PSSA Northern Gauteng newsletter

30 October 2012

Dear Northern Gauteng Clubs

Will you please be so kind as to send out the following newsletter to all your club members.

1. Salon Results:

Congratulations to all the individuals from the different clubs who are continuously achieving good results in the national salons. As a region, we can also be proud of our achievement in the 1^st BLUFF National Digital Salon. Herewith a short summary:

Between the 7 clubs in the region that participated in this salon, we managed to achieve 30 COM’s - 29% of all the COM’s awarded and 140 acceptances - 17% of all the images that got accepted. Well done to the individuals from AFO and MFFC who won the 2 medals. Well done to all of our members in the region.

2. Upcoming Salons:

The last salon for 2012 is still available:

· 1^st Witbank National Digital Salon – 17 November 2012 closing date

3. Upcoming Events:

1. The Centurion Camera Club’s print exhibition at Nikon House in Midrand is still on until the 2^nd November 2012. Please show your support by visiting the exhibition if you can – it is a truly amazing initiative from them with some stunning images.
2. Final Reminder of the AV Day hosted by the Pretoria AV Club on Saturday, 3^rd November 2012.

Final reminder: We invite all to a special day of Audio Visual with Howard Bagshaw ARPS MPAGB from England

Date: 3rd November 2012 from 09h30 until about 16h00, A light lunch will be provided
Costs: R50 for members, R100 for visitors payable at the door
Venue: Irene Homes Hall, Irene. Entrance at 2 Albert Road (between Nelmapius Drive and Alexandra road), Centurion.

Part of the day will be spent on “live” judging of our club competition entries by Howard and part on AV training, also by Howard. An opportunity like this will not occur again in the near future. Our speaker has arrived and is looking forward to meeting everyone.

Phone: Jeff Morris 082 840 5459

If there are any other events that you want me to communicate to other clubs, please send me the information and we can include it in this section.

4. Monthly Club Winners:

A number of the clubs in our region are committed participants to the monthly club winning image competition. How would you feel in sharing your monthly winning image with the rest of us in our region? In order to share these images, will you please be so kind as to send these to me to include in the newsletters.

5. News from the Region:

If you are organising an event, training workshop or excursion and you want me to share the details with the other clubs in region, please send me the information. Remember we are all involved in club photography to learn and to learn from each other.

6. Opportunities:

There are a number of photographers and organisations in our region that offer specialised services such as photographic trips to various parts of the country and to our neighbouring countries. If you have information about such events and you want me to share this with our clubs in the region, please send me the details.

• Please visit the Outdoorphoto website (www.outdoorphoto.co.za) for a variety of photographic safaris.
• Please contact Johan Greyling (Cell: 083 3002243) if you are interested in photographic safaris to Kasane, Botswana in November 2012.
• Please contact Henning de Beer (Cell: 082 4917733) if you are interested in photographic safaris to Dube and Giants Castle.

If you have any other interesting ideas or information that you want to share, please feel free to contact me.

Till next time, hope you have an abundance of good light.

Anton la Grange (APSSA)

Laaste 2012 Uitstappie

Die jaar se uitstappies is afgesluit op 'n hoogtepunt.  Die tema was mode fotografie.  Daar was om en by 15 fotograwe wat die geleentheid bygewoon het en ons 3 modelle het fasinerende uitrustings aangehad.  Dankie aan Elizna van den Berg van D3 design wat die uitrustings vir ons beskikbaar gestel het. Dit was waarlik ‘n fees om af te neem.

Ek maak dan ook van die geleentheid gebruik om julle vaarwel toe te roep en dankie te se vir almal wat deur die jaar my uitstappies by gewoon het.  Dit was harde werk maar ek het dit net so baie geniet soos julle (indien nie meer:-) )

Groete

Maryka

Foto deur Jan Potgieter.  Die volledige album is op ons  Facebook bladsy.

DRAMATIC SETTING ON THE STONES

(Correct name for the stones is Callanish Stones)

These stones are situated on the Isle of Lewis, which is part of the Western Isles of Scotland and they are one of the most complete historic stone circles in Europe.

About two million years ago the ice age came to Lewis. Glaciers engulfed the land and the sea, forming the smooth rocky landscape you can see today. When the ice melted twelve thousand years ago, the sea level rose – flooding river valleys. As the climate improved the land became alive, soil formed and plants and woodland returned. Peat developed on the poorly drained ground and extended upwards and outwards to cover large tracts of land. It buried natural rocks and the stone monuments that had been erected by early settlers. The layout is shaped like a distorted Celtic Cross, with five rows of stones radiating from the central circle.

Callanish is often called the “Stonehenge of Scotland” – but in actuality the persons who built Callanish simply didn’t have the resources that were used in the building of Stonehenge – but it has become obvious that they had a great understanding of the skies. The construction may have begun as early as 1800 BC – generally it is thought though to have been during the Neolithic period of between 2600-2900 BC. Unlike Stonehenge the circle is not “roped” off and it really is lovely to be able to be so close to it and even touch the stones and feel the atmosphere.

