final camera club

Well, there's leaving on a high note photographically, and then there's leaving on a high note socially...

And while, in a perfect world, it would have been nice to do both, taking out the Eric Robertson Trophy for Portraiture in the process, I'm actually really happy with the way my final Camera Club went...

The last few times that I've been there not all of my "friends and associates" have been present... it's been one or two of them on any given night, but not all of them at once... but tonight the Universe was smiling on me... Stu was there (mostly for "moral support", which was nice, because I'd already seen him earlier that day for the photo excursion I mentioned on Monday)... Cat was there... Mikey was there... even young River was there... so I was able to tell them all in turn (well except for Cat... Stu went and ratted me out before I got a chance to tell her) that tonight was my final appearance...

The only person who wasn't there was El Presidente... and he was the main one who I wanted to say "Thanks, but I'm so outie" to... double dammit...

But it was nice to be surrounded by friendly faces. There were probably a couple of other folks that I could have/should have told I was leaving, but they'll work it out on their own. Mikey, Stu and I even went out for coffee afterwards, which we haven't done in a while (and I swear, on a stack of swearable things, that the semi-cute, semi-woggy, semi-chubby, semi-short waiter boy was flirting with me when I was getting my coffee)...

And the Universe was obviously doubly smiling on me, because it sent me a judge for my final competition, who, although completely harsh in his scores and the occasional comment, was at least consistent... so consistent in fact that I got the same score for all three of my images...

Samuel (top left) from the Valentine's Camera Club... Alex (top right) from the June Competition... and Looking Out (bottom center) last seen at the last competition...

All sevens...

In fact, until he got to the entry that won, he hadn't given out anything higher than an 8... then the winning entry scored a 10... and yes, it was a striking image... it was also predictable and was of a model that I'm just fed up of seeing in Camera Club competitions...

Not that I need to worry about that any more...

So, yeah... for once I didn't actually want to dismember the judge or stick and pencil in his eye or anything... everyone I really wanted to see on my final night was there... and although I didn't win anything, I left feeling pretty good about the whole Camera Club experience...

It was what it was, and now it's all done... and on the upside, I still have my friendship with Stu, which is actually more important to me than the Club has been for a while...

Of course, that doesn't mean I'm not going to come a-running on the second Tuesday of the month when somebody texts me with the secret codeword "Coffee?"...

Current Mood:

a much better camera club

Tonight's Camera Club was a vast improvement on last month's total travesty... mostly due to the fact that the judge was an actual human being with a sense of humour and a clue.

We've had him before, he's one of what I call the "story judges"... actually, I think he might be the only one... but when he judges he always says that for him it's more important that the image communicates something to him, some kind of story, than it is that the image is technically flawless. Which I actually like in a judge, because some of my images aren't always perfect on a technical level, but I like to think there's some kind of story or depth to them.

Having said that, he did score everyone a little harshly in spots, saying that he really liked an image and that it was brilliant, and then scoring it lower than you would have expected. In my case it seemed to be a case of monochrome versus colour images... my mono shots got judged first (as always) and I got mediocre scores for them, but I got better scores for the colour images when they came up.

The colour images, Looking Out (bottom right) and Under the Jetty (top right) scored 8's... and the mono shots, Rememberance (top left) and Stretched Out (bottom left) scored 7's... so not bad overall really.

Three of those images (everything except Looking Out) were actually the last of my "new" images... I'd had a vast number of images printed up to use in the monthly contests in January 2005, and then added to them again around the middle of that year (over 40 images in all), and the three from tonight are the last of them... and honestly, I have nothing to replace them with. I haven't done any shoots since July last year... not real shoots, people shoots, portrait shoots... or just shoots with my SLR for that matter... so I don't even have anything new to have printed.

I think that I'm going to make the Trophy for Portraiture competition at the end of October my last club meeting actually... although I have a couple of shots left in the "could be resubmitted" folder that would last me to the end of the year, I think that is probably as good a time as any to call it a day... especially since they start harping on about membership renewal around the time of the year (plus, it's the end of the club calendar year more or less)... I'll go to the AGM at the beginning of October, then the Portrait comp... then that's it...

Current Mood:

camera club catastrophe

Tonight was just one big fat hairy balls-up...

From start to finish really...

I haven't been to Camera Club in quite a while, partly because last month's competition was for landscapes, and I can't be bothered with those...

But since tonight was a regular set subject, this time Close Up, I figured I should give it a try... I ended up putting a couple of shots in for the set subject, but they were old shots that I dug out of the archives that actually hadn't done that well their first time around, but then I wasn't actually that bothered about it, so I entered them anyway.

I should have known that the evening wasn't going to go well right from the start, since we didn't actually get inside the building until after 7:30pm... usually someone is supposed to be there to open up at 7:15pm or earlier... but not tonight... technically you could say that it was partly my fault, because the group that use the hall before us, the ballet dancers, usually we can sneak in before they leave and start setting up once they're gone. But I wasn't paying attention to what was going on, and so the ballet teacher managed to leave the hall and lock it behind her... leaving a bunch of us standing around outside like idiots waiting for someone with a key.

Then of course it was a mad rush to get everything ready...

And then there was the judge... I spotted him early... he was kind of like an evil Santa, but without the beard (or jolly disposition it turned out)... it was one of those instances where all my instincts just want me to get my photos and run... I never listen though... stupid me...

I didn't even have Stu there to keep me company... so I was imagining a very long and boring and lonely evening sitting there all on my own poking myself in the eye waiting for the judge to either get to my images, or just hurry up and finish. But then either the appropriate gods were smiling on me, or something, because young River, the random 15yo boy I mentioned that had adopted Stu and myself on previous occasions came over to ask me something about one of the upcoming competitions, and he ended up sitting with me down the back where we spent the evening checking out some of his photos on his iPod, looking through old photography magazines that someone had brought in to give away and making snide comments about the judge... it was kind of like having a MiniStu for the evening...

