"A weekend in the Chev" photo competition

Congratulations to all entrants!

One weekend in March 2010 and the Point Chev was captured in all its glory. With 292 entries we were overwhelmed with the response and the standard of entry was incredibly high. All prize winners and details are at the bottom of the page as well as links to galleries with all the entries, or just enjoy the following:

Cam's very subjective 'Best of the Competition'

All photos can be viewed as slideshows below, or as galleries at http://picasaweb.google.com/pointchevwebsite (note the best way to view these is by clicking on the gallery that you want then when you see all the thumbnails of the photos, slide the slider at the top right of the screen to the right which will make all the thumbnails bigger).

The following slideshow is of all 292 entries submitted.

Winner of the Grand Prize of $500

Thanks to Ross Brader and Lawrence von Sturmer, www.sellrealty.co.nz, for sponsoring the Grand prize of $500

Category winners

People & Portrait

$200 camera bag from Lowe Pro

Pets & Animals

$100 cash prize from McDonalds

Landscape

Black and White

Free Oil and Lube worth $120 from The Mechanix, Great North Rd

Nature

$100 Grocery hamper - Pak n save

Around the house

Point Chev Bowling Club has offered 2x social memberships, free lessons, plus some drinks

Childrens prizes

Prizes for all the kids and young adults have been donated by Steph at the Resource Room, 330 Point Chev Rd:

Primary school pupil: $40 book voucher

Intermediate pupil: $40 book voucher

High school pupil: $40 book voucher

Benefitz Aesthetic Eye Award - A0 (1189 x 841mm) canvas print!

To recognise the photographic talent that resides in the Pt Chevalier Community, Benefitz are proud to offer an A0 (1189 x 841mm!) sized canvas print to the winner of the Benefitz Aesthetic Eye Award. The judging will be conducted by our photographically talented Designers and will be printed for the display of the winning entries at the Pt Chevalier Library. The winner may then hang proudly on a feature wall of their choice.

Contact: Gareth Wheeler gareth@benefitz.co.nz 021 754 749

Book to be produced

PCL Imaging are professional photographic and digital imaging lab based in Newton. They have very kindly offered to produce a small book of the better photos that will be donated to the library. What very lovely people they are!

Copies of the book will also be available for purchase - contact belinda@pcl.co.nz (although we will probably have to sort out some copyright issues)

Thanks

Many many thanks to the Point Chevalier Community Library for holding the Exhibition.

Judges

Mary Lambie, Steve Braunias, Jim Mora and Russell Brown all did a lot of work in a very short space of time and my most heartfelt thanks. It turned into a very big and very hard job and all credit to them

Also many thanks to the contributors to the printing costs for the Exhibition:

$200

Liquorland

$100

Spectrum Services - For all your carpet cleaning and pest control needs, phone Grant 828 6575

Michelle Lucca School of Dance

And for giving a heavily discounted rate for printing the photos, Photo warehouse

Inspiration

As usual there is a whole lot going that you can snap (but remember to ask first if entering private or commercial property, or taking people photos), such as:

• There is a disco on at the Kindergarten at Walford Rd late afternoon on Friday
• Point Chev Primary are having a Full School assembly at 2.30 on Friday and the Principle doesn't mind photographers taking photos (but close-ups of kids may require parental permission (so keep shots broad)
• There are numerous dance classes on through The michelle lucca school of dance - see the timetable at www.luccadance.co.nz
• Quasar enseble music group play at the Old Homestead 5-7pm Friday
• The drinkers at the pubs/RSA are usually quite animated on a Friday afternoons
• Bowling club has competitions on Friday and Saturday, and plenty of characters who wold love their photo taken in the bar after.
• 'Soccer for tots' is a sports class at the primary school hall Saturday morning
• The point pedallers leave for a ride at 6am both Saturday and Sunday
• Th eCouncil is having information sessions Noon - 7pm Saturday and 10am - 3pm Sunday on the draft plans for the area. It's controversial and there is bound to be some good facial expressions!
• Yoga classes at the Old Homestead 8am Saturday and ongoing events at Manipura Yoga Centre, Saturday mornings and other times, 19b Formby Ave.
• Check the Calendar-adults at left for details of the numerous church services on Sunday
• Sailing club is racing Sunday, high tide at 130 in the afternoon
• The tennis club has their club afternoons on Sunday
• RSA bowling club has competitions on
• The environmental group from Western Springs College are organising an event called 'Motions in the Ocean' 10-2pm on Sundaty March 14th - the local community will be encouraged to join on a full circuit creek clean up of Motions and Meola creek, meeting at the Western Springs College carpark at 10am.
• The Old Homestead Community Garden is having a workshop on how to make good compost Sunday at 9.30.
• The Anglican Ascension Church on Dignan Street is having a Harvest festival at 4pm on Sunday. Donations of fruit, vegetables, preserves etc will be given to the City Mission
• There are often people fishing at dawn/late evenings at the point
• Get out onto the shoals/mud at low tide and capture the suburb from a different angle. If you haven't been out on Meola Reef at low tide it is amazing how far you can get (but please be careful and be sure about when the tide comes back in
• The boundary of the competition includes the Aviation park and railway at Motat where there is sure to be a lot going on.
• Always dogs at the walking area in Meola Park
• Always entertainment at the RSA in the evenings
• High tides are always good for seeing people in and on the water
• Colye park and Harbour reserve always have things happening
• Lot's of dogs around late evenings when they are allowed on the beach

