Focus

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F CUS FEBRUARY 2022

SHARING VISUAL ART


02 / FEBRUARY 2022 COVER STORY...by Vicki Street I have been photographing Abi since she was about three years old and over the years have used her for many different conceptual photoshoots. My favourite genre of photography is Children’s Fine Art. We used Abi for one of Robbie Asepling’s workshops in Kzn and I was asked to think of a suitable look, I was inspired to dress her up in an old vintage farm style outfit which was hired from a local costume shop. The colour of the dress and her beautiful red hair made for the perfect match, props can always be added to the scene to make it look more authentic, in this case a wicker basket with fresh eggs. An important reminder when doing a shoot like this, sometimes less is more. We used a brown hand painted backdrop for the set and the lightning was one studio light and a reflector to add in fill light. I edit in Photoshop, doing a basic edit and then spend time with a dodge and burn technique that I have mastered.

CONTRIBUTE TO FUTURE ISSUES ANY MEMBER CAN SUBMIT MATERIAL FOR CONSIDERATION IN FUTURE PUBLICATIONS PLEASE MAKE SURE THAT IMAGES HAVE A MINIMUM RESOLUTION OF 1080 x 1925 pixels. Of course, we also have to adhere to the regulations for data protection and the rights of use according to the copyright law, therefore, we ask you to supply a declaration of consent of the person or website that you extracted your submission from. Please use the following email address to send contributions and consent letters hanlis54@gmail.com Proof reading of this magazine Kindly done by Clare Appleyard

EDENVALE PHOTOGRAPHIC CLUB IS A PROUD MEMBER OF THE PHOTOGRAPHIC SOCIETY OF SOUTH AFRICA


03 / FEBRUARY 2022

DEAR MEMBERS We are embarking on a whole new chapter in the life of an already 72 year old photographic club.... Happy New year and may 2022 be the year we get back to a sense of normality. We are also very proud to say that we now have a new home for Edenvale Photographic Club and I am sure we are now going to grow and prosper as a club. I also want to welcome all the new members that joined our club since last December, and hope you will learn as much as I have over the last 15 years since I joined. Although we are not a formal training institution we endeavour to assist each and every member where we can to improve their photographic skills. New members can call any of the committee members at any time if they need assistance, if we can not help you we will direct you in the right direction. Edenvale Photography Club was nominated to host the CERPS congress and we are going to need all our members and all the connections you may have to come on board. We really want to make it a Congress to remember. Our first outing for the year 2022 was very successful and thoroughly enjoyable. New members supported it very well and I must say I appreciated their enthusiasm. Thank you Linda for a great weekend and great organisation. I hope to see more members taking part in future outings.

Hanli Smit Editor & Chairperson

Hanli


04 / FEBRUARY 2022

Committee Members

BI-MONTHLY MEETINGS ARE CURRENTLY taking place at the Modderfontein Golf Course and we are also live streaming it via Zoom for our out of town and country members

