11 February 2020

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President:

Dan Crowley

Mobile: M   0457 813 508

dan.crowley@bigpond.com

Vice President:

Sam Anderson

Mobile:

Secretary:

Bruce Williams

Mobile: 0401 065 053

willigofasta@gmail.com

Treasurer:

Barbara Reed

Committee:

Robin Pitcher

Matt Kaarma

Philomena Kaarma

Lorraine Sladden

Shoalhaven Photographic Club Inc. Blah Blah Newsletter

Welcome to 2020 Hi all and welcome to the new year. 2019 was a good year in many ways but with the terrible fires I think many of us are thinking good riddance to last year. A big thanks to the RFS volunteers and we have at least a couple of SPC members who would have been very busy: Dave McQuart and Peter Cato.

That said I hope no-one lost any property or suffered any illness or injury and I hope you all had a good break.

Assessment Night: Night-scapes Thanks to veteran judge Chris Senior for coming out at night, in the dark, to judge our nightscape images. (It was a self deprecating joke from Chris - you had to be there). In true form he not only kept us entertained but applied his judging skills expertly. Chris explains how he imagines the photographer went about capturing the image and, I think in most cases he would be pretty close to the mark. I think there some wise words about taking the time to make rather than take an image, to select or interpret rather than merely record a scene and to be mindful that you, the photographer are trying to communicate something to the viewer who was not there when you took the image. These are powerful ideas and I plan to address them further in my April presentation on contrast.

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Once again a high quality body of work was on view. Members have been busy travelling, learning new skills and getting out there. There were many well deserved merits and credits handed out by Chris.

Photo of the month and People’s choice award went to Robin Pitcher for her nightscape/astrophotography entry. We have not really had many images of this nature before and it was not just novel but beautifully composed and technically handled. This image resulted from just her second foray into the astrophotography genre. Congratulations Robin.

Technical Details:

This image was taken on October 1, 2019, from Paradise Beach, Sanctuary Point, looking south across the Basin.  This was a preplanned photo shoot with a couple of other photographers. The forecast was for clear skies and the sun and moon had both set early.

The image is composed of eight vertical images merged to a panorama in Adobe Photoshop.  I firstly batch processed them in Lightroom with Lens Correction, some slight noise reduction and a slight increase in exposure. After merging them in Photoshop I did some local adjustments in Lightroom using the Graduated Filter and also the Radial Filter and also some little Texture, Clarity and Brightness adjustments plus Sharpening.

Photograph of the Month and People’s Choice Winner

“Night Sky over St. George’s Basin” by Robin Pitcher

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The images were taken with my Canon 6D Mk II camera using a Canon EFL 24-105  f/4 lens.  Iso 3200, Focal Length 24mm, f/4, 20 second exposure.

I was pleased with the result as this was only my second night out attempting Astrophotography.

Nowra Show: Another great showing from club members who, despite fires and flooding rains not only managed to enter in large numbers but who were also well represented amongst the category and overall winners. Congratulations all. Special thanks also go to our Veep, Sam Anderson for her wireless work as chief steward of the photographic section. Thank you Sam and well done!

Results

Lloyd Anderson: 4 first places, 4 second places and 7 highly commended (HC). Lloyd also won ribbons for Champion monochrome, most successful monochrome exhibitor and most successful colour exhibitor

Dave MacQuart: 2 first places, 1 second places, 3 HC and 2 commended (C)

Barbara Reed: 1 first place, 1 second place, 1 HC and 1 C

Robin Pitcher: 2 HC and 2 C

John Shadlow: 1 second place

Pauline Kitto: 2 HC and 1 C

Judi Anderson: 2 HC and 1C

Next Workshop/Presentation: Our proposed zoo excursion was a non-starter unfortunately. As an alternative, Matt Kaarma has kindly agreed to bring forward his talk on Optics, as the visual science applies to photography. No matter where you are on your photographic journey, there is always more to learn and Matt has a wealth of experiencing in teaching others about various aspects of photography. I am sure there will be something for everybody.

That’s it for February. I will miss the next few meetings as Sue and I will be travelling overseas. I hope to bring back some worthy images from New Orleans, Mexico and Cuba to share with you all.

11 February 2020

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Vale Slim Cartwright We heard last night of the passing of a much admired member Donald (Slim) Cartwright after a long battle with cancer. Slim was larger than life, loved good laugh and never complained. He was a thorough gentleman and will be sadly missed. Our thoughts go to Kay and his family. Vale Slim.