South Carolina Photography Guild

It was a little delayed in coming, but after some prodding from the group, the SCPG is happy to both announce the winnenrs of our member shots that were submitted to the Coastal Carolina Fair recently. Manoj Menon was by far the most extensive winner as he came away with a 2nd place prize, a 3rd place prize, and not 1 but 2 honorable mentions. Dave also came away with an honorable mention. Thanks to all that took part (we had a grand total of 25 submissions from our little club), and we look forward to even more shots and participants next year! The shots and their respective awards are listed below for your viewing enjoyment!

Dave - Honorable Mention 
Manoj - Honorable Mention 

Manoj - Honorable Mention  

Manoj - 3rd Place Winner 

Manoj - 2nd Place Winner  

The scphotogs group got together again in smaller fashion this past weekend, and took a walk down Broad Street to see the sights and capture what we saw on camera.  All in all, it was a fun outing…smaller than what we typically see from scheduled shoots, but enjoyable because of it.  The larger shoots are great ways to introduce the group to new people and hopefully generate more buzz about getting people to join in the ongoing dialogues in the forums.  The forums also then generate spontaneous shoots like this last one.  Every once in a while though, it is fun to just get out and shoot.  As the unofficial blog author, I was actually able to test out a new lens that I recently purchased and it passed with flying colors.

Shots from others are in the forums so head on over to check out the sights others saw, as we have some truly remarkable talent already in the group.  We’d always welcome more though, so if you have the inkling to grab a camera and snap away, then you are ready for our crowd!  Here’s a few samples from what we saw on Saturday.

Newer member Dave, (a.k.a. davedude46) spent some time at a plantation that is “just on the north/east side of Folly Rd just after coming across the Wappoo Creek bridge” and generously shared his efforts with the rest of the community recently. A sampling of his handiwork graces the SCPG blog today. View the rest of his and everyone elses’ shots at your leisure both in the forums and the newly formatted galleries via the links to the right. In the meantime, enjoy these select few:

As things settle down professionally, more time is now available so I will try to get some shots out here on a regular basis from the forums. Here’s a cool shot from our resident “Macro Expert”, Manoj Menon.

The forums for scphotogs is a very happening place lately! So happening, the blog has not gotten the attention is should be getting. As a means of correcting that, and also to highlight some of the work that is being shared in the developing community of photogs for the Low Country, here are some shots of recent postings to the forums. Enjoy!

White Ibis - Manoj

Giraffe, Columbia Zoo - Sarah

Grove Plantation - Dave

Golden Glow - Thomas

Joe Rosenthal, the photographer who captured the famous shot of the raising of the flag at Iwo Jima, has passed on at the age of 94.  Please join the photographic community as we acknowledge the contributions Mr. Rosenthal has given to the world, as well as offer our regards to the family.

Interestingly, the  capture was obtained through sheer coincidence, as he initially had not intended to make the climb to the summit, since he heard a flag was already in place.  As it turns out, the first flag was a smalelr flag and the troops decided to raise a larger flag, allowed Rosenthal the opportunity to capture the now famous image.  More details on the life and contributions of Rosenthal are available on the AP Wire here:  Rosenthal Story

Storage capacities have been increasing on all fronts lately. Flash media has seen the evolution of a previoulsy unheard of 8 gigabyte Compact Flash card (courtesy of Sandisk), and hard drives are now able to store data in increments of 500 gigabytes (that’s half a Terabyte for you geek-types!), surely even the storage hungry uber-shooters would be satisfied right? Wrong!

The portable media that had been largely ignored for offline storage (CD’s and DVD’s) due to limitations has seen recent gains. Dual layer DVD’s have allowed us to store up to 8 gigabytes on one disc. Then blu-ray technology showed how we could store up to 12 gigabytes on one disc. As if that’s not enough, Verbatim has taken the blu-ray technology one step further by implementing dual layer capabilities for the media. That’s right, you can now store 25 gigabytes on one dual layer blu-ray DVD. Granted, you need a drive that can read blu-ray, of which there are select few, but with this announcement, the ability to save and backup data to for offline storage has just seen another exponential step forward.

Yet, I am sure, someone out there somewhere, will no doubt lose some data because they didn’t want to spend the $25 on a blu-ray disc to save the contents of their hard drive.

The forums for the SCPG has a good discussion going on right now on the subject of framing your pictures digitally.  We are looking at the subject of whether frames enhance, hurt, or are even needed for pictures.  There are perspectives from every angle, and some shots are offered up as examples to help encourage discussion.  Here is one shot displayed with multiple background effects, including an original for comparision.  Come on over and check out all the shots and offer up your own two cents today! Thanks for stopping in and feel free to leave comments here as well.

This first shot setup uses what is referred to as a gradient background:

This second shot is using a plain white background:

And finally, here is the original for an overall comparison:

Which do you like best?  Feel free to leave a comment here, or join in the discussion

Today’s POTD series is a collection of various shots from our excursion out to Boone Hall on Saturday.  The weather was overcast, and approaching storms made for a fun experience.  Some even stayed out trying to catch the lightning behind the main building.  All in all a fun outing.  Jason’s full series of pics are in his gallery (linked right as well) and others have attached some shots in the forums, so stop on over and check them out (feel free to comment too!