But one or other of us is a bad influence on the other, and we actually got told to be quiet, not once, but twice... by two different people... the second of whom I never actually answered, just stared at until he went away...

Anyway, eventually the judge got around to judging my stuff... and I had, with no exaggeration, the WORST night ever scorewise... and all completely (well, maybe not all) undeserved...

Red Enamel (center right) and Sweet Colours (bottom right) both got a 4... Looking Out (bottom left), Beautiful Youth (top left) and Torso (top right) which is actually a repeat from back in February, all got the very lofty score of 5... so yeah, two 4's and three 5's...

WORST! SCORES! EVER!

Bastard judge...

Seriously, I'm starting to wonder whether or not I'm going to bother renewing my membership next year... it's not like I'm actually getting anything out of the club at present... we'll see I guess...

Current Mood:

supposed camera club shoot

Tonight was supposed to be a Portraiture Workshop at Camera Club... okay, that's not fair... it actually WAS a Portraiture Workshop... I just didn't care enough to shoot anything...

It was like last year around this time... I didn't bother loading the camera before I saw the quality (and more importantly the gender) of the models. They were all female, so I didn't bother even putting film in, let alone shooting anything... well, other than this shot of the set up early on, just so I had something to add to the blog.

Stu and I ended up wandering about outside talking crap about random teevee shows (Big Brother, Lost, etc) and taking fairly random shots... initially we went out so he could take shots of the church's stained glass, but they turned the interior lights off before he managed it, so he started off taking shots of planes going over, then random lights outside, then we ended up taking dodgey long exposures of first me, then him, out in the alleyway behind the Camera Club... he's going to send me some of them, so I might post something if it looks halfway interesting.

After that we went and did the coffee thing, and I still didn't get home much before 10:30...

Current Mood:

camera club and beyond

Yep, that's right... it's been a while... over a month (again) actually, but tonight it was Camera Club time once again...

Tonight's set subject was Sports... but I'm not really much on sport in general, and even less on taking shots of sport, so, as always I just stuck with the open section.

The random 15yo boy I mentioned a while ago who seemed like he had decided to adopt Stu and I... looks like it's official... even though he was there with his (incredibly youthful looking) dad, he came over to ask my opinion on which two open shots he should put in out of the three he had with him... okay, he didn't get great scores on them anyway (even though they were nice shots), but that was more about the judge than it was about the image choices (I was also amused to see that when he asked the judge's opinion of the shot he didn't enter, it was almost identical to my opinion, only the judge's answer rambled on for a while, whereas mine was essentially six words... "too much sky, not enough seagull").

Speaking of tonight's judge, he was yet another of the 150 year old relic squad... and I know we've had him before, although I'm just not sure when... it could possibly have been the same one that I blogged about in my first ever Camera Club post...

I supposed technically I can't complain too much... I got a couple of decent scores, although I was fairly certain that a couple of the shots would bomb after I saw the judge.

Dark Thoughts (top left) scored a 7 (mostly because, contrary to the view of the shot here, under the lights in the club it came out looking very green for some reason... not sure what that was about), Alex (bottom left) managed an 8 (although the judge did say it may have been better a little darker, so I might have to have a play with that, Columns (top right) got the highest mark of the night with a 9 (bloody judges and bloody architecture shots) and as expected, Abandoned House (bottom right) bombed out with a 6... partly because I couldn't come up with a better name for it after mulling it over for about 15 minutes...

Stu and I did the naughty schoolboy thing again and sat at the back of the room so we could whisper, giggle, abuse the judge's decisions, discuss Big Brother, Lost and Ikea and make fun of proceedings without disturbing other people... which does wonders for my stress level at club meetings I have to say.

Then afterwards he, Mikey and I did the usual coffee thing before Stu dropped me home so that I could loan him the first five seasons of Buffy in return for him dubbing me copies of Jeepers Creepers & Jeepers Creepers II... (shhh... don't tell anyone). And interestingly, while he was here perusing my bookshelves we discovered we had a common love for Laurell K Hamilton's Anita and Merry books... the things you learn!

Current Mood:

yet another camera club

Dammit and double dammit... I wrote this when I got back from Camera Club, but Blogger fell on it's head as I went to post it, and although I thought there might have been a chance that it actually got saved, it looks like I was out of luck... I'll have to try and recreate it from scratch...

I think maybe I'm a little bit over Camera Club, both in general and just at present. Yes, it's been a month since I was last there, so yes, it was nice to see my folks again, but I get kinda over it fast.

Tonight's set subject was Shadowplay/Silhouettes... and although I probably could have gone through my stuff and pulled out a couple of appropriate images, I just never bothered... instead I went through my magic bag of existing images and pulled out four... unfortunately the magic bag is looking decidedly bare these days, especially since I haven't done a shoot with a model in a really, really, really long time.

Anyway, the judge did seem to be a little all over the place with his scoring at first, but since the B Graders go first, it gave me a chance to settle down before he got to us... in the end I ended up with some scores that mostly weren't that surprising.

Craig (bottom left) scored a 9, which did actually surprise me, I knew it was pretty good, but I hadn't thought it was 9-worthy... The Boxer (top left) got an 8... Dark Denim (bottom right) managed a 7, mostly because in the full version his face is a little soft (focus-wise), and I knew that going in (but really, are you going to be looking at his face?), and I have thought about doing a harder crop to cut down the amount of out of focus face in the shot... and finally Star (top right) got a 6, which didn't surprise me in the least, since it was only there to make up the numbers to be honest.

I think part of why I was over it last night was that I came to a realisation... while Adelaide Camera Club is supposedly one of the more progressive clubs around (from what I've heard anyway), when we have competitions, the vast majority of our judges are from the other suburban clubs... which means they are then judging us by their standards and their expectations, not those of our club (if that makes sense). I do complain about the judging a lot though, so I suppose I should just be used to it and either alter my work to please the ludite judges, or else not care what they think and do what I like... guess which way I choose... which is basically the same way I've been going for a while, I just need to whinge about it from time to time.