David Wolstencroft 083 229 8066 davewol@gmail.com

Linda Carter 083 324 0702

Natasha Bird 082 920 8898 mnktrad@mweb.co.za

Andrew Mayes 083 417 2194

Hanli Smit 083 253 1034 hanlis54@gmail.com

Clare Appleyard 083 234 0247

linda@m-d-s.co.za

mayes.andy.1980@gmail.com

clare.appleyard@gmail.com

MEETING TIME AND PLACE 2ND AND 4TH WEDNESDAY OF THE MONTH AT 18H30 FOR 19H00 MODDERFONTEIN GOLF COURSE

Kenith Kubheka 082 671 8336 royal.kubheka@gmail.com


05 / FEBRUARY 2022

IN THIS ISSUE Page 6 Page 13 & 14

PAST MASTER OF PHOTOGRAPHY- Gordon Parks

SET SUBJECTS FOR 2022 & SOME IDEAS

Page 16

26 Jan 2022- CLUB NIGHT WINNERS

Page 28

9 Feb 2022- CLUB NIGHT WINNERS

Page 40

23 Feb 2022- CLUB NIGHT WINNERS

Page 54

BOUDOIR PHOTOGRAPHY

Page 56

ZOOMING IN ON PSSA

Page 61

MANKWE - OUTING


06 / FEBRUARY 2022

Source: Wikipedia

PAST MASTERS IN THE ART OF PHOTOGRAPHY

Gordon Parks Gordon Roger Alexander Buchanan Parks (November 30, 1912 – March 7, 2006) was an American photographer, musician, writer and film director, who became prominent in U.S. documentary photojournalismin the 1940s through 1970s— particularly in issues of civil rights, poverty and African-Americans— and in glamour photography. Parks was the first African American to produce and direct major motion pictures— developing films relating the experience of slaves and struggling black Americans, and creating the “blaxploitation” genre. He is best remembered for his iconic photos of poor Americans during the 1940s (taken for a federal government project), for his photographic essays for Life magazine, and as the director of the 1971 film Shaft. Parks also was an author, poet and composer.


07 / FEBRUARY 2022

Early life

Parks was born in Fort Scott, Kansas, the son of Andrew Jackson Parks and Sarah Ross, on November 30, 1912. He was the youngest of 15 children. His father was a farmer who grew corn, beets, turnips, potatoes, collard greens, and tomatoes. They also had a few ducks, chickens, and hogs. He attended a segregated elementary school. His high school had both black people and white people, because the town was too small for segregated high schools, but black students were not allowed to play sports or attend school social activities, and they were discouraged from developing aspirations for higher education. Parks related in a documentary on his life that his teacher told him that his desire to go to college would be a waste of money. When Parks was eleven years old, three white boys threw him into the Marmaton River, believing he couldn’t swim. He had the presence of mind to duck underwater so they wouldn’t see him make it to land. His mother died when he was fourteen. He spent his last night at the family home sleeping beside his mother’s coffin, seeking not only solace, but a way to face his own fear of death.


08 / FEBRUARY 2022 Soon after, he was sent to St. Paul, Minnesota, to live with a sister and her husband. He and his brother-in-law argued frequently and Parks was finally turned out onto the street to fend for himself at age 15. Struggling to survive, he worked in brothels, and as a singer, piano player, bus boy, traveling waiter, and semi-pro basketball player. In 1929, he briefly worked in a gentlemen’s club, the Minnesota Club. There he observed the trappings of success and was able to read many books from the club library. When the Wall Street Crash of 1929 brought an end to the club, he jumped a train to Chicago,where he managed to land a job in a flophouse.

Career

Photography At the age of 8, Parks was struck by photographs of migrant workers in a magazine. He bought his first camera, a Voigtländer Brillant, for $12.50 at a Seattle, Washington, pawnshop and taught himself how to take photos. The photography clerks who developed Parks’s first roll of film applauded his work and prompted him to seek a fashion assignment at a women’s clothing store in St. Paul, Minnesota, owned by Frank Murphy. Those photographs caught the eye of Marva Louis, wife of heavy weight boxing champion Joe Louis. She encouraged Parks and his wife, Sally Alvis, to move to Chicago in 1940, where he began a portrait business and specialized in photographs of society woman


09 / FEBRUARY 2022 Working at the FSA as a trainee under Roy Stryker, Parks created one of his best-known photographs, American Gothic, Washington, D.C., named after the iconic Grant Wood painting, American Gothic—

Parks’s photographic work in Chicago, especially in capturing the myriad experiences of African Americans across the city, led him to receive the Julius Rosenwald Fellowship, in 1942, paying him $200 a month and offering him his choice of employer, which, in turn, contributed to being asked to join the Farm Security Administration (FSA), which was chronicling the nation’s social conditions,under the auspice of Roy Stryker. Government photography Over the next few years, Parks moved from job to job, developing a freelance portrait and fashion photographer sideline. He began to chronicle the city’s South Side black ghetto and, in 1941, an exhibition of those photographs won Parks a photography fellowship with the FSA. Working at the FSA as a trainee under Roy Stryker, Parks created one of his best-known photographs, American Gothic, Washington, D.C., named after the iconic Grant Wood painting, American Gothic—a legendary painting of a traditional, stoic, white American farmer and daughter—which bore a striking, but ironic, resemblance to Parks’s photograph of a black menial laborer. Parks’s “haunting” photograph shows a black woman, Ella Watson, who worked on the cleaning crew of the FSA building, standing stiffly in front of an American flag hanging on the wall, a broom in one hand and a mop in the background.


