Essence of the Dragon

We are now into the 7th consecutive year of our quarterly photo competitions. Are members up for another year? If so, can we please have some suggestions for themes. We are also looking for prize sponsorship, so if anyone has any ideas on this, or is able to sponsor, please contact me. Any further ideas and suggestions are welcome here too.

Some suggestions and ideas so far for themes this year:

• A water/rain theme due to the good rainfall. Perhaps a theme called "Good Rain" which depicts the evidence of good rainfall in one way or the other like strongly flowing rivers and waterfalls, marshy bogs, very wet/drippy terrain and vegetation etc


• Another round of Peak Perspectives - how about The Rhino?


• Area specific themes, eg "Mnweni Magic" or "Lovely Lotheni"


• A flora based theme, for example a focus on Proteas.

Comments?

One more chance for input:

Quarter 1: Good Rain
Criteria: Anything that depicts the evidence of good rainfall in one way or the other like healthy, or flooding rivers and waterfalls, marshy bogs, very wet/drippy terrain and vegetation. Try to keep the focus on the presence of water. Showing something like a green landscape without any water evident in the photo would be more along the theme of "Green" which we have had previously.

Quarter 2: Mnweni Magic
Criteria: something that captures the quintessential Mnweni. Ideally something that makes it unique from other parts of the Berg. Examples would include: the view across to the Mnweni Pinnacles from Mnweni Pass, the view from Ledger's Cave, views of Mponjwane and the Rockeries, perspectives of the Cathedral Range from the Ntonjelana area, views of the homesteads (the ones at the end of the Ntonjelana Road with a classic mountain backdrop for example), and shots of the AmaNgwane themselves.

Quarter 3: Peak Perspectives - The Rhino
Criteria: Anything that strongly features any discernible perspective of the The Rhino massif.

Quarter 4: Timeless Sandstone
Criteria: anything that depicts the classic nature of the Little Berg sandstone layer, be it the cliffs, formations, unusual shapes, or colors.

Official schedule page for 2017

I would like to check with everyone regarding our quarterly photo competitions. We have run these now for no less than seven consecutive years and it has produced some really good Berg photography. It may be time to change things up a bit however to keep things fresh and interesting. I suggest we switch from quarterly to annual rounds, this will allow us to continue as we have without it becoming too repetitive.

Since this all originated from a suggestion made by a member, I would like to hear if anyone has any new ideas?