Current Mood:

camera club judge for a night

Something slightly different at Camera Club tonight... it was the competition for B Grader portraiture... a contest I never actually got a chance to enter, since the competition is always in April, I started at the club at the beginning of May, and got promoted up to A Grade at the end of that year, so never got a crack at the trophy...

*mutter*

But, being an A Grader does mean that we get to be judges for the night and all score the images from the B Graders... Oh the power! Well, okay, not really... but it's nice to be able to score things how I think they should be scored. But again, like with all things Camera Club, the predictable and the "safe" always seem to win... okay, and female models too...

The winning entry and the two runners up were fairly safe, fairly dull though technically quite good, but all of women (which I suppose is an upgrade on it being an old and wrinkly man like it has been in previous years)... I will admit, that the image of the African girl that came in third was one I gave a 10 to, since it was a really striking image... but the others were just... well... m'eh...

It was really disappointing that the shot of the really attractive male model in a white shirt against a pale wall that I wanted to give a 10 to, turned out, on closer inspection, to have been blown up too large and the whole shot was all jagged and close up it just looked awful. From a distance though... wow!

Oh, and it seems like Stu and I have possibly adopted or been adopted by (I'm not sure which yet) but the random 15yo I mentioned back on my birthday... I chatted to him a little at the beginning of the Disposable Camera shoot, and tonight he came and sat with Stu and I... asked us to take a look at his portfolio... I have to admit, the kid is talented... *mutter mutter*... a lot of his stuff was slightly predictable, but technically very proficient... lil bastard...

It also turns out that EVERYONE had craptastic photos from the Disposable Camera shoot... I took a look at at least five different people's prints... and there was a lot of bad flash, fingers in the way, out of focus, badly lit shots... so I'm so glad I didn't bother taking part.

To be honest tonight's Club was a little bit of a yawnfest... I think we possibly spent more time at coffee afterwards (and Stu and I talking in the street before he hopped in his car) than we did at the club... that might be a slight exaggeration, but possibly not by much.

And since the next meeting falls on Anzac Day, and they're going to do a "social night" instead of something actually constructive... well... I'll see if I can talk Ma into going to an extra movie... that is, if there's anything decent on...

Current Mood:

camera club disposable camera shoot

So... tired... two... lots... walking... North... Adel... aide... fall... down...

Dammit and double dammit... I'm so exausted... after my walk this morning, then tromping around North Adelaide for two hours this evening (wearing the same "new" sneakers both times, given the state of my old sneakers on Monday... and after I got blisters this morning I put Band-Aids on both of my little toes before I went out tonight, which seemed to help slightly) I got far too much exercise today... the word knackered comes to mind... and on top of that, for reasons I can't quite explain I have a splitting headache... Thank god for Nurofen Liquid Capsules...

For the record, while the Camera Club photoshoot tonight was supposed to be done with a disposable camera, both Stu and myself decided against it... Stu because he's a digital snob (and when you turn out work the quality of his, why wouldn't you be) and I was less interested, but also broke. Luckily we had to take shots in and around North Adelaide, so I took Stu, Mikey, Cathy and her tag along (but very amusing) husband Mark basically on a truncated and slightly altered version of my daily walk, going across the park, down the right hand side of the middle leg of my walk, then worked our way around to my old apartment and then back to meet up with where everyone was having coffee/dinner.

It was fun though... I'm not sure how many shots I actually took, around 80 I think, but after I culled out the crap and blurry ones I have about 50 left... it was interesting to not only see various bits of North Adelaide that I see on a daily basis through other people's eyes, but also other photographer's lenses... the brush fence that was hit by lightning way back in December and is still all burned up interested them way more than I'd expected it to... and various buildings along the way that I don't even see half the time anymore... I didn't take as many shots as I possibly could have partly because I didn't take my tripod along like I did on the North Terrace shoot... and my camera just hates the low light, and due to setting off at 7 instead of 6:30, we lost the light much faster than we would have done otherwise.

Thinking about it, it's possible that my headache was caused all the talking very loudly for prolonged periods of time that Cathy's hubby Mark and I were doing, and the fact that the pair of us were also doing horrendously bad French accents for the majority of the evening... he started it, and like always when someone else is doing any kind of accent I know well, I get stuck in it and can't get out... I also kept channelling Evette from Clue which didn't help...

The shot I included with the post was one I took up at the Light's Vision lookout thingy that looks out (funnily enough) over town... I tried taking a couple of shots there the second night Ma and I went to see Il Cielo che Danza... but, for whatever reason, I think this one came out better than those earlier ones I tried. In lieu of a tripod I rested the camera on the stone railing and used the timer to get the shot.

Once we were all photo'ed out, we headed off to the cafe where everyone was supposed to meet up, but there weren't really enough seats and I wouldn't want to bother mixing with a lot of the people who were there, and Stu really wanted an AB again, so we trundled off down the road to the Red and White Cafe so Stu, Cathy and Mark could have AB's and I could breath the very, very taste fumes in and be thankful that I'd stuck a couple of plums in my backpack and eat them earlier before "Food Cut-off".

For whatever reason, O'Connell Street was being ever so slightly Fagola Central tonight, I saw two "couples" go past... one I know was definately a couple, the other I used assumed... but I recognised one guy from both couples, which is how I knew they were actual fagolas and not faking it...

And for reasons that we won't go into (but should be obvious after my other posts today), I was noticing all the Asian guys that were coming in and out of the cafe (Eddy, hush *pokes out tongue*)... *mutter*

Okay... it's off to bed for me... I'm sooooooooooo tired and sore right now...

