Tag Archives: Competition

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.

 

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

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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See also:
How I took that Shot – Karen Fleming
How I took that Shot – Kevin Day
How I took that Shot – Catherine Millad
Competition Results and 2015 League Table

How I Took That Shot – Finbarr O’Shea

Coming into the ‘Emotion’ competition, Finbarr O’Shea had a first and two second placings in Grade B already under his belt this year. When the numbers were crunched in the ‘Emotion’ competition he came out on top again with the image below. This is his account of how the image came to be:

Finbarr OShea-7

My shot for the recent group competition “Emotion” was a portrait of my granddaughter Mikaela. The shot came about when my son Mark and Mikaela were reacting with one another in the kitchen.

I thought a square crop suited this picture best.

The camera settings for the shot were:

f5.6 1/60 sec 400 ISO, with speedlight flash, focal length 70mm.

– Finbarr

 

ECCG ‘Emotion’ Competition – 16/9/2014

‘Emotion’ was the theme to the latest of our competitions held at the Midleton Park Hotel on Tuesday 16/9/14. Following two viewings of the projected images, marks were awarded and results calculated.

As results were fed into our scoring software, a close battle was evident in all Grades for the top spots with very little separating the places at the end.

emotion_results

For the fourth time this year, Karen Fleming took first place in Grade A putting her in very strong position coming into our final competition, Photographer of the Year, in November.

After a first and two second placings, Finbarr O’Shea took first place again in Grade B while Trevor O’Connell took his second first place of the year in Grade C. Trevor also took third place overall with his score of 432 to join Karen Fleming, first and Fidelma Read, second, from Grade A in the top three.

Well done to everyone who entered. See all entries below. Mouse over the image to activate the slideshow controls. Enjoy.

[slideshow_deploy id=’5363′]

 

How I Took That Shot – Denis Barry

First place, in Group B, in the recent ‘Decay’ competition went to Denis Barry for his shot of a distressed window.

07 - Denis Barry

I first noticed this house one morning in early March at around 10am and the sun was shining on it just as it is in the photograph above. As I had no time to stop then, I called there later that day but the front of the house was now in shade. I preferred the earlier look and, confident that I might get a ‘Decay’ image from the building, I resolved to return on another sunny morning which presented itself about a week later.

As I am wont to do, I shot the building wide from all angles, slowly moving in until I got tight on the details. The more I looked at this particular window, the more it appealed to me. The net curtain hinted to the one-time human occupants while the advanced state of decay said those people were long since gone. The sapling growing from the window sill underlined the fact that life will cling on and prosper regardless.

While taking in my surroundings I noticed a small bird flying in and out of an adjacent window with nesting material. The pattern became clear as, on the way in, it would land on the sash, pause, then fly into the building. On the way out it would again land on the sash, pause and then fly on. I decided to try and make an image of it as it paused on the way out and, after what seemed like an eternity holding the camera to my eye, out it came and paused/posed on the sash as expected. I squeezed off half a dozen frames in high-speed release, more in hope than expectation, and luckily nailed one before it flew on about its parental duties.

When post processing, I made a selection of the bird and put it on its own layer before compositing it with the preferred window image thereby creating the final competition entry above. The fact that both images were shot, practically together and in the same light, made the compositing process that much easier.

Shot with a Nikon D300 and an AF-S DX NIKKOR 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6G ED VR lens
Window image shot in Raw at 40mm, 125th sec, f8, ISO200, WB: Daylight.
Bird shot in Raw at 135mm, 500th sec, f5.6, ISO400, WB: Daylight.
Composited in Photoshop and post processed in Lightroom.

See also:
How I took that Shot – Karen Fleming
How I took that Shot – Joseph Keniry

 

How I Took That Shot – Joseph Keniry

Joseph Keniry took first place in Grade C, and second place overall, in the recent Group competition whose theme was ‘Decay’. Here’s how the image came about:

16 Jospeh Keniry

 

“Delighted with result, thanks to all. I took this photo while on holiday up the west of Ireland.”

“We went to Inis Oirr, one of the Aran Islands, where a local man brought us to a 1960s shipwreck called the” Plassy”… It’s also known as “The Fr. Ted Boat”.”

“The face-like feature on the hull had a rustic look which caught my eye.”

“As our three young children were with us, I only got a chance to take one close-up shot with my Canon IXUS 70 (pocket camera), hand held, about 1m from the subject on auto.”

“Well worth a return trip ……………”

See also:
How I took that Shot – Karen Fleming
How I took that Shot – Denis Barry