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CAPE CAMERA December 2015 Official Newsletter of the Cape Town Photographic Society From the council 2 News flashes 3 125th Birthday dinner 4 RPS visitors 6 CTPS Anniversary Salon 8 Making top AVs 11 Annual prize-giving 12 November compeon 14 December compeon 16 Interclub news 18 Infrared explained 19 Marcus Jooste macro 20 Landscape judging 22 Diary of oungs 24 Muller exhibion 24 In this issue

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Page 1: Cape Camera December 2015

CAPE CAMERADecember 2015Official Newsletter of the

Cape Town Photographic Society

From the council 2

News flashes 3

125th Birthday dinner 4

RPS visitors 6

CTPS Anniversary Salon 8

Making top AVs 11

Annual prize-giving 12

November competition 14

December competition 16

Interclub news 18

Infrared explained 19

Marcus Jooste macro 20

Landscape judging 22

Diary of outings 24

Muller exhibition 24

In this issue

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www.ctps.co.za • Copyright 2014 • Cape Town Photographic Society

News from the council

On the cover “Misty Sunrise near Greyton” is one of a series of images cap-tured on The Oaks Estate near Greyton in October this year,” says Lesley Parolis. “I am part of a wonderful group of eight photog-raphers called the Full Spectrum Photograph-ic Club and all of us are members of CTPS. This trip to Greyton was led by Paul Bruins and we spent three days photographing the wonderful landscapes that area has to offer. There were many opportunities for creating images of beautiful re-flections. My image was shot at close to 7 AM with a Nikon D800 at 30mm, f14, ISO 100, at 1/20 sec on a tripod. I processed it in Adobe Lightroom and then in Photoshop for final finishing.

Editorial TeamAudio-Visual: Joy Wellbeloved

Competitions: Lesley Parolis

Copy editor: Anna Engelhardt

E & D: Kim Stevens

New members: Joy Wellbeloved

Outings: Richard Goldschmidt

Photo genres: Margaret Collins

Salons & PSSA: Nicol du Toit

Snapshot: Andre Mouton

Top Ten Tips: Steffne Hughes

Layout: Trudi du Toit

This is the last issue of Cape camera for 2015 and we have reached the end of our activities for the year. 2015 had many highlights, espe-

cially those from our 125th anniversary celebrations, and we can look back on a very successful year, which was enjoyed by members.

Next year we are going to make sure that we follow the example set in 2015 and we are planning a lot of regular and diverse ac-tivities for members to enjoy.

Lesley Parolis finalised her set subject proposals for 2016, got them approved by council and already posted it on the web-site. The set subject for January is animal portraits and need to be uploaded by 13 January in time for our competition meet-ing a week later.

Please note that the February competi-tion evening will only be two weeks later — so you don’t have much time to enter. Make sure you plan your set subjects by looking at the list on the website and on page 16.New appointments

It is with regret that we have to announce the resignation from council by Robert Maginley, due to personal reasons.

Nellian Bekker agreed to take over the AV portfolio, and has been co-opted on coun-cil. She will put together a team to support her and we wish them good luck. Their first meeting will take place on the 27th of January.

For some time council have been hear-ing complaints about the way we handle visitors and new members. People felt that we did not always make it clear that we welcome them to attend our meetings and join our society. Quite a number of council members are busy during meetings

and cannot take on the responsibility of co-ordinating such activities.

Ultimately, it remains the responsibility of all members, but we felt that we need some co-ordination and have approached John Spence to help us with that. It has al-ways been a passion of his and he was kind enough to accept the responsibility of wel-

coming vistors at future meetings.As before, these are only two meetings

planned for January and there will be no E&D evening. Outing on 2 JanuaryBut, Richard Goldschmidt has worked out a full and very interesting programme for the year. There are already two out-ings planned for January – an outing to the minstrel carnival on 2 January and to Killarney for motor racing on the 16th of January.

More information on that will be made available through Snapshots and the web-site. Also see page 24 for more informa-tion about outings planned for the year. The website will also be updated soon.

Our E&D programme will start in Feb-ruary with a talk on bird photography by Vernon Chalmers, and the rest of the pro-gramme will be on the website soon.

So, you can see that council has already done a lot of work planning for next year, but we also have to give attention to long term developments.

Three years ago members spent a day discussing various issues that CTPS should — or should not —be doing. Several task teams were formed, which tackled these issues, and came up with solutions.

Council then decided that CTPS should strive to have an event where members can contribute to strategic developments every three years. We placed this on the council agenda at our last meeting and will spend more time on it at our next meeting in January. We should be in a po-sition to announce how we want to do it this year.We wish you a happy festive season.

Nicol du Toit

Nellian Bekker is the new AV convenor.Below: John Spence to welcome visitors.

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www.ctps.co.za • Copyright 2014 • Cape Town Photographic Society

Monthly meetingsMeetings are held in the St Stephens Church Hall Central Square, Pinelands, at 7pm.1st Wednesday: Competition 2nd Wednesday: Audio-visual 3rd Wednesday: Education & Development.

Month Competition AV E & D

January 20 27 No E&DFebruary 3 10 17

CTPS Contact details:Contact person: Jacoba van ZylEmail: [email protected]: www.ctps.co.zaFacebook : Cape Town Photographic Society

President Nicol du ToitVice-president Richard GoldschmidtHonorary Secretary Jacoba van ZylHonorary Treasurer Melanie NeethlingProperty Manager Detlef BaselEducation & Development Kim Stevens Competitions Convenor Lesley ParolisAudio-visual Convenor Nellian BekkerPublic Relations Anna MorrisWebsite Lesley Parolis

CTPS council members

CTPS news flashes

“I HAVE always had an interest in photog-raphy and learnt much from my husband Lambe, who has been a keen photographer for many years,” says Lesley Parolis, who took the photograph used on this issue’s cover.

“Seven years ago I did my first photo-graphic course, DSLR1, at the Cape Town School of Photography and followed that up with DSLR2 the next year.

“Once that course was over, a group of fellow students decided that we needed to keep in contact and the concept of a small photo club (Full Spectrum PC) was born.

“It has gone from strength to strength in the last 5 years and we now have eight members comprising Anna Engelhardt, Kathy Priday, Sue Docherty, Jean Bradshaw, Joan Ward, Pat Scott, Kim Stevens and myself.

“We continue to inspire each other. Pho-tography is our passion and we love to share our knowledge, experiences and im-ages with each other and with the wider community.

“CTPS has been a large part of my life for four and a half years now and it has been a very enriching journey”.

Cover photographerJOY WELLBELOVED talked to one of our new members, L H Murphy Klein-schmidt, and found that he is an enthu-siastic and avid am-ateur photographer.

Murphy matricu-lated from DF Ma-lan High School in Bellville, and then joined the SAPS from 1989 - 1998.

“During the nine years after leaving the SAPS, I ran a corporate branding company in Port Elizabeth with my wife. We manu-factured clothing, silk screening, embroi-dery, corporate gifts, managing large cor-porate events, promoting brand awareness and the like,” he says. “I’m a self taught graphic designer and embroidery digitizer.

“In 2007, I thought it was time for a change and went to Afghanistan as an inter-national development contractor to the US State Department and USAID. This lasted eight years, until the end of 2015.”

He is now semi-retired, keeping himself

busy doing short term consultancy work for a large American compa-ny with projects in Central Asia, as well as advising small and medi-um South African based companies on processes, sys-tems and man-

agement principles. “I am also taking some time out to com-

plete my masters degree in project man-agement at the University of Liverpool.

“I have been happily married to my darling wife, Mary, for more than two decades and we have a beautiful daughter, Maryanne, who is a musical theatre actress, singer and qualified tap and musical theatre teacher.”

They have been living in the Northern sub-urbs of Cape Town for the last four years.

“ I have been an avid amateur photogra-pher for many years and hope to increase my skill level with the assistance of the CTPS,” he concludes.

New member Murphy with a chirp on his shoulder

New members welcomedIf you joined CTPS recently, and would like to get to know other members quickly, please send a short article with a picture introducing yourself to Joy Wellbeloved at [email protected], telling us who you are, what you like to photograph, when the bug first bit you, and anything else you think we may be interested in. In November, Ludwig Kleinschmidt joined (see above) and in December Eben Human and Sue Grant became new members.

Place your orders, please CTPS is in the process of finalising two pub-lications for early next year. It will be a tre-mendous help to prepare the print orders if you could please give us an indication of the interest by letting [email protected] know if you would be interested in or-

dering any of the following:• The 125th Anniversary Salon Catalogue:

close to 100 pages featuring all the win-ning images as well as the acceptances.

