Category Archives: Competitions

How I Took That Shot – Miriam Keogh

Miriam Keogh took the top spot in Grade C in our recent ‘Vacation’ competition with the shot above. This is how the shot came about:

This was a bridge I was walking over in Pontevedre in Spain as part of the Camino Way. It was early morning and only fellow walkers were to be seen beginning the days journey. The water was so calm and the sun just rising which gave it the orange glow and I just had to stop and take a photo.

 – Miriam Keogh

Well done Miriam.

Click here to see a gallery of images from the competition.

See also:
How I took that Shot – John Tait
How I took that Shot – Noelle Lowney
Winners Presentation Photos
Competition Results and 2017 League Table

ECCG ‘Vacation’ Competition – 05/09/2017

With summer already fading from memory, the first ECCG meeting of the autumn, held at the Midleton Park Hotel on 5th September last, featured the fifth internal competition of the year with the theme Vacation. In a departure from the usual projected competitions, entrants were required to enter prints for this competition. With twenty-three entries, competition was close across all grades but in the end, the image above by Noelle Lowney, got the best overall score at 566 points. The rest of the top-three places across the grades went as follows:

In an extremely close contest, John Tait won Grade A by just two points from Fidelma Read while Anthony O’Connor took third only three points adrift.

Noelle Lowney was first in Grade B with 566 points, the highest score of the competition with four points separating Remi Boron and Eileen Upton at 545 and 541 respectively.

Miriam Keogh had a a 43 point winning margin in Grade C from Andrew Foley,in second with 498 points and Paul Stack in third with 480 points.

The overall placings were Noelle Lowney (566), John Tait (557) and Fidelma Read (555),

Well done to all twenty-three entrants.

Click here to see a gallery of images from the competition.

See also:
How I took that Shot – John Tait
How I took that Shot – Noelle Lowney
How I took that Shot – Miriam Keogh
Winners Presentation Photos
Competition Results and 2017 League Table

ECCG Shoots 2017 Competition – 06/06/2017

ECCG’s fourth internal competition of the year was for images taken during any of the Group’s shoots held during 2017. With no other theme to focus the entries, they were indeed varied as can be seen in the competition’s gallery.

While the best picture overall was the brilliant portrait above taken by Noelle Lowney at last weekend’s Innishannon Steam Rally, there were some great battles across the grades as the votes were counted.

When the final tally was recorded the spoils were divided as follows:

In Grade C, Paul Stack took first place with a winning margin of seven points from Miriam Keogh with Andrew Foley taking third.

Noelle Lowney had a very comfortable win in Grade B, a full 68 points ahead of Jim O’Neill in second place while Keith Johnson took the third spot.

Grade A saw the tightest of margins with Denis Barry holding onto a one point lead from Michael Hickey to win the Grade while Kevin Day was only another eight points adrift in third.

In the overall scores, Noelle Lowney had a thirty point cushion in first place with Paul Stack and Miriam Keogh taking second and third places respectively.

Well done to all twenty entrants.

Click here to see a gallery of images from the competition.

See also:
How I took that Shot – Michael Hickey
How I took that Shot – Noelle Lowney
How I took that Shot – Paul Stack
Competition Gallery
Winners Presentation Photos
Competition Results and 2017 League Table

How I Took that Shot – Zane Llewellyn

In our recent ‘Perspective’ competition, Zane Llewellyn took first place in Grade A, for the third time in a row this year, with the clever image (left).

This is how he made the image:

When I think of perspective, I immediately think of the “Small, Far Away” scene in Fr. Ted.
I really wanted to use this as my inspiration, but unfortunately there weren’t any cows out in March and I was also missing a priest costume.
Plan B…
The first step in taking this photo was to move all the furniture out of the way, as this was the only floor that would look like a wall.
I took the photo in landscape so it would be in portrait when rotated which would help to emphasise the vertical lines and make it more believable. I positioned the table and chair while checking the framing, once I was happy with the basic composition I set up the books, picture and lamp. I only thought afterwards that I should have tried turning the lamp on!
I had to handhold the camera as I was backed up into the corner to try and get everything into frame, I tried the flash directly and bouncing it off the ceiling but the dark floor was proving difficult. So, I ended up using a white umbrella just out of shot.
I tried to coax my dog into the photo, but she didn’t want anything to do with it, so I grabbed the neighbours cat!
Then the fun began, the cat was walking around wondering what was going on, while I shot a handful of photos. My model son?, my son the model played a blinder and he really made the shot. So a big thanks & some biscuits to him for that 🙂
I used the following settings for the final shot,
24mm 1/180s @ f/8 ISO100
Flash – ETTL mode shooting through a white umbrella.
Fantastic shot Zane. Well done!

How I Took that Shot – Eileen Upton

In our recent ‘Perspective’ competition, Eileen Upton took first place in Grade B with the image above. This is how she made the image:

When the theme of “Perspective” was announced I immediately thought of my friend, Elizabeth Mansfield , an Artist, whom I photographed last year in Ballycotton when she was starting a painting. Elizabeth is a member of “en Plein Éire” and works in both oil and watercolour mediums. I told her of my idea for a photograph and asked if she would recreate the scene for me but this time with the finished painting. We met up at the original vantage point and with paint brush in hand she posed for me. In my photograph I tried to portray my perspective of the Painter’s perspective of the Island of Ballycotton.

Taken with Canon EOS 80D

Settings used :-
Manual Mode.
Lens : 17 – 55 mm
Aperture: F 9
Shutter speed: 1/250.
ISO: 400.

Well done Eileen!

Click here to see a gallery of images from the competition. Enjoy!

See also:
How I took that Shot – Zane Llewellyn
How I took that Shot – Sonja Eisenberg
Competition Gallery
Winners Presentation Photos
Competition Results and 2016 League Table

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