Tuesday, 17th October 2017 was competition night at the ECCG meeting at The Midleton Park Hotel. This was the final internal competition of the year before the main Photographer of the Year competition at the end of November. The theme was 'selfie' and, as photographers are notoriously shy about going round to the other side of the lens, this was going to be a challenge. Some were very creative however, and dodged getting themselves in the photo at all!

The overall highest score went to Finbarr O'Shea for the clever image above from the fourteen entries. When the points were counted, this is how the scores were distributed:

Finbarr O'Shea took first place in Grade A with a comfortable margin of 43 points from Anthony O'Connor in second with Zane Llewellyn just 2 points adrift.

With just two entries in Grade B, Noelle Lowney also had a comfortable margin of 34 points over Eileen Upton in second.

In Grade C, Jim Curtin was first with Miriam Keogh and Sonja Eisenberg not too far behind in second and third respectively.

The overall placings were Finbarr O'Shea (428), Anthony O'Connor (385) and Jim Curtin (383),

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 - Finbarr O'Shea
How I took that Shot - Noelle Lowney
How I took that Shot - Jim Curtin
Winners Presentation Photos
Competition Results and 2017 League Table

The twelfth Bodypainting Jam was organised in Cork's Camden Palace on Sunday 5th October 2014. Camden Palace is a large community arts centre located on Camden Quay across the river from the Opera House.

Bodypainting Cork  are a group of artists and models formed in 2010 when they started to arrange regular bodypainting jams in a large heated room at Camden Palace. Between 40 and 60 people attend each jam. It is not a competition. They do it just for the fun of it and it is free to take part, since everyone volunteers their time and skill. However they each give a modest donation to Camden Palace to help them with their bills. Artists provide their own paints, sponges and brushes and share their paints with artists who are doing this for the first time.

We arrived in the venue at about 3:30pm on a rainy afternoon. The artists were hard at work getting the models ready and you could see that they had been a long time at the prep work. We were given free movement around the venue and got to see the models getting painted as well as when they were completed. The artists and their willing models got ready in a room on the ground floor and one, by one, made their way up the stairs to the well-lit first floor open plan area. The natural light was great and a lot of shots taken both of the painted bodies and their creators. The standard was really high with some very different styles from Goth to grass to ghosts to just plain mad! The energy was really high and it was obvious that  everyone involved was enjoying themselves and very proud of their work. Plenty of interesting areas to get some great shots in different light conditions.

The first challenge was how to start the first communication with the models before taking a few shots, It was also my first body painting event and I did not know any of the models or the artists. However I encouraged myself and asked one of the models if she would like to pose for me and her reaction was " OF COURSE YOU CAN "  which encouraged me a lot.

As there was plenty of natural light, I started to shoot models by the windows and took them to different places around the ballroom. There was a piano at the corner which was a great location for shooting and I also used the stairs in the building.

The models were extremely easy going and willing to pose in a variety of ways. They gave me feedback that they really loved that I was giving them direction for the shots.

When it comes to equipment and the technique, I used a 50mm 1.8 and 24-70  2.8 on a Nikon D610. Most of my photos were taken with the 50mm at 1.8 as it gives great results in low light conditions. I always use Aperture Priority Mode when I shoot portraits to exclude background. My ISO was from 400 to 800 with some shots taken at 1000 ISO, especially at the end of the event as it got darker and we had less light the room.

I post processed the photos in Photoshop, mainly some colour adjustments, as I wanted to keep original colours and represent the real work of the artists. I have received some great feedback from the body painting group and from the models.

I am already looking forward the next body painting event in January and this time I will be more experienced more comfortable and will manage the time smarter as, unfortunately, time was not enough to shoot all the models. Special thanks to the models, artists and David Hegarty who supported us and guided us before and after the event.

- Sonnmez Belge & Matt Dornan

Mouse over the image below to activate the slideshow. Enjoy!

Matt Dornan-16

Matt Dornan-17

Matt Dornan-24

Matt Dornan-25

Sonmez Belge-1

Sonmez Belge-5

Sonmez Belge-8

Sonmez Belge-13

Sonmez Belge-14

Sonmez Belge-25

Sonmez Belge-28

Sonmez Belge-36

Sonmez Belge-37

Sonmez Belge-39

Sonmez Belge-49

Sonmez Belge-52

Matt Dornan-1

Matt Dornan-3

Matt Dornan-5

Matt Dornan-6

Matt Dornan-8

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