Helderberg Photographic Society » evaluation

Report: Evaluation Meeting 13th Jan.2010

nettie28 — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 08:15:56 +0000

At least 50 people turned up for our first meeting of the year … it was great to see old friends, and to meet new ones! Several folk have applied and paid for membership – we welcome you all and hope you will enjoy being part of this vibrant group of photographers! Susan and Harry are back here again from France, and Nicole is back after her ‘Artist in Residence’ sojourn in Paris. Bernard, as our new Chairman, started off with a number of notices, and Paddy and Irmel informed us of projected plans for outings and audio-visual workshops. A number of prints came up for Evaluation – Nicole and Ken Woods doing the honours. There were many digital images submitted -the quality of work was excellent, and we hope to see this standard following through into this new year. Members seem to be experimenting more and gaining good results – keep it up!

After tea Steve Crane gave a short talk on two aspects of Photoshop – changing digital images into Black and White; and changing a particular part of a B&W image into colour. Links to these techniques can be found here.

Details of the outings on 23rd January (US ‘Jool’) and 30th January (Full Moon) will be sent to members by e-mail.

Next month’s set subject is ‘Candy/Sweets’ – give it a try – you’ll be amazed at how creative you can be!

Evaluation Meeting Wed. 13th Jan.2010

nettie28 — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 14:50:47 +0000

Prompt start at 7.30pm. Digital images must be sent to helderbergphoto+entries@gmail.com before 6pm on Tuesday 12th (today).

Prints should be brought in time for them to be hung.

A committee member will gladly receive your yearly subs of R200. Special rates for country members and students (R100 per person)

See you there!

Evaluation Meeting Wed. 8th April ’09

nettie28 — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 11:01:40 +0000

Some 40 members and guests arrived for the meeting. After the ‘Notice Board’ (during which we congratulated an understandably absent Nicole on her special birthday), we allowed Michelle Barnard to ‘Get her Feet Wet’, which she did with great ease – showing us her particular interest in ‘textures’. Evaluation of prints and digital images was done from the floor, and the discussions were positive and educating. A number of outstanding images were shown – good enough to be included in our Interclub ‘possibiles’ – let’s keep this up so that we have a really good choice when the time comes!

After tea we were shown a selection of images taken during the Gansbaai outing by Irmel, Paulette and Paddy – who was showing ‘digital’ for the first time – hats off to you Paddy! (See Paddy’s article on this site).

‘Questions and Answers’ followed, run by Steve who was able to elucidate on quite a few questions we hardly ever ask, but all want to know – watermarks, copyright, orton effect etc. We could have gone on all night! If you would like to continue learning about the the answers to these sort of questions, don’t forget the afternoon ‘picnic’ outing on Paddy and Graham Howes’s farm as noted elsewhere on this site.

Helderberg/Hermanus Joint Evaluation Evening

nettie28 — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 19:00:07 +0000

Wednesday 11th February, 2009; Somerset West

Hermanus Photographic Society joined Helderberg for a joint Evaluation Meeting, which proved to be relaxed, friendly and most beneficial. Some 80 – 90 people attended the meeting. We were happy to also welcome the new PSSA Director for the Western Cape, Johan Kloppers, who was accompanied by Michele Slater (chairlady of Fish Hoek) and her husband Stanwell. Ronnie Hazell headed the contingent from Hermanus. Max Leipold and Nicole Palmer were the evaluators, and were kept on their toes with about 70 prints and images to crit. Resulting feedback has indicated that the honest, positive, as well as sometimes hardhitting evaluations, taught members a lot about good composition, over-use of Photoshop, image titles and focussing – to name but a few. This was the first time that we have attempted such an evening, and in retrospect, we will, in future, restrict members to the submission of one image only. Time ran away with us, and we still wanted to enjoy tea, conversation, and scheduled audio-visuals planned for after the break! Hermanus showed four excellent av’s and Helderberg contributed two, by which time it really was time to go home!

All those who contributed towards the success of the evening, are thanked for their continued support, with special appreciation to Hermanus and Fish Hoek for driving out all the way to Somerset West.

