News

Coming Up: 10th Jan - Roy McKeown FRPS

Hi All,

Happy New Year to you all. To kick off the second part of the season we have another guest speaker, Roy McKeown FRPS. Roy has been a successful portrait and landscape photographer for many years, establishing a successful studio in Ballymena called Portfolio.

He has since opened up his new venture which is displaying his photography as well as local art work. Check out some of his work at: http://www.portfolio-gallery.com/

Other Info:

NIPA Information: Special NIPA on-line image competition - Why not take part in this great online competition? Its absolutely free to enter with great prizes up for grabs. Entry is through the website: www.picturk.com with full T&C's in the emails sent our previously by Helen and Billy

NIPA Print & PDI Exhibition - For those who have images for this Exhibition, the closing date is 31st January 2013. We will be collecting entries later in the month with the cut off being 24th.

Thanks,

Barry Lau
Chairman

Coming Up: 13th Dec - Out and About

Hi All,

This week we opted for a taste of the festive season. Wrapped up in coats and hats we are venturing off into Belfast City Centre to visit the Continental Market. In light of making this a more "social" occasion we thought it might be fun to leave the serious kit at home and have some camerafone fun instead but should you bring your DSLR, this will be the perfect opportunity to gather some great photographs of the various stalls as well as experimenting with long exposures.

However, if you choose to leave your big camera gear at home, we will be running a camera phone competition for the best photo taken on the night.

Rules

The image must be taken on a camera phone,
Edited on the phone,
Emailed to info@bpicni.com before midnight.

Who know's the winner might even win a prize!

This will be a bit of fun and should test everyone's skills when faced with a challenge :-)

Barry Lau
Chairman

Coming Up: 6th Dec - Bobby Durston

Hi All,

Coming up this week is our second guest speaker, Bobby Durston. Bobby will be giving a presentation on "The Anatomy of an Image".

Bobby has been a professional photographer for over 25 years. Working with some of the biggest clients in the industry and producing many of the images you see today on street billboards.

It should be a very interesting evening!

Check out his work here: http://durstonphoto.com

Thanks,

Barry Lau
Chairman

Coming Up: 29th Nov - Double Header

Hi All,

Coming up this week, we have two presentations from our very own members: "Shooting Kids" with Karen McCrea, followed by Donal McCann FRPS, "From Flickr to Fellow".

As members already know, Karen McCrea is a wedding/portrait photographer who has a special flair for children's photography.

Donal McCann has set himself up as one of Northern Ireland's greatest architectural photographers in a relatively short space of time.

It is much appreciated that both Karen and Donal are giving up their time and passing on their expertise to other club members, I for one am really looking forward to it.

Thanks,

Barry Lau
Chairman

Mentoring Competition Results

22nd November saw the exciting conclusion to our mentoring competition started on the 1st November.

Beginners entering the competition were split into two teams and each team was assigned a mentor. Barry Lau ARPS and Donal McCann FRPS were the mentors for this competition.

During November the entrants worked closely with their mentors who guided them in bringing out the best in their images.

Images were entered into two categories, mono print and PDI's.

The top scoring mono prints was submitted by Mel Boyle, and the top scoring PDI was from Saravanan Appukuttan.

You can see a fuller gallery here.

Coming Up: 22nd Nov - Beginners Competition evening

Hi All,

This week we have our BPIC Beginners Competition evening.

Members have already submitted their images to Donal McCann FRPS and Barry Lau ARPS and received valuable advice on how to enhance them through processing.

This Thursday they will have the opportunity to submit one colour pdi and one mono print to a fresh panel of judges who will cast their expert eye over them and provide a score for each! Feedback will be provided on the night and members given the opportunity to discuss the process.

I am looking forward to seeing what everyone has achieved and finding out who has won!

Thanks,

Barry
Chairman

Coming Up: 15th Nov - Still Life & Macro

Hi All,

This week at the club we have our second studio night "Still Life & Macro!". Only this time our models will be exotic animals from Eco Mantella, a local business in Belfast. This will be a fantastic opportunity to get close and personal with the likes of tarantulas, snakes and birds of prey.

For those who would rather keep their distance, do bring your long zoom lenses! Given the subject matter, anyone with a macro lens would make great use of this evening. We will be setting up various lighting stations so feel free to bring your flashlights and even set up your own.

Thanks

Barry Lau
Chairman

Coming Up: 8th Nov - Photoshop/Lightroom workflow - Raw to Print

Hi All,

This week in the club we have our "Photoshop/Lightroom workflow - Raw to Print" night.

I will demonstrate the full workflow which you will be able to apply to any image such as correcting colour (white balance), adjusting exposure, levels, curves etc. We will then move onto more advanced techniques such as layer masks and touch on compositing. I will cover terms that you often hear such as bracketing, over-exposing and under-exposing.

If anyone is wondering how to do a particular process, whether its adding a new layer mask, how to resize an image, send an email across and we will try to accommodate this on the night.

Thanks,

Barry
Chairman

NIPA - 12/13 - Round 1

On Thursday the 25th October the round 1 judging night took place at Christian Brothers, here's how we fared.

PDI

Karen McCrea - Woodland - 11
Mark Davison - Mouse - 10
Brian Bennett - Field Ready - 10
Vivienne Beck - Piggy Back Ride - 9

Mono

Brian Bennett - Friends - 12
Karen McCrea - Freckles - 8
Alan Lavery - Milan - 8
Brian Maguire - Wondering - 10

Colour

Brian Bennett - Sunflowers - 10
Stephen Wilson - Lone Tree Sunset - 13 (Starred Image)
David Donnelly - Down The Duff - 11
Brian Maguire - Havana Dude - 14 (Starred Image - Top Colour Print)

After round one BPIC is sitting in 4th place with a score of 99 points, congratulations everyone!

Following is the top scoring image from each category, and here is the full round 1 submission.

Brian Maguire - Havana Dude - Starred Image - Top Colour Print

Coming Up: 1st Nov - Panel Critique Night / Select Mentor for Beginner Competition

Hi All,

This week in the club we have our "Panel Critique Night / Select Mentor for Beginner Competition". This will be a two part session to cater all beginners as well as anyone considering going for an accreditation.

Panel Critique Night - Please bring along 10/15 of your strongest images [on memory stick/CD or prints] and Donal McCann FRPS will go through these with you offering advise and guidance.

Select Mentor for Beginner Competition - The first of many fun BPIC competitions. We will split the group of beginners in two, one half being mentored by myself and the other half by Donal McCann. We will guide you through your images providing key feedback to improving the final image all in time for the beginners competition three weeks later.

This will also be the perfect opportunity for you to ask our advanced members advice on your images. If anyone would like feedback or critique on their work please bring along up to 5 prints or PDI's and we can talk through these and offer constructive ways on how to improve them.

Thanks

Barry
Chairman