This is the clubs third or fourth ‘Sound Triggered Flash Night’ and they just keep getting better and better. We had the room setup with a central table where everyone could get 360 degree access. The room was full of people and was a sea of tripod legs and we spread ourselves around fairly evenly spaced out. Then it was the usual go around the Nikons and turn off the focus assist lamp although this years big offender was George with his little Lumix point and shoot that insisted on emitting a horrid orange glow every time a button was pressed. However, there was a couple of other offenders with Fred Seeber having his pop up flash working at one point and all of wondering why the sound flash was going off early until a keen eyed person realised it was Fred’s flash.
We burst balloons, smashed light globes, set off party poppers, fired silly string, dropped coloured pencils and sprayed aerosols all in the name of photography and I must say that from what I saw, we got some great shots. As always the multi balloons with flour inside were pretty popular as was the water on the outside of the balloons.
By Dave Sumner
The night shot by and before we knew it, the time had crept to 10.30 and we were still shooting away so it was a quick tidy up and off home after another very successful workshop. I hope you all got some great images and thanks have to go to Pete, Fred and Stephen for providing us with a great night, especially to Fred Bullock who did nearly all of the cleaning up.
The Sunday outing to Cape Schanck was looming and after spending most of the day before at Geelong with Vicki and Rosie judging their end of year competition, I was not looking forward to the early rise on Sunday. As it happened I awoke at 4am and couldn’t get back to sleep so I was actually standing in the street waiting when Stephen arrived at 5.15am.
Now all the way there Stephen and I wondered how many people would actually turn up and I kept reassuring him that there would be at least two of us. We pulled into the car park at 6.20am and immediately realised that there were two cars there already and John Ho, Anthony Yap and Richard Dabbous were eagerly awaiting others to arrive. in the next few minutes another stream of cars arrived and then there was 16 of us, what a superb turn out.
We organised ourselves and started the dark walk down the boardwalk to Pulpit Rock. Some people stopped to take shots of the lighthouse as its slow rotating lights streamed through the low cloud. I gave this a try too but to get the dark foreground with any detail, the lights were just blowing out completely. I therefore continued my way down slowly negotiating the slippery walkway. The light was just appearing as I arrived where everyone else was and one look at the sea and I knew we were in for a treat. The waves were breaking over the rocks and the tide was perfect. It is quite eerie looking across the rocks at waves that are quite a bit higher than where you are sitting with your expensive camera gear but luckily they were dissipating well before they got where we were located.
We had a bit of a wait before the light started to come good and in fact it went really flat at one point so we were a little anxious to say the least but once the sun rose over the cliffs, Pulpit Rock just lit up beautifully and so did the waves. Anthony Yap Dave Sumner
We stayed for a good while before retiring back to the car park and heading off to Flinders for Brunch. I even managed a wildlife shot back at the car park and even though nobody had any idea what sort of bird this was, I enjoyed capturing it just the same. it turned out to be a Golden Whistler I think. Golden Whistler
Now in the true tradition of WCC outings, we ran into trouble after we had eaten at Flinders. The car park that I had suggested that we all used which I presumed was a public car park and there are no signs to the contrary saw us all come under a hail of abuse from the Fish and Chip shop owner who was yelling and shouting at us for not using his shop, I wonder why we didn’t use his shop!!! we certainly won’t in the future. So here is a hot WCC tip, don’t use the fish and chip shop at Flinders, the owner doesn’t like us. Once this shop owner had retreated to his shop after some of his locals asked him to calm down, we moved down to the Flinders Jetty.
After spending around 45 minutes here we traversed the WCC convoy through the golf course and on to ‘The Blowhole’ just down the coast. This was a little disappointing, there were a lot of people here and not much blowhole action at all. So it was on to the ‘Kings Waterfall’ which is located at the back of Arthur’s Seat. This turned out to be a King’s trickle and the usual Parks Victoria useless viewing platform. Although we were entertained when we looked across the ravine to see Anthony half way down a steep banking trying to get shots of the waterfall (trickle). After this, a few people wanted some lunch so we had a quite entertaining session in the Pig and Whistle before having a quick look at Seawind’s Gardens. Unfortunately the clouds had appeared and the light was flatter than the water in the bay. So it was on to Arthur’s Seat to find that the view is now obscured by trees.