Current Mood:

birthday camera club

Yep... only three images for Camera Club this time around... I'm seriously running out of photos and need to take some more so I actually have something to enter...

No, what I actually need is a job, so I can afford to both do more shoots AND get reprints done...

But that's a lament for another time...

I slightly overdid my self-made Birthday dinner of Tandoori Chicken wraps this evening, so I was feeling a little overstuffed when I got there, so Stu, Cat and I ended up sitting up the back on the not overly comfortable wooden benches... on the plus side it meant that we could giggle and snicker, but we do that anyway... so... the downside was that after listening to the judge drone on and on and on the benches become less comfortable.

The Club seems to be attracting a few degree of hot new guy members... there are a couple of guys who came together (although not in a Brokeback Mountain kind of way... I don't think)... who I remember perving on at the last photoshoot... the cute American guy with the dreadlocks, who, as I discovered is called Seth... the new "junior" member, who can't be more than about 15 (he's not hot, but he's young and male so he gets included)... although his "minder" (brother? father? cousin? family friend? I haven't quite worked out their relationship as yet, but said minder did eyeball me twice after I commented to Junior about what he should do with a couple of his shots while he was taking them down after the judging)... and the guy who turned up for the first time today who was very cute in a big, tall, strapping blonde way, and who, because I was sitting around not actually doing anything, came over to me and asked if I could tell him who he needed to talk to about joining the Club....

Unfortunately, because none of the Committee Members were actually there at that stage I couldn't, but I did tell him a little about how the club works before El Presidente turned up and I turned Random Blonde (I never did get his name) over to him. So it's looking like there's new young, male blood in the club... now if only we could get young male blood in the photos and the judging... *sigh*

We've had the judge once before (actually we've had all the judges before) but I don't actually remember him, just that that particular meeting went on and on and on... it sounds like it was probably the first competition night of last year, that seemed to go forever.

He was a judge who liked what he liked and it had to wow him... and he didn't like softer lighting... I knew I was kind of dead in the water right there...

In the end Golden Light, Silver Water (bottom center), the only shot I did that was actually within the Set Subject for tonight contest (and came from the billion shots that Stu and I took at Heritage Shoot) got a 7... which I kind of expected wouldn't score that highly since it was the first try at getting something printed from my digital camera, and I think I got them to print it a size too large... then Blue Tease (top left) also got a 7... for some reason the judges automatically think that any shot containing men in their underwear where the brand name is visible must be an attempt to sell said underwear brand... stoopid judges... finally Male Form (top right) got an 8, which was a surprise because although I like it, it's actually a soft shot because the camera's auto focus kicked in my accident when I was taking it, and focused on the point of his elbow, rather than either his face or body, I'm not sure which now, leaving the shot just soft...

As I mentioned before, after the judging I briefly spoke to "Junior" about the male portrait shot he took at the Heritage Shoot and how he should crop it and that he should enter it in the B Grader Portrait Contest that's coming up in the not too distant future (damn... at the time I couldn't remember when the contest was, but I just remembered it's the meeting after next, because it's partially tied in with the outcome of the next meeting)... and subsequently got eyeballed by his Minder, twice... stoopid Minder...

Coffee was slightly less fun than it could have been because there were a couple of people with us who just annoy me, but I mostly spoke to Mikey about an upcoming shoot he's doing... then Cat turned up at the cafe, late, but with Seth and one of the other members in tow... but he sat on the other side of the table so there really wasn't a great deal of opportunity to chat with him... worse luck.

Addendum: I was about halfway through this post when the ever lovely J (you know, I really should have gone with Jay instead of the single letter... it would make it so much easier to link to just his name) messaged me on MSN to wish me Happy Birthday (actually he messaged me with a voice chat request so he could SING Happy Birthday to me) and we ended up having an hour and a quarter voice chat... so I'm backdating this post a little... in case anyone cares...

Current Mood:

camera club heritage costume shoot

Tonight was the Heritage Costume Shoot for Camera Club... I took 150 (digital) shots (a new record for me on my digital camera)... but not one shot was really of a model (although I did manage a couple of sneaky shots right at the beginning, just so I have a record of who the models were.

I've learned my lesson with these "costume shoots" at the club... even when I shot up to three rolls of film, I didn't really get anything you would call useful out of them. Partly because the costumes are shitty and partly because the people they put in the costumes usually just don't work. This time was no exception.

They took two very cute little raver boys and put them in tailcoats... one of them had multicoloured hair and the other one had a tongue piercing and raver bead bracelets on for the love of Benji... Don't get me wrong, they were as cute as all hell, and if they had been in their street clothes, I probably would have spent all afternoon shooting them, but in tailcoats... er, no... and thus, my film camera never saw the light of day.

Stu and I elected instead to wander up and down the North Terrace precinct, photographing "stuff"... which since it contains the University of Adelaide, the Art Gallery, the State Library and the Museum, wasn't really a bad call... all architectural detail and whatnot. And also, as an added bonus, after dark, all of those buildings get lit up by giant floodlights...

Of everything we photographed, we probably got the most distracted by this little fountain outside the Art Gallery... Stu especially, and we got lots and lots of shots of it.

We wandered around for about two and a half hours all up, and the two of us had fun... possibly more so because it was just the two of us... we did have a variety of hangers on at various times, but for the most part we were doing the double act thing we do so well.

What I decided I do need to do though is take myself (probably in conjunction with Ma) to the Art Gallery and Museum... I haven't been to either in a really long time and I think I'm probably overdue. Whether that will translate into a photo opportunity or not, I don't know, but I think it's worth a shot.

Because I got Stu to give me a ride into town, we stopped on the way back to my place so he could grab some food, and I have to say that the smell of his AB (if you have to ask, you're not ready to know...) really, really tested my "No eating after 8:30pm" rule... but I just enjoyed the smell of it and didn't partake.

