IPF Year Book & National Shield Competition
This weekend gone, the Irish Photographic Federation (IPF) hosted a national competition called the National Shield. It is a competition for “non-advanced” workers, aimed at promoting the work and encouraging the development of photographers new to photography and new to the camera club scene here in Ireland. Over 28 clubs from around the country competed for honours, entering two panels of printed images, a monochrome and a colour panel, each consisting of 8 images.
Last year, my club (Celbridge Camera Club) came first overall, for the first time in the clubs 25 year history 
Unfortunately this year we weren’t quite as successful, coming in second place, just 6 points behind the overall winners, Offshoot Camera club . However, we did manage to win 1st place for our monochrome panel None of the actual images on the panel were taken by me, so I can’t claim any of the credit for the success on the day, but I thought it was definitely worth a shout out here. So congratulations to the 11 photographers that competed on the day 
Top Row: Gareth Byrd, Turlough O’Reilly, Brendan Norris, Ashley Lowry.
Bottom Row: Lola Gavin, Christine Burns, Mark Donohue, Alan Graham
Top Row: Paul Andrews, Brendan Norris, Ashley Lowry, Lola Gavin.
Bottom Row: , Christine Burns, Philip Matthews, Turlough O Reilly, Martin Byrne.
In conjunction with the competition, the IPF also launched their 2009/2010 year book. This is a book containing submissions from various IPF photographers around the country. I’m not sure how many years it has been running for, but in my time in the IPF (4 years now 
) there has been an edition each year. Thankfully each year, the quality in terms of the layout, print and indeed submissions has really improved and long may that trend continue. In past years, I’ve managed to be successful in having images selected for the book, but this year I managed two get too full page colour images The one of Monika above and the one of Iveta below The book can be purchased from most camera clubs, but also from places like the Dublin Gallery of Photography and other specialised camera/photography shops.
Congrats for getting two images selected for the year book!
Regards the National Shield, a bit thank you to yourself for all the effort and work which you put in, both in the selection, printing etc of images and support on the day, something which often goes unsaid but is very much appreciated!
Thanks
Philip
Amazing..Recognize the Main Avatar for this post.It inspired me to learn..and experiment with texture overlays in Overlay Mode..To create a similar image
Looking forward to seeing the book!
I think you can claim lots of the credit for the success on the day of the National Shield competition.
Without the effort and support you gave, as Philip says above, it would not have happened. You do lots of great work for the club and is greatly appreciated.
I was thrilled to see the piece above, thanks for the mention & keep up the good work.
Christine