•125 Year Anniversary Book, covering the history of the society, juxtaposed with im-ages and articles about our celebrations.

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The year-long careful planning of the gala dinner to cele-brate CTPS’s birthday exactly 125 years after the society was founded on 30 October 1890, was nearly derailed by the #FeesMustFall student campaign. Four days be-fore the party, to which we invited special guests RPS

President Walter Benzie and his wife Susy, PSSA President Francois Rousseau and his wife Petro, and PSSA Western Cape Director Jo-han Kloppers and his wife Marietjie, we were informed that the venue would no longer be available. On the Tuesday before our Friday evening function the Cape Peninsula University of Technol-ogy announced that they were closing all campuses for the week – including our Granger Bay Hotel School venue.

But, as we came to expect of her, Pat Scott pulled out all the stops to find an alternative venue, which of-fered all the facilities we required without breaking the bank or required council to approve a new budget: Rashid Latif’s Ca-petonian hotel where CTPS held meetings during 2009 and enjoyed several happy year-end prize-giving functions.

And, probably because of the relief that a near-disaster was averted, our birthday celebration was a happy, joyful occasion, punctuated by frequent peals of laughter. Nobody there could doubt that the PSSA medal for service presented to Pat that evening was not thoroughly well-deserved.

New PSSA President Francois Rousseau – who like Walter Benzie (see next page) and CTPS president Nicol du Toit, was elected this year – also gave the whole CTPS club a PSSA gold medal for Service to Photography, because “CTPS played a huge role in promoting photography over the past 125 years,” he said, thanking us for the positive influence the society has had, and is still having, on the development of photography in South Africa.

Francois says he enjoys club photography for “the camaraderie and sharing with other people. When I became involved with a club, ‘I saw the light’ and enjoyed photography even more.”

He became involved with club photography when he and his wife Petro, a health professional who works for the SA National Aids Council, lived in Nelspruit. He joined the Nelspruit Photographic Society in 2006 and was elected chairman in 2009.

His work as a Geo-Information Science Professional – the work sounds as complicated as the name implies and involves a lot of precision geographical research and community engagement – eventually took him to Johannesburg, where the Rousseau’s joined the Midrand Camera Club.

Both Rousseau’s are soft-spoken, but have a twinkle in the eye and an easy laugh ... and one gets the impression that the new PSSA president can put his foot firm-ly, but politely, down when necessary. Serving as volunteers and ‘giving back’ to society clearly form a big part of their make-up – and self-promotion does not: when accepting our invitation to attend the dinner, Francois said “it will be a great honour for me and my wife to attend.”

Soon after joining the Nelspruit club, Francois also joined the PSSA and was elected to the board of directors in 2009, in charge of managing infor-mation systems. His dedication was recognised

and he was soon elected to the path that led to him taking over from Jill Sneesby as President in August this year: he served as 2nd Vice-President (the current incumbent is Francois Roux) and then became 1st Vice-President (currently Anne d’Oliviera).

Francois holds an APSSA distinction in digital photography and is actively involved in salon and club judging. He is passionate about photography and takes great pleasure in promoting and practising the art form. Over the years he has taken photos of many photo-graphic genres, but his favourites remain landscapes and street pho-

What a memorable 125th birthday!Our VIP guests contributed to the enjoyment of our 125th anniversary gala dinner, which was nearly derailed by the student protests, reports TRUDI DU TOIT. Photos ANNA MORRIS and NELLE DU TOIT CLAASSEN

Pat Scott receiving the PSSA medal for ser-vice from Detlef Basel.

PSSA president Francois Rousseau ad-dressing the audience.

Johan Kloppers, giving CTPS his best wishes, with his wife Marietjie (right).

PSSA president Francois Rousseau gave CTPS club a PSSA gold medal for Service to Photog-raphy, because CTPS played a huge role in promoting photography over the past 125 years

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www.ctps.co.za • Copyright 2014 • Cape Town Photographic Society

tography. He is currently working on a project photographing Main Street in Johannesburg, close to his office in the Carlton Centre.

“We don’t realise how privileged we are to be able to travel far and wide,” he commented, recounting a recent eye-opening, yet inspirational, experience he had in Johannesburg: The area around Jeppe station, which had been the focus of many xenophobic at-tacks, also has a photographic club (not affiliated to the PSSA) which organised an exhibition of photographs taken by their main-ly high school members.

Travel with photographs“The idea behind it was to help them develop an identity and the

kids had to tell why they took a specific photo.” A 15-year old took a photograph of the station, because he said he wanted to travel. He also said that the furthest he has ever travelled was to Pretoria – and how excited he was to go to the Carlton Centre. “These kids’ lives consist of a couple of blocks,” he said. Yet, the people around them inspired them.

CTPS received our first birthday gift from Johan Kloppers: a per-sonalised mug, featuring the CTPS and 2016 PSSA Congress in Langebaan logos as a reminder that this congress will be dedicated to CTPS’ 125th anniversary. He thanked CTPS “for what you do to help clubs in the region and being always willing to support other clubs.”

Johan has been the PSSA Regional Director since 2009, but wants to retire after organising the PSSA congress in Langebaan at the end of August next year – a follow-up to the successful congress he organised there in 2012.

Joined CTPSHis association with CTPS dates back to 1979 when he settled in Fish Hoek after qualifying as a dentist in Pretoria. A keen photog-rapher since his school days at Hugenote Boys High in Springs, he had joined the PSSA in 1975, before moving to Cape Town, where he became a CTPS member... but remained a dedicated Blue Bulls supporter.

He later became a leading figure in the Fish Hoek Photographic Society and is known countrywide as a top wildlife photographer, with a special passion for the Kgalagadi. Apart from winning many awards, his wildlife panel gained him a Fellowship distinction from the PSSA this year.

Johan fondly remembers CTPS members like Ted Dickinson, “one of the biggest gentlemen”, Roy Johannessen and Eric Vertue who built the society. “They would have been so proud to see how strong their society has grown and in what good hands it is today,” says Johan. “I feel at home here at CTPS,” he added, commenting on the friendships that have been built of over the years.

“We are proud and honoured to have the oldest club in South Af-rica in our region, and that is why we have dedicated our congress next year to CTPS.”

CTPS Life members from left Neels Beyers, Henk Mulder, Sibyl Morris, David Gray, Jenny Powis, Detlef Basel and Ian Levy at-tended the celebrations.

Right: CTPS president Nicol du Toit with Jo-han Kloppers’ birthday gift: a personalised coffee mug to commemorate CTPS and the 2016 PSSA Con-gress in Lange-baan.

CTPS members from the back left: Paul Nuttal, John Spence, Jean-ette Brusnicky, Mike and Annde de Vries, Barbara and Brian Halloc and Julie Dyer.

Francois and Petro Rous-seau came from Pretoria to attend the event.Left: Keith and Alison Bull are CTPS ‘swal-lows’ who live in Cape Town and England.

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R oyal Photographic Society president Walter Benzie is a man of pleasant surprises. The thought of host-ing the president of one of the world’s oldest photo-graphic societies with 11 000 members, 400 volun-tary and 20 full-time workers, which operates under a Royal Charter, owns of the foremost photographic

collections in the world and gives awards to recipients that will fill the Who’s Who of photography, was a bit daunting - to say the least. His Scottish ancestry and occupation as a chartered account-ant further added to the expectation of meeting a VIP that you would address as Sir — and then only when first spoken to.

Instead, Walter and his wife Susy enchanted us with their wit, sense of humour and genu-ine appreciation of being back in Cape Town, where they spent so many happy years during the late 1960’s and early 1970’s. It felt like wel-coming long-lost friends back.

Walter’s hearty and infectious laugh set the tone of our gala birthday dinner and his skill as raconteur made us feel part of his world where photographers like Don McCullum, Bry-an Adams, Steve McCurry and Annie Leibovitz, cinematographers like Tim Webber and Sir David Attenborough and an astrophysicist and musician like Brian May CBE (like most of us, Walter also didn’t know he was a founder member of pop group Queen when he met him) are proud recipients of RPS honorary fellowship medals.

“I have waited nearly fifty years to join your club,” he jested in his speech, referring to the time he spent in Cape Town. First, from 1966 to 1970, as a bachelor sharing a house in Constantia with two fellow auditing clerks from Syfrets and again from 1972 to 1976 with Susy, when they lived in a flat in Clifton. While Walter was working for the auditing firm Ernst & Young, which had taken over Syfrets, Susy employed her creative skills at a packaging company, since the Conde Nast magazine group she worked for as a copy-writer in the UK was not yet active in South Africa.

