The results of our second competition for the year are in. Our members thoroughly embraced the set subject of "Traces", producing some wonderful works that were judged by Graham Anderson. Read on to see the results.
News
Big thanks to Chrisy who shared this piece with us... The video in the article is where it's at... if you thought dodging and burning in photoshop was difficult to master, consider Christopher Burkett's process: it sometimes takes him up to 8 hours to make a print in his non-digital process as he truely paints with light.
The "racing against time" in the headline of the original piece at PetaPixel at first had me thinking the poor guy was ill, thankfully not the case, rather Christopher works in an 8x10 format on Cibachrome paper which is no longer manufactured, but he's bought a 10-year supply. Only trouble is, once exposed and developed the Cibachrome will degrade over time and Christopher needs to make all the prints he wishes to before the original work is not longer viable.
True Puritans, Christopher and his wife travel to locations and look to find interesting scenes to shoot, sometimes that takes an hour, sometimes they stay for a whole week looking for the best shot. I think in the digital age a lot of us have lost the finesse it takes to make a great image. It's perhaps too easy to point and click rather than the effort it takes for folks like Christopher to lug around his huge 8x10 camera, set it up, move the bellows for depth of field and focus and another bellows for the lens hood. He has to be sure he has a shot to make before he goes through all that effort.
Following this process in finding his image, he then exposes it, you'll note his wife standing off the the side, making what I assume to be notes about his exposure settings (another thing we used to do quite often back in the day, before digital and metadata). But the real show of talent comes at around the 5:30 mark when you see how Christopher doges and burns his image during exposure. While you're seeing his process using Cibachrome, the process was much the same when exposing smaller film thought an enlarger onto photo paper.
Anyway, enough of my blathering, check out the video below from PBS News Hour for more, and be amazed at what people are still doing to make a photo.
During the visit to St Arnaud and Donald a trio of our members had quite the chance encounter.
While at a cafe in Tarnagulla on Sunday the members were having a conversation about the town they had stopped in, they were handed a sheet of paper to read by the cafe owner, it was from the man sitting at the table next to them. Overhearing their conversation the man, a local resident and poet Ken Peake, had been inspired to put pen to paper and write his third poem for the day.
A regular at the cafe, Mr Peake visits for coffee and inspiration to write is poems and on this day he had plenty.
Thirty three members of the Williamstown Camera Club (WCC) were in Donald on Saturday 7th April, 2018 with the aims of taking photographs of Donald Historical Society venues, the town and areas around Donald, and astrophotography using the clear starry night skies to be seen in the area.
Our group met at the Bullock’s Head around lunchtime and was welcomed by the President of the Donald Historical Society, Anne Dunstan and other members including Brian Brasier. Deputy Mayor of Buloke Shire, Daryl Warren, also welcomed the group.
The results of our first competition for the year are in. We had the biggest pool of entires in recent years and our judge for the night, Paul Robinson, was highly impressed with the standard delivered. Read on to see the results.
Landscape/Seascape photography on a sunny day with no wind and no prospect of clouds to add interest to the sky is often not on the radar for quite a lot of photographers. However, these were the weather conditions presented for our photoshoot to The Blowhole/Elephant Rock (Flinders) and 16th Beach (near Rye ocean beach). The tide was out (it looks like the organiser misread the tides), and there was minimal, if any, action by The Blowhole.
Those who attend our photowalk around Williamstown had a lovely day out with seven members visiting from Colac Camera Club - sun shining, not too hot.
A highlight was the privilege of being allowed to wander the berths within the Royal Yacht Club of Victoria and see close up some fabulous (and some famous) boats yachts - thanks to Francoise and David Muller-Robbie.
We rounded out our day with some refreshing drinks at the Hobsons Bay Yacht Club - courtesy of Cas Bukor.
We did, of course, take photos earlier at the beach, the Williamstown Botanic Gardens, Time Ball Tower, and just generally around town. You can see the photos in the attached gallery.
We're starting 2018 off with the first week in our 52-week photo challenge. We're encouraging our members to take place in the challenge of taking a photo a week for 52 weeks around the theme of our choosing.
The hope is the themes and challenges will prompt members to make more photos throughout 2018 and to shoot with the intention of filling a brief. At times the brief will be a simple word prompt, other times it will be the exploration of a photography genre or method.
