23rd May 2020

Competition

New Digital Competition launched. See details further down this newsletter.

Weekly Theme 

The weekly Offshoot Flickr Theme is  'Down Low'.  

'Down Low' means the shot should be taken from a perspective  below your knees and preferably, below your ankles as well. 

No limit on subject / style, colour or mono.

NB. 1. Just to clarify, our preference for the weekly theme is a shot taken after the date the theme is announced. However, we do not really mind if you have to go back into your archives to find an image, but if you do then you need to reprocess it.  The basic idea is to have an image to work on and present via our Flickr page.

NB 2.  Images used in the weekly Offshoot Flickr themes can be used in club competitions also.

NB 3. Next week's theme will be 'Real Close' , just to give advance notice and get the creative energies engaged.  'Real Close'  might be macro in style, or not. The more creative the better. How close can you get to interesting subjects?

Images  can be posted to our Flickr group from now until next Friday night at 9 pm.  Remember to put  'Down Low'  in the Flickr title field.

This is not a competition but an opportunity to have fun with your camera or post-processing skills or both. These exercises are good for getting us to use our cameras and our minds,  and to look for unusual compositions or situations related to the theme.  Remember there are no judges, no-one checking for over-sharpening, for eyes out of focus or rules of thirds.  We are looking for variety and expression.  Normal Flickr rules apply.

Members do not have to enter every week.  The only condition is that you enter the Theme title   'Down Low' at the very beginning of the Title Description field when uploading to Flickr, so we can recognise 'Themed' images. People can continue to post non-themed images to Flickr.

[Note. To join the Offshoot Flickr group, you must first be a Flickr member. Then send the email address used to join Flickr to webmaster@offshoot.ie. You will get an email when you have been added to the group. Please be patient as this is a manual process.]

Virtual Meetings / Presentations Update 

Reminder.  Peter Gordon has agreed to present to our members at 8pm on 27^th of May using the Zoom platform. Details will be circulated closer to the event.

We also conducted our first committee meeting this week using Zoom. More virtual events are in the pipeline, stay tuned.

Summary

We wish to emphasize that all of the activities are all optional. The basic idea is to have a few things to focus on to maintain your hobby, continue to develop your skills, familiarity with your equipment. It is an opportunity to experiment and share with others the fruits of your labours. 

NB. SWM and Exhibition notices removed just to simplify the newsletter. We will add back when these events progress.

Peter Gordon.

There has been interest expressed by several members regarding Peters upcoming course referenced on our Flickr Page. Here is a brief summary.

Peter has been super busy over the past 6 weeks putting together his brand new post-processing course. Over 5 hours of education. More than 33 chapters. Rewatch, rewind. Online and Offline. Dedicated learning environment and take the course at your own pace. 

CHECK OUT THE NEW WEBSITE AND COURSES HERE

The course is suitable for all levels as Peter draws primarily on RAW Conversion in Lightroom or Camera RAW (depending on your chosen medium/drop us a line if your not sure which course to get).

The idea is to communicate a range of creative skills in conjunction with technical know-how. That's where this course really fills a gap. It's not all sliders and technique (though there's plenty of that too), its editing philosophy, style, lighting and creative thought process. 

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We are getting super images on our Flickr page, both for themed and more general subjects.  Keep up the good work.

Narrow DOF  Droplets by Mary Hahn

Grey Heron Bird by Deirdre Irwin

Just a note for new members – if you want any of your pictures considered for the photo of the week, you just have to post them to the OffShoot Flickr group at:

https://www.flickr.com/groups/offshoot_society.

There’s also the latest images published on Flickr that are displayed on the OffShoot home page.

[Note. To join the Offshoot Flickr group, you must first be a Flickr member. Then send the email address used to join Flickr to webmaster@offshoot.ie. You will get an email when you have been added to the group. Please be patient as this is a manual process.]

Greg Benz: How to select and cutout subjects

If you come across one you want to share let us know at newsletter@offshoot.ie.

Printed Competitions are on temporary hold. The currently suspended print competition will be the first competition held when normal competitions resume, so all work in progress or prints can be used for this competition.

New Digital Competition

Theme Section.

The first section, which will be judged by Levels, is to the theme of 'Within 5km of my Kitchen Table' - to include people, places and things, indoors or outdoors, wild and whimsical or realistic and gritty......preferably images created recently, but definitely not any entered into previous competitions.

 Open Section

The Open section has a new twist - please enter a set of images. This could be to a theme of your own choosing, or a subject matter, or a technique......for example, minimalist architecture, garden birds, monochrome still life, family portraits, intentional camera movements....the options are endless and the choice is yours. You will get invaluable constructive feedback on individual images, and also on the set as a whole, and this feedback should prove useful in developing your photography in a purposeful direction.

For this competition, a set can number between two and six individual images.

You may enter up to three images in the themed section, and a maximum of six images overall - so, for example, you could enter one image in the themed section and a set of five images in the open section.

The closing date for submissions will be Midnight on Sunday 28th June - that's six weeks away, so you have plenty of time to prepare your excuses for late submissions!

There will be a Dropbox link for you to upload your images - I will circulate this, along with instructions for naming files etc, in the next few days.

Quote from the IPF Web Site

"Please be advised, In light of COVID-19 and the National Guidelines on the gathering of large crowds and most importantly in the interest of the Health & Safety of all our affiliated clubs and their members the Irish Photographic Federation have postponed the upcoming National Club Championships, Annual General Meeting and May Distinction Sitting that were all scheduled to take place on the weekend of May 16th & 17th 2020.  We will be hopefully re-scheduling these events later in the year and will keep you all informed through the IPF Website and Social Media Platforms."

Irish Photographic Federation Web Site:

https://irishphoto.ie/

Most recent news and articles posted:

https://irishphoto.ie/news/

Distinction Sittings and Availability:

https://irishphoto.ie/distinctions/assessment-dates/