As you read this Newsletter the Offshoot outing to Mulranny, Co. Mayo is underway. In all my years with Offshoot I can’t recall seeing such a comprehensive  Shoot Locations Guide and Itinerary Suggestions as prepared by Eithne and her Outings committee. It is of the highest standard and worthy of a guidebook on its merits. Yet again we have to offer our thanks to all involved in this superb ‘handout’. As the weather bodes to be clement and the skies dark may all participants in this jaunt to the West of Ireland photographs both enjoy the experience and produce some stunning photographs.

Same But Different – a Processing Challenge

As everyone knows, photography and processing digital pictures are open to interpretation, ideas and inspiration.

So, as a fun challenge, we have provided four raw files  here: 

Take as many of the four as you would like and process them how you want. Then, we will review members’ results on 4th November at a club meeting.

Please upload your processed images here by Friday, 1st November and put either your name or membership number on them.

The idea is to inspire people to attempt to process images and, maybe, to show their results and reasons for how they did it etc.

(Please note that the images remain the property of the photographer)

New Committee Members Needed

Several existing committee members will not continue in 2025, having served the constitutionally permitted terms. We are looking for new members to help steer your club into the future and, in particular, a chairperson and vice chair.

Offshoot is not a commercial body, and we rely on the support of members. Each year we have the same message: ‘your photographic Society needs you’.

You are Offshoot and without you we are nothing so, if you would consider taking up this exciting opportunity, please get in touch with any existing committee member to discuss your interest.

Liam & Helen Strike Again

The Maistro of Audio Visual Photography, Liam Haines, has again won plaudits and success in yet another competition. There seems no end to his prodigious talent. See and enjoy Liam’s  version of the song the English County Garden at a gala presentation on Monday next or for those keen to have a preview at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDFUqFgGXVQ .

Helen also succeeded as a finalist in the Irish Examiner Coastal Heritage Competition. See her image and winners at https://www.irishexaminer.com/lyc24coastalheritage/.

Next Club Competition – Open

The next competition will be 'Open', which means that you can submit anything you like in either mono or colour.

It will also be a printed competition, so is an opportunity to get some images printed before Christmas. As with the last competition we hope to project the images on the night but the judge will only be judging the printed version and will only see the projected images on the night.  

We encourage all grades to enter, as getting an independent critique of your images is beneficial.

It is very important that you follow the format below as this greatly helps to collate the images and verify them before the judging.   

L[Competiton Level]-[Membership Number]-[Title].[File Extension]

Examples

L2-444-This is my image title.tif  

L1-123-This is my image title and spaces are allowed.jpg

The upload link is 360-dpi.com.

Each member can submit up to 2 images. It should be noted that by uploading to Steve, you have agreed for Steve to pass on the images to us for the presentation.

Images must be uploaded by Monday, 4th November for printing, which means we will be labelling for the judge on Monday, 11th November, and judging on Monday, 18th November.

We encourage you to enter and look forward to seeing a great selection of images.

Untitled by Ken McFarland

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.]

What's On 

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

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

What Happened to Autumn - Thomas Heaton

New Lightroom Features - Matt Kloskowski

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/

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!