10 / FEBRUARY 2022 Parks had been inspired to create the image after encountering racism repeatedly in restaurants and shops in the segregated capital city Upon viewing the photograph, Stryker said that it was an indictment of America, and that it could get all of his photographers fired.He urged Parks to keep working with Watson, which led to a series of photographs of her daily life. Parks said later that his first image was overdone and not subtle; other commentators have argued that it drew strength from its polemical nature and its duality of victim and survivor, and thus affected far more people than his subsequent pictures of Mrs. Watson. (Parks’s overall body of work for the federal government—using his camera “as a weapon”—would draw far more attention from contemporaries and historians than that of all other black photographers in federal service at the time. Today, most historians reviewing federally commissioned black photographers of that era focus almost exclusively on Parks.)

After the FSA disbanded, Parks remained in Washington, D.C. as a correspondent with the Office of War Information, where he photographed the all-black 332d Fighter Group, known as the Tuskegee Airmen. He was unable to follow the group in the overseas war theatre, so he resigned from the O.W.I He would later follow Stryker to the Standard Oil Photography Project in New Jersey, which assigned photographers to take pictures of small towns and industrial centers.


11 / FEBRUARY 2022 The most striking work by Parks during that period included, Dinner Time at Mr. Hercules Brown’s Home, Somerville, Maine (1944); Grease Plant Worker, Pittsburgh Pennsylvania (1946); Car Loaded with Furniture on Highway (1945); Self Portrait (1945); and Ferry Commuters, Staten Island, N.Y. (1946). Commercial and civic photography. Parks renewed his search for photography jobs in the fashion world. Following his resignation from the Office of War Information, Parks moved to Harlem and became a freelance fashion photographer for Vogue under the editorship of Alexander Liberman. Despite racist attitudes of the day, Vogue editor Liberman hired him to shoot a collection of evening gowns. As Parks photographed fashion for Vogue over the next few years, he developed the distinctive style of photographing his models in motion rather than in static poses. During this time, he published his first two books, Flash Photography (1947) and Camera Portraits: Techniques and Principles of Documentary Portraiture (1948). A 1948 photographic essay on a young Harlem gang l eader won Parks a staff job as a photographer and writer with America’s leading photomagazine, Life. His involvement with Life would last until 1972.

For over 20 years, Parks produced photographs on subjects including fashion, sports, Broadway, poverty, and racial segregation, as well as portraits of Malcolm X, Stokely Carmichael, Muhammad Ali, and Barbra Streisand. He became “one of the most provocative and celebrated photojournalists in the United States.”His photographs for Life magazine, namely his 1956 photo essay, titled “The Restraints: Open and Hidden,” illuminated the effects of racial segregation while simultaneously following the everyday lives and activities of three families in and near Mobile, Alabama: the Thorntons, Causeys, and Tanners. As curators at the High Museum of Art Atlanta note, while Parks’s photo essay served as decisive documentation of the Jim Crow South and all of its effects, he did not simply focus on demonstrations, boycotts, and brutality that were associated with that period; instead, he “emphasized the prosaic details” of the lives of several families. An exhibition of photographs from a 1950 project Parks completed for Life was exhibited in 2015 at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. Parks returned to his hometown, Fort Scott, Kansas, where segregation persisted, and he documented conditions in the community and the contemporary lives of many of his eleven classmates from the segregated middle school they attended. The project included his commentary, but the work was never published by Life. During his years with Life, Parks also wrote a few books on the subject of photography (particularly documentary photography),

and in 1960 was named Photographer of the Year by the American Society of Magazine Photographers. Film. In the 1950s, Parks worked as a consultant on various Hollywood productions. He later directed a series of documentaries on black ghetto life that were commissioned by National Educational Television. With his film adaptation of his semiautobiographical novel, The Learning Tree in 1969 for Warner Bros.-Seven Arts, Parks became Hollywood’s first major black director. It was filmed in his home town of Fort Scott, Kansas. Parks also wrote the screenplay and composed the musical score for the film, with assistance from his friend, the composer Henry Brant. Shaft, a 1971 detective film directed by Parks and starring Richard Roundtree as John Shaft, became a major hit that spawned a series of films that would be labeled as blaxploitation. The blaxploitation genre was one in which images of lower-class blacks being involved with drugs, violence and women, were exploited for commercially successful films featuring black actors, and was popular with a section of the black community. Parks’s feel for settings was confirmed by Shaft, with its portrayal of the super-cool leather-clad, black private detective hired to find the kidnapped daughter of a Harlem racketeer.


