Sydney University Photosoc and UTS Exposure have joined forces to bring you the 2nd Annual Sydney Students Photography Conference. Last year’s inaugural conference was a major success, with respected photographers Jon Lewis and North Sullivan headlining as guest speakers. The event attracted a diverse audience of photography enthusiasts, ranging from local University students to both aspiring and professional photographers.

Following the theme of ‘photo-journey’, this year’s guest speakers – including renowned landscape photographer Tim Poulton and fashion photographer Amanda Austin (of frankie magazine) – will offer an insight into their experience as professionals and artists. Afterwards, our speakers will form a panel and discuss audience questions and feedback.

The conference will take place at UTS on the 20th of October from 6pm, with the venue to be announced shortly. Light refreshments will be provided before the conference commences, allowing attendees a chance to meet and greet their fellow photography enthusiasts. During this time, a short film documenting the winning team of the pre-conference challenge will be shown, showcasing the talent of our very own student community.

Tickets are a mere $5 and seating is limited, so be sure to secure yours fast. If you’re a member of UTS Exposure or Sydney University Photosoc, you have extra incentive to attend, because admittance is free!

To register for tickets, please visit http://sspc2011.eventbrite.com/

For more info and to RSVP, please visit the Facebook event:

https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=123086474463827

You may be a disgruntled Usyd student having to deal with the eyesore of the Jenga tower, blocking the morning Spring sunlight over the otherwise-perfect Camperdown campus. Or, you could be from UTS scoffing at the snobbery of ‘those sydney uni snobs’.

Admit it, you probably have.

This 8th of October, Sydney Uni Photosoc and UTS Exposure invite you to settle the rivalry between the two universities once and for all!

‘Is that even possible?’ We hear you ask. It sure is.

Come on down this Saturday to the Hermanns Courtyard, Sydney University where teams from each university will battle it out.

Your task is to get into teams and create an awesome series of photos/collage/anything creative that’s photo-related within no more than 3 hours. Each team will pick random items from a treasure chest of creative goodies and be allocated an area within Usyd campus. Teams will then face the exhilarating challenge of creating innovative photographs of their chosen items within their allocated location.

The theme of the challenge (and also this year’s conference, to be held on the 20th of October) is “PHOTO JOURNEY”, and a short video feature of  the winning entry will be shown on the night of the conference itself, together with having your final product featured on all our promotional material for the campaign.

There’s also TBA prizes to be won!Alternatively, if you want to follow in the steps of Switzerland and form a team of both Photosoc and Exposure students, that is absolutely fine.

The Photo Journey Challenge – daring you to dream a little bigger (and better than that OTHER university).

Date: Saturday, October 8th, 2011

Time: 11am – 3pm (but can finish earlier if you wish)

===Important Info===

Number of Team Members allowed :3-5

Camera: Must be digital.

Deadline for registration: thursday 6/10 8pm

Registration: email to usydphotosoc@gmail.com (with team name, number of people, name and contact numbers of the member)

>>For further details about the game/game rules: click here UPA Pre-conference Game Rules

There are more photos to be uploaded to keep an eye out.

Check out the full story for more photos!

VERGE 2011…

Each year the University Students Union runs a weeklong festival called Verge, which provides students, staff, and local artists with a creative platform for art, music, and performance. PhotoSoc has been a frequent collaborator with the Verge directors, and this year will be no exception.

This year, the Verge Festival runs from the 31st of August to the 9th of September. During weekdays, creative workshops will be held during lunch hours (or ‘Funch’ as it shall be referred to henceforth!).

On Tuesday the 30th of August, from 1-3pm, PhotoSoc will be holding a pinhole camera workshop, during which PhotoSoc Execs will invite participants to construct a pinhole camera from everyday materials, take a photo, and develop a print in Photosoc’s exclusive darkroom! To join in, all you have to do is rock up on the day (we’ll be located on the Law Lawns under a marquee), but be sure to get there on time, as latecomers may miss some important steps in the process.

And that’s not all. There will be prizes for the best prints, so be sure to attend the workshop for a chance to win some very cool and very fitting Lomo goodies.

