Finbarr O’Shea, no stranger to the winners enclosure, took first place in Grade B in the recent ‘Symmetry’ competition. This is his account of how the image came to be:

“For the Symmetry competition John Tait and myself took a trip to Fota House a few days before the cut off date for entries. We spent the first few hours in the gardens looking for anything symmetrical and our next port of call was the Wildlife Park where we headed for the watering hole for tea and sandwiches”.

“We were then ready for part two of our shoot, the animals etc. My plan was to shoot the Zebras (with the camera). I thought I might get a symmetrical image here but it wasn’t to be as, after I processed it in Lightroom, the result was not good enough, so I was told”.

“Next day it was plan “B” – I was on my way to Cobh Cathedral. I tried a few external shots before I went inside to set up for my internal pictures. I decided to use my 16mm to 35mm lens. Just inside the front door, I set up my tripod, making sure it was level and in the dead center of the aisle. The light was very difficult to deal with as it was streaming in all over the Cathedral which also has fluorescent lighting. I took a few test shots and decided on a 4 sec. exposure at f11, ISO200 @16mm. I then processed the raw file in Lightroom”.

Well done Finbarr. See full competition details here.
How I took that Shot – Karen Fleming – winner Grade A
How I took that Shot – Jim O’Neill – winner Grade C