He graciously referred to the similarities between the founding members and principles of CTPS and The Photographic Society, as the RPS was known when it was founded on 20 January, 1853 – namely astronomers, scientists and prominent photographers forming a society for people interested in the art of photography.

But, with arguably one of the finest war photographers, Roger Fen-ton, as a founding member, and an invitation to Henry Talbot to be-come its first president, the RPS was operating in a slightly different league. Interestingly, the formation of the society was delayed for several years until an agreement could be reached with Talbot to re-lax his restriction on amateurs using his patent ‘for their own amuse-

ment’ (read the fascinating history on www.rps.org/about/history).

The Benzie’s birthday gift to CTPS on behalf of the Royal Photographic Society, Portfoli-oTwo, a beautiful coffee table book about the RPS, shows why it is so revered in world pho-tography.

Even though Queen Victoria and Prince Al-bert, who were fascinated by the photographs they saw at the Great Exhibition of 1852, be-

came patrons of the society in 1854, the name was only changed to the Royal Photographic Society (RPS) in 1894. Since 2004, the RPS operates under a Royal Charter granted by the present Queen, which states the objectives and the way it is run.

The RPS was also not the world’s first photographic society as of-ten assumed – but is the oldest organised society in the world to continuously function for 162 years.

“Photography is a lonely pursuit, and we therefore need the oxy-gen of sharing images to make us improve and therefore we need to become involved in groups and clubs across the world,” said Walter, who eloquently made a case for CTPS members to join the large RPS overseas membership (they have a substantial discount for over 65’s and under 25’s). Only individuals can join the society.

Our Malcolm Jones is a member who enjoys receiving the month-

Charmed by the Royal Photographic SocietyAttending the CTPS anniversary dinner was the first overseas assignment for new RPS President Walter Benzie, who came, saw and conquered us with charm. Photos:NELLE DU TOIT CLAASSEN

Members enjoying Walter Benzie’s speech.Jeanette du Toit shaking the hand of the man who shook the hand of the man who shook the hand of Henri Cartier-Bresson.

Walter and his wife Susy enchanted us with their wit, sense of humour and genuine apprecia-tion of being back in Cape Town

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ly prestigious and impressive journal, outsourced by the RPS to be produced by professionals. Prominent CTPS members of the past Eric Vertue, Raymonde Johannesson, Alice Mertens and Fred Har-ris gained Fellowships of the RPS, considered to be the highest dis-tinction in world photography

As a member of the RPS Licentiate Distinctions panel – his most prestigious position so far, Walter claims - he also encouraged other CTPS members to enter their panels to apply for RPS distinc-tions. They have awarded 3 500 licentiateships, which is the hall-mark of any competent photographer, he claims, 3 000 Associate-ships (including one to Walter) and 814 Fellowships (Walter has an honorary Fellowship). The distinction panels are judged live and any member of the public can attend by paying an entrance fee.

Despite his prominence as photographer, Walter chuckled good-humouredly when a young waiter adjusted his camera and told him cheekily that “his settings were not right” when asked to take a group photo that included Walter.

He had joined his first photographic club at school in Edinburgh, where he spent many hours in the darkroom staining his fingers in developers, stop baths, fixers and toning baths, he remembers. While studying and building a career and then supporting a young family, he had less time for photography, but about twenty years ago he again became an enthusiast. This is an interest Susy under-stands as her grandfather was a good photographer and her father had a photographic store, which enabled him to shoot many rolls of film, while everybody else had to plan shots carefully.

Apart from being involved with their local Chichester Camera Club (founded in 1893), Walter served as treasurer of the RPS be-tween 2009 and 2013, and then served as Vice-president for a two-year stint, before being elected President earlier this year. He may only serve as President for one two-year term, and must thereafter vacate all council positions “to give the next fellow free reign” to run the society. His attendance of the CTPS birthday dinner was his first overseas assignment as president.

Soon after becoming President in September, Walter shifted

the focus to the work done by fellow-trustees and employees in his editorial letter to members (we were not aware of this when CTPS made the same change around the same time). “I am just a spokesperson,” he says, stressing that the individual council mem-bers (trustees) and employees should receive acknowledgement for their work.

He is also acutely aware that the council members are custodians of the society, members’ interests (including funds!) and their rich history.

The Benzies came, charmed and will hopefully come back to Cape Town soon so that Susy can compare our tennis courts to those in Chichester (where she is the doubles champion) and Walter can judge one of our competition evenings, as he offered.

It was great fun, and indeed a pleasure, to shake the hand of the man who shook the hand of the man who shook the hand of the man who shook the hand of Henri Cartier-Bresson.

Past and present CTPS presidents Detlef Basel and Nicol du Toit flanking Royal Photographic Society president Walter Benzie.

Top right: Event organiser Pat Scott sharing a joke with Walter and Susie Benzie.

Right: Richard Goldschmidt, Robert Maginley, Ju-dith Dodds, Sean and Melanie Neethling, Francois Rousseau, Andre Wijne and Ariane Jenssen listen-ing to Walter Benzie.

Bottom right: The Benzies greeting CTPS members.

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The organisers of the CTPS 125th Anniversary Salon received sev-eral letters of appreciation for the smooth running of the salon.

The logistics proved to be quite a challenge for the organising team that consisted of sa-lon director Nicol du Toit, assisted by Lesley Parolis handling the three PDI sections, An-tenie Carstens the three print sections and Nellian Bekker the two AV sections.

About 230 people entered more than 1 700 images and 40 AVs.

The judging took place at the Cape Town School of Pho-tography on Saturday 31 October. A total of 24 judges were in-volved. To ensure that CTPS members who entered could be eligible for awards, they all had to be non-members of CTPS and they came from all over the region – Wolseley, Malmesbury, Hermanus and Fish Hoek, to name but a few.

The judging took place in five separate rooms – two for the two AV sections, two for the three PDI sections and one for the prints. Quite a few of our members were in-volved in the judging process: Richard Gold-schmidt, Melanie Neethling, Jacoba van Zyl,

Ken Woods and Joy Welbeloved manned the computers. Carin Hardisty, assisted by Louise de Lange from Swartland Foto-grafieklub, handled the prints and Trudi du Toit organised the catering.

These volunteers, together with the judg-es, ensured the success of the salon.

The judges picked 341 acceptances in the print and PDI sections and 10 in the AV sec-tions. More than 70 of those were submit-ted by 18 CTPS members.

These acceptances are all being exhib-ited at the Cape Town Central Library in the arts section during December. The open-ing and awards func-tion was held on the

3rd of December.The digital and printed catalogues are

now being designed and will be ready to be sent to people who ordered it soon. It is rare to find printed catalogues being pro-duced for national salons these days.

This fact, together with our 125th anniver-sary being a special event in CTPS history, will make sure that it will become a collector’s item as soon as it is issued. If you haven’t or-dered your copy yet, please contact Nicol du Toit on [email protected].

The CTPS 125th Anniver-sary Salon printed cata-logue is bound to become a collectors’ item

CTPS prize-winnersBest image – PSSA Silver medal Margaret Collins: Aloe pollenation in the category Macro PrintsJeanette du Toit: Face to Face in the cat-egory Open PrintsRunner up – CTPS Silver medal Jeanette du Toit: Paphiopedilum in the category Macro PrintsKim Stevens: Frozen Fairway in the cat-egory Open PrintsBest image by a CTPS member – CTPS bronze medal Jenny Powis: After the Rain in the Catego-ry Macro DigitalJacoba Van Zyl: Clivia in the Category Macro PrintsKeith Bull: Twixt Dream and Reality in the Category Open DigitalKim Stevens: Cite Metro in the Category Open PrintsMalcolm Jones: First seconds of a new life in the Category Photojournalism DigitalJoan Ward: Riders practicing for WP trials in the Category Photojournalism PrintsHannelore Seifart: Abandoned Dreams in the category AV Documentary, plus Fara-way Land in the category AV Open.Certificate of merit Joy Wellbeloved: Dianthus in the Catego-ry Macro Digital.The following CTPS members also got ac-ceptances for print or PDI images:Lambe Parolis (7), Shaun Laishley (7), Jeanette du Toit (6), Kim Stevens (5), Anna Engelhardt (4), Joan Ward (4), Lesley Pa-rolis (4), Jenny Powis (3), Julie Dyer (3), Malcolm Jones (3), Jacoba van Zyl (2), Pat Scott (2), Jean Bradshaw (1), Joy Wellbe-loved (1), Nicol du Toit (1) and Trudi du Toit (1).In the AV category the following members got acceptances: Nellian Bekker (2) and Jeanette du Toit (1).

