The friendly photographic society
Rod Bird gave a great presentation with his talk ‘What photos mean’ The presentation Included showing Images to draw out the meaning and perhaps the reason why the photography may have taken the Image.
He also Invited the members to debate on a number of occasions what the photography may have seen before taking the photograph.
The topic, exploring the psychology and emotion of creating Images, gave a very thought provoking presentation, which made a very enjoyable evening.
Steve
Last night we held a print competition ‘open’ and set subject ‘History’. Once again a good response to entries with 37 in the open and 35 in the History competition, overall 72 print Images. The competitions were competently judged by Michael Lurie who is also member of Pinner Camera Club.
A good high standard of entries were displayed, a complimentary comment made by the judge whilst making the difficult decisions on finding the ultimate high scoring Images.
Congratulations all those who entered, making it such an Interesting enjoyable evening and to the ultimate winners on the night.
Steve
This weeks topic was ‘Photography unplugged’ a charitable event organised between the club and Rickmansworth School photography students involving one of our youngest club members Beth Christie. A competition was organised where Members were requested to submit PDI Images with minimum adjustment as close as ‘straight out of camera’as possible.
To support the project members donated money towards the event to help enable a School photography trip. In return three students (Beth, Jade and Tom) judged the event on the night giving excellent critique on the entries and choosing the ultimate winners.
Congratulations to Richard and Denise on the night for their winning Images.
The successful event raised £100 from our generous members towards the School project.
Steve
Cat lead a well attended workshop exploring creative Depth of Field effects. In addition to cameras and tripods, the members brought a vast array of fascinating items to photograph, which were arranged into several fine art scenes. Five in total if I recall.
At the end of the evening the hall lights were turned off and a little light painting took place to finish an excellent club night off.
George
On a very cold night with snow forecast a surprising number of hardy members of the club met for an entertaining evening with Sean Meehan, the Chairman of South West Herts Astronomical Society.
We were treated to an excellent talk about astrophotography and were shown some truly amazing images mainly taken by members of the Society. Sean brought along a wide variety of equipment including his 11” telescope with which he is pictured below. We learnt a great deal about the subject some of which were very revealing such as the colours we see in the photographs are not seen with the naked eye and the moon is actually black! In the second part of the evening members had a lot of questions which indicated the interest shown in the subject and the success of the evening.
A sincere vote of thanks to Sean for his efforts in bringing such a vast array of equipment to the club and his offer to host a CCC members only visit to the Society’s own observatory in Flaunden which would be limited to say 12 people.
Members were reminded to note Cat’s latest Newletter and the Entry Deadlines for the forthcoming competitions; in particular members are asked to support the Photography Unplugged event. Entries are now open on photoEntry.
Acting Chair (poorly)
Rod
Ant tells us more how his Brenizer workshop came about:
We recently held a practical workshop evening at the Club where I was asked to demonstrate the Brenizer method. This didn’t just happen by accident, following a short talk at the club where I shared my experiences of learning this technique (it’s still very new to me too), a number of members have asked me to talk a little more about it. Last night we had that chance. But being a practical evening, I had no intention of talking ‘at’ my fellow members, I wanted them to bring their cameras & laptops along and give it a go for themselves. There’s no better way to learn than to do, right? Don’t worry, I won’t write war and peace on the ‘how to’ here, but if you would like to know a little more about it, why don’t you pop along to a club night where I’ll happily talk to you about it in more detail over a pint?
During my demonstration, we limited the number of images that we were going to shoot & stitch as it was important that we are all able to walk before we try to run. We shot a number 3 and 4 shot ‘vertoramas’, and maybe next time when everyone has practised a little more (myself included), we can try some more complicated 9 and 12 shot ‘spirals’.
Once we’d all had a go at learning the appropriate camera settings, and shooting the right sequence of images, we got the laptops out and started to stitch our images together in Lightroom & Capture One. What was great about this session, was being able to demonstrate in ‘real life’, how the Brenizer method affects our images, and why it affects them the way that it does.
Personally, I like to use shallow depth of field in my portraiture, but using a long focal length often means that I will lose some of that depth of field when shooting half body or 3/4 length portraits. This method allows me to shoot much closer to my subject, whilst throwing more of the scene out of focus. This might be especially useful for those that do not have lenses with very wide apertures. In the image on this page, you can see the very obvious characteristics that this method creates in portraiture…sharp eyes with the focus ‘dropping off’ almost immediately due to the very shallow depth of field!
A change to our original programme presented by committee members;
In the first half of the evening, Ant led a intriguing workshop on using the Brenizer method of taking and stitching Images together. This involved members using their cameras to take a number of images of a model and then using software to stitch together, to create the Brenizer effect.
In the second half of the evening I gave a presentation onsharing techniques, showing the production of the recent Triptych competition winner ‘Seasons in a jar’.
This was followed by an excellent technical insight given by George who explained ‘why your camera sensor invents two thirds of your Image’.
Finally we viewed, some of the varied produced member Images from our recent ‘ photography speed workshop’.
Steve
PS: Example Brenizer taken on the night:
PDI trophy competition night for both ‘newcomers’ and ‘Triptych’ judged by Julia Cleaver. Understandably low entries from the newcomers, however this allowed time for good encouraging critique from Julia.
The Triptych competition entries were heralded as a very high standard by the judge who appreciated the additional work and vision required to put three images together that worked. The judge held back 10 Images to make the final difficult decision on the ultimate winner.
Congratulations to all entrants for the work towards creating good competitions on the night.
Steve
Workshop evening based on Photography speed. A great Introduction by Cat on the principles, a really enjoyable interactive evening.
Members brought along their camera’s and props to experiment with light and speed combinations. Some very Interesting Images were produced on the night!
Steve.
Examples images taken on the night -George
A change to the planned programme due to the speaker Paul Halliday unable to attend.
In place we viewed and commented on a previous PAGB GB cup which featured many Camera clubs from across the country. An Interesting evening with a lot of excellent Images shown of various styles and diverse subjects.
Steve