2014 CFC Award Winners

  

This year over 2500 images competed for nineteen separate award categories.  The winners are:

For Best of Days Gone By - Skates by Anna Lam

For Best Action - Jump Shot by Ramesh Pooran

For Best Altered Reality - Road's End by Lew Mitz

For Best Bubble - The Grand Poobah by Tina Konecny

For Best Natural Object - Billy Goats by Inge Radden

For Funniest Image - If Only by Ron Mace

For Best Macro - Flight of the Dragon by Carol Quinn

For Best Night Shot - Main Street by Dave Tugwood

For Videographer of the Year - Caspar Radden


For Best Monochrome - Blue Ridge Parkway by Connie (Fowler) Collins

For Best Unidentified Photographic Object - Honeywagon Glass by Caspar Radden

For Best Wildlife - Take-off by Alan Jenner

For Slideshow of the Year - Norwegian Fjords by Lew Mitz

For Best Use of Light - Under the Rainbow by Daphne Creasy

For Best Manmade Object - Cement Boat in Spring Fog by Janice Ruggles-Bolton

For Best Use of Colour - The Cat's Meow by Margaret Liddon

For Best Landscape - Presqu'ile Sunrise by Glen Dobson

For Best People - Dandy Randy by Robert Logan

2014 Image of the Year - Cape Vessey Marsh by Bert Jenkins

Congratulations to all our winners and to all those who participated in our theme challenges and club outing during the year.

December Awards Gala & Pot Luck Dinner

This past Sunday we held our year-end annual CFC (CountyFotoClub) Awards Show and pot luck dinner. Well we really struck it rich, as far as food was concerned - what a wonderful spread was placed before us all. I want to thak Margaret and her many helpers for transforming the room into a Christmas dining emporium. No one left hungry – I can assure you.

We had a few bits of business to complete before the dining commenced. We had two slideshows – the November theme challenge “Form & Texture” and the November club outing – Belleville Santa Claus Parade. These images have now been uploaded to our Facebook Page and the full parade video has been placed on our Youtube site – in case any of you want to get into the festive spirit.

Following the meal, we started into our Awards presentation section, first with another 2014 Member's Best slideshow. Then David Gilbert and I emceed the 2014 version of our CFC Awards Show. This year we had 19 separate award categories. Four contenders were selected for each category and our judges (David & myself) gave a quick assessment of each image. A trophy was then awarded to the winning photographer. The winning images are being posted to our webblog site and the full presentation will shortly be uploaded to our Youtube site for your consideration. The contenders were selected from over 2500 images submitted during the course of the year to one of our theme challenges or club sponsored outings.

We would like to congratulate the winner of the 2014 Image of the Year – Bert Jenkins with his Cape Vessey Marsh image. See this webblog for all of our night's winners.

The busy Christmas season is upon us all, so we will not have an outing this month. The theme challenge for the month is in keeping with your likely activities over the coming weeks – Fun with Friends & Family. We also provided advance notice of the January theme challenge - Winter Wonderland. So please keep your cameras near to you during this period.

Our next meeting will be on January 11^th (people should be over their New Year's hangovers by then). We will be asking you to bring in any new or unique gadget or piece of photographic equipment/software etc. for a quick “Show & Tell”. We held this last year and a number of great ideas surfaced for others to consider. In addition, we will be asking each of you to send in by early January your five all-time favourite images (no time restriction on when taken) – for a Members Favourites slideshow.

Margaret & I would also like to thank Caspar as the representative for all members, for the kind words and generous gift from all of you. It was an extremely nice gesture and will not be forgotten. Thanks to you all.

We wish you all a very Merry Christmas filled with lots of great photographic memories.

November Meeting - Standing Room Only!

Seating was at a premium as the number of attendees outnumbered our allotment of chairs. On checking with the Library, this was an oversight, and they have since restored their chair reserve.

This evening featured a truly great lesson from the Glen Dobson school of photography. Glen introduced us to HDR (High Dynamic Range) image processing in a simple, easy to understand manner. He then proceeded to demonstrate just how easy it is to produce such images with today's specialized programs. To keep things simple, Glen utilized Photomatix Essentials and provided internet coordinates (http://www.hdrsoft.com/download.html) for members to download the program and try it for free.  At the end of the workshop, he displayed a dazzling set of HDR images made from as little as three shots all the way to one 40 shot behemoth. This certainly provides us with another useful tool in our photographic kit-bag.

The meeting also had lots of member participation content. Caspar produced an inspiring slide and video shoot of Monarchs and other Butterflies. A slideshow from our club outing at O'Hara Mills Homestead & Conservation Area featured the work of 13 of our members. In addition, our monthly theme challenge “Nature's Glory”, showcased colourful images by 20 different club participants. Both of these multi-member slideshow images have been uploaded to our Facebook account.

At the end of the session, we handed out the upcoming theme challenges - “Form & Texture” for this month and “Fun with Friends & Family” for the month of December. We do encourage you to interpret these challenges as you see fit and hopefully in a creative, artistic or humourous fashion.

