15 Oct 11

86 E-images and 15 print images presented. 20 Members and 2 guests attending. Yes, we're keeping a beady eye on the meeting statistics and attendance is still a little low compared to pictures submitted.

Visiting judge for the evening was Francois Roux from Vandebijlpark who also gave us a very interesting presentation on landscape photography. Don also presented a stunning collection of water droplet/splash photographs. Congratulations to Don who has now achieved his APSSA honours in e-colour and in colour prints. Francois was very generous and awarded lots of Golds so at the end of the meeting both Sean Nam-Hing and Justin Lavery were promoted to Two Star E-Colour and Kobus Dippenaar was promoted to Two Star E-Mono. Congratualtion to our beginners and as there were no controversial pictures this month, we have a Webmaster's Choice to put some spark onto the website: Here is Burning Candle by Gottfried Knell.

Get ready for a bumper meeting next month which will be our annual Mini-Salon. So far it looks like you will be able to enter 6 images in any of the categories to be announced soon and you will need to simply prefix the filename of your picture with the category name or number so that EMMA can sort them properly. We also plan to somehow combine the event with our year end function. We are trying desperately to keep costs for the members as low as possible - more details soon.

11 Oct 11

PSSA Region Changes

Effective 1 November 2011 Southern Suburbs Camera Club will no longer fall under the Central Gauteng Region. We will be part of the new Southern Gauteng Region (previously the Western Gauteng Region). In a letter Ann d'Oliviera has thanked us for the visits and comaradery that we have shared since November 2005. Our new Regional Director is Johann van der Walt who, for the next two years will also reside as President of the PSSA.

12 Sep 11

19 Aug 11

The 2011 PSSA Regional Congress was hosted by SSCC on the 13th and was a great success. Many thanks to our PSSA Regional Representative Ann d'Oliviera for all her support and help with the organising. Also thanks to Henry for organising the venue and sponsors, Patrick and Martie for the catering and Geoff for the photographs. And not forgetting Cliffy and his Committee and all our Club members for all their support and hard work in putting this event together.

Guest speakers were Emile Wessels, Hugh Fraser and Keith Groenewald from Kameraz who stepped in at the last minute for Frans Dely who had to cancel to cover an airshow where he died tragically with other journalists in one of the Albatross planes that crashed into Mamotswiri Peak near Tzaneen on their way back to Gauteng.

The Regional contest was won in all categories by Alberton Camera Club. Well done.

12 Aug 11

Our last meeting before our PSSA Congress went well. Thanks to Hans for picking up the technical glitch when we changed from Don's stunning Surfing AV back to normal judging mode. Our three judges were Delme, Reppies and Patrick - mostly consistent but for the controversial image on the right: In Slow Motion by Lee van der Linde which scored 2, 3 and 4 with interesting comments. Sad news that the store room and cupboard in which we keep all our equipment at the Recreation Centre was broken into. Fortunately they only took our kettle and very old scoring system. I suppose it could have been a lot worse but Don now needs to repair the cupboard. Don't forget (as if Cliffy will let you) we are hosting the PSSA Congress on Saturday morning at the Museum of Military History at the Johannesburg Zoo in Saxonwold.

15 Jul 11

Congratulations to Reppies for becoming a grandfather twice this week. Due to this exciting event he left the running of EMMA to me for the July meeting. We coped well despite the cold weather and many thanks to our guest judges Willem Botha, Neil Lane and Shane Mayer from the Alberton Camera Club. By now you should all have your personal report emails from the meeting and a summary of all the entries and scores (for the time being only e-colour - we're working on including all categories soon) can be found under the "Photo Entries" link on the Members page. And don't forget to get your registration in for our PSSA Regional Conference - registration forms were handed out at the meeting and more are available from Cliffy and Martie.

25 Jun 11

Website Changes - Breaking away from Flash Menus

In order to optimise the website we have now moved off those "quick and nasty" Flash menus and replaced them with a new CSS based menu system. Basically you will notice those grey buttons are no longer there and are replaced with plain white underlined text where the background block turns orange when you mouse over it. Not as fancy but functional and much more code efficient. But don't uninstall Flash from your computer just yet. Most websites are now using Flash and we may go back to using it for other things a bit later.

