Contact: Mark Horvath 0409332633
Meets: 7pm First Tuesday of each month at the TCC Bicentennial Building (Soundshell), Kirwan.
Remember to advise of your intent to attend the day prior to the event, at the latest.
Monthly Photography Theme Guidelines
- Images should match the month’s theme and been captured within the 12 months preceding the month in which they are shown.
- There is a limit of 20 images per person, 10 themed and 10 images of your choice.
- The best image ratio to match the projector screen is 4:3. Cropping to this ratio ensures the image will be displayed full screen however, it is not necessary to do so.
- File size for each image should be kept to between one and two megabytes.
- For the five images you select to go onto the monthly photo page of the Web site, please title the files with species common name, location (optional) and your name (initial and surname).
Photography Themes
January 2023 – Best of 2022. January is where members get to showcase their best images taken within the previous calendar year. Anything goes as long as the main subject is a bird.
February 2023 – Shades of Grey. A bit of a twist on the old Black and White theme here. The subject bird is to have shades of grey. So, not pure black or white, or black and white. If the bird has more colours other than grey then that’s acceptable as long as grey is the feature in the image.
March 2023 – Glossy. This one is similar to the themes where we were after a colour visible in the image, however in this case we are not interested in the colour but a gloss, iridescence, or sheen visible on the bird’s plumage.
April 2023 – Feathers and Flowers. The old favourite here. Images with a bird and a flower. Don’t have to include all of both as long as each is visible to some extent.
May 2023 – Head On. The requirement here is for the bird to be facing the camera. The closer it is to looking down the barrel of the lens the better.
June 2023 – Just the Two of Us. There must be two birds in the image. They can be the same or different species. Try for some form of interaction or imagery depicting a couple. EG: Parent and young or a couple. The challenge here is focus. It can be difficult to get more than one bird in focus.
July 2023 – Red Eye. This theme will have you taking images of species with red eyes. However, a red orbital skin and/or associated flesh around the eye will also meet the theme. Note that not all the flesh needs to be red. Just as long as there is some red visible. An extreme example of an acceptable species would be the male Australasian Figbird. At the other end of the scale would be a Squatter Pigeon that might have only a tiny patch of red in its orbital skin.
August 2023 – Backs. Looking for images displaying the back of the bird, not the underside. Wanting to see the nape, mantle, back and rump. It would also be preferable to have the bird’s head turned around so we can see its face.
September 2023 – Flight. This one shouldn’t present a problem. Any image where the bird is conducting some sort aerial activity will be acceptable. Even a bird that appears to be launching or landing, with its feet in contact with the ground/branch etc, would suffice.
October 2023 – White. Variation of a theme here. We’ve had ‘Grey’ and now we are after species with ‘White’ plumage, however not an all white bird such as an egret, corella etc, please. Fine if the majority of the bird’s plumage is white but we’d prefer not to see a thousand images of the various species of egret. This shouldn’t cause too much trouble as a very large number of species have white somewhere in their plumage.
November 2023 – Behaviour. Obviously, the subject will need to be doing something other than sitting sedately. For example, it could be preening, stretching, drinking, scratching, yawning, etc. of a theme here.
December 2023 – Reflection. Want to see a reflection in the image. Since we are part of a birding organisation, I expect the main subject to be a bird, so the reflection could be of the bird or part thereof, or it could be a reflection captured in the bird’s eye. You could just take a photo of the bird’s reflection and not include the bird but that is up to you.
January 2024 – Best of 2023. January is where members get to showcase their best images taken within the previous calendar year. Anything goes as long as the main subject is a bird.
February 2024 – Flocks. In this one we are looking for a group of birds. The more the merrier, however the quantity the photographer perceives to be a ‘flock’ is up to their discretion.
March 2024 – Water/Wet. Looking for more than just a bird with water somewhere in the shot. Some form of interaction between the two would be preferred or maybe a bird that is wet. Other interpretations of the theme would be welcome and of course will create some discussion on the night.
April 2024 – Bird on a wire/Post. This is a fairly simple one where the subject just needs to be on some form of wire or post like object. ‘Wire’ can be stretched to metal rails or even train tracks. ‘Post’ however, can’t be a naturally occurring broken off tree stump but should be something positioned or altered by human intervention.
May 2024 – Plumage Adornments. What we are looking for here is where the changes in colour of the plumage is not a block colour. For example, not the changes in colours found on a Buff-breasted Paradise-Kingfisher or those on a male Australasian Figbird ssp vielloti. The variation in the plumage needs to be something along the lines of stripes, chevrons, spots etc. So the underside of a female Australasian Figbird or the breast markings of a Peaceful Dove would qualify.
Remember that the images need to have been captured within the 12 months preceding the month in which they are shown.
Please keep your total number of images to 20 so that we have plenty of time to show everyone’s.
