Calm Reflections Photography shares beautiful photographs that can be placed on mugs, mouse pads, canvas, puzzles, T-shirts, coasters and prints. Joanna Macaulay makes souvenirs of St. Mary’s County for tourists and local residents. Information about St. Mary’s County attractions, travel, events and photography can be found at her site. She now does pet photography as well.

To buy my photos, photo cards, and photo crafts of wildlife, pets, holidays and more, visit my Zazzle Photo store at https://www.zazzle.com/store/calmreflectionsphoto






To sign up for automatic emails of this blog go to the bottom left of the page. Click on Subscribe to>Atom>Subscribe to this feed.

To see my Flickr Photostream go to: http://www.flickr.com/photos/75311362@N08/





Featured Post

The Lonely Buck

I have been fairly busy lately with the Christmas rush, so I thought I would make a few posts about interesting sights that I somehow didn...

Showing posts with label St. Mary's County Camera Club. Show all posts
Showing posts with label St. Mary's County Camera Club. Show all posts

Monday, February 25, 2019

Camera Club Competition Winners for February 2019


Strawberry Splash
First Place Prints
I always wanted to try one of these types of photos.  It was tricky photographing in my bathtub and not getting my camera wet!

Barbara was in digital theme photo competition, since I planned to add 3 prints and had several extra headshot photos of my friends. 
First Place Theme Headshots


Angel
Third Place Prints

I decided to try prints this year for competition in St. Mary's County Camera Club.  I need more printing practice, since I usually send my photos out to a professional printer for displaying my best work.  Unfortunately, prints aren't as popular in our club, so I had to get a few people interested in trying it with me.  If there aren't enough prints, they don't get judged.  There weren't enough photos in January, but several people competed with me in February.  Thank you camera club friends.

Sunday, October 21, 2018

Camera Club Winning Photos for 2018

 Winning Photos from the monthly competitions at St. Mary's County Camera Club in 2018 (1st to 3rd prize).  These photos will be in the end of the year competition.  Do you like any of them?

Most of the photos were taken in the last 2 years except for Oops!(planes miss) and the flat car.

 Bubble Reflection-Theme Blue


Blue Curves-Theme Blue

 Flamingo Heart-Advanced

 Flamingo Takeoff-Advanced

 Eagle Takeoff-Advanced

 Concert Fire-Advanced

 Abbott Lake-Advanced

 Strike-Theme Weather

 Sunflower-Advanced

 Illusion-Theme Perspective

 Oops!-Theme Perspective

 
 Ballerinas-Advanced

 Cactus-Advanced

 Newfound Gap-Advanced

 Sit-Theme Letters



JHM-Theme Letters

 Wet Dog B-Theme Wet

 Wet Race-Theme Wet

Sewing-Theme Industrial

Flat Car-Theme Industrial

 Odd Turtle-Advanced

Pink Carriage-Advanced

Monday, August 20, 2018

Wet Dog August 8, 2018


The St. Mary's County Camera Club had a themed contest this month called Wet.  Our dog, Sarita needed a bath.  She is a toy poodle rescue.  It only made sense to combine the two.  The results were adorable and she won first place!


Which one do you like the best?



Barely Wet



Not so bad after all!

Shake it out!

Saturday, August 27, 2016

Winning photo from August Camera Club Competition

We had Flight for a theme in August.  I found an old osprey photo I missed to put in the competition, since our osprey didn't have an babies this year and we haven't seen an air show for a while. 

I called this one "Clear for Landing" (1st place digital theme). I think the landing osprey is a juvenile with orange eyes.  An adult is in the middle, and probably a juvenile on the right.




Wednesday, August 10, 2016

Winning Photos from St. Mary's County Camera Club Competitions

I have been so busy this summer with River Concerts, exhibits and such, that I forgot to post my winning photos from St.Mary's County Camera Club competitions. April-June

In April, I got 2nd prize for the theme adult beverages.  This was hard, since I rarely drink, but managed to find a bottle of rose wine in the fridge.  It was sort of tricky, pouring wine with one hand and clicking the remote shutter with the other.  I didn't have too many to pick from and I had to pour VERY slow.  Photographed on black plexiglass to make a nice reflection.

     

In May, I won first prize in Advanced for a Gerber Daisy photo.  I actually took the picture as a photo exercise from a book of practice ideas.  It came out nice and sharp.


In June, I had 2 winners, third prize for the theme cooking with the boyscouts at the River Concert and third prize advanced for a laid back swan in Pennsylvania.





