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March winds have abated and April showers beckon. There are leaves on trees and flowers lift their head after the miserable days of Winter and birds and bees do what comes naturally. Everything tells us that Summer is just around the corner.
Travel plans are being made with brochures thumbed and the internet trawled for interesting places. And we are considering ‘will I bring a tripod?’, ‘will I bring a macro or a long zoom?’ and looking at the weight constraints.
The important thing is that we are now dusting off the camera equipment and enjoying the fellowship of our members on outings.
Last Monday – Competition Judging
There is so much more to photography than just pointing and clicking at a likely subject. Joe Doyle, in his inimitable style, judged our Competition on the theme of Architecture. It doesn’t matter whether you came in the merit places or not. What is important is that we all learn from the judge's experience about the merits of the image, where it could be improved and how to get the wow factor.
As photographers, we all have an emotional relationship with our images, and the interest is to see it judged by someone impartially. Joe gave us all his opinion on our images.
IPF Club Championships
The Club Championships competition is for photographers competing at any level with a limit of a maximum of two images per panel per photographer. In other words, two photos on the colour print panel and two on the monochrome print panel maximum per photographer.
Each panel comprises ten images, and each image is judged by a panel of three international judges. Judging itself is private. However, judges provide commentary on all panels before the awards ceremony.
We are asking members to submit up to five images each of both colour and black and white. When you have decided what five images you would like to submit for consideration, please upload them to this link.
The deadline for submitting your images is 8th April, so please act now to select your images.
IPF Distinctions
Let us first laud Gerry Donovan’s success in gaining his Licentiate at the Dunamaise Arts Centre on 29th March where his panel was unanimously praised by the assessors.
We are on a roll! Robbie O’Leary’s fellowship and Lionel Barker’s licentiate in November last. Now Gerry and some more to follow.
The IPF Club Championship event will be held on 17th & 18th May at the Mullingar Arts Centre.
The upcoming IPF Distinction dates below:
17th May - Mullingar – applications from 12.00 pm on 7th April to 10.00 pm Fri 25th April.
27th September - Dunamaise – applications from 12.00 pm on 12th August to 10.00 pm on 5th September.
22nd November - Thurles – applications from 12.00 pm on 7th October to 10.00pm on 31st October.
14 April – Members’ Images Night
On Monday, 14th April, it is proposed that we hold a Members’ Images Night, during which we will show members’ successful IPF panels and the images from our mono portrait evening last week.
November Connemara Weekend
Plans are advancing for a tremendous photographic trip to Connemara for the 7 – 9 November 2025 weekend. Details have already been circulated by email. If you require any further information, please contact any members of the Outings Committee.
Tips for Assessing Your Images
We have commented on the successes in IPF distinctions and in order to increase our knowledge of what makes a good photograph we will be having an open, printed competition on the 12th of May. The twist is, we, the members will be judging the images through a web app.
This is a great opportunity to learn more about judging images. With that in mind, there will be some judging guidance tips in the upcoming newsletters to assist with what to think about when you are judging an image, whether that is your own or someone else's.
Last week we gave you the first three tips:
First Impressions Matter
Technical Quality
Composition & Framing
If you missed them look at last week’s newsletter.
So here are some more things to consider:
- A good subject and a new and expensive camera do not always make a good photograph.
- No matter how interesting your subject is or how new and expensive your camera, they do not make photographs that communicate fact, provoke emotion or empathy or change people.
- The number of ‘likes’ your posts receive on Flickr or Instagram is not a true indication of how good your photos are.
The word Photography comes from the Greek and means ‘painting with light’ so light is the essential quality of a good photograph. Wherever there is light, you can make photographs. Learning to manage the light and your exposure helps determine the qualities of a good photograph.
Composition is how you arrange the elements within the frame of your photograph. It’s about what you include and what you leave out. You can control your compositions by your lens choice and the point of view from where you take your photograph.
Does everything in the frame add something to or detract from the photo? When your composition is well balanced, your photos will be more engaging regardless of whether you follow the rules of composition or not. For example, a strong leading line draws your eye to the subject. but there’s a distracting background. If that’s the case, you’d be best to abandon the idea of using the leading line. You need to explore other possibilities to compose your photo.
A judge will look at an image and make a preference on his/her own opinion. That opinion of the photograph will range from Awesome to Excellent to Good to Average to Poor. A good subject of an oft-photographed subject will often only be judged as good to average. For examples, a sunset is just a sunset = average, but add in a flock of birds in silhouette and the image goes up to excellent or good and a lion dozing could have been taken anywhere = average, but a lion eating a photographer = awesome.
“A good photograph is one that communicates a fact, touches the heart and leaves the viewer a changed person for having seen it. It is, in a word, effective.” – Irving Penn
Tips of the Week
Move about
Do you stick in one place while you’re taking pictures? You need to move your feet as much as possible. Climb on top of things, change the height of your camera, walk forward and backward, look behind you. Do whatever you need to do – but keep moving.
A dozen photos taken from the same height, facing the same direction, without moving your feet or tripod at all will all be the same! If your entire portfolio is taken without any experimentation, you’re missing out on some great photos.
Moving around is the only way to change the relative sizes and positions of the objects in your photo. Is the subject too big and the landscape too small? Stand back and zoom in. Want to fix a rock that looks distracting? Move around until it’s out of your composition, or too small to be a nuisance.
For wildlife photography, pay very close attention to the angle and height of your shot. Animals usually look better when you are at eye level with them, and it also tends to give backgrounds that are farther away, giving more subject isolation.
Shoot and Experiment
Practice, practice, practice. It’s a tip that will get you ahead in any skill, not just photography.
The more you experiment and the more photos you take, the better your photos will be. It’s not just about the quality, either – it’s also about quantity.
That’s not to say your photos are always going to be good or bad. Henri Cartier-Bresson said, “Your first 10,000 photographs are your worst”. You can take great photos when you’re starting out, but it requires some luck, and you’ll continue getting better as you take more pictures.
In short, the more time you spend on photography, the easier it will be to take the photos you have in mind. That’s the end goal in all of this – translating the image in your head and the emotions you feel into a photograph that makes other people experience the same thing. |