CTPS succeed in tough salon challengeCTPS members not only performed very well in our 125th Anni-versary Salon, but the organisers excelled with the logistics chal-lenge. Photos at the exhibition by ANNA MORRIS

Nicol du Toit and Lesley Parolis (back) assist the judges with select-ing the prints winners.

Right: ‘Face to Face’ won won the PSSA silver medal (first prize) for Jeanette du Toit in the Open Prints category.

Right: ‘Aloe pollenation’ won a PSSA silver medal for Marga-ret Collins in the cate-gory Macro Prints

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Medal winners from other clubs

Macro Digital Best image - PSSA Silver medal - Butterfly 1, Chris Swanepoel. Piet-ersburg Fotografie KlubMacro Digital Runner up - CTPS Silver medal - Halfway, Geo Jooste. Bloemfontein KameraklubOpen Digital Best image - PSSA Silver med-al - In the mist, Charlaine Gerber. Witbank Photographic SocietyOpen Digital Runner up - CTPS Silver med-al - An Elephant Portrait, Tania Cholwich.AFO Photography ClubPhotojournalism Digital Best image - PSSA Silver medal - High seas E, Eileen Covarr.Knysna Photographic SocietyPhotojournalism Digital Runner up - CTPS Silver medal - Little water Big fire, Renee Storme. Vanderbijlpark Fotografiese Ve-renigingPhotojournalism Prints Best image - PSSA Silver medal - Don Quiote Scene, Aubrey Siebert. Southern Suburbs Camera ClubPhotojournalism Prints Runner up - CTPS Silver medal - Perfect Wave, Aubrey Sie-bert. Southern Suburbs Camera Club

Left: ‘Paphiopedilum’ won the CTPS silver medal (runner-up) for Jeanette du Toit in the category Macro Prints.

Right: CTPS bronze medal winners Joan Ward and Malcolm Jones.

Left: The CTPS silver medal in the category Open Prints was awarded to Kim Stevens for ‘Fro-zen Freeway’.Right: Lesley and Lambe Paro-lis, who got seven acceptances, talking to AV convenor Nellian Bekker.Below: Jenny Powis and Keith Bull (right) receiving their CTPS bronze medals from PDI conven-or Lesley Parolis.

Jeanette du Toit, who won PSSA silver and CTPS silver medals and got six acceptanc-es, with Lesley Parolis.

Margaret Collins (left) entered one image — Aloe Pollination — and won the PSSA silver medal in the Macro Print category.

Jacoba van Zyl, who won the CTPS bronze medal for her entry Clivia in the category Macro Print, with Nicol du Toit.

Eric Thorburn’s son (left) accepted the CTPS silver medal for AV documentary, on behalf of his father.

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More salon winners cont. from p9

AV winners from other clubsAV Open winner – PSSA silver medal: Incest Without by Daleen Engelbre-cht from George.AV Open runner-up – CTPS silver medal: Shoes De&Cathy Spock4 by Daleen Engelbrecht from George.AV Open Certificate of Merit: Le Chant du Violon by Adri van Oudheusden of Port Elizabeth Camera Club * AV Documentary CTPS Silver medal: Gaudi’s Legacy by Eric Thorburn from AV Makers SA* No PSSA silver medal was awarded in the Documentary category.

Left: Gaynor Donovan, new members Christo and Mar-leen le Grange and Fran-cois du Bois, president of Tygerberg Photographic Society, Keith Bull, Jacoba van Zyl, Marius Stocken-strom (standing) and Ariane Jenssen, Johan Greeff and Malcolm Jones (seated).

CTPS bronze medal winners: Above is ‘Riders practicing for WP trials’ (Pho-tojournalism Prints) by Joan Ward. Far left is ‘Twixt Dream and Reality’ (Open Digital) by Keith Bull. Left: After the Rain (Macro Digi-tal) by Jenny Powis.

More CTPS bronze medal winners: Far left Clivia (Macro prints) by Jacoba Van Zyl. Left is Cite Metro (Open prints) by Kim Stevens. Below is ‘First seconds of a new life’ (Photojournal-ism digital) by Malcolm Jones.

Pat Scott, Detlef Ba-sel, Barbara Basel and Joy Wellbe-loved at the salon exhi-bition open-ing in the city library.

Left: Joan Ward and Jean Brad-shaw listening to Nicol du Toit announcing the prize winners in the CTPS 125th Anniversary Salon.

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“When we (Heiner and I) started planning our trip to Namibia this year, my mind was set

on producing an AV about the diamond his-tory around Kolmanskop, Pomona and the surrounding areas, says Hannelore Seifart, author of Abandoned Dreams, the CTPS bronze medal winner in the Documentary category. She recounts the experience as follows:

“En route we visited our dear friend, Mi-chael Krafft, on his farm near Windhoek. “He is also the grandson of August Stauch, who picked up the first diamond in the Na-mib Desert in 1908. What better source for first-hand information for my AV!

“We chatted for hours and looked at countless historical black and white photos — an enormously valuable source for my project. The diamond Sperrgebiet, Kolman-skop, and Pomona — fascinating names calling to be explored.

“Our excitement grew as we purchased a so-called photographer's permit in Lüderitz, allowing entrance to the nearby ghost town from sunrise to sunset, the times to be de-termined by yourself.

“We started on our venture just after sun-rise — totally alone with no other soul in sight! It was eerie, with hushed sounds, tiny animal tracks and snake trails vis-ible in the sand. As the sun came up, the mood inside the deserted rooms constantly changed: lights and shadows playing their games, any photographer's delight.

“The camera clicked away for hours, until other visitors arrived for their short guided tours, only to disappear again at midday.

“As the sun set, hundreds of images later, it was a most awesome and eerie setting again, with small animals appearing to take shelter inside the desolate buildings of the ghost town.

JOY WELLBELOVED motivated the CTPS AV artists who hadwin-ning entries in the CTPS 125 Anniversary Salon to share the sto-ries and experiences behind the making of their winning AV’s

“To really experience the history of those frantic diamond days, we took a day-trip from Kolmanskop to Pomona through the extremely harsh, desolate and totally de-serted Namib Desert. As to be expected the cameras worked overtime again!

Far away landHannelore Seifart also shared some in-sights into the making of A far away land (Kaokoland), the CTPS Bronze medal win-ner in the Open category: “Kaokoland is a faraway land bordering Angola in the north-west of Namibia, an area of rugged high mountains, dry and sandy riverbeds and only the semi-nomadic Himba tribe making a living in their old traditional ways.

“Our camping trip led us to this area, only reachable by 4x4 vehicle. It was a slow-going trip, sometimes only managing 80-100 km in 12 hours, carefully negotiating rocks and deep sand, which can literally let you sink into the powdery dust up to your knees.

“The landscape is extremely varied, very high mountain ranges appearing in all shades of blue in the distance. Vast open spaces with no vegetation at all, but still home to wildlife, like gemsbok, springbok and others.

“In the far north the Kunene River with palm trees along its banks make for amazing camping. And then there are the desert adapted elephants, not easy to find, but so rewarding to observe. Kaokoland is an experience that makes you want to visit again, and again and again.”

Artistic Close UpsJeanette du Toit explains why she made Artistic close-

ups, which gained Acceptance in the Open category: “My main purpose in making my Artistic Close Ups audio visual was to find a home for Images that on their own really do not make a statement, and in my opin-ion, are not strong enough to stand on their own.

“These images were not specifically taken for making an AV. They were taken during my years of trying to create macro images that are more artistic. However, I never had the courage to use them on their own in competitions.

“I decided to use them to create an audio visual. But, I used them so that with clever placement a third image is created during the transitions and thereby give more mean-ing to an otherwise uninteresting image.”

Future AV eventsIn future issues we’ll be publishing information of interest to AV makers, and possibly tempting folk who have not yet made an AV to give it a try. Please send all ideas for topics to Joy Wellbeloved

The PECC International Salon: Port Elizabeth Camera Club is celebrating their 125th anniversary in 2016 with an International Salon that closes on 15 March 2016. There is only one cat-egory — Open. The PECC brochure is already on the PSSA website.

Making winning AV’sAugust Stauch near Pomona from ‘Abandoned Dreams’. Himba girl from Hannelore Seifarts’s AV on Kaokoland.’

One of Jeanette du Toit’ s ‘Artistic Closue Ups’.

