Next Monday – Presentation Darragh

Muldowney

Next Monday evening, we will have a presentation from Darragh Muldowney. Darragh is well known to many members as he leads workshops with Peter Gordon’s company Explore Light. Specialising in fine art photography projects Darragh has exhibited his work both in Ireland and internationally. His collection ‘Jewellery Box – Ireland’s Hidden Gems’ was exhibited in Ireland and  5 cities in the USA, Mexico City, Berlin and Dubai with the support of Culture Ireland and the Department of Foreign Affairs. His ‘Out of Thin Air’ collection and photobook received wonderful acclaim and the 2015 FEP European Photobook of the year award in the landscape category. Daragh was also named Irish Professional Landscape Photographer of the Year in 2019 and 2020.

IPF Club Championships

The IPF Club Championship event will be held on 17th and 18 May at the Mullingar Arts Centre.

Distinction Assessment Notifications and Dates appear on the IPF Home Page when they are available, along with the link to the applications.

Please find 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.

November Connemara Weekend

Plans are advancing for a tremendous photographic trip to Connemara for the weekend of 7 – 9 November 2025. Details have already been circulated by email. If you require any further information, please get in touch with any members of the Outings Committee.

Shoot With Me – Final Dates for Submissions

All the SWM group activities should be coming to a conclusion soon.

Each group leader should make arrangements to have images uploaded by Monday 12th May, and for printed images the upload date is Sunday May 4th .

The SWM Showcases are on Monday 19th May and Monday 26th May. As ever it’s always an enjoyable night seeing the images produced by each group.

Tips for Assessing Your Images

On the 12th of May, we will be having an open, printed competition.

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. 

1. First Impressions Matter

Take a moment to absorb the image before analysing details (Wow factor).

Does it grab your attention? Does it evoke an emotion or tell a story?

2. Technical Quality

Exposure: Well-balanced highlights, shadows, and midtones.

Focus & Sharpness: Subject should be in sharp focus unless blur is intentional.

Depth of Field: Appropriate for the subject (shallow for portraits, deep for landscapes, etc.).

Noise & Artefacts: Minimal, unless used creatively.

3. Composition & Framing

Balance: Does the image feel visually balanced?

Rule of Thirds: Is the subject positioned effectively?

Leading Lines & Framing: Do elements guide the viewer’s eye?

Cropping: Does the framing enhance or distract? Any unnecessary empty space?

The next competition is 'Open - Printed', meaning you can submit anything you like in either mono or colour.

Since this a printed competition, you should save your images in TIF format (Ideally in ADOBE RGB 1998 Colour Space) and name them with your Level Number, Membership Number and Image Title: L2-001-Image title.tif  e.g. L1-123-This is my image title and spaces are allowed.tif.  There is an optional addition of three letters to choose alternative paper types (see the section on Paper Type below).

Note: JPEG files are acceptable, but the image quality will be somewhat lower.

As always, we encourage you (especially new members) to enter. The most significant benefit from entering is the feedback from independent judges to help you improve your photography.

For this competition, the club members will be judging the images (more on this later).  For this reason, you can only submit one image.  So get shooting, and we look forward to seeing a great selection of images. 

This is a printed competition for all levels.  

Printing Images

If you are printing your own, the deadline for hand-in is Monday, 28th April. Please bring the prints to the club and give them to either Lionel or Jean.  You can also send Lionel a digital copy via WeTransfer (Do not upload the images to Dropbox).

For those of you printing via 360-dpi (Steve), the process has changed and hopefully will be less work.    The upload is now to the same Dropbox as for Projection. The deadline for upload is Monday, 21st April, which is a week earlier than in previous newsletters.

The images uploaded to the Dropbox will be sent to Steve for printing. This means that by uploading the image to the Dropbox, you agree with your images being printed by Steve. 

Payment

You will receive, by e-mail, a payment link from 360-dpi for the images you have submitted – with the names and paper type requested.   Please pay shortly after receiving the link.

Paper Type

If you want your images on the standard Lustre paper there is no change for you.  

If you wish to have a different paper type, you need to add three letters after your membership number in the file title.  The payment line invoice you receive from Steve will indicate the price and paper requested.

If you don’t do this, the assumption is Lustre Paper.

Paper Type / Code / Price

Lustre / LUS / €13.51

Fine Art Pearl / FAP / €20.01

Photo Rag Matt / PRM / €20.01

For example, if you wish to have your images on Fine Art Pearl, you should name your file: L2-001-FAP-Image title.tif  

If you omit these letters, the assumption is Lustre Paper.

Upload images for printing here:

https://www.dropbox.com/request/sLZJEgB245KFzBpAv8Oc

Judging of the prints will be in the Club on Monday, 12th May.  Please note that on this night, the judging will be done by the members themselves. More information on this will be provided in a later newsletter.

Competition Themes for 2025

The themes of the four competitions remaining for this year are:

• Open – submission 21th April, judging 12th May – Printed
• Mono – submission 2nd June, judging 16th June – Projected
• Landscape – submission 22nd September, judging 6th October – Printed
• Open – submission 10th November, judging 24th November – Projected

Spot the Spider by Frazer Meredith

Just a note for new members – if you want any of your pictures considered for the photo of the week, you just have to post them to the OffShoot Flickr group at:

https://www.flickr.com/groups/offshoot_society.

There’s also the latest images published on Flickr that are displayed on the OffShoot home page.

[Note. To join the Offshoot Flickr group, you must first be a Flickr member. Then send the email address used to join Flickr to webadmin@offshoot.ie. You will get an email when you have been added to the group. Please be patient as this is a manual process.]

What's On 

Here are the next scheduled meetings and events for the Society:

If you come across one you want to share let us know at newsletter@offshoot.ie.

The Art of Noticing - Rick Bebbington

Why I love Black and White Photography? And why I don't like shooting film? - Leigh Windridge Photography

The IPF Club Championship event will be held on 17th & 18th May at the Mullingar Arts Centre.

The upcoming IPF Distinction dates are 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.

Irish Photographic Federation Web Site:

https://irishphoto.ie/

Most recent news and articles posted:

https://irishphoto.ie/news/

Distinction Sittings and Availability:

https://irishphoto.ie/distinctions/assessment-dates/

You can access the recordings of past Zoom meetings from the OffShoot website.

These videos are available in the Videos section of the Member’s Area at https://www.offshoot.ie/member-area/. You will need to log in to the website to see the content of this section of the site.

Every member has a login to the site. If you don’t remember your login details go to https://www.offshoot.ie/login/ and select the ‘Forgot your password?’ link. Enter the email address you received this newsletter with and reset your password. Once you’ve reset your password you can login and catch-up on speakers you missed. Happy catching up!