Thursday, February 18, 2016

Camera Club Winners

Here are my latest winning photos in the Advanced Digital St. Mary's County Camera Club Competition for February.  


     Bald Eagle Pair 2 1st place taken12/15

    Skyline Trail 3rd place taken 10/21/15

Wednesday, August 26, 2015

On the Water

I haven't been to any interesting events lately, except for the Ridge Carnival.  I am posting those pictures on Calm Reflections Photography Facebook.
So, here are are a few winning photos from our recent St. Mary's Camera Club August themed competition "On the Water"
     Whoa-2nd place from the Summer Regatta by the Southern Md Boat Club 

     Pink Waterlily-3rd place from Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens

Monday, August 25, 2014

The Sequence Photo Challenge

We had an interesting theme for the St. Mary's County Camera Club August Competition-make a sequence of photos all included in one picture.  The basic idea was to show a moving subject multiple times, while the background remained the same.  This only works with multiple exposures or several layers in a photo creating a composite of pictures.

I chose a photo that was meaningful to me.  Every year, I wait with baited breath to photograph the osprey juveniles as they learn how to fly.  I never know how lucky I will be.  Will they learn to fly at noon, when the light is poor?  Will the juveniles learn to fly on a rainy or foggy day?  Will they learn to fly while I am away from the nest?

This year there was one juvenile.  She learned to fly on a Saturday around 9:30 am.  Lucky me.  They usually flap their wings vigorously and hop up and down a lot!!!  I had watched her practice for a few days.  Finally she took off at a shallower angle than usual toward the south.  (Generally, the experienced birds fly more west and at a steeper angle.)  I managed to get the flight on film with four still shots.

I spent quite a lot of time trying to come up with another sequence photo to add to the competition, but I didn't succeed.  I tried using amusement park photos, but there was lots of equipment that seemed like it would ruin the photo, since the rides were always attached and couldn't be separated to create individual images instead of blurs.  In the end, a blurred looking train photo was the winner.  I took second place with "First Flight".  I think if I did the photo again, I would only show 3 images of the osprey, so she wasn't flying out of the photo so much.  Which photo do you prefer?  The face is fairly hidden in the highest image.  Altogether, it was an interesting challenge.

Second Place photo- 4 images layered


Photo of 3 composite images

Monday, May 19, 2014

Annapolis Windows for April St. Mary's County Camera Club Competition

The April Camera Club Competition theme was windows and doors.  We went to Kent Island to see the boat show with our friends Tommy and Angela.  Afterwards, we decided to visit Annapolis for dinner.  I suddenly realized that I would have a little time to find some window and door photos for the coming competition.  There are some lovely back streets with colorfully painted houses not far from the State house.  I asked Tommy to stand in front of this clever Trump L'Oeil painting of a bicycle by a window.  I asked  him to pose with his hand on the bicycle seat, like he was part of the painting.  The "wisteria" were very pretty and made me think of the scent I love.  I don't normally photograph other people's art work unless I can change it to make it more unique.  I would be happy to credit the artist if I knew who it was.  Please comment if you know. The photo won third place in the competition.  


Here are a few of the other interesting windows and doors I photographed in gorgeous colors.





This last one was interesting because it showed a door IN a window IN a door.  Fancy that!

Tuesday, February 25, 2014

Honor photos from February Competition

Another eagle photo won 2nd place in last week's February competition in the St. Mary's County Camera Club.  I get so excited when I see more than one eagle out on the osprey nest!    I feel so lucky to be able to see them in the wild nearby.  Amazing!  I suppose my next challenge will be to catch both Mom, Dad and baby eagle in one photo.  The osprey will be showing up in a few weeks, so it gets less likely by the day.




I also won two honorable mentions one for Advanced and one for theme competition (long exposures).

St. Clement's Pier was taken on a gray day after a fair amount of rain.  We had planned to take the shuttle launch to the island to photograph the osprey, but it wasn't running due to the inclement weather.  I asked Jim to walk out on the pier to add a subject to the photo.  I liked the subtle light in the image.



My honorable mention for a long exposure was taken right after the Calvert Marine museum closed.  It is actually a composite of two photos.  The Cupola of the lighthouse needed a long exposure to show up in the darkness, but the moon was too bright and overexposed in the photo.  I took several moon photos with correct exposures at the time, hoping I could add them together.  We went to the museum hoping to photograph the lighthouse with the moon rising near it, but the two subjects were too far apart.  More advanced planning on our part would have told us where the moon would be.  The Photographer's Ephemeris or a similar app or program would have given us the information we needed in advance.  Live and learn!