ACC Q1 Print competition

The first quarterly print competition took place on Tuesday, 1st February. The normal categories are General, Nature and Portrait. I put in two prints, both printed to A4 size at home (must do a blog entry on equipment used) and mounted on cream card.

The general picture was taken in Camden with the JLP photography club and is of a large soap bubble with pedestrians behind.  The judge scored this at 8.5

The second picture was a nature picture and was my shot of a Mayfly taken at Wraysbury in 2009. This was well received and scored 9. The points against were just that the body was a little dark compared to the rest of the image.

Ashford Camera Club website - http://www.ashfordcameraclub.org.uk/

Boiler fitted and working

At 4 PM the British Gas fitter (Chris) left the house having completed all the work for the new boiler. The system has been fully flushed and bled. The expansion tank had very dirty water in it. The radiators all (except one) have thermostat valves and the new flue and condensation pipes are fitted and plastered in. I now have taps to drain the system (inside front door and by boiler) and also a tap on the pipe leading to the expansion tank.
There was just one problem. The electrician could not find the cable that controlled the room thermostat so could not wire this in to the new controller. To get around this a wireless controller will be fitted, but owing to the the bank holidays and Christmas break he could not get hold of one this year. It should be a quick visit in the new year to replace the old thermostat and fit the controller to the hot water tank.
All in all very pleased with the job. It was well done and resolved some underlying issues (rounded off bleed taps, corrosive water and missing drain taps) with the system. It is already noticeable that the radiators are warmer.

New Baxi boiler being fitted.

Wednesday 29th December 2010

As I type British Gas are fitting a new Baxi central heating boiler. The old boiler (also a Baxi) is working OK but with the VAT increase (17.5 to 20%) about to take effect and the low efficiency of the boiler I thought it would be worthwhile changing.

The new boiler and parts were delivered at 7:15 this morning and the two engineers (father and son, Chris and Russ) arrived at 8 A.M.

I am having thermostat valves on 8 of the 9 radiators and the whole system is being Powerflushed.

As the installation is going several bits have been found that need sorting.

• The front bedroom radiator bleed valve was rounded off but fortunately a new fitting was easily put in
• The pump was corroded, as were a lot of the brass fittings around the system.
• The (corrosive) water in the system is very black so highlights the need for a good clean out.

On the initial plan the planner thought a new hole would be needed for the boiler flue but with the boiler being a bit lower in the cupboard the same hole can be used. Once the job is finished if there is no building work then  that amount can be taken off the bill.

Ashford Camera Club - Annual Projected Image Competiton.

The annual projected image competition was held on Tuesday, 23rd November.
The categories were

• Nature
• Portrait
• General

I submitted two entries. Bluebell Swirl, taken in Stroude last spring and Sun in Trees, taken in Bala with JLPPC last year. I should have put my Bluebell picture into the general category as the nature category does not allow any manipulation if even this is done by camera movement. It should be a true representation of what was seen. Oh well I know for next time. The picture was scored however and got an 8.

The judge really liked my Sun in Trees picture and gave it a 10,  yay!

Ashford Camera Club – Annual Print Competition

Tuesday, 16th November saw me make my first entries in a print competition at the ACC annual print competition. Having only just joined the club I have missed the quarterly competitions but the format is much the same. Prints can be entered in the following categories:

• Nature
• Portrait – monochrome
• Portrait – colour
• General – monochrome
• General – colour

I put forward my picture of cottages at Cuckmere Haven from Saturday’s annual show and a print of a pigeon in shallow water taken in Nottingham a few years ago.
The independent judge took a quick preview of the pictures then went through each one, displayed in a lightbox, and gave her comments and a score for each. The maximum score was 10 and a few pictures did achieve this.
My picture of cottages only scored 7.5 owing to a lack of recession into the distance over the cliffs and too much foreground in front of the cottages.

The pigeon however did grab the judges attention owning to the reflections and unusual setting. This was awarded 9.5 and so will go forward in the club’s entries for a Surrey Photographic clubs  Association  competition in the new year.

Technorati Tags: ACC,prints, photography, ashford, competition,

Ashford Camera Club – Annual Exhibition 2010

The annual exhibition of the camera club took place in the St. Matthew’s Hall in Ashford. I arrived just after 9 A.M. to find a good number of members already in the hall putting up their photos. There was a wide range of subjects from portraits to landscapes and lots in between. There were some prints for sale and I noticed a few of these had scores from previous competitions so it was useful to see some that had scored highly and to try and work out why. I had named five pictures to go up so the name labels were ready and waiting.  These were either pinned or attached using Velcro tabs to the display boards.
The pictures were:

• Jackdaw
• Swans in Black & White
• Sheepdog
• Cottages at Cuckmere Haven
• Birdman

The show opened at 10:30 but there were few visitors in the first couple of hours but around midday a few groups of twos and threes arrived. The hall is off the beaten track so despite the plentiful banners and boards in the high street it is not somewhere passersby will stumble across.
I had to leave at 12:30 to get to Croydon so will find out on Tuesday (next club night) how the exhibition went in the afternoon. It was due to close at 4 P.M.
The morning was a good opportunity to meet and chat to other members of the club and see their work. It is always beneficial to do this to learn and get ideas to try different things with photographs.
The next club night is for the annual print competition so I’ll need to sort out a print or two for that and prepare a digital image (one to display on a projector) for the following week.

Technorati Tags: ACC,Exhibition,prints,Ashford,Photography

Yay Waxwings over Bracknell

After hearing about the abundance of Wawings this autumn I headed up to a spot, near to the office, where I have seen these beautiful birds in previous years. The reports on the Berkshire Birds web site (http://www.berksbirds.co.uk) confirmed that there were birds present this week. The conditions were perfect with a bright sunny autumn day and few clouds. I had the car with me at work so drove the ten minutes or so to World's End Hill near the B3430. On arriving I saw an encouraging site as there were two people with binoculars and a telescope peering into the nearby trees. They had spotted 4 Waxwings high in the birch tree, Apparently the birds flew down to the nearby rowan tree when anyone went past and my arrival had the desired effect as right on cue they flew down and started to eat the berries. Unfortunately, I only had my Canon compact so not nearly enough reach to take any worthwhile pictures, However, the view in the binoculars was text book. Great views of the birds,  side on in full sunshine, eating berries with the deep blue autumn sky beyond.

A great sight for any lunchtime!