Current Mood:

valentine's camera club

Anyone who's been paying attention to my blog should probably have worked out by now that I have a temper... although maybe not, because I'm not sure I've actually let it out to play and then blogged about it... and if I have I don't remember. Anyway, he lurks in the back of my brain, all loud voice and claws and teeth, and only very occasionally does he get let out... which is usually a good thing.

I know what you're all thinking, you're thinking that this is another diatribe about crappy Camera Club judges... but no... this is a diatribe about dumbass Camera Club members... or the committee in general, or more specifically the Prints Secretary (ie the guy who takes the information about the prints)... he's just one of those people who rub me completely and totally the wrong way.

Tonight was no exception... Suddenly, out of nowhere there was a new rule about only being allowed to enter two images in each category instead of the previous three... which is total and complete crap, firstly because this IDEA was only discussed briefly at the AGM, and secondly it hasn't been announced anywhere verbally... supposedly it was in this year's program, but who reads the fine print, I mean really... if you're going to change the rules like that I would expect that you made sure everyone knew about it. So basically I told him that I thought it was crap, and that I was putting all six of my entries in anyway.... and he just kept doing whatever it is he does to rub me the wrong way (which I think is that he just doesn't listen and is stubborn)... which is when my temper got let off it's leash... and I pretty much threw a tantrum... okay, not the most mature moment of my life, but hey...

Of course other members felt they needed to either try and shush me (which is NEVER ever the right thing to do when I'm venting, it just makes me madder) or give me that whole "we're all adults here blah blah blah" speech while I stood there fighting the urge to just punch the dude...

In the end I spoke to Daniel, the club president and he was under the impression that the rule would only come into effect from today when he mentioned it to everyone.

Stoopid dumbass Prints Secretary...

Anyway, all six of my entries stayed in (like I was going to take any of them out) and I calmed down a little... although I did then just avoid the people who had ticked me off.

The judge was the female judge from last year's portrait competition... and she was a little more coherent this time around, which was good, given last time's performance. Stu, Mikey, Cat and I all sat at the back and made smartass comments under our breath most of the way through, which is a change, because we usually sit up the front and make smartass comments.

I ended up with two 8's (Bridge over the Yarra, center top and Samuel, top left), while the other four entries (Classical, center... Doorway, middle right... Little Birdie, bottom left... and Torso, center bottom) all scored 7's... which is fine because I can enter three out of the four again.

Normally the first competition of the year is jam packed with entries, but I'm not sure whether it was this fictitious "two prints" rule, or the fact that it was Valentine's Day, or what, but there weren't that many entries. Probably a combination of the two to be honest.

We went for coffee afterwards, and I had a Lipton's Green Iced Tea, which is fast becoming my drink of choice when I'm out and about. While we were in the cafe there was this EXQUISITE blonde boy with very close shaven hair... he was just breathtaking... I'm sure he knew I was staring at him, but hey, what do I care.

As we left the cafe and we headed back to the clubrooms so they could get their cars and I could take my regular shortcut home, we were waiting at the traffic lights and I looked across as the guy waiting to cross the opposite way and I nearly fell over laughing... my comment to the others was "Could he BE more gay?"... the guy was wearing a pale, pale, pale pink polo shirt (and under the street lights it looked almost white), white pants and white thongs... he was also holding the leash for a miniature grey poodle... except there was a woman with him... who was holding the leash of an identical white poodle... and they were obviously together (unless she was a particularly frisky kind of faghag)... I couldn't help but comment that he wasn't holding the leash of the poodle who matched his outfit... and wondered whether just before he left the house he picked up the white poodle, looked at himself in the mirror and thought "This white poodle makes my outfit look gay".... No dude... your outfit makes your outfit look gay...

Stoopid dumbass metrosexuals...

And sitting in those really uncomfortable "church hall chairs" for three hours hasn't done my back any favours after Saturday's misadventures... so I need to roll myself off my chair and into bed...

Current Mood:

camera club beach shoot

Today marked the start of the 2006 Camera Club season... okay, that's a big fat lie.... technically it started last week, but that was a boring workshop thing that I didn't want to go to...

This week was our annual beach/swimwear shoot, which is usually worth going to... the past two years it was anyway... I shot about 110 shots each time, and each 110 shots was of the same male model (not the same one both times though).

This year I only took a single roll of 36 shots, split between the two (passable, but not great) male models, but I also took my digital camera along and after I was done with the film roll, I took about 60 digital shots... mostly of the sunset and some of random guys wandering along the beach (or perving on the female models we had with us).

We went to a different beach too this year, Brighton instead of Semaphore... not sure it was worth driving the extra distance to be honest... yeah, the jetty has that interesting tower thingy on it, and there were rocks, instead of the random dunes at Semaphore... okay, maybe it was worth it. The clouds didn't give us a decent sunset though, which was disappointing.

This shot gives you a good indication about a) the less obvious reason I only shoot the male models, and b) what it's like on a Camera Club photoshoot... 20,000 photographers (what... we all know I exaggerate), all trying to get a shot of the same (female) model or models. We always kind of compare it to a flock of seagulls... you throw one seagull one piece of food and suddenly every seagull in a 200km radius shows up... just substitute "Camera Club photographer" for "seagull" and "model" for "piece of food"...

And while that's happening, a lot of times the male models have just been standing around twiddling their fingers.

Poor male models...

I'll post some shots of the two guys that were there when I get the shots back from the lab.... depends on whether they're worth sharing or not... I was shooting with my new polariser on, so god only knows how the shots are going to come out...

It was nice to see everyone again... well, except the people who annoy me... but I ignore them for the most part, so it's all good. Basically it was nice to see the handful of people who I actually like... and what was REALLY nice was that my main Camera Club buddy, Stu, was back... yaaaaaaay! After we finally lost all the light, he and I wandered down the jetty so he could take some shots of the tower thing all lit up, and I just went along, mostly because I haven't seen him in about seven months. And then we went for coffee afterwards, a real coffee, rather than to Cafe Primo where everyone else went for substandard coffee.