Our club outing for this month will be the November 16^th Santa Claus Parade in Belleville. It is a night-time event starting around 5:30PM (Sunday evening). We hope to cap that evening off at a local pizzeria for some hot food and fun.

Our next meeting will be on December 7^th. It is our annual CFC Awards Gala and Pot Luck Dinner. If you missed last year's event, then you can redeem yourself by coming out and seeing the best the club has offered over the past year. It's also a great way to get to know each other in a more informal setting

Thanks again for all those who attended the meeting and those who participate in our events.

October 5th Meeting Recap

We had our largest attendance yet at Sunday's October meeting. In addition and more importantly, we had really good member participation in our outings and monthly theme challenge. The meeting started with our club's take on Heritage Day at the Ameliasburgh Pioneer Museum. Next on the agenda was Ramesh Pooran who attempted to clarify the often confusing aspects of Metering and Automatic Focusing Options on modern day cameras – oh for the good old days of the simple Kodak Brownie camera! We then saw some images taken at a recent, somewhat impromptu, night photography workshop which we held here in Picton mid last month. Glen Dobson was our workshop leader and some of the images taken were really striking. The world is a very different place once the sun goes down! We finished off the first half with a rousing and colourful take on Local Fall Fairs, featuring the Picton and Milford 2014 fairgrounds.

The second half commenced with a wonderful slideshow of the Norwegian Fjords by Lew Mitz. These images were taken on a recent cruise to the region and he was really able to capture the magnificience of the area. After a few political and organizational messages,  I discussed Seeing the Light, from an artistic perspective. I used prior member image submissions to demonstrate the various aspects of using light in a creative and three-dimensional manner. We even used an egg to demonstrate the impact that light has as you move it around the egg and its impact on shape, form and texture - try it at home and then make yourself some breakfast.

The final slideshow of the evening was our Monochrome or Polychrome but Please no Kodachrome theme challenge. Stripping away the colour from an image had a tremendous impact on the artistic quality that our submitters were focusing on. I have uploaded images from the three main member slideshows and the Night Workshop to our Facebook page. I'm still working on putting a link to Lew's slideshow which resides on Youtube at this address

The meeting finished with a restatement of the Theme challenge for October – Nature's Glory and advance notice of the November theme challenge which is Form & Texture, a followup to my discussion on Seeing the Light. 

The outing for October will be on Sunday October 19^th. We will be going to the O'Hara Mills Homestead and Conservation Area which is located about an hour's drive from Picton (near Madoc). We will meet either at the Conservation area at 2pm or in the Mary's Street Parking lot in Picton at 12:45PM from whence we can car pool and convoy ourselves up there. It's a great place to capture some interesting images of pioneer buildings, mill wheel, covered bridge, rushing streams, mini-falls and lots of nature trails. Hope to see you there.

September 7th Meeting

 

We had one of our largest gatherings yet at our meeting this past Sunday. Our attendance was buoyed by many local Lion's Club members who were anxious to see our take on their day long Dragon Boat Races held in early August. The slideshow was an amalgam of 12 of our members including video clips from Caspar – most of which were taken from his small kayak neatly tucked in the weeds, far away from the racing lanes. This slideshow has now been uploaded to our Youtube site and is available for public viewing at this web address http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_KNIygFB2Zc

We were also privileged to have Ril Giles as our featured guest speaker. Ril combines both her photographic and artistic abilities into a unique form of folk art entitled “Paintography”. She uses her camera to capture the basic scene and then uses her imagination and brushing abilities to create a work of folkart right on the computer. Here is an example of the initial shot (“Before”) and the results of many hours of applying her art (the “After”). 

My, what a difference! You can find more information on Ril's work at www.paintography.ca and she tells us that she can apply her art form to images initially taken by others – just in case anyone wants to give a unique Christmas present...

Also on the agenda was a refresher workshop on Photographing Autumn's Glory, put on by Margaret Liddon. Autumn is a splendid season especially here in Eastern Ontario and one that a photographer just can not afford to miss. Carol Quinn showcased a colourful Pow-wow video that she co-produced with Alan Jenner, with many of the photos taken at the recent pow-wow at the Mohawk reserve near Desoronto.

The evening finished with our From Sunset til Sunrise theme challenge which saw creative use of the limited amount of light that we have at night. These images have been uploaded to our Facebook page for public viewing.

 

 

The Club Outing for the upcoming month is entitled Local Fall Fairs. It seems at this time of year every small town in Ontario has one underway sometime in the next few weeks, so get out there with your camera and send in some images. We plan to attend the Milford Fair next Saturday Sept 13^th – we'll be there at 12 noon just inside the front gates. Hope to see some of you there.

The theme challenge for the month of September had already been given - Monochrome or Polychrome but Please no Kodachrome. We are using the meaning of “Polychrome” to be Black & White with a single other colour for emphasis. These photos will be due later – around the 29^th of the month.

The theme challenge for October (we give these themes on a rolling 2 month basis) is Nature's Glory. We don't know exactly when the height of the colour season will be, but this should give everyone lots of time to catch it.

Thanks again for a great meeting.