Our web counter has now clocked over 3500 hits. Thanks to everyone using the website. New pictures are added after every meeting and articles and pictures are added to the blog section whenever possible (member contributions are always welcome). And although progress seems a little slow on new features, there is planning and backroom development going on all the time.

15 Jun 11

Longest Lunar Eclipse this Decade

A spectacular event and a real challenge to photograph. Firstly it was rather cold outside and secondly my tripod just wasn't designed to get to those angles.

But with a big jacket and some tripod manipulation I was able to get the shots. And don't think it was a case of just setting up the tripod and shooting at regular intervals: as the shadow of the earth covered more of the moon, exposure needed to be continually adjusted. And when the moon was in complete shadow you had to make sure your exposure didn't exceed a second or two because that moon moves every second!

10 Jun 11

A very cold evening at the Recreation Center turned out rather warm and jovial. Thanks to Reppies and James for the sherry and port. It was also our first evening with EMMA managing the show and with Reppies at the helm we got through the evening rather well. We still have a few matters to iron out with EMMA and at the last Committee meeting we made some adjustments to the projector. It was also the first time we used Reppies' notebook to drive the projector and we obviously still have some tweaking to do between the two. Even when/if we do get a new projector, the experience we are gaining now will not be wasted.

And now for something a little different .....

Earlier in the week I came across some very interesting techniques on the internet and at the meeting gave a short presentation of examples on the subject of "Blurring the boundaries between Still Photography and Video". Animated gif files are nothing new but with the latest tools and applications, high definition gif images are possible and really amazing effects can be created. We will probably never have a category for this type of picture at club, but it sure gets the mind working to see what can be done in the digital realm.

30 May 11

Balloons over Bethlehem

With our first cold front for the winter having just passed over the country, on Saturday morning very early we headed for a freezing Bethlehem for the Hot Air Balloon Festival. We arrived just after pilot's briefing and the balloons were just starting to be inflated. There were literally thousands of photographers out in their warmest winter woolies and with all their gear. If you thought the steam train events were difficult to photograph without getting someone in the picture, then this was twice as bad. But everyone was well behaved and I think everyone managed to get some really good shots. The Balloon guys put on an absolutely amazing show for us. While we were down there we took a day trip down to Phuthaditjhaba (formerly Witsieshoek) and challenged the Monantsa Pass. What stunning views over the town from this very rough pass at 2200m above sea level. We made it to the border post but I didn't have my passport with me! The little mountain road from the border post along the border just inside Lesotho to Fouriesburg should be quite something. Next time. We then backtracked down the pass and made our way back to Bethlehem through the Golden Gate National Park. A really worthwhile trip. Can't wait for next year's event.

27 May 11

Airshows: Report by Henry Sabatino

We had spectacular days for Saturday and Sunday. The two cannot be compared. Saturday was one that will be talked about for the rest of the year. The SANDF put on a show that was great. They staged a mock battle that lasted for more than 30 minutes. Everything that was defence mobile and aerial was put on show. Sunday Rand put on a good show with mostly civilian aircraft doing the show. Star was “Mustang Sally”.

This aircraft is all of 50 years oldand can travel at more than 400 mph and to get a good shot was not easy. Of the four times it flew at both air shows I only managed a few sharp pics.

23 May 11

Last month the Coffindodgers arranged a photo trip to Maputo. Thanks Reppies for the pictures and comments. Looks like you guys had a lot of fun.

Digging into crab ....

Always someone in the way!

Bob has his first taste of a prawn ...         ... then we couldn't stop him!

	And what a great event it was. Thanks for Patrick for hosting the shoot in his garden, carport and boma. Thanks to the Committee for putting in all the hard setup work, Martie for all the catering for the models, Reppies for managing the braai and Cliffy for getting the models there and back home again. Models were fantastic: Mr Moshoeshoe, Cheri-Lee and Yolande. Hoping to see many of the photos at our Club meeting next month.

13 May 11

Many thanks to Ernie and Rose Burick for judging at our meeting last night. The meeting was well attended and some really great images were presented. Lots of Golds and Certificates were awarded and all the COMs are shown in the panel on the right. Planning for the hosting of the 2011 Regional Conference is also going well and we are now looking for some sponsors for prizes and giveaways - can anyone help? The Projector raffle is still going well and we're all looking forward to a very busy photographic May. See you at Patrick's house for the Portrait Workshop tomorrow.

