Tag Archives: Finbarr O’Shea

Group Meeting – 15/4/14

finoneill

Last night’s meeting at the Midleton Park Hotel saw another packed agenda and among the large attendance we were delighted to welcome three new members.

The main speaker of the night was railway enthusiast, Finbarr O’Neill, who showed his slideshow of various railway-related images captured all over the island of Ireland with both diesel and steam engines represented as well as some interesting railway architecture and engineering works. Finbarr spoke about the best places to photograph on the various railways around the country and also of outings by the steam preservation societies during which it’s possible to make classic steam locomotive shots. Good pre-planning and a little bit of luck would seem to be the main requirements for this type of photography. You can see some of Finbarr’s images at his Flickr page here.

Following Finbarr were Group members Karen Fleming and Finbarr O’Shea who presented slideshows of their own featuring macro, portraiture, landscapes and seascapes.

A mini bring and buy sale, held while teas and coffees were served, saw some brisk trading that would rival any scene in the Coal Quay or Moore St. – nothing like the chance of a bargain to get the blood flowing!

Thanks to all the speakers, those in attendance and The Midleton Park Hotel for a great evening.

 

SACC Competition in Kilkenny

Kevin Day-5

On Sunday 22/3/14, myself and Finbarr O’Shea headed for Kilkenny for the Inter-Club competition run by Southern Association of Camera Clubs (SACC ).

There were sixteen clubs represented and the standard was very high. Each club could enter panels of ten prints in the colour and black competition and ten digital colour or black and white images in the projected competition. The prints were arranged in a certain format to form a panel while the digital images were projected in the sequence selected by the entrant. ECCG entered just one panel in the projected competition to ‘dip our toes’ in the water this time and we intend to enter the National Inter-Club Competition next May. On the day, the Cork Camera Club was the overall winner.

The SACC said they will bring UK photographer Tim Pile over this year for a series of talks to the various clubs. They also organise the ‘Celtic Challenge’ which will be to Spike Island and Gougane Barra this year.

When the work was done, we got out the cameras and headed for the Castle in the city center. On the way we stopped at St. Kieran’s College, where we got some great shots. We arrived at the river on time for a nice sunset.

We were very lucky with the day, blue skies, sunshine and the water was like glass!

Kevin Day

Mouse over the image below to see and activate the slideshow controls.

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ECCG ‘Decay’ Competition – 18/3/14

Tuesday 18/3/14 was competition night for ECCG with the judging of the second competition of the year which had the theme, ‘Decay’. There were twenty two entries, each with an interesting and unique interpretation of the theme.

The results were as follows:

Above photographs of the winners and runners up with Chariperson, Denis Barry by Finbarr O’Shea and Fidelma Read.

See all entries below. Mouse over the image to see and activate the slideshow control buttons.

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Well done to all who entered and to the worthy winners and runners up who each receive 12, 10 and 8 points, respectively, in each grade, towards the 2014 Photographer of the Year Competition.

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

 

Shoot at Mahon Falls – 2/3/14

Mahon FallsECCG members travelled to Mahon Falls on Sunday 2/3/14 but had to abandon the shoot due to torrential rain. Requiring a bit of ingenuity, the camera appears to have been jury-rigged inside a car, safely out of harms way, while our gallant members, Bill Sisk, Finbarr O’Shea and Brian Murphy, braved the weather for the obligatory group pic for the blog.

150Km round trip, 1 photo: a disappointing return but never mind – there’s always the next time!

How I Took That Shot – Finbarr O’Shea

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:

Finbarr O Shea - Symmentry, Cobh Cathedral (1280x853)

“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