With the biggest ever number of competing clubs, two excellent guest speakers and three very experienced judges, we’re pleased to announce that the SACC Interclub Competition 2013 is now complete.

There are a bunch of people to thank for making it so and at the risk of leaving someone out we are going to list you all 🙂

Thank you to the organisers (in particular to Bill Power & Niamh Whitty from SACC Committee and Donal Byrne & John Cuddihy from Kilkenny Photographic Society), the clubs who competed (all 17 of you), the judges (Ciaran Whyte, Gerry Kerr & Judy Boyle), the speakers (Michael O’Sullivan & Morgan O’Neill), the hotel staff (Hotel Kilkenny), the people who attended (that’s you lot!) and to all involved in logistics of the day (Denis O’Driscoll, John Hogan, Anna Brennan, Neily Curtin & Jason Town with his magic spreadsheet!)

Specific thanks to the men from Kilkenny Photographic Society who lugged the panel boards up four flights of stairs, and particularly to Donal Byrne for all his help organising the venue for both this and the SACC Nature Competition.

We’d also like to thank the Mayor of Kilkenny, Seán Ó HArgáin, who spoke at the awards ceremony.

Finally, we need to add belated thanks to Limerick & District Photographic Society for the use of the panel boards for this competition and to John Grimes for all his assistance getting these boards to us.  It was an oversight on our part on the day of the competition that they were not thanked publicly. Our sincere apologies to all involved.

We are delighted to announce that the overall winners and SACC Interclub Champions 2013 are Cork Camera Group.  Huge congratulations to all involved at Cork Camera Group.   Kilkenny Photographic Society took a very well deserved second place overall (& won the colour print panel) and Mallow Camera Club finished in third place overall (& won projected image panel).  Congrats also to Waterford Camera Group who won the monochrome print panel. Panels shown below.

Finally, and by no means least, we would also like to to recognise the achievement of Ronan Doyle from Kilkenny Photographic Society who took the title of best overall image and best monochrome print, Tomasz Grzelaczyk also from Kilkenny Photographic Society who won best colour print award and John Hooton from Mallow Camera Club who was awarded best projected image. Images shown below.

For full results, please go to our results page.

The trio of panels from Cork Camera Group which led them to overall success!

The trio of panels from Kilkenny Photographic Society which resulted in second place overall!

The trio of panels from Mallow Camera Club which gave them third place overall!

Waterford Camera Club finished fourth place overall, narrowly missing out on third place. However, they did go home with some silverware as they won the monochrome print section and placed third in projected images.

Finally, the individual awards!

Remember the treats that we’ve been mentioning in relation to the SACC Interclub Competition this year?

Well….

We are absolutely delighted to announce that we’ve organised to show you two exceptional fellowship panels up close and personal, with presentations by their authors, Michael O’Sullivan FIPF FRPS from Cork Camera Group and Morgan O’Neill FIPF EFIAP from Mallow Camera Club.

To cover costs, there is a nominal fee of just €2 per lecture and we hope that you will take the chance to avail of this excellent opportunity to attend both talks by two outstanding photographers, not to mention to have the chance to view two fellowship panel prints in close detail.

Members from all clubs are welcome to attend, regardless if they have entered the competition or not.  In addition to our guest speakers, there will be some wonderful images on show in the competition from SACC clubs and the SACC Interclub day is always an enjoyable experience and a chance to catch up with old friends, colleagues and fellow photographers!

This event is being hosted by the Southern Association of Camera Clubs in conjunction with Kilkenny Photographic Society to whom we extend our thanks.

Finally, we’d like to wish all competing clubs the very best of luck!

Schedule for day is below and while we’ll do our very best to ensure that we follow it as closely as possible, please bear in mind that we are a team of volunteers doing the best we can!

We’re delighted to report that it’s an SACC club member who takes home the top prize from the IPF National Nature Finals held on Saturday, March 9th 2013 in Kilkenny.

The congratulations go to Michael Murphy from Cork Camera Group for his image “Irish Hare in Morning Dew” which won ‘Best overall image’.  This image topped the Projected Image – Open section and Michael also claimed a bronze medal in the same category. Well done Michael!

