesday Apr 2012
Posted in News
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First a bit of news from your KCPS committee. We meet around once every six weeks to plan and manage all the society’s activities. The most recent meeting was last night.
We accepted, with regret, two resignations from the committee – Stephen Massey and Murray Woolcock. Both of them are finding it difficult because of other commitments to be engaged with KCPS and the work of the committee. We are very grateful to them for their contributions – to Stephen in particular for all the work for the successful KCPS Exhibition last year, and to Murray especially for getting the Development Group up and running this year.
To help fill the gap, Carol Molineux has kindly agreed to be co-opted onto the committee, and is already helping with the Trenna Packer Nature Competition. We’re also grateful to Rod Carter who will take over managing the Development Group, no doubt ably assisted by others who have been involved in this since last year.
The KCPS competition rules (pdf) provide for a member to apply to be promoted from Novice Grade (the “default” for new members) to Intermediate Grade. The wording is:
Progression from Novice to Intermediate is based on submission and acceptance of a portfolio of images by a panel of the committee. This can be considered at any time during the year.
Congratulations to both Des Johnston and Johanna Goudsblom, who have recently submitted such a portfolio, and have now been promoted to the Intermediate Grade. Below, for example, is one of Jo’s fine images.
17 Tuesday Apr 2012
Posted in News, Useful Links
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Here’s a bit of techy fun – Google streetviews as you’ve never seen them before.
A very clever person has taken the full streetview images in every direction and warped them around geometrically so you can see the whole view as one image. And if you click and drag on the image itself you can interactively change the shape, and view and warping.
The image above came from this view from Bowen Street, Welliington, near the Cenotaph and Beehive.
But you can use Google Maps to go look anywhere. Big Ben, for instance. Have a play, and enjoy!
16 Monday Apr 2012
Posted in Competitions
There’s another competition coming up that we’d like to enter on behalf of KCPS. This is the Trenna Packer Nature Competition, run by the Nature Photography Society of NZ (based in Christchurch).
We need six images. No more than two images can come from an individual KCPS member. The rules in detail are available as a pdf but the key points are:
Carol Molineux has kindly agreed to coordinate our KCPS entry for this competition. We’re asking members to submit up to five images for consideration by a group which will be convened by Carol.
Please use this online form to submit your images by 15 May 2012. Remember that we need a diverse set of images to choose from.
We look forward to receiving and considering your submissions. Here, by way of example of what we need to strive for, is the winning set in 2011 from the Christchurch Photographic Society:
Nature:
Nature Photography depicts living untamed animals, uncultivated plants in a natural habitat, geology and the wide diversity of natural phenomena. Images of animals that are domesticated, caged or under any form of restraint, as well as cultivated plants, are ineligible.
The subject must be in its natural environment. Photographs of animals and birds living freely within conservation or nature reserves are also acceptable. Naturalised subjects are allowable, providing they are photographed under natural, not domestic conditions.
Examples of naturalised subjects are deer, black swan, monarch butterfly, briar (not cultivated) roses.
Minimal evidence of human influence is acceptable for some nature subjects where they have adapted to an environment modified by humans. Some examples are welcome swallows, shags and harrier hawks. The presence of scientific bands on wild animals is acceptable.
The accurate record of the subject and the natural environment are the prime factors. All images must maintain a faithful representation of a natural form, behaviour or phenomenon as captured in the original image.
No elements within the original image may be moved, cloned, introduced, deleted, rearranged or combined. No artificial, false or substitute backgrounds are to be used. Any manipulation or modification to the original image is limited to minor retouching of blemishes and must not alter the content of the original scene.
Resizing, cropping, selective lightening or darkening and restoration of the original colour of the scene are also acceptable. Digital techniques that extend the capability of the camera may be used as long as they honestly and accurately represent the original nature story or event at the time of capture.
Images in New Zealand Nature must have been taken in the natural environment of New Zealand or its offshore islands.
For all Nature images, scientific or common names must be included in the titles.
These specific changes should be noted:
1. Previous requirements for Natural History are now included in the Nature Guidelines.
2. Titles must include the scientific or common name (including Maori) of the subject. Interpretive or descriptive names alone are not sufficient.