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camera club annual exhibition

Finally tonight was the Camera Club Annual Exhibition... the last club meeting for the year, and a place to showcase all of your best work from the year.

At least that's the theory...

I think I was spoiled my first year in the club, taking out both the Top Monochrome Print, and the Top Classic Portrait. Yeah, I know, I've mentioned it a few times before, but hey... it was a pretty good accomplishment my first year (not even that... just over six months) in the club.

So it kind of raises the expectation in my brain that I should get good scores and maybe win something here or there...

Unfortunately, that's not the way the world works...

Because it is the final meeting for the year, as well as the Annual Exhibition, most people bring family, loved ones, whatever... so I've always invited Ma along... and we usually go and do dinner first. We went the new and improved Beyond India in North Adelaide, and that may have to have it's own post later, because it was fantastic...

Anyway, back to Camera Club...

I entered 19 images (mostly stuff that had either gotten an 8, 9 or 10, but a couple of the lower scoring images that I just really like snuck their way in too), and only got a couple of Highly Commendeds... (and to make it easier, I made this pretty coloured graphic so it's easier to identify the categories... I'm both so helpful and so anal *grin*)

Mono Prints Pictorial (Pink) Craig in Sepia (top left) scored 18, Stretch (top right) scored 21, Feet (bottom left) scored 16, Harness (bottom right) scored 22

Mono Prints Portrait (Green): Golden (top left) scored 20, Modern Classic (top right) scored 24, Shy Boy (bottom left) scored 22, Blue (bottom right) scored 20

Colour Prints Portrait (Blue): Dryad (top left) scored 22, Sam (top right) scored 20, Cornfield (bottom center) scored 17

Colour Prints Nature (Purple): Pelican (top left) scored 24, Dinnertime (top right) scored 21, Shadowed Gumleaf (bottom left) scored 17, On the Prowl (bottom right) scored 20

Colour Prints Pictorial (Orange): Sand Abstract (top), Gothic Arch (center), Parliament Door, Melbourne (bottom right), Red Door (bottom)

Unlike a normal competition, there are three judges and each gives the image a score out of 10, giving you the combined score out of 30. Not surprisingly, my two images with 24 were the Highly Commended images... Pelican (purple, top left) and Modern Classic (green, top right).

So all in all, not a fantastic result... no Merits (27 and over) and no trophys... ah well, such is life...

We also got the program for next year... talk about lackluster... there are some very dull sounding Set Subjects for competitions... looks like it's going to be another year of just entering the Open section.

After all the trophys and certificates and whatnot were handed out, Ma and I and Mikey and his wife headed out for coffee where Mikey and I proceeded to totally rip the program to shreds and slag large chunks of it off, which always makes us feel better.

And now we're all done...

I really need to get my tail into gear over the break and find some new models and do some shoots, if only so I have some new and fresh stuff to enter next year. I still have a bunch of images I haven't entered, but I'd like some new stuff to balance them out... we'll have to see...

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digital camera club competition

Urgh... some days I just have to ask myself why I bother...

Tonight was the penultimate competition for the Camera Club year, the inaugural (see, I know lots of big words tonight) Digital Images competition. The images didn't have to be anything other than digitial files, they didn't have to be especially manipulated, or whathaveyou.

As soon as I heard that we were having a digital competition, I knew I had to enter Wild Thing (center bottom)... its an image I've had for a long time, but I did a ton of work on it, and haven't been able to print it to use in normal competitions because of the small file size.

The other two, Doorway (top left... the treatment of which I based heavily on the work of Benno Thoma) and Fur Hat (top right) took me a little longer to decide on.

And tonight was the judging.

It would have been nice if they had gotten a judge in that knew SOMETHING about digital imaging... of course in our (rather shallow) juding pool those people are very much few and far between... mostly because the average age of said judges is about 5000 years old, give or take...

When I saw who the judge was I had a feeling it wouldn't be good... I remembered his face... and the associated feeling that went with it was that he was something of a pratt... course I think that about a lot of our judges...

But I really knew we were in trouble when the first image of the night popped up, which was very obviously manipulated, and very obvious how it was done (the same image, mirrored, then flipped and mirrored again so it made an abstract pattern)... and the judge made some comment about not wanting to make a guess on how it had been done because he would probably be wrong...

The night didn't get a whole lot better...

I wasn't overly helped by the fact that my images had some very light areas that were pretty much skating the rim of being overexposed, and once they were projected onto the screen, they fell over that edge which made the judge like them less.

*sigh*

In the end, Doorway got a 6, Fur Hat got a 7 and Wild Thing, thankfully, got an 8. Unfortunately because it was a special competition with a trophy, we don't get our usual little certificates for 8's and above.

One of my Club Buddies and I went for our usual coffees after the meeting was over and had a good bitch session, which was fairly helpful. It made us feel better at any rate.

Next Tuesday is the Annual Exhibition, I take Ma along to that, so that if I win anything like I did my first year in the club, she's at least there to see it. Plus it means we can go out for dinner beforehand, so that's always nice.

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camera club mixed bag

What a weird old night it was at Camera Club tonight...

Firstly, we're divided up into two grades, A Grade (the more experienced photographers, ie those who have gotten six merit scores, 9's or 10's... that's me... I made A Grade after only about six months at the Club) and B Grade (the novice bridage)... and usually the number of entries is pretty even between the two grades... not tonight... we had about a dozen B Grade entries, if that, and like a billion A Grade entries... so weird...

As this is the last competition of the calendar year (and yet the "first" competition of the "Club year" due to last fortnight's AGM... don't ask... it's all very confusing) I don't tend to get too overly excited, plus the judges generally seem to suck beyond the telling of it (more than they usually suck) on this last competition for some unknown reason, so I like to go with stuff that I've already entered, but that hasn't scored as well as I think it could or should (we're allowed to enter anything twice, provided it's score is 7 or under)... so that's what I went with... there was only one image that was "new"... and knowing what I know now, I kind of wish I'd put one of the other images that I didn't expect to do very well in instead.