HPS/Hermanus Joint Evaluation Meeting Wed. 11th Feb.’09 7.30pm

nettie28 — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 16:44:07 +0000

Our joint Evaluation Meeting promises to be a ‘not-to-be-missed’ event, and I hope that many of our members will take part. Provisos and logistics are a little different from what we normally do, so please read the instructions carefully, and do not enter your images later than noon Friday 6th February!!!! All the digital images are going to be sent by Steve to the two evaluators (Nicole Palmer – Helderberg and Max Leipold – Hermanus) on the Friday afternoon before the meeting, so that they have time to evaluate the images in the comfort of their own homes! Slides and Prints will, however, be evaluated at the meeting.

Please read carefully …

1) Up to two images each from only those members who are physically present at the meeting.

2) The images may be prints, slides or digital images, and may be a mixture of these, if desired.

3) Prints and slides should be brought to the meeting in time for them to be hung up or placed into slide trays. The hall opens at 7.00pm.

4) AV’s should be brought on flash sticks and will be loaded either before the meeting starts (if there is time) or during teatime.

5) The Helderberg evaluator will be Nicole Palmer, the evaluator for Hermanus will be Max Leipold, and the facilitator for the evening will be Nettie Warncke.

6) All digital images should be sent to Steve Crane at the followinging address by noon on Friday 6th February. helderbergphoto+entries@gmail.com No late entries will be accepted. Steve will mix the entries up so that there is no pattern in the projection of the (anonymous) images. The evaluators will evaluate alternately.

7) The following instructions refer to how members should submit their digital images.

‘Image files must be submitted in JPEG format and must be no larger than 1400 pixels wide and 1050 pixels high.

When saving the resized image, an appropriate JPEG compression ratio must be selected in the photo editing software to ensure that the file size does not exceed 350 kilobytes.

The club uses IrfanView to display the images at meetings It is freeware and may be downloaded from the IrfanView web site if you would like to use it to test the displaying of your images prior to sending them.

The following file naming format must be used;

DX_name_title.jpg where:

D is E for evaluation on evaluation evenings.
X is the number of your entry in the section, 1 or 2.
_ (the underscore character) is a separator.
name is the author’s name, maximum 12 characters including spaces.
_ (the underscore character) is a separator.
title is the photograph’s title, maximum 18 characters including spaces.
.jpg is the file extension, indicating a jpeg file.

The name and title need not contain spaces but each word must be capitalised. If the lengths of 12 and 18 for name and title are insufficient, you may use abbreviations; in which case you must include the full names and titles in the text of your e-mail message. These full names will be used on the scoring sheet.

Example:

D1_Mike Smith_Golden Gate.jpg

8) Our club will provide tea, coffee and substantial snacks during the break.

9) Audio-visuals from both clubs will be shown after the tea break.

10) Our evenings generally end at 10pm.

ScottCritiques.com

Steve Crane — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 09:24:05 +0000

ScottCritiques is a new site on which professional photographer Scott Bourne will critique images. These critiques will be along the lines of our evaluation evenings but probably more in depth.

Read the welcoming post linked below and decide if you want to submit some of your own images for critique, or just follow along and learn from the critiques on others’ photos.

Welcome to ScottCritiques.com « scottcritiques.com

2008 HPS Chairman’s Report (short version)

nettie28 — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 07:16:46 +0000

Committee: I should like to thank the members of the HPS Committee for their continued commitment and input.

Bernard Seymour-Hall, our Treasurer, will be Vice Chair in 2009, which means that he will be our new Chairman in 2010. Irmel Dunaiski organizes the Audio-visual Section, and Paddy Howes is the Secretary and handles all the Outings. Steve Crane is our Computer and Digital expert, while Michele has been handling slide entries and tea, Marisa has been organizing print entries and JJ van Heerden has been our Technical Expert, as well as being the sponsor of our prizes from Picture Works, Stellenboch.

I am pleased to announce that Eric Palmer has agreed to serve on the committee – he is well known for his Photoshop expertise and teaching abilities, and brings young blood, as well as young ideas, to the Club.

I would also like to mention that Eric has won the Getaway Gallery’s First Prize for 2008 with his image of ‘Simonsberg’ … Congratulations, Eric!