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The annual awards function on the 9th December was a very convivial affair with a look back at the year’s anniversary celebrations, members

being rewarded and a chance to socialise with snacks and drinks before saying good-bye for the year .

Firstly, we were treated to a show of sev-en audio visual presentations of members’ images taken on the special outings organ-ised for the 125 anniversary celebrations. Robert Maginley certainly put a lot of effort into these AVs and we are grateful to him. It was lovely to be able to reminisce on the past year’s events and we were reminded what a full and rewarding year it has been.

The AVs were followed by the awarding of Infinity badges to the members who were promoted to Salon ranking this year. We congratulate Anna Engelhardt, Marius-Lee Pretorius, Vic Els and Mo Bassa.

Certificates were then presented to the winners and runners-up in the AV section and the still image section of our society. The winners in the AV section were:• Stella Coram in the Beginner category;• Jeanette du Toit in the Open category; • Hannelore Seifart in the AV Challenge;• Hannelore Seifart won the award for AV - maker of the year.

The images from the past year’s monthly competitions between October 2014 and September 2015 were separated into the prize categories and sent to judges Peter Brandt (Monochrome prints), Gail Reu-vers (Colour prints), Frank Reuvers (Nature PDIs), Leon Oosthuizen (Pictorial PDIs) and Detlef Basel (Portraits). We are grateful to them for giving us their time and expertise in selecting the winning images.

The winners are as follows:• The Vertue trophy for Best Colour print

went to Joan Ward for Tiddler for tea (see p18).

• The runner up was Shaun Laishley for Please don’t get up.

• The Lawley trophy for Best Mono-chrome print was awarded to Kim Ste-vens for Rough diamonds.

• Kim’s image Snowy tree grove was the runner up.

• The Johannesson trophy for Best Nature PDI went to Jeanette du Toit for Catch of the day.

•  Ken Woods’ Pelican flight was the run-ner up.

•  The Polchet trophy for Best Pictorial PDI was awarded to John Spence for The Kat family and

• The runner-up is Kim Stevens’ Arpeggios.• The Best Portrait was adjudged to be

Prof Denise Ackerman now and then by Malcolm Jones.

• Anna Morris’ portrait of a Young South African opera star was the runner up.

There is also a competition for the high-est number of points scored in our monthly competitions over the year, both for PDIs, prints, and for the total combined points.• The PDI points winner was Jeanette du

Toit with 678 points;• The PDI runner-up was Mo Bassa with

655 points. • The print points winner was Jean Brad-

shaw with 590 points. • The prints runner-up was Marius-Lee

Pretorius with 465 points. • The overall points winner was Kim Ste-

vens with 857 points. • The runners-up were Pat Scott and Jean

Members rewarded for work and imagesThe prize-giving evening on December 9th was the last CTPS function for 2015. Several members were honoured at the event, LESLEY PAROLIS reports. Photos: NELLE DU TOIT CLAASSEN

Bradshaw who both scored 842 points. For more details have a look at the results file on the competition page of the website.

The evening was rounded off with a cock-tail party, catered by Jacoba van Zyl, and we enjoyed each other’s company with a glass of wine or cold drink and delicious snacks.

Left: The Kat Family by John Spence, the Best Pic-torial PDI.

Right: Catch of the Day by Jeanette du Toit, Best Nature PDI.

Above: Prof Denise Ackerman by Malcolm Jones, the Best PortraitBelow: Rough Diamonds by Kim Ste-vens, Best Monochrome.

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Special awards

Past president Detlef Ba-sel this year awarded the prestigious President’s Award for a member who made an exceptional contribution during the previous year to Richard Goldschmidt and Lesley Parolis (above).

Joy Wellbeloved was awarded honorary life membership of CTPS, an honour bestowed on a member of 20 years who served the so-ciety in some capacity.

Above: Hannelore Seifart accepting the CTPS bronze medals she won in the CTPS 125th Anniversary Salon (see p8) from Nicol du Toit. She also won the award for the AV Maker of the Year, and won the AV challenge.

Anna Morris

(left) was the runner-

up in the Best Portrait

category.

John Spence

(left) was the win-

ner of the Polchet Trophy

for Best Pictorial

PDI. .

Jeanette du Toit (above) won several awards: the Open category in AV, the The Johannesson trophy for Best Nature PDI and also had the most points in PDI in the monthly competitions.

Ken Woods (left) was the runner-up in the Nature PDI category.

Right: Pat Scott tied with Jean Bradshaw for scoring the sec-ond highest points in compe-titions.

Joan Ward won the Vertue trophy for the Best Colour print.

Malcolm Jones with the personalised certificate, showing his image that won the Best Portrait category.

Elmara Willis, Hannelore Seifart, Nellian Bekker, Hein-er Seifart, Joy Wellbeloved chatting to Lambe Parolis.

Hier sit die manne: Johan Strydom, Joe Inns, Richard Goldschmidt and Paul Nuttall.

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“There are so many things that one has to remember and consider before opening one’s mouth to make a comment about someone’s art — and that is re-ally difficult,” says Derick Nel, who kindly agreed

to take on the challenge at short notice. “For me, first impressions count. A good photograph is one that will make me sit up, take note and then take another good look to analyse what the photogra-pher has put on offer.

“Once an analysis is made, the thought process must be quickly converted into logical sentences that will be positive, informative and without hurting anyone’s feelings. It must also be short and to the point without talking nonsense and/or repeating oneself. So I really hope I did just that. Please remember to take a judge’s re-

Winning images in November Shadows and Reflections

Every month we select two images to be entered into the PSSA national Club winners competition. The senior entry (Advanced and Salon) for No-vember, selected by Derick Nel, our judge, was Lesley Parolis’ Misty sun-rise near Greyton (see cover and on p2). “An impressive landscape with really good colour and composition,” he said. “This photograph is crisp and has great mood with the early morn-ing mist on the water The coots on the water remind us that there is a reflection. Very well captured.” The junior entry (Beginner and Interme-diate) was Paul Nuttall’s image Puz-zling is it not (left).

PSSA Entries

Gold Silver RedSalon 24 20 16Advanced 22 18 14Intermediate 20 16 12Beginner 18 14 10

The following are the requirements to be promoted from one level to the next:• Beginner to Intermediate: 3 gold awards & 30 points• Intermediate to Advanced: 5 gold awards & 40 points• To Salon: 5 gold & 30 points in club competitions & 30 in salon acceptances / or 50 gold awards.Points awarded in club competitions count as follows: Gold = 3, Silver = 2, Red =1. Salon acceptances = 3 .

Points needed to get an award

Rankings and promotions

mark with a pinch of salt because sometimes a photo may do great with one judge and not so well with another.

“On a personal note: Because a large part of judging is subjective, whenever I enter photographs for club competitions, I make a point of finding out who the judge is going to be.

“After a few years of entering club competitions, one gets to know all, or most of them, and acquires a feeling of what individual judg-es look for in a photograph. I think I have a reasonable idea what most judges’ preferences are.

“I know it sounds crazy, but if I don’t know the judge, I would even go as far as to google his/her work and try and form an idea by look-ing at their style, etc. I then enter photos which I think may do well with that particular judge.

ANNA ENGELHARDT asked our November judge, Derick Nel of Tafelberg Fotografieklub, how he approaches the judging process and what it is that made the winning images stand out for him.

Winner Print Open Salon - The calm of a new day by Pat Scott. “Great tonal range throughout this black and white photograph with excellent composition,” said judge Derick Nel. “The photo is tack sharp and has lots of detail throughout with a good reflection. The blown out area caused by the sun is only slightly distracting and not enough to be a negative point.”

Winner PDI Open, Salon: Far far away scape, by Jeanette du Toit. “A very good composition of lines, colour and light,” said Derick Nel. “I particularly like the mood created by the mist, the soft pastel colours and the line of trees which leads the viewers’ eye to the centre of this landscape. Good capture.”

To p15

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Left: Winner Print Set Salon Awakening shadows by Jeanette du Toit. “This photograph is pin-sharp throughout and has lots of very good detail and texture on the dunes,” says the judge. “Great diagonal lines, creating depth and leading the viewer into the photo. Excellent use of light and shadows with the warm late afternoon sun.”

Right: Winner Print Set Advanced: Anna Morris - New York reflections.

” I would like to thank CTPS for inviting me; it was a privilege to judge your photograps.”Set subject popularThe set subject for November, Shadows and Reflections proved very popular with members and as a result we had a total of 57 entries in the Set subject PDI and print sections, reports LESLEY PAROLIS.