Anyway... the judging started out pretty average... a couple of my shots had been up and scored 6's... so I wasn't expecting much... then All Yours (top right hand corner) got put up for judging... the judge started out with something along the lines of "I was looking at this on the board earlier, and I find it to be a really disturbing image..." and I'm thinking... oh great... I suck... he's going to give it like a 4 or something... and he kept talking and seemed to be pretty much pointing out all the things he thought were flaws (I'm claiming they're all on purpose... and that it's all "style"... most of the things he mentioned WERE on purpose actually... and it's part of why I like the shot)... then he said something about "It's disturbing, but I like it..." and I'm still thinking, yeah, you like it, just give it it's 4 and lets move on.

Then he went... 10.

I pretty much fell out of my chair! Never in a billion years would I have expected to get the maximum possible score for that particular piece... a 10... not only a 10, but the ONLY 10 of the night...

Colour me pretty damn happy... having said that, out of 6 images I got the 10... an 8 (Caged Heat, bottom center, previous scored at 6), three 6's (Flinders Street Domes, bottom left, the only new shot... Sam, bottom left, which got a 6 last time too... and Brad, top center, dropping down from a previous 7)... and a 5 (Striped Rear, top left, also dropping down from a 7 in the Zoo competition earlier in the year).

A mixed bag all up, but the 10 kind of makes up for the rest...

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camera club agm

Tonight was the Camera Club Annual General Meeting... which is always fun... well... not FUN fun... but I get to talk a lot and give forth my opinions... so I always enjoy that.

There's never a huge turn out, which I suppose is par for the course with these things, people always want to have the good stuff without any actual responsibility... but I like to make sure my opinion is heard. And it usually is, coz, well, I'm loud and stuff.

My name should be pretty much all over the minutes for the meeting too, since I did a lot of moving and seconding, as you do at an AGM... not helped by the fact that the Club President has this habit of looking straight at me after he finishes saying something. Usually because of the previously mentioned opinions about things, plus I'm occasionally a smartass (but only when it's appropriate), and I sit up the front (you can cause more trouble that way... don't believe all this talk about the back row being better for causing trouble... unless you don't want anyone to know that's what you're doing).

I'm actually fairly tempted to join the committee next year... I could have put my name forward at the meeting, but the committee actually meets on the opposite Tuesday from Camera Club, albeit only once every couple of months and anyone who's been paying attention to my blog will know that the Tuesday that isn't Camera Club is Movie Night (mostly because Tuesdays are half price days at the movies)... so I'm conflicted. I am wondering though if I skip the workshops that come up on the fourth Tuesday of the month, we could still go to the same number of movies, just in a different order or something. I will have to talk to the Female Parental Unit about it tomorrow and see what she says... I'm pretty sure she'll be all Supporto-Gal... but I'm not sure what other things she does on the opposite Tuesdays...

Will have to muse on it some more I think...

After we were all finished with the AGM and putting forth ideas for Set Subject and Workshop topics for next year (I didn't do what I did last year when I presented the Club President with four pages of possible ideas I'd stolen from the DPChallenge website... I was only able to steal enough useful ideas for one page this year)... Cat, Mikey and I all went for coffee as we usually do after Camera Club meetings... it lets us bitch about other club members, chat about photography and cameras and stuff and just do the social thing, which is actually half the fun of going to Camera Club.

Anyway, one of the waiters at the cafe we go to, this semi-cute, semi-woggy, semi-chubby, semi-short and EXTREMELY gay waiter spoke to Cat while she was doing the cancer stick thing outside and while Mikey and I were ordering. Turns out he remembers us, or at least Cat, from either last week (when I wasn't there), or the week before (when I was). I don't know if he was just being "waiter-nice" or if he was trying a very roundabout way of making sure I noticed him, or what, but he was just kind of around for most of the night (not hard really, its not a small cafe, but its all one big room, and, well, it's his job), and made sure he said goodbye as we left and that he would see us next week (we had to inform him that unfortunately it would be at least two weeks... now that I think about it, it will actually be at least three, and I don't know that there will be anyone for me to go to coffee with that night)...

So, yeah... either he was just being nice and I'm reading too much into it, or he was cruising me in a really, really, really obtuse way... I'm going to go with the latter, since it's more flattering, and, well, a boy needs all the flattery he can get... even if I'm fairly certain it was the just being nice thing. Ah well...

I also submitted my entries for the Annual Exhibition... and emailed off my three entries for the Digital Competition this afternoon after getting a reminder email that go sent out to everyone... so now there is only the contest for November left for this year. Then we start all over again at the end of January...

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camera club portrait competition

Tonight was the Eric Robertson Trophy for Portraiture at the Camera Club, and its one of the special competitions that I really, really, really want to win. My first year with the club I was in the final two for the trophy, and I was beat out by the guy I actually considered to be one of the club's portrait grandmasters, so I didn't feel too bad.

We had one of our infrequent female judges, and I was actually glad I was doing the "Image Movement Technician" job (ie taking the prints from the display racks up to the front to be put up for judging... I made the name up... obviously)... she was just going on and on and on and on... and not being overly concise, and in some instances making less sense than she could have been, plus repeating herself over and over. If I'd had to sit and listen to her I may have gone completely insane... as it was I just got to roll my eyes a lot.

I didn't do too badly overall, a 9 (Shy Boy, top left), an 8 (Modern Classic, top right) and a 7 (Sam, bottom), but unfortunately, in this competition, all that matters is getting a 10 and the vote of the judge. In this instance there was only one 10, so it got the trophy.

