CLUB NEWS - EVENTS

GCC JUNE COMPETITION MEETING 07/06/23

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The club competition, held on 7th June for Open Prints, Open EDI's and Set Subject "Nautical" EDI’s, was adjudicated by guest judge Jean-Philippe Weibel. JP, as he is liked to be known, is an APJA qualified judge and a life member of the Caulfield Camera Club with a photographic interest including Lighting, Landscape and Travel.

 

​During the judging a couple of themes came out in respect to white point and black point to obtain better contrast. To JP's preference, he would liked to have seen a little bit more of the subject as he considered that some photographs were cropped to tightly.

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With a large number of entries, a small break was taken during judging to stretch the legs, view the prints and give time for JP for a breather before launching back into his judging commentary.

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At the conclusion of judging, JP presented a number of his images taken across a broad range of subject matter and illustrated some of his creative attributes.

 

Congratulations to all the winning entries on the night which comprised of a considerable number of excellent images as usual. The winning images can be viewed on the websites Gallery page.

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GCC MEMBERS CLUB NIGHT 14/06/23 – MARYSVILLE CAMP

 

This evening was dedicated to the presentation of images from the Marysville camp weekend held on 19-21 May.

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The Marysville presentation was preceded by the Image Creators Discussion with Mal and Chris providing insights into their award winning images from the May competition.

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​The Marysville camp was attended by 18 intrepid travellers who visited local attractions as well as those further afield seeking autumn foliage as well as capturing nature at its best. The locations included:

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• Scenic lookouts of Keppel, Sugarloaf and Lake Mountain;

• The waterfalls of Keppel, Steavenson; Cora Lynn and the Meeting of the Waters;

• The forests of Beeches; Marysville State and Yarra Ranges;

• A variety of nature trails including Michaeldene, Tree Fern Gully and Red Hill Trail;

• The Marysville township;

• Lady Talbot Drive;

• The snow fall in Lake Mountain and the summit;

• Healesville Sanctuary and

• Other close by locations such as The Black Spur, Buxton, Taggerty, Alexandra, Eildon and the Cathedral Ranges.   

 

The photographic weekend was also a social occasion with a BBQ at the Marysville Holiday Park on Friday evening with liberal amounts of wine being consumed to keep the warmth inside on a very cold evening. Saturday night dining was catered by the Duck Inn which was just a short stagger from the Holiday Park.

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A great variety of images as well as similar subject matter was assembled in the approximate 20 min presentation. The snow fall at Lake Mountain – which lasted only for about 3 hours before the melt – was the highlight for those lucky enough to be there on the day and at the right time. There was several lovely images depicting the snow falling as well as the environment being blanketed with snow.

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Broad landscape images as well as environmental close up’s of nature including some images of mushrooms and also the fall of autumn leaves were show-cased. Also depicted were several images of quirky sculptures from Bruno’s Art & Sculpture Garden.

 

There were a range of feather and fur shots of nature captured at the Healesville sanctuary. The forests were often shrouded in mist and many managed to capture these moody images of the Mountain Ash sentinels dominating the forests around Marysville.

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Included in the presentation was a distinctive audio visual from Heather exhibiting the beauty and also the devastation of the trees and forests that still bear the scars from the 2009 bush fires.

 

After the presentation, an interesting Q&A conversation took place with the photographers to gain insights into their experiences and to impart the stories behind their images.

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GCC MEMBERS CLUB NIGHT 21/06/23 – Guest Speaker Georgina Steytler

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The evening was devoted to our guest speaker Georgina Steytler who is a self-taught award winning nature photographer with a passion for birds, ethics and conservation. Georgina is currently a judge of several national and international photography competitions including the Australian Birdlife Photography Awards and WildArt Photographer of the Year. In 2021, she published her first book with Australian Geographic titled “For the Love of Birds”.

 

Georgina demonstrated concisely with exquisite images everything one needs to know to take beautiful bird photographs. She explained the settings and techniques; how to get pleasing backgrounds and foregrounds; composition essentials; manual focus and focus peaking.

 

Georgina also emphasised the benefits of shooting in manual mode as well as being creative with bird photography such as, for example, high key images. She also highly recommended to get low by lying on the ground (and get dirty) to get those birds eye level shots which offers such much more intimacy and also helps to reduce the amount of foreground and background in focus.

 

Finally, with her infectious laughter, Georgina did suggest to be bold and break the rules. For example, a bird doesn’t need to be fully in focus from tip of beak to the tip of the tail.

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GCC MEMBERS CLUB NIGHT 28/06/23 – Guest Speaker Kelly Clitheroe

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The evening was rewarded with a very informative presentation given by Kelly Clitheroe of the Astronomical Society of Geelong sharing how to partake in Astrophotography.

 

Kelly brought along various equipment that she uses, recommends and used for demonstration. This included cameras, lenses, tripods and star trackers.

 

Covering everything from the basic needs such as locations; setting up your camera and its settings as well as how to create star trails; panoramas and stacking your photos. Kelly also covered astro-etiquette to obtain those amazing night sky images.

 

Simple preparation requirements were suggested such as using manual mode; the lens to use; how to calculate the exposure and ISO for your kit and importantly, how to focus on the stars.

 

If you want to create panoramas, Kelly suggested using a tripod with a tripod head that pans, or moves horizontally, and that the tripod is level. Ensure each photo overlaps the previous photo when stacking in readiness to import into Lightroom, Sequator or similar software that can stitch multiple stacked images into a single image.

 

On the odd occasion, the instructions did become a little technical when talking about how to stack the photos in the camera in readiness to be imported into free software such as Sequator. But plenty of material is available to assist the novice.

 

The evening was also peppered with a range of images taken by Kelly of nebulae; the full equipment she uses and her setup on the front drive at home ready for an evening shoot.

 

An informative session that wrapped up with a few questions and then members engaging in one on one dialogue with Kelly. Course notes, kindly provided by Kelly, will be sent to members to assist in getting you underway with Astrophotography.

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