3. The use of artificial or substitute backgrounds is now excluded.
4. Photography within nature reserves is allowable as long as the subjects are not confined within a cage, pen or kept in an artificial environment.
14 Saturday Apr 2012
Posted in Exhibitions
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For the next month, works by four Kapiti Coast photographers (Peter Beddek, Neil Gordon, Katie Beddek and Shona Jaray) are on display in an exhibition at Future Framing and Gallery at Lindale, just north of Paraparaumu. Do pop in and have a look if you get the chance. Opening hours are Tuesday-Friday 10-4, Saturday 9-4, and Sunday 9-3.
05 Thursday Apr 2012
Posted in Gallery
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"Rhododendron Bud" - Honours, Novice Digital Image - ©Gary Moncrieff
Check out the 2012 Summer Salon Gallery to see the images which received either Honours or Highly Commended in the judging last week by Bruce Girdwood.
Have a happy and safe Easter, and we hope to see many of you at our Critique session at 7:30 pm on Monday evening.
01 Sunday Apr 2012
Posted in News
≈ Comments Off on PSNZ Bledisloe Cup Success
I’m thrilled to say that the Kapiti Coast Photographic Society came second in this year’s national PSNZ Bledisloe Cup competition.
Our set of six prints will be on display at the PSNZ National Convention in Invercargill this month. Well done to the six authors of the set, as shown below.
At the Gallop - Colin McKenzie
Weathering the Storm - Carol Molineux
Curtains - Neil Gordon
Coal Pit Dam - Shona Jaray
01 Sunday Apr 2012
Posted in Reminder
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For this next meeting at 7:30 pm, the plan is for a kind of “show and tell” on audiovisuals (AVs). Those (who wish to) should prepare an AV of up to two minutes, with up to 30 images. Don’t forget the rule of thumb that each image should be displayed for no longer than around 4 seconds. Each AV will be shown, and then the author will explain how they did it. Check the post about the first Development Group meeting for further information.
Yes, we know this is Easter Monday and some people will be away. For those who aren’t, come on down to the Otaihanga Boating Club for a critique session on the first five themes for the annual Wellington Interclub Print Battle. That event is still many months away (23 August) so we won’t be selecting prints to use, just using these as themes for our own critique session. They are:
For those who haven’t been to a critique session before – members can each bring along a half dozen or so large or matted prints (no 6 by 4 inch prints please) and digital images (on a thumb drive). These are shown for everyone to have a look at, and comment, and discuss, and provide suggestions for improvement. It’s a sort of facilitated joint judging session where everyone gets to share and learn, and more informal than our regular judged salons.
So do spend the next week or so, and the Easter break, having a look through your images for ones which would fit those five themes, and bring some along to share and learn.
22 Thursday Mar 2012
Posted in News, Useful Links
Well look here – another public beta from Adobe to play with. They have just released Photoshop CS6 Beta. But be careful with your Internet datacap – it’s a 1.7 GB download for Windows! The Mac download seems slender by comparison at 984 MB.
Russell Brown has done a video on his six favourite features of this release. It’s available on the Photoshop Youtube channel, along with a lot of other “sneak peeks”. The “Content Aware Move” tool is particularly interesting. The Raw processor is similar to the new develop tools for the recently released Lightroom 4.
CS6 does look nice. But remember the Beta will expire in a few months, and then it’s time to pay the Adobe Tax again for those who wish to upgrade from an earlier version.
17 Saturday Mar 2012
Posted in Reminder
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This should be an excellent session. With our new online salon entry form and enthusiastic new members, we had a bumper crop of entries.
Bruce Girdwood will be judging. He’s a great photographer and a very experienced and PSNZ-certified judge. He convened the recent panel which selected the Open Projected Images for NATEX.
Bruce will be providing constructive comments and ratings on 24 print entries and a record 29 digital images. 12 of the digital entries are from novice grade, which is great to see. Actually, they will all be great to see. Don’t miss it.
Kapiti Coast Photographic Society 