April brings the sweet spring showers...

Flanders and Swanne have a great deal to answer for; and in the same breath, to be thanked for as well.



Here it is not so much sweet spring showers, as promised autumnal downpours. It is the continuing story of an La Nina summer; warm, wet and windy. Perhap that is what has gotten into the ol’ probligo brain and growed a fungus that has brought all of these together at the one time.



F’rinstance, the judging of set topic competitions. I eventually caved in to the pressure and posted a minor rant on the club Flikr page. There are no replies as yet, nor do expect that any will take up the glove.



CT was very fair on my two efforts. I got the HC and M that I expected; merit for the wave, HC for the cold morning. The interesting things came out of his comments.



For example, he saw the wavebreak as including quite a bit more than it needed. The before and his idea of what it should have been cropped to is shown. In view of the Merit score, I am not going to argue that one.







The Taupo cold morning went the same way. Before and after are below. Perception is a deceptive rather than constructive mental force. There is recent research reinforcing the idea that the normal brain spends a good deal of its time telling fibs to the rest of itself; this most particularly through memory and recall. The idea behind the original frame was to push the depth of field to the limit by getting the rock (bottom left) and boats in focus. I reckon that was achieved, so I am fairly happy on that score. I don’t think that the image lies entirely with the boats. It is the relationships; boats, distance from shore, coming fog… But, as I said, perception is a cruel mistress.














Set topic this month is “reflections”; some very good efforts were presented in Prints Monday night. I spent some time over the weekend seeking out the reflection of trees in a mud puddle taken down Whangamata way last spring. It was a vague attempt to replicate the Escher drawing of a puddle with tyre tracks and footprints. Very poor in that light and the more I look at the original frame, the less that survives the crop tool.



There was a series of images that I took some years back in Cornwall Park; autumn leaves sitting in the road channel with water. One or two of those would go close so I am going to try and get out there in two weeks to repeat the exercise. Not sure that SWMBO would appreciate sitting around whilst I go puddle jumping. But there y’go.



I think this month is when I shall submit the “Buddha brings Enlightenment to Chaos”. Time I got that one off my chest. That kind of implies that I expect my reflections image to be weak. I hope not.

... and go March-ing on.

The set topic for March is "Seascape/Coastal". One would imagine (well this one certainly did) that the topic would draw comments like "too much sunset, not enough coastal" from the judges.

Well, I went to prints night to find out. Judge was one of the seniors, a member of the team that took the (very good) course I attended last year. The extreme (in my book) was three images (one in each of the grades) all of the same marram seed - the kind of thing that blows though wild-west ghost towns, a tumble-weed. Yea, I guess that it was coastal to the extent that there was sand, and some evidence of water that may have been salty. That left me with the problem of trying hard to find something from the past twelve months or so that would fit the bill.


First selection was a b&w version I had put together when it was taken last year. Oh, there are five frames in that stitch. There is a sixth frame that does not quite fit on the left; it is about 10* too far to the left. I reshot that frame after the first pan, and the sky had changed so much that it looks like it had been taken half an hour earlier - or later for that matter.

There is also a series of frames taken in January.





Not really what I was wanting...












This is the best of the bunch so far. It needs a crop, but the right elements are there. Oh, I had stacked up every ND filter I have, total about ND9, and the exposure time was 1.5sec to film. I have learned enough that the Lumix just does not like 1.5 secs. And the horizon is a bit on the tipsy side.






This looks the same, it was the same set-up, but I tried something just a bit different. It is in fact three 0.5sec exposures. Being film one can do these things.

It has interesting possibilities, and next time we go north I will have a film ready for the job. For this competition? No.




The other possibility twists the rules just a bit - like with this one from Taupo. Not that I am overly happy with the frame; it does have its defects.












So, there it is. What to put in for open? No idea at the moment. Perhaps one of the "failures" from the above. I want to keep the "Indecision" frame for later.

One of the set topics for later in the year is "Reflections". It is raining at the moment, and I doubt that we will have a six-month drought through winter. I would like to go back to the Viaduct and play with the lines and colours with some water on them. That might have possibilities. There is also "Night Life" and "Traffic" to consider. Might be able to combine all three...

In the meantime, it will be interesting to see what the projected images judge makes of the entries he has to consider. I am also interested to hear if he has any comment on the latitude adopted by the prints judge. Both are topics that can not be debated on the club site because of the fact that the judge is ctphotography himself.


UPDATE...

Well the decision is made -

The Taupo frame goes to Open, the long "rock" frame goes to Set. Might score a HC for one, both is a long shot...

Went to the Pacific Festival today - very tiring. Best we saw was De La Salle College Niue kapa. VERY energetic...