12 / FEBRUARY 2022 In 2000, as an homage, he had a cameo appearance in the Shaft sequel that starred Samuel L. Samuel L. Jackson in the title role as the namesake and nephew of the original John Shaft. In the cameo scene, Parks was sitting playing chess when Jackson greeted him as, “Mr. P.”Parks also directed the 1972 sequel, Shaft’s Big Score, in which the protagonist finds himself caught in the middle of rival gangs of racketeers. Parks’s other directorial credits include The Super Cops (1974) and Leadbelly (1976), a biographical film of the blues musician Huddie Ledbetter. In the 1980s, he made several films for television and composed the music and a libretto for Martin, a ballet tribute to Martin Luther King Jr., which premiered in Washington, D.C., during 1989. It was screened on national television on King’s birthday in 1990.


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Special Subject themes for 2022 We are very happy with the themes suggested and voted for by our members. The general idea of the set subject is to get us out of our comfort zone. It is not meant to be the place where we recycle our old images, although we are all guilty of just that. This year we want to ask you all to shoot for the theme, or if you do altered reality create for the theme..new images. If you use images older than November 2021 they are not eligable. Please make new images!!! Take another look at the talk done by Alta Oosthuzen on shooting for set subjects. Click on the link below https://drive.google.com/file/d/1WnMw6VtYrqnHbfot1BgsWwrwMB4bg4HG/view?usp=sharing

23 March...Raindrops 27 April ...Song Titles 25 May ...Glass 22 June ...Flat Lay 27 July...Levitation 24 August ...The road to nowhere 28 September...Speed 26 October...The power of nature 23 November ...Music


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Set Subject 23 March 2022 here are some ideas for the set subject

RAINDROPS


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16 / FEBRUARY 2022

ONE STAR NATURE WINNER 26 January 2022

Cattle Egret Wet Flower

Peter Fine Jana Botha


17 / FEBRUARY 2022

ONE STAR PICTORIAL WINNER 26 January 2022

Flow Session Lights Brian Shaw


18 / FEBRUARY 2022

TWO STAR NATURE WINNER 26 January 2022

Battle scarred Peter Fine


19 / FEBRUARY 2022

TWO STAR PICTORIAL WINNER 26 January 2022

Lady in red

Fabiola Grant


20 / FEBRUARY 2022

THREE STAR NATURE WINNER 26 January 2022

The nest inspector

Andrew Mayes


21 / FEBRUARY 2022

THREE STAR PICTORIAL WINNER 26 January 2022

Just a girl on a skateboard Lilly Harmse


22 / FEBRUARY 2022

FOUR STAR PICTORIAL WINNER 26 January 2022

Cheetah on the move

Brian Kleinwort


23 / FEBRUARY 2022

FOUR STAR PICTORIAL WINNER 26 January 2022

Boy Holding a Violin

Stephen

Kangisser


24 / FEBRUARY 2022

5* & 5 Star Honours NATURE WINNER 26 January 2022

Tree squirrel nestled up high Natasha Bird


25 / FEBRUARY 2022

5* & 5 Star Honours PICTORIAL WINNER 26 January 2022

Heidelberg Klip Kerk

Clare Appleyard


26 / FEBRUARY 2022

5* & 5 Star Honours CELLPHONE 26 January 2022

Cat Portrait

Ruth Anne Smit


27 / FEBRUARY 2022

SET SUBJECT 26 January 2022

Bus in Puddle

Brian Shaw


28 / FEBRUARY 2022

ONE STAR NATURE WINNER 9 FEBRUARY 2022

Quick Snack

Brian Shaw


29 / FEBRUARY 2022

ONE STAR PICTORIAL WINNER 9 FEBRUARY 2022

Speed

Brian Shaw


30 / FEBRUARY 2022

ONE STAR CELLPHONE WINNER 9 FEBRUARY 2022

I Have Been framed

Gordon Wood


31/ FEBRUARY 2022

TWO STAR NATURE WINNER 9 FEBRUARY 2022

Contemplation Peter Fine


32 / FEBRUARY 2022

TWO STAR PICTORIAL WINNER 9 FEBRUARY 2022

End of the Rainbow

Fabiola Grant


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TWO STAR CELLPHONE WINNER 9 FEBRUARY 2022