10 May 11

EMMA: The Future

After our EMMA demonstration last week it is clear that this membership management system is going to make a big difference to the running of our Club by involving the members in the maintenance of their own records and controlling picture submission entries. And it's just so easy. We already have a link to the EMMAzone website on our menu on the left. Once Reppies has registered all members on the system you will get an email with your username and password (the password is system generated but you can change it later yourself). You can then update your profile and start submitting your pictures. More information and demonstration at the Club Meeting on Thursday.
A big thank you to Patrick for his generous donation of EMMA to the Club and we're hoping to go live with the system for the June meeting.

2011 Regional Conference

We are also busy organising the hosting of the PSSA Regional Congress on the 13th August. Plans are in advanced stages and thanks to Henry and Martie for all their efforts on this project. Also, more info on this at the club meeting.

May Events

The rest of May will be very busy for SSCC members. Keep an eye on your Yahoo Groups and your emails for more information:

14th - SSCC Portrait Workshop at Patrick's House
14th - Heidelberg Airshow
21st - Swartkops Airshow
22nd - Rand Airport Airshow
25 to 29th - Hot Air Balloon Festival - Bethlehem
28 to 29th - Sasol Birds and Birding Faire - Johannesburg Zoo

See you at the Club meeting on Thursday where we're hoping to see some of those photographs from the Coffindodger's Maputo trip that we're hearing so much about.

23 Apr 11

Our April Club Meeting had a good turnout despite the light rain. The temperature now also showing a definite touch of winter. Thanks again to all members supporting the Projector raffle and for Cliffy and Geoff for judging.

25 Mar 11

At our Club Meeting on the 10th Geoff surprised us by bringing along guest judge Mike Feldman. Mike had a large collection of his mono images as a "Retrospective" and also showed a powerpoint presentation on some really arty stuff - so much so that he concluded "Our judges wouldn't know where to start on some of the images".

Thanks to Henry for organising the raffle and thanks to everyone for their support. At this rate it shouldn't be long before we can afford our new projector. A big welcome to three new members, one of which submitted pictures. There were no Certificates of Merit awarded so this month we have a "Webmaster's Choice" to bring some colour to our home page: A very fitting arty image called "The Wall" by Bob Thorsen.

22 Feb 11

Water Water Everywhere . . .

On the way back from our trip to Port Elizabeth this weekend we were amazed to see so much water. All farm dams are full to capacity and there are large puddles all along whichever roads we took through the Free State. Also took the opportunity to check out the Gariep Dam which was 107% full and overflowing with ominous stormclouds in the background ready to unleash the next load. The Gariep (old Hendrik Verwoerd) Dam is a wonderful photo opportunity with viewpoints all over the place. You can also drive across the bridge downriver and walk or drive on the dam wall itself - amazing to hear the power of that water closeup!

11 Feb 11

A fantastic turnout of over 30 attendees for our February meeting including two visitors and one new member. The meeting was superbly chaired by our new Chairman Cliffy Els and Anne d'Oliveira gave us a presentation on her favourite photographs and judged the evening's photographs. Judging was strict and fair with only two Certificates awarded for the evening.

Henry presented Geoff with a hamper for his work as Chairman over the past two years and thanks to most members paying their subs - still some outstanding though. Thanks also to Henry and Claire for arranging the fund raising raffle. The sweets hamper was won by Don and the wine by Martie.

9 Feb 11

Whew - first month of 2011 just flown by! Hope everyone had a great holiday but now it's back to the grindstone. Our first meeting for the year, and Annual General Meeting went well with the only change in the Committee being our Chairman. Many thanks to Geoff Armstrong for all his hard work over the past two years and big welcome to Cliffy Els who started off his reign by judging for the evening. Thanks Cliffy.

Congratulations to Delme Thomas for his promotion to Southern Cross E-Colour and Five Star E-Monochrome. Also to Lee van der Linde (now Four Star E-Colour) and Ikes Myburgh (now Three Star E-Colour) on their promotions.

Please don't forget Club meeting tomorrow night. Visiting judge will be our PSSA Regional Representative Anne d'Oliveira. And don't forget to bring some money along for your subscription renewals. See you at the meeting.

Link to News Archives: 2009 2010