There were many very beautiful reflections entered, which indicated how enchanting we as photographers find reflections. We are very grateful to our judge, Derick Nel, who stepped in at the last minute after Justin de Reuck informed us that he could not be present, says Lesley. Rankings: Mo Bassa was promoted to Salon. “Congratulations Mo,” says Lesley. “We look forward to more of your beautiful images.

Winner PDI Open, Advanced: Kathy Priday - Misty sunrise.

November judge from p14

Below: Winner Print Open Advanced: Jennifer Mor-kel - Protea impression 2

Winner PDI Set Advanced: Mo Bassa – Sunrise at Moyo.

Winner Print Set Beginner: Cape Grace reflections by Mike de Villiers -.

Winner PDI Open, Intermediate: The beckoning bench by Paul Nuttall .

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ThE cOMPETITION held on the 2nd December was the last one for the year and was well attended by members and visitors. The set subject theme was Rustic and the judge for the evening was the ever-popular Stanwell Slater from Fishhoek Photographic Club, reports LESLEY PAROLIS. Stan was accompanied by his wife and fellow photographer Michelle.

There were a total of 82 entries, for which he gave 32 gold awards (39% of entries) and 48 silver (59% of entries). There were also 6 red awards. The average score was 22.

The highest score, 28, was awarded in the Print Open Salon category to three images: Run for your life by Pat Scott (above), Godfrey Johnston Actor Musician Playwright by Malcolm Jones and Mosque Mosaic by Kim Stevens.

He also gave three images a mark of 26: in PDI Open Advanced for Danie Coetzee’s image Grandeur decay; in PDI Open Salon for Monreale Cathedral Sicily by John Spence and Print Open Salon for Misty frosty morning by Lesley Parolis.

The Set Subject, Rustic, attracted 20 PDI entries and 10 print entries. Rankings: In December Mike de Villiers was promoted to Intermediate. “Congratulations Mike,” says Lesley. “I’m sure that you will enjoy the new challenge.”

Every month we select two images to be entered into the PSSA National Club Winners competition. The December and January competitions will be combined as there is no December competition.

The senior entry (Advanced and Salon) for December is Pat Scott’s rhino image Run for your life (left) winner of thre Open Print Salon section. The junior entry (Beginner and Intermediate) is Mike de Villiers’ The rain spider (right), the PDI Open Beginner winner.

The December PSSA entries

Winning images in December: Set subject: Rustic

Winner Print Set Salon: Rustic gate by Jean Bradshaw. Shot with a Canon 5D Mark III with an 16-35mm lens, 16mm focal lenghth. Exposure: 1/125 sec; f/9; ISO 100, set on Manual and evaluative metering.

Set subject themes for 2016The following set subject themes have been selected for 2016. They can also be found on the Competitions page of the cTPS website

January 20th: Animal portraits (load images January 13th)

February 3rd: Sport

March 2nd: Night photography

April 6th: Architecture…forms/ columns/ bridges etc

May 4th: On stage

June 1st: High Key photography

July 6th: Abstract

August 3rd: Environmental portrait

September 7th: Street photography

October 5th: Vertical Scapes (A scape in portrait format)

November 2nd: Triptych (a set of 3 distinctly separate images on a common background that fit together or tell a story.

December 7th: Slow shutter speed (1+ sec)

Winner PDI Set Salon: River Fraser bridge Canadian Rockies by Malcolm Jones. The image was taken with a Nikon D200 and 18-200 mm lens. Exposure: 1/160 sec; f/8; ISO 100, set at Aperture Priority , using Matrix metering.

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Right: Winner Print Set Advanced — Farm fresh by Steffne Hughes

Left: November winner PDI Open Beginner – The big wheel by Mike de Villiers.

Winner PDI Open Advanced: Grandeur decay by Danie Coetzee.

Winner PDI Set Advanced: Rustic gold trade by Karyn Parisi

Right: Winner PDI Open Salon: Monreale Cathedral Sicily by John Spence. This was taken with a Canon 7D and EF24-105mm lens at 24mm focal length. Exposure: 1/90 sec; f/4.0; ISO 2500.

Below: Winner Print Open Advanced: Cactus flower by Catherine Bruce Wright.

Another November winner

See more inspiring images• See more CTPS images and competition entries on our

website at www.ctps.co.za.• PSSA website competition: any member can enter an

image for the PSSA’s monthly competition at www.pssa.co.za.

• The monthly senior and junior club entries in the PSSA club competition can also be seen on their website.

More members’ salon acceptancesCathy Bruce Wright got an acceptance in the Beachcombers Salon for her image Looking for Angels (Scapes - colour), while Jeanette du Toit added four more salon acceptances to her tally for the year.

In the Beachcomber Salon the following of Jeanette’s images got accepted: A Seed Design (Macro-Colour), Ferry Me Across (Open colour) and Reflection N (open Colour).

Her image Newly born Lion Whelps was also accepted in the Wild-life (Colour) category of the Middelburg Salon.

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Joan Ward was undoubtedly CTPS’ star performer at this year’s Interclub competition: she won the Golden Apple award for the photographer with the highest total score, namely 99 for her two prints Tiddler for Tea (50 out of 60)

and Making Space (49 out of 60).In the PDI section, Karyn Parisi was our hero with a total of 95

for her images Flamingo Planet (49) and Baby gorilla hands (48), which was the second highest PDI total score — after Johan Bey-ers of Tafelberg with 97, which included 54 for his winning image, Reaching Up. Karyn’s combined score was 4th highest of all partici-pating photographers in both print and PDI.

Lesley Parolis, with a total of 91 (Desert Swirl, 46 and Lighting Up, 45) finished just outside the Top 10.

Our entries overall performed very well, but the competition was fierce and CTPS this year unfortunately could not defend the title we won last year: we came jointly second in prints and third overall:

Club PDI Prints TotalTygerberg 554 531 1085Tafelberg 552 526 1078CTPS 529 526 1055

Five judgesThis year the organisers, Swartland Fotografie Klub, used five judges who are all very familiar with the club judging system: Malcolm Jones from CTPS, Johan Kloppers from Fish Hoek, Jan Marais from Paarl, Manie Wessels from Tafelberg and Bennie Vivier from Tygerberg.

CTPS and Tafelberg refrained from entering any images from their club members who were judging, while the judges who entered images were requested to indicate with either a low or very high score when their own images came up for judging. The lowest scores were discarded, and the high scores rounded off.

Another unique aspect of this year’s judging was that the images from a club were judged together. It is not clear how the different judges handled the scoring of images from their own clubs.

Judging of images – especially at Interclub – have for many years been a point of contention. And for this reason, several people in the region have been asking that a uniform set of rules be drawn up for judging at Interclub. These rules could, for example, spell out who will be qualified to judge, whether images from the judge may be entered, how judges from participating clubs should score their club’s images and how a total should be calculated. It is argued that if the same rules are applied from competition to competition, this will ease the burden on organisers, as well as judges.

Clear guidelines for judgingWithout clear guidelines known to — and followed by — all clubs,

Joan Ward is our Interclub winnerWhile our photographers performed well, CTPS could unfortunately not defend our title at this year’s Interclub competition

different interpretations can lead to different outcomes. Especially since judges are human, after all, and have their own photographic preferences. For example, if each of the five judges scored on their own, a different club would have been the winner each time:

Judge nr 1st place 2nd place 3rd placeJudge #1 Tafelberg Tygerberg Fish HoekJudge #2 Tygerberg Tafelberg PaarlJudge #3 Hermanus Tygerberg HelderbergJudge #4 Fish Hoek Tafelberg TygerbergJudge #5 CTPS Helderberg TafelbergWhile we don’t know which judge corresponds to which number,

we have it on good authority that club member Malcolm Jones was not Judge #5, who placed us first.

High and low scorersThis is further complicated by the fact that some judges tend to award higher (or lower) scores than others. Judge 5, for example, tended to award lower scores, on average. The total points award-ed by the judges were:

• Judge #2: 2 544• Judge #1: 2 496• Judge #3: 2 467• Judge #4: 2 431• Judge #5: 2 420 Therefore, when one judge scores his favourite images 13 or 14

out of 15 and another never goes higher than 12 out of 15, clubs with many images liked by the high-scoring judge would automati-cally benefit. Conversely, if the low scoring judge liked many images from a club, the average would be lower.

Different outcomes from different applicationsIt also makes a difference how the five scores of the judges are applied. For example, had the top as well as bottom scores been discarded, Paarl would have been joint third with us. The ranking would then have been: 1st Tygerberg (801), 2nd Tafelberg (794), 3rd CTPS and Paarl (776).

