The image above took first place in Grade B for new ECCG member, Noel O’Keeffe in our recent ‘Seascape’ competition. This is how it came about:
We were on a family trip to Mail Head last year. I took a good few pics around the area.
It was taken on Nikon D7200, using my very used 17-55 lens. Manual, ISO 125 35mm F10 & 1/250 sec.
There was very little post-production done on the image.
– Noel O’Keeffe
The image above, by Finbarr O’Shea LIPF’ took first place in Grade A in our recent ‘Black and White’ competition. This is how he made the shot:
I took my picture at Coumeenoole on the Dingle Peninsula, Co. Kerry, a location I
visit a few times a year. I think it’s best to photograph this beach
when the tide is on its way out at sunset. I converted the file from
colour to b&w with Nik silver efex which is a free download.
My camera settings for the picture were: ISO100, F16, 1 Sec, with a 6 Stop
ND Filter. 16/35 lens at 20mm Focal length, on a full frame camera.
– Finbarr O’Shea
The image above took first place in Grade A in our recent ‘Seascape’ competition. This is how it was made:
I knew about the sea view printed competition I decided to take a photo that will be both normal photography and my favourite style digital composition.
For the photoshoot organised by ECCG with the theme seascape I invited one of my models. The photoshoot took place in Ballycotton at the time of the sunrise. I got the idea to put a tornado in the background at the same time she doesn’t look back just calmly looking into the future hoping for a better time. Then two days later and 20 layers on photoshop and you saw the final result.
– Andrew Corkbeg
This shot by Niall Sharkey was placed joint first in Grade B in our recent ‘Seascape’ printed competition. This is how the shot came about:
I took the photo down beside Knockadoon signal tower near Youghal, Co. Cork. I positioned myself close to the cliff edge to take the shot. It was taken at sunrise and the colour in the sky was amazing!
There was lovely cloud cover to bring texture and interest to the sky but what caught my eye was the deep red and pink hues from the rising sun as it lit up the undersurface of those clouds. Also, there was a significant warm/cool contrast between the seaward side and the land which gave it an almost 2-tone look.
Admittedly, I was aware of a seascape competition coming up so I needed some land/sea contrast and framed the image to catch both. My widest lens was 24mm and retrospectively I was sorry I didn’t stitch two images together in photoshop as the highlight of the scene was the vivid sky colour which was out of shot! Next time!!
I took the image on a tripod. The camera was a Nikon D810 with a 24-120mm lens. A slower shutter speed was used to soften the sea a little and capture the detail better at the base ISO of 64.
– Niall Sharkey
This shot by Ray O’Connell took 1st place in Grade B in our recent ‘Black and White’ projected competition. This is how it came about:
My entry of “Rider falling from a horse” was taken during the club shoot at the Point to Point in Carrigtwohill, Co. Cork on 3rd Feb. 2019. It was a mixed cloudy/bright day and I was lucky to get some moody clouds during my shot which cut down somewhat the danger from highlights in the sky. Shooting fast-moving animals / objects I tend to use Shutter Priority mode (TV on my Canon) and you need to set a very fast shutter speed to freeze the action which can mean compromising on the depth of field as you
need to open the lens up more (small f-stops numbers) but this also can have the effect of making your subject jump out against the background. I used 1/1250sec for this shot on my Canon EF 70-200mm f2.8 lens at 95mm, ISO 100 which gave me f3.2.
Positioning is very important so I stood on the track just past one of the jumps and side on to the approaching horses to catch them as they landed. Post-production in Lightroom I removed Chromatic Aberration / Enabled lens profile, increased blacks and shadows, brought down highlights and whites. After these changes, I then
converted the photo to B/W by using the Lightroom preset “B/W Low Contrast”. There was a rope extending from the pole to the edge of the photo behind the horse which I found distracting so removed this in Photoshop using the Spot healing brush.
– Ray O’Connell