Until our new website is up and running, and after, the challenge will be conducted on our major Social Media outlets such as our public page at www.facebook.com/williamstowncameraclub, via Instagram (with the week's hashtag and tagging @williamstowncc), and on Twitter were you'll find us using @williamstowncc.
We look forward to seeing all the awesome images I'm sure you'll be making.
Visitors are also welcome to participate in the challenge, hence why we're running it via our public page rather than our closed group, so jump on in and share your photos with us.
Our first theme is "new" use the hashtag #WCC52_new to have your images included in our round up on Twitter and Instagram, or post your image as a comment to the original post on our Facebook page.
A new theme will be released each Monday and we'd expect final images in by midnight the following Sunday.
We had so many great images entered this year in both our club competition and our interclub comps, a testament to the wonderful work of our members. Below are the results of our end of year awards. Congratulations to our winners.
Aggregate Awards 2017
The aggregate awards are compiled over the year. Members are awarded 1 point for each entry, 10 points for a first place, 6 points for second place, and 4 points for third. These are aggregated over the year to form the leaderboard determining our winners.
Print aggregate
1st place - 78 points, Brett Ferguson
2nd place - 46 points, Neil Anderson
3rd place - 32 points, Karl Zeller
Digital aggregate
1st place - 48 points, Brett Feguson
2nd place - 28 points, Neil Anderson
3rd place - 27 points, Kathryn Hocking
Images of the year
The image of the year for print and digital categories are awarded by a panel of judges from another camera club. This year we welcomed a four-panel team from the Southern Suburbs Photographic Society who provided us with some valuable feedback on a range of images that were presented for consideration this year. Traditionally we only have a single print image of the year and digital image of the year, however, this year the team from Southern Suburbs Photographic Society awarded 2nd, 3rd and Highly Commended awards to other images entered.
Print Image of the Year
"The Florist" by Brett Ferguson
Runners up
2nd place - "The Blue Dress" by Brett Ferguson
3rd place - "Lillian" by Brett Ferguson
Highly Commended
"Nardoo" by Sue Searls
"In Flight" by Trudy Purchas
Digital Image of the Year
"Flame Robin" by Kathryn Hocking
Runners up
2nd place - "Coke" by Andre Bellaire
3rd place - "Lucy the Barn Owl" by Phil Taylor
Highly commended
"Tell me a story" by Brett Ferguson
"Remember Us" by Kathryn Hocking
Print Open
- 1st Place – Brett Ferguson “Tom”
- 2nd Place – Ronald Clarke “An Australian Icon”
- 3rd Place – Neil Anderson “Kayaking”
- Highy Commended - Françoise Muller-Robbie "Water Dragon"
Set Print – "Umbrella"
- 1st Place – Brett Ferguson “The Rainmaker”
- 2nd Place – Neil Anderson “Strawberry Cocktail”
- 3rd Place – Brian Obst “Umbrella Wedding”
- Highly Commended - Sue Searls "Through Water"
Open Digital
- 1st Place – Brett Ferguson “Form"
- 2nd Place – Neil Anderson "Yarra Twilight ”
- 3rd Place – Jamie Cifuentes “Splash”
Set Digital – "Umbrella"
- 1st Place – Robyn Bartlett “The Rains Are Here”
- 2nd Place – Gayle Tout “Coffee Anyone”
- 3rd Place – Karl Zeller “Windy”
Novice Digital
- 1st Place – Anne Malthouse “Umbrella”
Upcoming
Photo Shoot: Rodeo Geelong
Entertainment for the whole family. Cowkids hour, rides, great food and drinks, as you watch the pretty fast horses in the barrel racing, take the chance to get down and dirty with the steer wrestlers and lay your eyes on the fastest woman’s equine sport in the world - in the breakaway roping.
Geelong Racecourse
8th February 2025 3:00 pm
Presentation: Welcome Back BBQ - Entering International Competitions
In addition to our welcome back BBQ, member Monique Whear will give a presentation on the whys and hows of entering competitions beyond our club.
Entries due for our first round of competition: Monochrome and Open
Walker Close Community Centre
11th February 2025 6:30 pm