But, if the scores of all five judges were used as is, Fish Hoek would have been fourth and Paarl 5th, with the top three positions unchanged.

And had the club system of averaging the scores of the middle three judges been followed, CTPS and Paarl would have been joint-ly 3rd, with Fish Hoek in 4th place.

And yes, the average CTPS score per image would have been 22 ... as was the case when we used three judges in club competitions!

Left: Joan Ward receiving the Golden Apple award for the highest total score from Philip de Lange, president of Swartland Fotografie Klub.

Right: Joan’s high scoring image ‘Tiddler for Tea’’

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Over the last few years Kate Davies-Benade experiment-ed pretty successfully with Infrared Photography. Her presentation at our E&D evening in October was enti-tled Shooting in the Dark, and little did she know that in

more ways than one we were in the dark! We arrived at the hall to find that there were no lights: after

phoning around we were told that there was a power failure in the area, which probably wouldn’t be sorted out for a few hours.

Kate arrived, and undauntedly said she’d make a plan. Fortunately, she had brought two laptops and used one for her notes and one for her projection.

With the chairs pulled up close and per-sonal, Kate enthralled us with a most interesting and informative presentation on Infrared photography. She happily addressed all queries about this challenging genre of photography.

Infrared photography captures a world illuminated by infrared light, which is part of the colour spectrum that humans normally can’t see, hence the title shooting in the dark. Images captured us-ing these light waves have a dream-like, ethereal appearance, she explained.

Kate divided her presentation into three key technical sections, illustrating the theory with her outstanding images.

1. What is Infrared and Infrared photography? Light is measured in wavelengths — it is a spectrum. Visible light (what we can see) is part of a spectrum that also includes many other light rays, including x-rays, ultra violet rays, microwaves, and of course, infrared waves.

If you look at the graph above, the rainbow part in the middle

is the VISIBLE light; it is between these wavelengths (400 and 700 nanometres) that we live, and what our eyes have the capacity to see naturally.

On the right side of the scale (just above the pink arrow) is the infrared spectrum — a light spectrum where images cannot be cap-tured with ordinary cameras/cell phones.

Infrared photography operates in a wave-length that the naked eye cannot see. This is why this type of photography is so interesting and challenging as well as beautiful because one cannot predict the outcome and has no idea of what the image will look like until it is processed, said Kate. The world looks differ-

ent in infrared; it has an ethereal and otherworldly feeling – some-thing one can become addicted to.

Shooting in the darkInfrared Photography explained

Kate Davies-Benade is a well-known Cape Town photographer who describes herself as a photographer with an intimate sense of art, and a bold affinity for experiment. At our E&D evening in October she shared her knowledge and expertise with us under far from ideal conditions, PAT SCOTT reports.

Above: The graph explains Infrared light.Right: The interior of an DSLR camera.

The Mirror Lake, by Kate Davies-Benade.

Images captured using Infrared light waves have a dream-like, ethereal ap-pearance

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Marcus Jooste always had a special interest in nature, particularly butterflies and insects, but it was only in

2014 that he became serious about pho-tography. At the November E&D meeting Marcus talked about his journey into pho-tography, particularly macro, and shared some of the lessons and techniques he has learnt along the way.

His skills in macro photography are mainly self-taught. He expanded on how he goes about creating the images using bits and pieces found in and around his garden and home, and how the use of creative lighting brings scenes to life. He stresses that any-one can create macro scenes using imagi-nation and basic props.

By definition a macro photograph is an image that appears on the camera sensor as it is in real life; in other words 1:1 or larger. Like all genres of photography, there are some techniques that are particular to macro.

Many people find macro difficult, howev-er, if a few of the basics are right, the crea-tive opportunities are endless.

In terms of equipment one can start with a basic macro lens and then experiment with other pieces of equipment such as dioptres (magnifying lenses), reversing lenses, extension tubes, specialised ultra-

macro lenses (such as the Canon MP-E 65) and even go as far as using microscope ob-jectives to achieve magnification of 10x or greater. The use of speed lights (flash) and other light sources is important, particular-ly for extreme macro.

He stresses that if one wants to work with insects, butterflies, bees and arthropods, it

is important to get to know the behaviour of the creatures in order to achieve the im-ages one envisages.

Much thought goes into what type of props, colours, backgrounds, lighting and narrative to use.

Marcus will first create a mini set, either indoors or outdoors, and arrange all the compositional components such as water, mushrooms, leaves, flowers; as well as ex-periment with the lighting and background to get the right shadows, depth of field, bokeh (the out of focus light points in the background) etc.

Only then are the stars of the show intro-duced, who are allowed to do their own thing, says Marcus.

“Sometimes it works out as planned, sometimes entirely differently and some-times better. Most often it fails, when I pack up and give Vincent some lettuce for his troubles.”

Vincent is a common garden snail (or several) around which Marcus has cre-

Close up and intimate with Marcus JoosteMarcus Jooste shared his passion of Macro photography at the E & D talk in November through the enchanting adventures of ‘Vincent’ the gastro-pod, who is acquiring cult status, reports KIM STEVENS. Photos: courtesy of MARCUS JOOSTE

Much thought goes into what type of props, col-ours, backgrounds, light-ing and narrative to use.

‘Watcha doing Dad?’ is part of Marcus Jooste’s fairyland series.Camera information: Nikon D800, Nikkor 105mm f/2.8 lens, ISO 100, F/9.0, 1/100, three Nikon flashes (two SB-910 and one SB-700) and a full CTO warming filter. A piece of glass with glitter produced good bokeh.

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2. How to shoot in Infrared: is there a need for a special camera?

Most DSLRs can be modified to shoot in infrared and there are various ways of do-ing it. The technical image above shows the interior of a normal DSLR, where the sen-sor sits at the back, recording the image you shoot; on top of that is the infrared and UV absorption glass, then a low pass filter and support material in the front that holds everything together.

The first part of the modification process is to remove the piece of glass that absorbs the infrared and UV rays (do not try this at home, rather take it to a professional).

Suddenly, you have a camera that can capture infrared rays. However, the camera now also captures the regular 400-700 nm rays in addition to the infrared rays.

To correct this, requires the addition of a filter that fits onto the lens, such as a 715 nm filter that captures wavelengths of 715 nm. Unfortunately, this filter is 90% opaque — the reason why this article is named shooting in the dark.

To add to this, one cannot shoot on Auto-focus because the infrared filter shifts the AF about 10-15 mm and one has to focus manually — while not being able to see much!

It is fun and teaches patience because one has to go to the same places over and over again, because the focus just wasn’t right.

The last big part of this process is post production because the final in-camera im-age is reddish/pink and that is not what is wanted.

3. Post ProductionMany people get stuck at this point. There are so many tutorials available that cover this subject, but they are all different and each one leads to a different result, causing a fair amount of frustration.

There are three important procedures re-quired to finish off an infrared photograph: a. White Balance: We are all familiar with

using a grey card to white balance before editing, except with Infrared photogra-phy we need to use something green to white balance (i.e. a tree works the best).

b. Auto Tone: In Photoshop go to Image – select Auto Tone.

c. Channel swap: Go to Channel Mixer in Photoshop and switch the red and blue channels. While in the red output chan-nel, adjust red to 0% and blue to 100%; in the blue output channel, adjust red to 100% and blue to 0%.

Now you have your edited infrared image. After this you can use your own discretion to edit further, using levels, curves etc.

Infrared from p19

Marcus created the following story about this image, titled ‘Little Sybil’: “Sybil is Vincent and his wife, Violet’s, daughter. She is the second born. It’s the first night that she was left alone in the nursery and is yearning and calling for her parents. Violet wanted to go to her but Vincent was all about tough love that long night.” Camera information: Nikon D800, Nikkor 105mm f/2.8 lens, ISO 100, f/8, 1/125 sec with two off-camera speed lights, both gelled green.

ated various humorous and very creative narratives, for which he builds miniature sets. Vincent has, for example, gone to the moon, courted Violet, who became his wife and bore him two children, Cedric and Sy-bil, who have their own scenarios, etc.

Marcus’ work has featured recently on

According to Marcus the story behind this ‘Midas’ image is as follows: “The Midas snail has turned his kingdom into gold and is gazing upon the only remaining thing of natural beauty, which he knows he can’t touch.” Camera information: Nikon D800, Nikkor 105mm f/2.8 lens, ISO 100, F/9.0, 1/100, three Nikon flashes (two SB-910 and one SB-700) and a full CTO warming filter. His props were a bowl of water and a gold dress as backdrop. A piece of glass with glitter produced good bokeh

the Wild Card blog and the GO/WEG maga-zine. He was also a presenter at the prestig-ious Wild Shots Wildlife Photography Sym-posium held in Cape Town in October 2015. See more about Marcus and Vincent’s fam-ily at www.wildcard.co.za/blog. or Marcus Jooste on Google Plus.

