The rest of July...

A week in the tropics is all that is needed to get the ol’ probligo over the edge of troppo. Came back from Niue absolutely convinced that the Tuesday week was competition night at club. Worry lines crumpled the probligo countenance when the email revealed no evidence of an acknowledgement of his two entries for competition. Come the next Thursday when entries close and still no mail!!!! Panic!!!

What a silly old duffer I am. Wrong week; the competition was last night, a week later than I thought.

Now. How do I put this. Judging started with C Grade Open. A quick flick through the entries first, and the mask is the last of some 10 entries. Tenterhooks!!! The last three before mine earn Honours. Good images, too. The mask flicks on-screen; and the judge says “Only one word – Honours.” I must retake that image, if only to prove to myself that I can do it again; that it was not a fluke. Besides I need to set myself up with an infinity sheet – a good one - as well.

Then on to Set Subject. Same process, except that mine is about 5th of 8 or so entries. “Good to see someone thinking outside the square.” The difference between Highly commended and Honours? The little one on the end “looking” to the side. Thanks SWMBO, good idea and worth the effort.

End of the night comes and those present are starting to get restless after an exposition from worthy judge on flash; interesting ideas but how do I get a Sony system flash?? Thought required – mainly how to rob banks. Hang on, we forgot to nominate the night winners. C Grade image of the month – the probligo’s mask.

So, there y’go. In the club for six months and a winner already… Hard act to follow, that one.

Niue was a joy. Innumerable challenges. From caves including stalagmites and stalactites to hard tropic midday, deep shadow to early morning and late evening colours, HDR to soft monotones.

July will be a short month...

... because the ol probligo and Mrs probligo are heading north for a week. Being empty-nesters does have the advantage of providing a little extra from time to time - usually ever second year or so - so that we can at least give the pretence of a higher level of social standing than we actually enjoy. So for that reason, we are heading this year to the general vicinity of the equator to a place known localy as "The Rock" and in other places as Niue.

This being the case, and having had the good fortune to have listened (for once) to the opines of Mrs probligo, I have already sorted the entries for this month's projected image competition at the club.


The set topic for this month is "Eyes" and I credit the missus for this idea. Taken with +4 and +2 diopters, RAW file against a black card background. Post camera processing was limited to knocking the black up by three notches to remove the texture of the card, knocking the highlights back by a similar amount, and converting to b&w to remove the (quite bad) chromatic abberation.

While setting it up it reminded me a little of the old school photo and hence the small one on the end with his attention diverted elsewhere...


I will let the reader sort this one. It is scanned from a photo I took about two years back; one of a series that I intend taking up again.

Post scan processing is limited to masking out the horizon line because I was not using an infinity sheet. It was going to be my entry in Set but it is heading for Open instead.