General #1 Judged

Our first contest of the season has been judged and people are already looking ahead to the next. There’s a lot to say in this post, so I’ll try not to ramble too much.

General Competition

Eric Korenman judged our General digitals and prints. He provided good feedback, offering thoughts on how to improve images. A lot of this feedback– certainly the bit that stuck in my mind the most– was the idea of telling a story with your image. Is your image simply documenting the existence of a thing or does it speak to the viewer? If there’s too many things going on in your image, too many stories being competing against each other, the viewer will get lost. The eye will wander around, not being led by the story the way it should. Hmm… So much for not rambling.

Digitals are available for viewing here, in case you missed the meeting or just wanted a second look. Scores are not up on the site yet, but will be in a few days.

A Lightroom Runthrough

When the judging was finished, we still had a bit of time, so Eric did a quick runthrough in Lightroom, showing some possible techniques that can be used to help tell the story hidden within your pictures. It was nice having this little bit of extra after judging was over. Perhaps Gillian Jones might share some insights when her turn to judge the next General competition comes up? We always get a chance to listen to our theme-competition-judges, but not so much our General judges. Hmmm… Just a non-rambling thought.

Museum Display

Our museum display is now located at its new location, along the walk to our meeting room. It’s a tad smaller than the space we were in before, but it’s also the type of space where people linger and look at things (rather than the old space, which was more a pathway you walk through to get to someplace else).

October 29^th – 31^st is the time period to get things in for the next display (and to pick up prints from the previous display). Each month, the display will coincide with whichever contest has just been judged. Anything you entered in our General competition is able to go in the display (you can use your digital entries, but you have to have them printed if displaying them, obviously). 16×20 maximum size, same as our competitions. Prints need to be framed.

For those not familiar with submitting for the display: There is a cart made available to us by the museum, usually around the corner from the front desk through the set of doors next to the desk (they can show you where). Your framed prints can go right on the cart. Many of us simply swap out prints, using the same frames. Prints from the old display will be on one side, new prints go on the other. The museum hangs these on Thursday so they will be visible on display on the first Friday each month.

*I will be placing a pouch containing sticky labels in the cart. Please use these to put your name and the title of your print on the back of your frame. Wednesday afternoon (Halloween), I’ll be printing up labels for the front of the display, using this information. The display will look more consistent if each print is labeled.

Next Meeting

Our next meeting is November 6^th. Entries for Out-of-Camera will be due (digital and prints, by 6:45) and Howie Levitz— the man, the myth, the legend– will be speaking on the topic of Shadows.

Upcoming Photo Ops

• October 26 – Stockbridge Halloween Parade & Pumpkin Walk-About. One of several Halloween parades this night (Pittsfield has theirs as well).
• October 27 –  Halloween Dog Parade. 11am-1pm at The Mount in Lenox. Dogs dressed up like pumpkins. What more do you need? A reminder that Pets and their People is one of our contest themes?
• November 22 – Thankful 5K Run and Pie Sale. People running a race before eating their Thanksgiving Day meals. Plus, there’s pie. The only way to make this even any better would be if the runners had to dress up like turkeys, there was only one pie, and they had to run to catch the pie before anyone else. Oh, well. Maybe next year.
• November 23 – Moonlight Owl and Wildlife Prowl. $3-$8. 5:30pm-7:00pm. A moonlit stroll at Pleasant Valley. Tea and hot cocoa after the walk.
• Until November 30th – Pittsfield Photo Challenge. A photo contest with prizes in Pittsfield. Accepting entries until the end of November. I would love to see someone from the club win this.