Tag Archives: Christmas

New member, Catherine Millad, won Grade C in our first internal competition of the year with her stunning ‘lightpainting’ image below. The theme was ‘Christmas’ and the image scored 552 points which was also the overall highest score across all Grades – an outstanding 41 points clear of the next placed image. Well done Catherine.

This is how she created it:

19 Catherine Millad Christmas

I was stumped for ideas for the Christmas competition and had resigned to the fact that I would not be entering but while travelling back from the Youghal Shoot with one of camera group members, he told me about light painting. I had never heard of light painting and as I’m always interested in trying out new techniques, I decided to look it up online and it sparked the idea for this photo.

Since the photograph had to be taken in the dark, I could only take the shot at night. To set it up, I draped some black velvet fabric over a kitchen chair and placed the baubles on the seat. I tried baubles with various surface finishes but found the metallic finish was ideal as it reflected the spiral shape of the light. The only light source I could find in the house was my son’s night light which has a single white LED and red plastic rim (which created the red ghost-like colour in the tree).

As I did not know how long I would need to “paint” the tree shape, I used the bulb mode on the camera. In order to get the settings right, I had to go through a series of attempts by switching off the lights, using a remote to release the shutter and then paint the tree. I was adjusting the aperture and ISO after each attempt until I achieved the desired result. Once I was happy with the settings, all that remained was to paint a decent looking Christmas tree.

Camera: Nikon D3100
Lens: Nikkor VR 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G
Aperture f/20, ISO 400
Shot in RAW format

In post processing, I darkened a selection on the seat area where the fabric was visible and cloned out some random small light streaks.

ECCG ‘Christmas’ Competition – 20/1/15
How I took that Shot – Karen Fleming
How I took that Shot – Kevin Day
Competition Results and 2015 League Table

ECCG ‘Christmas’ Competition – 20/1/2015

‘Christmas’ was the theme of the first internal competition of 2015 held at the Midleton Park Hotel on Tuesday 20/1/15. Following two viewings of the twenty six entries, marks were awarded which yielded the following results:

Scores

As results were fed into our scoring software, it soon became evident that some of our veteran podium occupiers would be joined by some of our newer members. Karen Fleming took first once again in Grade A beginning 2015 where she finished 2014. Finbarr O’Shea maintained his form coming second while Dave Geary came in at third just a few points adrift.

: 1st Grade A – Karen Fleming

: 2nd Grade A – Finbarr O’Shea

: 3rd Grade A – Dave Geary

Grade B was won by Kevin Day who was joined at second and third by newly promoted Joe Keniry and Trevor O’Connell.

: 1st Grade B – Kevin Day

: 2nd Grade B – Joe Keniry

: 3rd Grade B – Trevor O’Connell

New member, Catherine Millad won Grade C in fine style, achieving 552 points in the process which also bagged her the overall high score – an outstanding 41 points clear of the next placed image. She was joined on the Grade C podium by fellow new members, Jane Fleming and RJ Mani.

: 2nd Grade C – Jane Fleming

: 3rd Grade C – RJ Mani

The overall placings were, as mentioned, Catherine Millad in first place, who was joined by Karen Fleming and Jane Fleming who each scored 511. Once this tie was broken, second and third places went to Karen and Jane respectively.

Well done to all entrants and congratulations to those who occupied the first, second and third spots in each Grade who will get 12, 10 and 8 points respectively towards this year’s Photographer of the Year competition. Well done especially to the Grade C winner and runners up who had exceptionally good scores and laid down a marker for everyone for the rest of the year.

Mouse over the image below to activate the slide show and see all entries. Enjoy!

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Christmas 2014 in Cork City

James Brady-6

Eager to get shooting again after the Christmas holidays, a group of ECCG members descended on Cork City on 28/12/14. A bitterly cold day, the city didn’t disappoint with Christmas lights, reflections and good cheer to be found in abundance.

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

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