Protea Queen

Tahlita Verster


34 / FEBRUARY 2022 PSSA once again would like to reiterate this notice below which was in the last Newsletter as it is a lot of work for the Salon Directors and can hold up results from coming out of up to one week or so later. When requested for your RAW images a maximum of 4 days turnaround time will be the time limit to get them to the Salon Directors. Thank you to the Salon Directors who were heavily involved when this was instigated recently.

NOTICE: The Salon Committee have requested that the following be reiterated to all Salon Directors who are hosting Salons this year – “As of 1st January 2022, the Salon Director will always request the original RAW file(s) with the EXIF data intact from those Entrants who have been initially selected for the Medals and COM’s in the “NO MANIPULATION” categories. If the Salon Director confirms that the image has not been manipulated, then the award will stand for those Entrants. If the Salon Director confirms that an image has been manipulated, then the image will be disqualified and a note recorded for the PSSA Salon Administrator of the disqualification reason. The PSSA Salon Administrator will keep a list of transgressors which will be reviewed by the PSSA Salon Committee on a regular basis. Persistent transgressors will be notified of their transgressions as well as possible embargoes imposed on the transgressor. The Salon Director and the judging team for that category will decide on the replacement images for the Medals and COMs in line with the recommended acceptance levels.” Please continue to support our National Salons. Please feel free to contact Corine Ross at admin@pssa.co.za or Simon Fletcher at sdfletcher66@gmail.com for any further info on Salons.


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THREE STAR PICTORIAL WINNER 9 FEBRUARY 2022

Strawberry splash Tony Wilson


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FOUR STAR NATURE WINNER 9 FEBRUARY 2022

One Two Three

Brian Kleinwort


37 / FEBRUARY 2022

FOUR STAR PICTORIAL WINNER 9 FEBRUARY 2022

Call My Bluff

Stephen

Kangisser


38 / FEBRUARY 2022

5* & 5 Star Honours NATURE WINNER 9 FEBRUARY 2022

Red eyes

Laetitia Kenny


39 / FEBRUARY 2022

5* & 5 Star Honours PICTORIAL WINNER 9 FEBRUARY 2022

Blue toxication

Hanli Smit


40 / FEBRUARY 2022

ONE STAR NATURE WINNER 23 February 2022

In the Grasses

Brian Shaw


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ONE STAR PICTORIAL WINNER 23 February 2022

Robyn

Brian Abrahams


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ONE STAR CELLPHONE WINNER 23 February 2022

The stairs SooC

David Morris


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TWO STAR NATURE WINNER 23 February 2022

River mouth at low tide Linda Carter


44 / FEBRUARY 2022

TWO STAR PICTORIAL WINNER 23 February 2022

Kariega at sunrise

Linda Carter


45 / FEBRUARY 2022

THREE STAR CELLPHONE WINNER 23 February 2022

Lilly love

Caryn Wilson


46 / FEBRUARY 2022

THREE STAR NATURE WINNER 23 February 2022

Protea in bloom

Andrew Mayes


47 / FEBRUARY 2022

THREE STAR PICTORIAL WINNER 23 February 2022

I’m not cruising

Kenneth Kubheka


48/ FEBRUARY 2022

FOUR STAR NATURE WINNER 23 February 2022

Tiger Gaze

Stephen

Kangisser


49 / FEBRUARY 2022

FOUR STAR PICTORIAL WINNER 23 February 2022

Malaika

Stephen

Kangisser


50 / FEBRUARY 2022

5* & 5 Star Honours STAR NATURE WINNER

23 February 2022

Watchful Mongoose Dino Bottega


51 / FEBRUARY 2022

5* & 5 Star Honours STAR NATURE WINNER

23 February 2022

Abigal the Farmers Daughter Vicki Street


52 / FEBRUARY 2022

5* & 5 Star Honours STAR CELLPHONE WINNER

23 February 2022

Happy Dog

Ruth Anne Smit


53 / FEBRUARY 2022

SET SUBJECT WINNER

23 February 2022

All tied up

Vicki Street


54/ FEBRUARY 2022

with permission from https://www.behindtheshutter.com/boudoir-photography-a-beginners-guide/