We look forward to seeing you there,

The PhotoSoc Execs

Howdy members,

A quick and serious post this time.

Our next lunch will be on this Wednesday, 1pm at Isabel Fidler and it’ll be a special one because…it’s also a General Meeting!

This means 2 things:

1. We’ll be making some additions and changes to the constitution, specifically our Annual General Meeting (the big one where the executive board turns over) will from now on be held in May each year, and also that any resigning executive will have to give at least two weeks notice before resignation.

2. Ever wanted to play a more active role in the society? Or think that there are things about Photosoc you could help change or add to for the better? Or maybe you just want to help out when you can. If so, now’s your chance! There are positions within the executive that’ll be up for grabs (yep there’s loads, and the exec team is expanding with the times), and those are:

• President
• Vice President
• Secretary
• Treasurer
• Technical Advisor
• Events Coordinator
• Publicity & Promotions Manager
• Social Publications & Communications Executive
• Darkroom Manager
• Junior Executives (up to 2)
• General Executives (up to 10)

You’ll find exact descriptions and details here: Summary of proposed amendments August 2011

While the lunch will be at its usual time of 1pm at Isabel Fidler, the meeting itself won’t start ’til 2pm and we’ll be moving the to the Loggia nearby.

That’s it folks! Even if you’re not running for a position, do come along to the meeting so that you can vote for or nominate suitable candidates. As always, let us know if you have any questions x

-the Exec team

We know it’s been a while since O-Week, and you’ve all been busy (ahem) with your studies, but the time has finally come to whip our your cameras, get your creative juices flowing, and show us what you can do with 5 random items!

For those of you who’ve been living in a burrow these past few months, here’s a brief run down of what this whole envelope thing is about. So, you’ve heard of the box challenge right? Well this is kind of the same thing…but in an envelope.

Within this most mysterious of envelopes you found 5 items (well, one of them is more of a concept if you want to get philosophical): a balloon, a playing card, a pencil, a toy soldier, and a theme…’favourite’.

All you have to do is incorporate these items into a series of photographs (a photograph for each item or ‘category’), the only limitation being the bounds of your imagination. Props, themes, concepts…it’s really up to you, and the more creative the better. In a nutshell, you can do ANYTHING with the images, so long as the item is in the frame. A toy soldier on fire. A colour pencil bleeding into a bathtub of rainbow coloured water. As we said, it’s up to your imagination.

So what’s in it for you? A SHIP LOAD!

The top three entrants (people, not pictures) will be in the running for:

1^st prize – $150 cash, 2010 Photosoc Journal, and Photosoc T-Shirt. ZING!

2^nd Prize – 35 mm Image Fusion Split Cam, 1 Roll of Lomo Redscale Film, 1 Roll of Rollei 100 B&W Film, Journal, and T-Shirt.

3^rd Prize – Hole-On Ex Pinhole Camera Kit, 1 Roll of Lomo Redscale Film, 1 Roll of Rollei 100 B&W Film, Journal, and T-Shirt.

But wait, there’s more. If you don’t find yourself in the top three, the game’s not over. There will also a member’s choice award for the remaining entrants. The shortlist will be uploaded to a gallery on Photosoc’s Facebook page and the picture with the most ‘likes’ will win:

a Rollei Black & White Disposable Camera, a Lomo ‘20%’ Keyring, Journal, and a  T-Shirt.

Excited yet? Chomping at the bit? Damned straight. So here’s the important stuff:

Submissions will close on Friday 26^th of August 8pm, and the winners will be announced at our third lunch, which will be Wednesday 31^st of August, 1pm, at Isabel Fiddler.

Oh, we almost forgot. For instructions on how to submit your photos, exact rules and all that other serious stuff, it’s all here: mysteryenvelope2011. And if you don’t already have an envelope, just ask for one at the next photosoc event you attend and we’ll swap you $2 for one (to cover the cost of the items). If you can’t attend, no sweat, just drop us an email at usydphotosoc@gmail.com and one of our execs can arrange to meet you at uni.

So now that you’re all set, there’s really no excuse not to take a couple of hours one afternoon and get those creative juices flowing. BTW, if you’re old school and have a print you’d like to submit, not to worry; just make a scan and upload the file.