Sunset was out so the remaining people decided to get a few last shots at the viewpoints below Arthur’s Seat and then forget sunset as the light was gone. Overall I had a great day out, some good and some not so good photography but great company.
There are other photographs from the day in the gallery HERE Please have a look and comment if you feel the need, I’m sure that the less experienced amongst us would appreciate your feedback.
Next outing is a trip to the snow and details will be sent out soon I hope.
The workshop on Tuesday 16th is a ‘Sound Triggered Flash’ night where we freeze the action of balloons bursting, globes smashing and items exploding.
This is a practical workshop so please bring along:
– Your Camera
– Tripod
– Electronic\Cable Release (not essential, but handy)
Also could all users of NIKON cameras and cameras that are NIKON based please look at your manual and find out how to turn off the focus assist lamp that lights up in dark situations. This lamp will cause problems during the sound triggered flash process and they are not necessary.
Please could we ask that people bring along some old light globes if you have any.
For more information on what to expect have a look HERE
The President’s Trophy is an annual competition for WCC members that is a little more fun to compete in. The theme is usually quite relaxed and open to your own interpretation and the idea is to ‘think outside of the box’ and entertain the President. The image format is EDI and the normal club sizing and naming rules apply, if you are not sure about these. Just send your image to the usual by the 19th November 2013 so you have plenty of time.
This years theme is ‘FUZZY’ so go for your life but remember the closing date and get out there and get snapping.
As you know, the July Sunday outing was destined to be a ‘trip to the Snow’ but a visit to Mt Donna Buang last weekend revealed that was no snow at all. We have since discovered that the Victoria ‘Snow Watch’ website doesn’t start reporting snowfall until the 24th June. Therefore, we have decided that there would be more chance of snow in August and we are switching around the Mornington Peninsula outing with the snow trip.
So, Sunday 7th July 2013 will be a trip to the Mornington Peninsula and after exhaustive talks between the President and the Secretary we have decided to make a day of it. So, as members you have a choice as follows:
Option One: Meet at 06.30 prompt at the Cape Shanck car park for a walk down to Pulpit Rock for the 7.37 sunrise. Then back to the cars and on to Flinders to meet up again at 10.30 for brunch followed by some jetty and rocks photography on the shoreline. Then between 1.30 – 2.30pm we will move to the bay side of the peninsula and possibly visit Arthur’s Seat and Sea Winds Gardens for a sunset shoot at 5.13pm
Option Two: Same as option one but missing out the sunrise shoot and meeting at 10.30 at Flinders in the car park near the Art Gallery (see image).
***NOTE*** Just to clarify, the two options are not a vote to choose one or the other, they will both be happening and you can choose which you wish to attend. Option 1 is for the real die hard photographers amongst us and Option 2 is for the part time happy snappers.
There will be a Architecture photography workshop tonight at Wadham House by the acclaimed Lin Richards. Lin has been in the photography world for a good number of years as well on the VAPS committee. I’m sure that you are in for treat if you attend tonight as well as getting a head start on others for the July competition which has the topic ‘Architecture’.
The workshop will be held downstairs at Wadham house, 7.30pm for an 8pm start. Details of the Wadham House location can be found HERE
It was early on Sunday morning when I found myself with a quickened step up Swanston Street toward the State Library, I was hurrying as I was running a little late but I knew there would be people waiting because I had already had two phone calls. As I rounded the last building before the library I saw not two but seventeen members waiting patiently, wow!! what a turn out.
We quickly realised that none of the organisers were going to turn up so we made a group decision to head into Melbourne Central to photograph the shot tower before the crowds gathered. This was a great decision because the place was about deserted and the security man had no problems at all with us being there. There were club members by the escalators, down in the basement and up by the cinema. All in all we had every angle covered.
Hello There
From there it was onto the Old Mint building where we explored the gardens then onto Flagstaff Gardens which didn’t look that appealing so we headed to Victoria Market. In the market we took lots of images and then we gathered for coffee and a break in the food area. From here some people went home and others headed back towards the State Library where we visited laneways. Once back at the library we went inside and photographed the reading room and investigated the galleries.
Now it was 2pm and after another well deserved coffee we headed back home having had a great day out. Sorry a lot of you missed out, there’s always the next Sunday outing which will be a sporting event of some sort.