Marcus Jooste and Vincent from p20

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F ew active club members will need an introduction to the passionate local landscape photographer and civil en-gineer Paul Bruins. Always generous

with his time, Paul gave a presentation at the 125th Anniversary Mini Congress at De Hoop in May 2015, and was a judge at the CTPS club competition in September 2015.

The image Paul used on the introductory slide at the Western Cape judging work-shop in October (see above), as well as his images above, exemplifies his work. He en-joys symmetry and pays great attention to detail, including great light, strong lines and shapes, mood and a sense of place.

Self-taught, Paul advocates studying the work of others, and shared not only his own work, but that of photographers he ad-mires, follows and who provide inspiration.

In the 18th century landscape photogra-phers such as Eadweard Muybridge and Carleton Watkins used the wet plate collo-dion process to document the natural envi-ronment. Huge 16x20 inch glass plates had to be carefully exposed and processed in the field before the emulsion dried: about

Landscape Photography:

Striving for PerfectionMARGARET COLLINS reports about the October 2015 workshop for Western Cape club members on judging landscape photography, presented by Paul Bruins.

fifteen minutes!

Pioneers of landscape photography The hugely influential Ansel Adams (1902 - 1984) helped to define the entire genre of landscape photography. He advocated sharply-detailed purist photography, and together with Fred Archer he developed the zone system for identifying correct ex-posure and contrast.

He also introduced the idea of pre-visual-isation, the process of visualising an image in his mind and setting out to achieve it by combining composition, filters and skills as a developer.

Eliot Porter (1901 - 1990) is generally re-

garded as one of the best nature/landscape photographers of all time. Author of the book In Wilderness is the Preservation of the World (1962), he used his photography to promote conservation by making people aware of nature's beauty, without compro-mising his artistic goals.

Based in the American West David Muench (1926 - ) is awed by the magnifi-cence of nature. What matters to him in-forms his photography, which shows places he is passionate about.

Current landscape mastersUnder Current Masters of Landscape Pho-tography, Paul highly ranks work by Marc Adamus, whom he calls “one of the most influential professionals in modern history” and Dutch adventure and mountain pho-tographer Max Rive, who enjoys adding the challenge of including himself in his images.

Judging landscape photographyFor Paul, award-winning landscapes have the following characteristics:• The primary subjects and overall theme

He takes three aspects into account: what he likes most, what he likes least and what he thinks needs to be done to improve the image

The image Paul Bruins used to introduce his talk at the West-ern Cape judging workshop in October, as well as his two images left, exemplify his work.Below: Marc Adamus, Heaven on Earth.

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of the image is obvious and unambigu-ous.

• If the subject is a popular landmark, the image should be creative with an ele-ment of originality.

• The most appealing images are those where the subject is highlighted through delicate intervals of sunlight, or other metrological elements (clouds, rainbow, lightning, etc.)

• The image is delicately shaded or rich in colour, without appearing faded or over-saturated

• Compositions are balanced and harmoni-ous, with no distracting elements that do not form an integral part of the subject or story.

When Paul judges a landscape image, he takes three aspects into account: what he likes most, what he likes least and what he thinks needs to be done to improve the im-age. The questions he asks are:1. Does the image fall into the landscape

genre? People, animals and man-made objects may be included, but the primary elements should be natural.

2. Is the image “Fine Art”?• Does the image evoke some emotion

(beauty, admiration, humour, intrigue,

pity… or cold!)• Is there an unambiguous primary subject

and/or message, and is this really neces-sary?

• Is the image free of technical flaws that would distract from the essence of the image?

3. Technical flaws: 10 points to consider• Is the primary subject sharp and in focus?• Is it correctly exposed without blown

highlights, or clipped shadows?• Does the composition include too much

empty space with no meaningful content?• Are significant elements cut off, or do they

extend beyond the borders of the frame?• Are all significant elements adequately

exposed to show textures and/or fine detail?

• Is the image free of inaccurate colour tones (e.g. unnaturally faded or green-tinted skies)?

• Do colours appear oversaturated, or exag-gerated?

• Does the image appear natural and be-lievable (not over-processed)?

• Is the image free of distractions such as off-putting glare, reflections, motion-blur, etc.?

• Horizons MUST be level.

4. Does the image evoke a sense of awe and wonderment, which returns each time the photograph is viewed?

5. Consider the composition, which may include:

• Arrangement of the elements (balance)• Negative space around the elements• The Rule of Thirds or the Golden Ratio• Simplicity• Objects in motion• Implied lines or physical lines, which may

be horizontal and vertical; converging; primary and secondary diagonals; zigzag; s-curve; parallel

• Framing• Harmonious and complementary colours

The formal presentation ended with Paul guiding a discussion in which 10 of his own images were judged on these criteria; an ef-fective way of getting the group to engage with the topic.

He notes that photographic art is sub-jective: Not all judges will be equally im-pressed by an image; and most judges will admit to certain biases.

He therefore recommends that photogra-phers keen on winning competitions con-sider improving their odds by diversifying the type of photos.

Eadweard Muybridge, 1872. The Pompons, Valley of the Yosemite.

Ansel Adams, 1942. Tetons and the Snake River.

Above: David Muench, 1989. Wilson Arch, Winterscape, UtahBelow: Max Rive, Blinded.

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Exciting outings in store for 2016RICHARD GOLDSCHMIDT, our outings convenor, has put together a plan for the coming year and if we base expectations on our past experiences when he was in charge, we will be in for a great and exciting time!

RIchARD GOLDSchMIDT says he has tried to coordinate some of the outings planned for 2016 with the competition themes of the following month, such as Sport, Night photography, On Stage, Street Photography and Vertical Scapes.

“We shall attempt to adhere to the dates given below, but detailed planning closer to the time may necessitate a date/time, or in-deed, an outing change,” he says. “However, we encourage members to enter the dates of the outings now in their diaries to allow for long-term planning.

“Two weekends away have been included, the first being to Bet-ty’s Bay on the 19th and 20th March and the second to Greyton on the 17th and 18th September — at the height of the flowering Canola fields. We hope that both events will be fully supported by

members as they offer varied and most rewarding photo opportu-nities,” says Richard.

All the other monthly outings will be morning or afternoon ac-tivities, and some will be led —hopefully! — by presenters of

our Education and Development evenings. A great deal of flexibility of times can be built into these outings to suit individual members.

“For instance, if you cannot enjoy a full weekend away at Betty’s Bay, then you could meet us there just for the day. Likewise, if you don’t want to catch the sunrise or sunset

on any of the other outings you can simply adjust the time to suit yourself,” he says.

A full list of outings and dates will be put onto our website, but in the meantime here are some of the preliminary details:

The first outing is on Jan-uary 2nd to photograph the Minstrel Carnival

Date Time Location2nd January 11h00 – 14h00 Minstrel Carnival: meet corner Keizersgracht and Vogelsang streets.

16th January 15h00 – 19h00 Killarney Race Track followed by Big Bay surfing and sunset.

20th February 19h00 – 22h00 Night walk around the V&A Waterfront.

19/20th March Sat/Sunday Betty’s Bay - penguins/Harold Porter Reserve/ beaches/ rivers.

16th April to be adviced Artscape performance practice or Zip Zap Circus.

14th May to be adviced Visit to Spier to photograph birds in flight.

18th June 06h00 – 17h00 Colourful vineyards in the Hex River and also the Hexpas Train trip.

24th July 06h00 – 10h00Muizenberg sunrise, then walk along coast to St James – steam train passing

14th August 08h00 – 11h00 Woodstock or City or Bo Kaap walk.

17/18th Sept Sat/Sunday Greyton, Canola fields, Grenadendal tour.

16th October 11h00 – 17h00 Vergelegen picnic : landscapes, gardens, architecture, winery.

20th November 16h00 – 19h00 Hout Bay harbour environs and perhaps Seal Island.

Mullers share our AnniversaryMullErS oPToMETrIST, which also turned 125 this year, invit-ed CTPS to exhibit some of our old photographs to open their Gal-lery on the First Thursday in December, the same day as our Salon Exhibition opened in the City Library. Part of the invitation is left.

Pat Scott, who arranged our 125th Anniversary Exhibition at the ArtScape earlier this year, loaned them a selection of the photo-graphs taken by older members for the exhibition.