Upcoming September 7th Meeting

Our September meeting will feature Rill Giles as guest speaker . She will be demonstrating her unique photographic interest – namely Paintography, a fascinating mixture of Photography and Painting. Ril is a Canadian Folk Art Painter/Paintographer/Art Photographer and displaced CapeBretoner who has participated in numerous art/photography exhibitions and sales. Her work is sure to stimulate your creative artistic tendencies.

The meeting will also feature our club's take on the recent Wellington Lion's Club Dragon Boat Races. On the educational front, Margaret Liddon will give us a refresher course on Photographing Autumn's Glory and we will view last month's theme challenge - “From Sunset 'til Sunrise” and more ... Lots of great images will be on display including a special Pow-wow slideshow from two of our members.

Time of Meeting: Sunday September 7th, 2014 from 7:00 - 9:00 PM

Location: Wellington Public Library - 261 Main St.

Downstairs meeting room (access east side of building)

Free admission. All are welcome.  Hope to see you there!

August Club Meeting in Review

Our August 10th photography club meeting let us re-live several recent events held in the County, including full coverage of the Wellington Bubblefest as well as the recent Lavender Festival. For those of you who missed the meeting, these slideshow videos have been uploaded to our Countyfotoclub Youtube site.

The meeting featured a Windows Movie Maker demo to show members how easy it is to make one of these slideshows with a mixture of stills, video and audio files. For those with Windows based operating computers (XP right up to ver 8.1), the following web site which has links to the installation programs for Microsoft's Windows Movie Maker 6 - movies.blainesville.com_WMM6

The second half of our meeting opened with an exceptional video of birds frolicing in the snow in Algonquin Provincial Park – an Alan Jenner video taken in March of this past year. We then were treated to a guest appearance by none other than Ansel Adams – from a 1983 BBC interview – who proceeded to set up the next presentation entitled “Art of Seeing vs Digital Interpretation” wherein we had 8 club members process images taken by others in the club. Ansel , who was originally a concert pianist, uses the musical analogy of the separation of original score (the negative) vs the actual performance (the print). We took that one step further into the digital age and had great fun and wonderment with the outcomes. We will attempt to post this on our Youtube site in the next couple of days.

 

 

The meeting ended with our theme slideshow – Surf, Sand & Shore. Many of the images are really exceptional and its encouraging to see our continuing artistic growth as photographers. These images have now been uploaded to our Countyfotoclub Facebook site for your review.

The theme challege for the month of August is “From Sunset 'til Sunrise”. These (5 to 8 images) will need be submitted by Monday Sept 1^st for inclusion in our member slideshow. We also handed out the September theme challenge of “Monochrome or Polychrome, but Please no Kodachrome” which will be due sometime late September.

The Club outing for August will be the Ameliasburgh Heritage Day on Sunday August 31^st. The event, complete with role playing participants, depicts the way of life in 19^th century rural Ontario. It runs all day from 9:30 til 4:30.

Thanks to all those who came out to make Sunday's meeting another great success.

July Print Exhibition and Evaluation

At our meeting last Sunday, we tried something a little different, especially for a club that prides itself on the non-competitive nature of its activities. We spent the majority of the night examining 31 member submitted prints. Yes the real printed image is not yet a relic of the past! After a brief tutorial on how to evaluate images, the members were given the task of scoring (in a friendly manner) the unidentified images spread all around our viewing room. Certainly, changing light was one obstacle as the evening wore on and darkness set upon us. The in-room lighting was a bit thin, but we managed. In the end, we tallied the scores and chose the top five prints for review. Prints from Tina, Robert, Daphne, Bert and Caspar were the top scorers. Thanks to all who participated, especially those who submitted images – not knowing in advance what devious things we had planned for them!

Tina filled us all in on our role as photo documentarians of Wellington's upcoming quest to break the Guiness World Record for bubble popping. We need to be at the Essroc arena at 9am on Saturday July 19th to prepare for our assignments. The Bubblefest will last all day long, mainly at the Main St park and other nearby locations. We will also need to capture these images for a club outing slideshow for our August get-together.

The meeting also had slideshows of our Beaver Meadow's outing, the Bugs, Bees & Butterflies Theme Challenge and last but not least, a Memories of Ireland slideshow from Margaret - which I almost forgot to show!!! Our Facebook site (facebook.com/countyfotoclub) has now been updated with the images from both the Bever Meadow and Bugs, Bees & Butterflies slideshows. We will be posting the Print Evaluation Tutorial on our Youtube Site youtube_countyfotoclub in the very near future.

We now have a rolling two month period for Theme Challenges. The July month's challenge is “Surf, Sand & Shore” (due in by Aug 4th), while our August challenge will be “From Sunset til Sunrise”. Hope you will have some fun with these. As usual, I'll be looking for 5-8 images from each of you for our theme slideshows.

Other upcoming club outings will be the Dragon Boat Races in Wellington on August 9th (9am) and the Ameliasburgh Heritage Day on August 31st. Please mark the dates on your calendar – more on them later.

Hope you all are having a great summer and don't forget to drop in and see the CLIC Photo Show which starts on July 26th and runs for 2 weeks at Books & Company, Picton.