#printprojectchallenge

New Post has been published on http://www.kgsinclair.com/2018/11/print-project-exhibition-2/

Print Project Exhibition

This month my focus has been on the Print Project Challenge. The submission date was 5 November and I just achieved this. I sent my images to Streets Imaging on Wednesday 31 October and collected them on Thursday 1 November after work. The paper stock was beautiful but the actual images were over sharpened and could not be used. I knew what I had done wrong and was able to go back to the previous version of the images and send them off for reprint. Fortunately they were ready on Friday 2 November for collection after work. I was then able to mat them over the weekend.

Opening night for the exhibition was on 16 November at The Maud Street Photo Gallery. Marie also had images in the exhibition along with 17 other members of Brisbane Camera Group. Marie’s images were stunning and she has taken a giant leap forward in her photographic development. My Photoshop skills continue to develop and I think my images are an improvement on what I presented last year.

Image courtesy of Marie Sinclair

My project is titled “It’s the Time” and is based on a poem I wrote 20 years ago. This project aimed to reinterpret the poem as a series of photographic images. Click here to read my artist statement and poem. Here are the images I exhibited:

There was no monthly competition in November. Marie and I assisted other club members on 4 November for the annual competition print judging. This is a hectic day and everyone was tired when it finished. I submitted 23 prints over 6 categories. One print was disqualified as I made a mistake in the entry process. I had 3 images in Nature but after the disqualification I ended with only 2 images in the category.

Marie and I are both AB grade members. It was disappointing that only 4 AB grade members (including Marie and I) entered prints in the annual competition. The results of the judging will be announced at the Club’s Annual Dinner on 3 December. The images I submitted this year can be viewed by clicking here.

Since last post I have submitted a number of images to my Instagram account. Here is a sampling of some of them:

My next post will be after the Brisbane Camera Group Annual Dinner on 3 December. I will then know how my prints performed and will be able to share that news.

New Post has been published on http://www.kgsinclair.com/2017/11/print-project-exhibition/

Print Project Exhibition

Last weekend Brisbane Camera Group exhibited all the entries in its Print Project Challenge at Maud Creative. The opening was very well attended and exceeded all expectations. Marie and I were proud to have our entries on display and we were very happy with their placement within the gallery. The range in subject matter on display was large and the quality was really good. I think all club members who participated can be proud of their work.

The entry the judges awarded as the winner was “Ode to Darkness” by Ray Shorter (BCG President). Ray’s entry was outstanding and a everyone I spoke to on the night agreed with the judge’s choice.

Ray Shorter Opening the Exhibition

Judges Melissa Anderson & Adam Finch announcing the “winner”

Some of the People attending the Opening

Marie (My wife) proudly showing her entry

  While I have a competitive streak in me, I approached this as a process rather than anything else. I find it interesting how a project develops and progresses before it is “finalised” for printing and display. Back in March when I drew rough drawings of the content of my images, I thought the job was shooting the images and then put them together in Photoshop. The images printed and displayed at the Exhibition did not reflect the initial drawings with the exception of the characters and their costumes. It’s amazing what the constraint of time does to a project and how it can change the way concepts are presented.

23 October was the deadline for submitting images for the BCG annual competition. Unfortunately I did not submit any images this year. The best laid plans came undone due to unexpected family circumstances. However, Marie and I were able to attend the judging and were very impressed with the quality of images submitted. The annual awards are announced at our club dinner on Monday 4 December.

As promised in my last post, here are some images from our recent trip to Italy and the French Riviera.

New Post has been published on http://www.kgsinclair.com/2017/10/print-project-judging/

Print Project Judging

Time flies so quickly and I can’t believe it is so long since I have posted my progress here. My main focus for the year has been the Brisbane Camera Group Print Project Challenge. The images were submitted early in September and were judged last Sunday. There were 16 entries submitted by club members which were a very good response. While I did not place in the competition, I am still proud of my final images and the story they told.

The club is holding an exhibition of the images entered at Maud Gallery here in Brisbane. The opening night is Friday 17 November starting at 6pm. The exhibition will be open on Saturday and Sunday for anyone to view the images.

Earlier in the year I published my Artist Statement. The images I submitted and the fine-tuned Artist Statement follow:

“Each of us, as Whitman writes, does ‘..contain multitudes’. Contacting the jostling crowd of inner selves, giving them a chance to speak and to act, can greatly enrich our lives.” (Julia Cameron, “The Vein of Gold” page 87)

In Inner Selves I have created five characters – Performer Pete, Judgmental Jack, Nervous Ned, Furious Frank and Rebel Ray – to explore the “jostling crowd of inner selves” we all possess. I have used the genre of self-portraiture and deliberately chose characters I know are part of my personality but rarely seen by others. In the work I show each character in front of a crowd, a literal and metaphoric representation of the judgment we fear when we let these inner selves out.

I begin the series with an image that represents the jostling crowd of inner selves and my five characters are hiding within the crowd. The final image portrays a growing acceptance of these characters without the fear of judgement as their existence has been acknowledged. I want Inner Selves to invite the viewer to reflect on their own inner selves and to encourage the acknowledgement and acceptance of them.

Each image began as a photograph before being manipulated in Photoshop to produce prints reflecting the vision I held for each of the inner selves. The artistic challenge was in self-portrait making and using Photoshop to tell the story through combining multiple images. I used obvious layers and rough selections to indicate that inner selves can be poorly defined unless they are examined. I also wanted to reflect that as humans we all have imperfections.

An outcome of this project was further development of my artistic and storytelling skills in photography. Also, there was fun in creating the characters suggesting more work on this theme may be possible in the future.

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  I was fortunate enough to attend the judging and to hear first-hand the feedback they provided. Their comments were very helpful and highlighted the need to be attentive to detail at all levels of the image making. A key area highlighted was the harsh lighting used in the self-portraits. This is an area I have little experience in even though I did attend a couple of lighting workshops prior to finalising my images. They indicated that their eyes were drawn to my shoes in a couple of images which was a distraction to the story being told. I had noted the same thing myself but ran out of time to try to fix.

Overall the Print Project Challenge was a valuable learning experience I know will hold me in good stead on my photographic journey. The ability to put together a number of images that link to each other and tell a story is not as easy as it may seem. This project has opened my eyes to some of the techniques needed to achieve this.

Also, from mid-September to mid-October, Marie and I travelled to Italy for 3 weeks on a photography tour and to the French Riviera for a week to relax and prepare to return home. This was my first time to Europe and I thoroughly enjoyed it. The historical areas were an eye opener. I came back with over five thousand images that I need to work through. Below are some images I took with my phone. I will display more images later as I process them.

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  Brisbane Camera Group has an annual competition for members and the closing date for image submissions is 23 October. I am aiming to submit some images again this year.