It was really an experience to be engulfed in this situation, every stone has a feature and with the lighting in that part of the world changing continuously the patterns changed dramatically on them. It does have a tendency to rain a lot in that area and you have to run for shelter quickly, sometimes behind one of the stones, covering up all your equipment. Then immediately the rain goes off, usually as quickly as it had come on, the lighting is so dramatic and the patterns in the stones have changed yet again. One would always like to get into a position where you can separate the elements of the stones but that is not so easy in this circle of stones but the variety of angles you can achieve with the stones is fantastic (beware you may be fed up looking at all my different approaches to these stones by the end of the year).

The skies in this part of the world are also continually changing giving different and dramatic formations all the time. I used graduated filters a lot on this trip, ranging from 0.3, 0.6 and 0.9, which gave great balance and contrast in the landscape.

This image was taken with the D800, 28-300 lens at 34mm, 1/500 sec., F/11, 320 ISO and on a tripod.

EVELYN GIBSON (FPSSA,EPSSA,AFIAP,ARP)
For more photos by Evelyn go to her web site: Click Here

Photo and film expo

Audio Visual with Howard Bagshaw from England

Pretoria AV Club

We invite all to a special day of Audio Visual with Howard Bagshaw ARPS MPAGB from England

Date: 3^rd November 2012 from 09h30 until about 16h00

A light lunch will be provided

Costs: R50 for members, R100 for visitors

Venue: Irene Homes Hall, Irene. Entrance at 2 Albert Road (halfway between Nelmapius Drive and Alexandra road), Centurion

Part of the day will be spent on “live” judging of our club competition entries by Howard and part on AV training, also by Howard.

An opportunity like this will not occur again in the near future.

Here is a short CV he sent us: "I have been a keen photographer since childhood, but it was only 6 years ago, when I retired, that I started to seriously make digital AV sequences. The AV community in the UK is strong and very supportive so my wife, Carole and I soon made a lot of friends who helped me make progress. I feel that it is important to share your sequences and get ideas from others, as well as critically looking at as many other people's sequences as you can.

I was encouraged to enter club, regional, national and, recently, international AV competitions. I am pleased that many sequences have done quite well, and some sequences particularly well. I was awarded medals in two MFFC AV Salons, but the highlight so far was winning the 2010 RPS AV International with 'Migrant Mother'. I have also got more involved with the Royal Photographic Society and received an Associate distinction, as well as a Masters distinction from the Photographic Alliance of GB. I am vice-chair of the RPS AV Group.

We are really looking forward to meeting you all, looking at AV sequences and sharing ideas."

To assist with catering, please indicate your attendance to: Email: Pretoria.av.club@gmail.com  Phone: Jeff Morris 082 840 5459

Website: http://pretoria-av-club.wikispaces.com

Electronic copies of this Invitation are available on our website.

Photo Tour opportunity

CENTURION CAMERA CLUB PHOTO EXHIBITION

22 Oktober - 2 Nov 2012

Centurion camera club presents our annual showcase photo exhibition at Nikon House, Brakfontein. For directions from the Nikon site click on: "contact us".

As club members you are invited to make use of this occasion to exhibit your best photo's of the year - simply upload your images and we do the rest.

The rules briefly are: 

• You may enter up to 4 images, of which we guarantee to print and exhibit at least 3 depending on available display space.  Only full resolution files will be accepted and in any case not less than 5 Megapixel. Format preferable TIFF or JPG at highest qualty.
• We do encourage prints to be mounted. This does raise the cost of prints, however, so we require at least one of your images to be mounted.
• Cost is  R100 per photo plus an optional mounting fee of R50 per print. Payment is by way of direct bank depost into the camera club account.
• Photo's should be uploaded to FileFactory (see entry form spreadsheet for details) before midnight, 30th September 2012.
• Detail instructions is available on the downloadable Excel file on the website.

What do we do for you?

• Photo's are printed on A3+ enhanced matte using the best of inkjet technology.
• Photo's indicated will be mounted on 5mm foam core with bevel cut matting surround. Pictures will not be framed.
• We print a label with the author's name, details and a sort paragraph on the picture itself.
• Pictures will be offered for sale to the public for R200 per print (unmounted) and R250 mounted. Public may discuss pricing with photographer for other copies or sizes.
• Pictures will be judged on at the event and a brons, silver and gold medal will be awarded.
• Pictures will be posted to an on line gallery.
• Pictures will be exhibited at Nikon house for two weeks.
• A selection of photo's will be printed on alternative fine art media and displayed to introduce other print media.
• An opening evening will be held on 22nd October at 7:00 pm. The exhibits willl be judged at this event.
• There is no cost for this event - snacks will be served, supplied by F-stop cafè.

Direct all enquiries to :     

Arnold Theron    arnold.theron@gmail.com