We also are very pleased to recognise the achievement of Bill Power from Mallow Camera Club (and our very own SACC Chairman!) who took home no less than three awards. Bill placed first in Colour Print – Theme (Peatland Ireland)  with “Griston Bullrush”, second in the Colour Print -Open  with “Amethyst Deceiver” and also received an honourable mention for “Toadstool Triplets” in Projected Image – Open.

Charlie Galloway from Waterford Camera Club took home two honourable mentions – one in Projected Image – Theme (Birds Feeding) and the second in Colour Print – Open with “Kingfisher”.

Finally, Edward Delaney from Enniscorthy Camera Club received an honourable mention for “New Life” in Projected Image – Open.

Congratulations again to all – a very proud day for the SACC!

We are delighted to showcase their winning image below and wish them further success in the coming years with their beautiful nature photography images.

(The image here are from SACC clubs, to see a full report and view the rest of the winning images from the other regions, please take a look at this link on IPF website)

Thank you to all the clubs who pre-registered for this years SACC Interclub Competition.  We are delighted to announce that we have received a record number of entries from clubs in SACC region, with both long-established and shiny new clubs competing.  Best of luck to all!

We’ll be releasing full details of the schedule for the day shortly, (including some special treats that we’re keeping under wraps for the moment!), but for now, please find all the information you need to enter.

Please direct all queries to interclub2013@sacc.ie or use the contact page on this website.

The IPF Canon Print & Projected Finals take place this coming weekend (February 23rd & 24th) at Athlone Institute of Technology.

Full details, including lectures  and the programme of events for the day can be found on this link on IPF website.
Lectures can be booked from IPF website.

We would like to wish all competitors who qualified from SACC clubs the very best of luck and we hope to see lots of familiar faces from our region in Athlone.

On Sunday, January 27th, the SACC held the regional qualifying round of the IPF National Nature Competition at The Newpark Hotel in Kilkenny in association with Kilkenny Photographic Society

Congratulations to all our winners on the day and to everyone who took part. Best of luck to everyone whose images qualified for national finals next year.

Thank you to our judges; Mark Sedgwick FIPF EFIAP and Des Connors FIPF who did an outstanding job not only scoring the images but also providing ongoing commentary and invaluable feedback to the audience on many of the images they were judging.

The competition was powered by Picturk and its online system once again proved itself on Sunday. Thanks to Paul Geraghty from Picturk who was with us for the day to ensure smooth running of the competition.

Thanks are due to the hotel for providing outstanding facilities and to Kilkenny Photographic Society who hosted the events and supplied a great team of volunteers for the event.

Huge thanks also to the SACC committee, without whom this event would not have taken place.  We look forward to our next event – The SACC Interclub Competition which takes place on March 24th and we’ll be posting details about it over the next few weeks.

Finally, full results available via link below:

SACC Regional Round of IPF National Nature Competition Results 2013

Happy New Year from SACC to all its members. We wish you health, happiness and stunning photography in 2013!

Notice for all clubs:

Membership fees for 2013 are now due. The fee remains unchanged from last year at €50. For more information and payment methods, we’ve added a fees section to the website (include paypal link for those who wish to pay online).

Please note that only members of paid up clubs will have access to SACC competitions and only paid up clubs will be eligible to enter SACC Interclub Competition.

We’re starting the new year with our first competition (SACC round of IPF Nature competition) taking place at the end of January.  We’ll be posting updates about that competition shortly, but in the mean time, please find below a list of some other upcoming dates that might be of interest.  Details subject to change, so please check our calendar for confirmation and also for details of venue.

Congratulations to John Hooton FIPF FRPS MFIAP on a fantastic evening surrounded by family, friends and colleagues last week as he launched his beautiful first book “Gathering Light on the Dingle Coast”.

His book can be purchased directly from his website: http://www.john-hooton.com and we’ve got our hands on a couple of images from launch night at Springfort Hall in Mallow courtesy of Patrick Sheehan.

We’re delighted to share the following invitation from John Hooton FIPF FRPS MFIAP to the launch of his eagerly awaited first book “Gathering Light on the Dingle Coast” and wish him every success with it!