Good luck guys!!

PS. Questions? Just comment on this post, or email us at usydphotosoc@gmail.com

Hey there awesome Photosoc’ers!

Hope y’all had a great winter holidays. To kick off the new semester, we’ll be having a welcome back lunch for everyone. For those of you who were with us last semester, you know the drill – come on down to Isabel Fidler at Manning for some delicious Parma pizza. As for those of you who recently signed up during Re O-Week, here’s your opportunity to mingle about with like-minded photobugs and meet some new people! Food and drinks are absolutely FREE for PhotoSoc 2011′ members, and of course, you can rock up and become a member at the lunch itself if you haven’t yet.

BOX CHALLENGE:
Due to popular demand, we’ve also decided to push back the submission date of the Box Challenge. More details will be given soon (along with info on the new prizes we’ll be including). However, the Humanitarian Week directors have a great theme-based competition you can sink your teeth into in the meantime! Check it out: HERE

Finally, we’ll also be holding our Annual General Meeting soon, so keep an eye out if you’re interested in becoming a PhotoSoc exec next year!

Hope to see everyone at the lunch! :D

♥PHOTOSOC

With the end of Semester fast approaching, there is one final and very important lunch planned for Thursday the 2nd of June, 2pm Isabelle Fidler Room; Manning Building. This lunch will be one to formally wrap things up for the semester, as well as a chance for you to socialize with your fellow photographers before exam chaos.

This lunch is a general meeting and we’ll be filling some vacant positions within the executive, listed below. Being part of a society is a great way to build experience working with a team as well as to contribute back to the community.

The Secretary shall:
Conduct the correspondence of the Society.
Book meeting rooms for the Society.
Keep minutes of the proceedings of all Society meetings.
Maintain the records and documents of the Society.
Maintain a list of current Members, in accordance with University of Sydney Union Guidelines.
Maintain the Society’s registration with the University of Sydney Union.

The Junior Executive(s) shall:
Be a first-year student.
Assist the other Executives where possible to gain experience in the operations of the Society.

So exciting opportunities indeed!

So a lighting demonstrations for members who want to learn more about artificially manipulating light, from simple solutions such as reflectors, to using multiple flashes off camera.

The second half will allow members to take photos and practice lighting arrangements as well as conducting a photoshoot!

Hey all you photosocer’s,

For those of you with us last year you might remember it was the year PhotoSoc published its first ever PhotoSoc Members Journal. Well it is a new year and we are back to do it all over again and we need YOU, our members, to help us make it happen.

So what do we need from you our members? Well, we need ready willing and able volunteers to join up on this years journal team to help us create a brand new journal for publishing. Have no experience you say? Well don’t you worry. This whole project is about helping you gain that experience while getting to work with others on creating an amazing collection of photographic works. Take this as an opportunity not only to get your work published, but to also get valuable work experience by contributing on a project such as this. Who knows, maybe one day you will find this experience helpful in your future endeavors.

So the positions available our many. To give you an idea, we are looking for editors, graphic artists, layout designers, publicity officers, sponsorship officers and financial officers. As well don’t worry about competing for positions, as this is a members run and created journal, so anyone who wants to join the team is welcome and ALL input will be gladly accepted, cause this book is yours to create.

How does one join up you ask? Just let us know either by emailing us at our nifty new Journal dedicated email address photosocjournal@gmail.com and/or leave a comment below. Then make your way to our first meeting on Friday the 13th (one of my favorite days of the year) in Manning at 2pm. What to bring? Yourself (of course), an idea of what position you might like to work in and ideas of how you’d like this journal to look cause we are making it all new from scratch (kind of like cookies). Oh yeah did I forget to mention, seeing as last year was the first Members Journal we never really properly named it, so this year we want to give it a name to carry on to all future versions, so bring in your ideas of what you think this photo journal should be named and get ready to have a fun year.

We here at the journal team hope to hear from you soon so we can get started on creating another fun PhotoSoc Members Journal for 2011.

Cheers,
Evan Noga
Editor-in-Chief
photosocjournal (at) gmail.com

Check out last year’s journal! (9.7MB)