Matters Financial: Bernard reports that we have a healthy balance in our account – this will be needed in the case of eventual upgrading of our equipment and for use when next we have to host Interclub.

Subscriptions for 2009 will remain the same as in 2008 ie. R220 per person with a discount of R20 if paid before 1^st April; R110 per person who are country members or students, with a discount of R10 if paid before 1^st April. Bank details can be found elsewhere on this site.

Tea and biscuits will be a minimum donation of R4,00 from next year.

Jannie, our car guard, is paid by us, and is reliable and helpful. Thanks to Paddy for organizing a Christmas hamper for him.

Outings: This year we enjoyed a number of successful outings, including one to Skurweberg (60kms from Sutherland) in winter. Paddy has quite a few ideas up her sleeve, including a weekend stay in Matjiesfontein. Other outings being planned are a visit to a wine farm, Gansbaai, McGregor and Camps Bay. Outings are a wonderful way of getting out to do photography in the safety of a group, as well as getting to know other members of the club.

Audio-Visual: Our AV department, steered by Irmel, has been active this year. As well as making our own presentations, we were asked to make an AV using 35 or so of Paddy’s scanned slides of the Richterveld, set to music of our own choice. The results were amazing in their diversity. 2009’s ‘set subject’ will be ‘Living from the Sea’.

Competitions: The list of competition subjects can be found elsewhere on this site. Our January subject ‘Silhouette’ will be judged by a lecturer from the Stellenbosch Academy.

Evaluations: A new twist will be introduced to the evaluation evenings next year. Hermanus Photographic Society has accepted our invitation to visit us on 11^th February, when we will hold a combined Evaluation Evening. Please note this date in your diary. We wait to hear from Tafelberg of their decision to join us too.

Slides: From next year slides are to be entered together with digital images under ‘projected images’. Bring your slides to Steve on the Wednesday evening so that he can add them to his list, and then show them on the slide projector, as normal.

Digital: Getting your digital images in to Steve by Tuesday 6pm is very important. Please follow the guidelines as set out elsewhere on this site.

Talks: It is not always easy to find speakers who are willing to travel all the way out to Somerset West – we do the best we can. Suffice to say that we hope to organize talks on ‘Judging’, ‘Calibration’ etc.

Prizes: Vouchers will be handed out to First Prize winners only. JJ has offered to sponsor vouchers for those who win First Prize in the four sections: Prints – Set Subject and Open; and Projected Images – Set Subject and Open. His business, Picture Works, is not a franchise – we appreciate his generosity. At the end of the year, a ‘Best Image of the Year’ will be selected (via the blogsite) and the winner will receive a print developed on canvas.

Interclub: Members recently discussed how Interclub could be improved. Our recommendations have been set out in a document which has been forwarded to all those clubs participating in Interclub. We do not yet know who will host Interclub next year. A new PSSA director still has to be appointed (Neil Swart has re-located to Gauteng), and when this happens we hope to be able to report to a facilitator who can evaluate and decide on a few new and improved guidelines for Interclub.

The R500 voucher received by HPS for coming joint second in Interclub 2008, was used to buy ‘lenspens’ for the 6 photographers who did well in Interclub – Andre(28 out of 30); Michele, Eric, Nicole, Ernst and Emma (all 27).

Blogsite: Instead of having a monthly newsletter, we are going to start a blog with WordPress.com, which is going to become our ‘ongoing’ newsletter. You will be able to click into it regularly, and will find all the information usually found in the newsletter, on the blog. Bear in mind that we also have a Flick site – http://www.flickr.com/groups/helderbergphoto to which all members may belong … Steve is the administrator and will ‘invite’ you if you indicate that you would like to take part … please join up – I seem to be the only one using it at the moment!

If you have your own flickr-site, or if you have a blog-site, or even a web-address, please let Steve know so that he can insert it as a ‘link’ on our blog.

Honorary Membership: It gives me great pleasure to announce that Nicole Palmer is being made an Honorary Member this evening. She is a past chairman of this club, and is well known for her teaching abilities, and presentation of popular workshops in Namibia and Stellenbosch. Congratulations, Nicole!