Feeling shy, don't think your photos will be good enough - Rubbish, get into it!

This competition is about how you live, not how you take photo's - a photo of a three year old with food all over their face taken on a 'point and shoot' type camera can easily be better than a technically perfect shot taken by a fancy camera on a tripod by some fancy chap with light meters etc. We want the moment, we don't want perfection.

Some important things to remember:

• Any photographer will tell you it's a numbers game - the more you take, the higher your chances of a good one. So take hundreds!
• Remember to look up and down
• Get closer - often people try to fit too much in - it's always better to get in close so you can see the detail.
• Morning and evening always has more interesting light - so take outside shots then to get golden hues on your subjects
• No one ever reads the manual for their camera - try it, you'll probably learn something

The rules:

1. Entry is free and open to anyone from anywhere.
2. Titles for the pictures are optional.
3. Entries limited to three per person.
4. Photos must be taken between noon Friday March 12 to Midnight Monday March 15.
5. Photos must be taken North of the NW motorway, and west of Motions Road / Motions Creek ie includes Meola Reef
6. All photos will be displayed on this website, unless they may offend
7. Photos are to be .jpeg files, titled "Category, Firstname, Surname, ImageTitle, primary/intermediate/highschool' if appropriate, and will be printed on A4 photo paper for the exhibition so please crop to suit.
8. Copyright is retained by the photographer but by entering you agree that we can post the photos on this website and exhibit them at the library. The site has been built using 'Google Sites' and the photographs will be displayed using the Picasa Web albums gadget (as per the 'Photos of our suburb' page). We will upload them at a low resolution but are aware that photos may be downloadable still but are unable to offer any more security - sorry.
9. Entries must be emailed to pointchevwebsite@gmail.com by Midnight Thursday March 18th
10. Judges decision is final and no correspondence will be entered into.

All enquiries to Cameron, pointchevwebsite@gmail.com, 021 379 684

Copyright

This website respects the rights of artists and copyright owners. All works (images and text) displayed within the website are protected by copyright and have been exhibited with the photographer's or copyright owner's permission.

No image or text in this website may be reproduced, published or communicated (other than for the purposes of research or study, criticism or review or reporting the news) without the permission of the copyright owner. If permission is not obtained, the copyright rights of the owner may be infringed. All requests for use should be directed to the pointchevwebsite@gmail.com or to the copyright owner directly.

If you make a use of a work for purposes permitted, full attribution should be given and the work should be used in full without alteration. If not, it is the copyright owners responsibility, not ours, to enforce the rights of the copyright holder.

The Copyright in each work will remain the property of the photographer, and the galleries will inform purchasers that the photographer is the owner of copyright in the work.

Thinking of Sponsoring?

I emphasise this is not a money making exercise for me (if anything it is costing me some money!), but desired to be a community building exercise. The only costs are the prizes, and the printing of the photos - we need just one sponsor for each.

We would like to offer cash prizes as these are always a good motivator and are targetting $100 for each category, on top of the overall winner prize of $500. The cash will be given directly to the winners. However, it might be more appropriate for some businesses to offer vouchers or some services instead which would still be great - anything is way, way better than nothing. If you would like to be involved please offer what you can and if I get lot's of small things I will probably bundle them together.

In return you will be going straight to heaven for being such nice people supporting a community building event, have your logo in the side bar which is shown on every page, next to the prize you are sponsoring on this page, and at the exhibition in the library you will have your logo prominently displayed. My goal is to not take the sponsors for granted and to give them as much exposure as I can and so give some bang for your buck.

In terms of promotion I will be doing all I can to make sure it has a good profile:

• Putting signs up on Pt Chev Rd and Meola Rd (similar to the Treasure hunt ones which were very effective)
• Contacting all the community groups, including schools and clubs to publicise through their networks, newsletters, email, etc
• Contacting the free papers, Harbour News et al
• Putting posters up in local shops, plus fliers on counters

If you have any more enquiries, please contact me, Cameron, pointchevwebsite@gmail.com, 021 379 684, 815 8230 home, 828 6460 ext 703 work.