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This Week's Headlines

2024 Committee

 

Would you consider helping out with the Club?

 

Photography Challenge 2024 Launch

 

Shoot with Me Launch

 

Next Club Competition – Open Theme

 

 See below for the details of these stories and more!

News

New Committee

The 2024 committee is made up of the following officers. Per the constitution the following positions are mandatory elected roles:

Chair: Emily Gallagher

Secretary: Andy Quinlan

Treasurer: Nigel Leyland

Competitions Secretary: Jean Clarke

The constitution allows for additional positions to be appointed at the committee meeting following the AGM. The following members were thus appointed:

Vice Chairperson: Gerry Donovan

Outings: Eithne O’Leary

Shoot With Me: Pat Divilly

IT/Communications: Ian Gemmell

Membership: Deirdre Irwin

2024 Photo Challenge: Gerry Donovan

We offer all members of the committee and sub-committees our best wishes and thanks. It would be remiss not to express our sincere thanks to all those who have stepped down. Their service and their time, so freely given for the benefit of all members, is appreciated by all and a lantern of excellence that we all seek to emulate.

Full minutes of the 2023 AGM can be accessed here.   

Would You Consider Helping With The Club?

If you would like to help out with the IPF by becoming the IPF liaison officer, please get in touch as we need to start the IPF process soon for the next competition. 

We would like to encourage our members to share their areas of interest with the rest of the club. If you would like to give a presentation on any subject, please contact Emily. 


Launch of 2024 Photo Challenge (24PC)

The 2024 Photo Challenge is intended to encourage members to pursue a focused theme of photography over 9 months.

Process:

1. Develop a Statement of Challenge Theme that describes the purpose and approach for your challenge.

2. Produce up to 20 images that illustrate your theme to a standard that satisfies you, or produce a 5 to 10-minute AV of your images.

3. There are no restrictions on how or when you capture your images - remember our Offshoot principle: We Believe that the Image is Everything!


Timetable:

Feb 1: confirm your participation to the 24PC coordinator at 24PC@offshoot.ie.

End Sep: send your final images / AV to the coordinator.

Oct 14 & 21: present the results of your challenge at a club meeting.

Examples of Statement of Challenge Theme:

  • “The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same” – a project based around agricultural shows in Ireland that illustrate that traditions are still alive and well.
  • “Irish Wildlife” – a project that demonstrates that beauty is all around us.
  • “The Old and The New” – a project to illustrate the contrast between old and new urban developments.

Why Should You Take on the Challenge?

  • To kick start your photography in 2024.
  • To give your photography some focus over the coming months.
  • Perhaps in preparation for an IPF accreditation process.
  • To enjoy the challenge and to share your progress with other members.

Time to Act: So decide on your Theme and enjoy your shooting!

 

Launch of SWM 

 

If you have a particular skill that you would like to share with club members that would be great. However, to be a Group Leader you don’t need any skill other than enthusiasm and the ability to organise for six to eight group members to meet a number of times between February and May.

 

Your group might be focused on a particular photographic genre, such as macro or sports, a particular theme, such as Historic Big Houses or Buds of Spring, or a geographic focus such as the banks of the Royal or Grand Canal or any one of many beautiful parks in the greater Dublin area.

 

If you have a theme but are unsure about your organisational skills, or vice versa, you will be happy to organise a group but don’t have a theme, get in touch and we will identify another member that you can share the group leadership with.

OffShoot is a vibrant club that relies on club members to help make things happen and keep the vibrancy buzz going. If you have not made your contribution in the last few years, SWM is a terrific opportunity to step forward and make your contribution.

 

Let’s work together to meet the February 1st target and maximise “camera” time before two spectacular Showcase nights on May 20th and 27th.

If you would like to lead a group, contact me at swm@offshoot.ie with a brief description of your group proposal.


Competition Themes

The competition themes for this year are:

1. Open - February
2. Food - April 
3. Dereliction - June
4. Mono - September 
5. Open - November


WhatsApp Groups

OffShoot has two WhatsApp groups.

One is managed by the Outings Committee and is used solely in the lead-up to an outing and while it is taking place.  If anyone is not part of this group and would like to join please email your mobile number to Eithne O'Leary at outing.whatsapp@offshoot.ie.

The other one is OffShoot’s official social WhatsApp group. It is for anything members would like to put on it eg photos, tips, informal meetings/outings, jokes (clean of course) etc, etc.  Please feel free to share and contribute to it.  To join please email your mobile number to Ken McFarland at social.whatsapp@offshoot.ie.

What's On

Here are the next scheduled meetings and events for the Society:

Club Competitions

Next Club Competition

The judging for our next Club Competition has now been scheduled for 26th February. The theme will be 'Open' which means you can send in any image you like on any theme and in colour or mono.

As always we encourage you to enter and the biggest benefit from entering is the feedback from independent judges to help you improve your photography.   

This is a projected competition for all levels.  Hand-in will be on Monday 19th February and judging on Monday 26th February.

As usual please save your images in  JPEG format and name them with your Level Number, Membership Number, and Image Title: L2-001-Image title.jpg

You can submit up to 2 images to this Dropbox link.

The competition themes for this year are:

1. Open - February
2. Food - April 
3. Dereliction - June
4. Mono - September 
5. Open - November

Member's Photo of the Week

Moonrise, East Pier Dun Laoghaire - Enda Magee

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 webadmin@offshoot.ie. You will get an email when you have been added to the group. Please be patient as this is a manual process.]

From the OffShoot Website
Interesting Videos

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

MACRO photography tutorial: everything you need to know! - Ben Harvey Photography

Technical vs Creative Photography | Ask David Bergman - Adorama

IPF Links & Events

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/

Accessing Video Recordings of Meetings

You can access the recordings of past Zoom meetings from the OffShoot website.

These videos are available in the Videos section of the Member’s Area at https://www.offshoot.ie/member-area/. You will need to log in to the website to see the content of this section of the site.

Every member has a login to the site. If you don’t remember your login details go to https://www.offshoot.ie/login/ and select the ‘Forgot your password?’ link. Enter the email address you received this newsletter with and reset your password. Once you’ve reset your password you can login and catch-up on speakers you missed. Happy catching up!

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