The shot that I thought should have won only scored a 7... that's two judges who have scored it lower than I think it should be scored, its this amazing black&white shot of this young (I'm guessing) Peruvian boy with a fuzzy hat, and its just amazing.

Three of us did something we don't seem to have done in a while, went off to have coffee and have a winge about the judge and just talk about photography in general. It was fun, we talk a load of crap, but its usually a laugh.

We also ended up talking quite a bit about the Annual Exhibition, which is coming up in December, but we have until the beginning of November to put shots in for it. I need to go through my stuff sometime soon and work out exactly what I'm going to put in... as well as the three shots for the Digital competition in November... Hmmm... need to get thinking on both of those...

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camera club time again

Yep, that time of the month again... time for the monthly Camera Club competition...

And this month I did a lot better than last month, which is always a bonus. Granted, this month the judge still had all his own teeth and most of his original hair colour...

I only entered the "Open" section of the comp, since the "Set Subject" was Tools of the Trade and I didn't have a single thing for it... although afterwards I did wonder about the naughty things I could have entered under heading such as Porn Star's Tool and other suggestive titles. But I only thought about it when I was already at the club, so... nevermind.

But my scores, a 9 and two 8's, wasn't bad. Dryad (bottom left) got the 9, while Golden (top right) and Stretch (bottom center) scored the 8's. The judge also made some actually useful comments about both the latter two images, so I may have to re-edit them and see if he was right.

Both Couch (top left) and Kitchen (bottom right) were a little too "blatent" for the judge, as I kind of expected they might be, given the general overall age of our judges, but I wasn't too put out... even though they both got a 6, I can resubmit them in another contest, so back into the "To Be Entered" folder they go.

Although this judge was a little too focused on the "saleability" of some of the images, that being his actual day job, working in a photographic store, I can't complain too much, and I'm actually pretty pleased with my overall scores.

Next month's contest is one of our "special" comps, all portraiture, which is kinda my thing, so I'll have to look through my stuff and see what I have. Unfortunately with the special comps, its a reduced number of shots, so I can only pick out 3 images. We'll see...

I'm also kind of excited about the special November 29 comp, since its a unique one, being "Digitally Projected Images", which means I can submit a bunch of stuff I've tweaked around in Photoshop, but never been able to sumbit to the club due to its size or quality or whatever. I already have 1 shot picked out, one that I worked my brains out on, but did it at a small size. Then I have to find 2 others. Not sure what they're going to be yet, but picking them out should be fun.

After that its only a hop, skip and a jump to the Annual Exhibition... got the entry form for that too tonight... so I have to make some choices about what I put in there too. Course, I don't know what anything will quite equal my first Annual Exhibition, where I took out, not only the Top Monochrome Print, but also the brand new category of Top Classic Portrait.

Now, that was a fun night.

And now I kinda feel like I'm bragging... hehehe.

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camera club judges...

To quote Bender, they can "bite my shiney metal ass"!

Grrrr... it would be nice to get one who a) still had his own hair and teeth, and b) wasn't suffering from an apparent loss of 35% of his brain.

I mean, c'mon... two 7's, three 5's, and for the love of pete, a FOUR!

It wasn't helped by the fact that tonight's judge was making comments like "I like this, good lines, good detail, blah blah blah" (okay, I made that last one up) and then giving the shot a 4 or a 5. All I ask for is the occasional 8, a judge that knows his ass from a hole in the ground, and some consistency between comments and scores. Is that too much to ask?

*going to drink caffeine based products and possibly scream into a cushion*

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what a day...

Man, what a day...

Partly because I haven't worked in ages... and the whole "getting up early" thing was so much less fun than it could have been... what with the cold and the rain. Yeah, less fun.

I did get to indulge in one of my favourite sports of all time though... Boywatching (or Manwatching, if you prefer... Maleofthespecieswatching anyway). I have to say, give me a guy with visible veins on the back of his hands on down his forearms... yum. There was one on the bus on the way into town, and it did help that he was just generally cute, but he had that whole vein action going... nummy!

Like always, I got my Boost (King William Chocolate, yum) and my blueberry muffin, and off to 31 Flinders I went...

I just can't seem to escape the Education Department... I try and I try, okay, so, I don't actually try... but I don't attempt to go back there, it just keeps happening. *sigh*

On the plus side, at least the day went quickly, the morning with one group (even if that was a little like being spoon-fed), and the afternoon with my "good buddies" (insert sarcasm here) in one of the other units on the same floor. The last thing I want is to be going back there over and over again. It drove me insane enough last time.

Of course that general feeling (of not wanting to slide backwards) wasn't helped because I went upstairs to visit my old workmates in IT and stood around talking to them for about an hour, *sigh* miss them... okay, not ALL of them, but in theory, I miss them (three outta five ain't bad). That was a good job... I enjoyed that.

I get to catch up with them on Friday... after-work drinkies... should be amusing if nothing else.

Anyway, after a long day doing the web publishing thing, I come home, have some leftover TNTM (see previous post), and damn but it was spicy... went a little too hard on the curry powder I think.

Then off to Camera Club... supposedly for a winter themed portrait shoot. I've stopped actually putting film in my camera until I see the quality of the models. At least there was supposed to be a guy there this time. On the down side, when he arrived, he was not in the least bit pretty and had a head like some kind of pumpkin. Less good. And yeah, I probably could have shot the female models, but I really and truly have zero interest in doing that.

I briefly hoped that the shorts-wearing, shaven headed guy that rocked up late was going to model for us, and the Workshop Coordinator did ask him on my behalf, but no, he was just going to follow his girlfriend around like some kind of deranged puppy-dog (okay, probably not...). What, he thinks she's going to run off with one of the photographers... has he not seen the (unattractive) fossils in our club?

So after helping set up the backdrop and lights in the main hall, and wandering around waiting for an attractive model with the appropriate genitalia to show up, in the end I gave up and just came home. Early to bed tonight I think...

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