HOW TO GET STARTED IN BOUDOIR PHOTOGRAPHY HTTPS://JASMINJADE.COM/ As a new boudoir photographer, one of the most difficult things for me to understand was pricing. Even though I had been in business as a family photographer for a couple of years, I wanted to change my pricing structure to make profit and steer away from “shoot and burn.” Not only was pricing very hard to understand, but I did not know what to sell, how to sell it or where to find the products.


55 / FEBRUARY 2022 Pricing yourself is not easy. Pricing yourself for profit is a difficult task, especially for a beginner photographer. Finding the pricing range for you and what products to sell starts with finding your ideal client first. Who do you want your ideal client to be? Who do you want to bring into your studio? Who do you want to attract? You need to start from there. I wanted to make profit, so I needed to set my prices for that and furthermore attract the kind of client who would pay my worth and who loves photography as much as I do. The number one rule with selling products is to keep it simple. You can very easily get overwhelmed with all the different companies that offer canvases, albums, prints, embossed boxes, USBs, and the list can go on! There are so many amazing products to sell to your clients that are fabulous, but when starting out with products, it’s best to pick only a couple of companies Choose products that reflect your style as a boudoir studio and brand but also some that you think will be perfect for your ideal clients. These are the products that you personally would want to display in your home and ones that you genuinely will get excited about showing off. In my experience, almost every client will purchase products from their boudoir session.

Boudoir sessions are different than family sessions because this isn’t exactly the type of session that they are going to take somewhere to print themselves. Most of my clients in the past have always invested in an album either for themselves, the enjoyment of their significant other or as a groom’s gift. First, you need to decide what type of product you want to offer to your clients. I always suggest offering albums. They have been my top selling product of all time. The top seller for me as a new boudoir photographer was always the little black book that I offered with my middle package. Nowadays I sell my little black book together with a big album. Once you decide on what type of products to offer, start to research the companies that offer these products and pick one or two that you think align with your style as a brand, what your ideal clients will love, and that have the quality that you expect TOP 5 TIPS FOR GETTING STARTED 01 The right lens The most important thing is to flatter your subject, but shooting too close or with a wide lens will distort them. The ideal lens here is a prime with a focal length between 50-100mm, and a wide maximum aperture such as f/1.8. Alternatively, use a zoom with a wide maximum aperture like f/2.8. 02 Keep it steady In the kind of low light environment you’ll be shooting in, stability is important for sharp shots. It’s hugely helpful if your camera or lens has image stabilization, but a monopod can also prevent shake. 03 Window light Soft, flattering and cheap, window light is ideal for this kind of shoot as it floods over the body with beautifully and evenly. By moving your subject around, you can have the window in front, to the side or behind them. If the window light is too weak, you could supplement it with constant LED lighting. 04 Wardrobe choices Ask your model to bring a few outfits – and they don’t all need to be underwear. Remember, boudoir photography is about creating an alluring mood, not showing the most skin. 05 Keep your subject comfortable Make your model comfortable by keeping the room warm and providing soft cushions and furnishings. At the same time, remember that two people shooting – especially if using lights – will warm up the room quickly, so don’t make it too hot! Make sure to keep a dressing gown to hand for downtime, too.


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Zooming in on the PSSA: Evelyn Gibson, PRO, PSSA

We sat down with the PSSA’s Public Relations Officer (PRO), Evelyn Gibson, to find out why she’s passionate about what the PSSA does, what benefits you can expect from being a member and what Evelyn herself has gained from being a part of the PSSA. This is the first in a multi-part series where we chat to key figures in the PSSA management. As the PRO, Evelyn is the first port of call for all new members joining the PSSA. Evelyn has been a member of the PSSA since 2001 and is currently also the Liaison Officer for the Photographic Society of America (PSA). Having started her photographic career in 1999 with a film camera, Evelyn proceeded to study photography at Open Window for 2 years. Evelyn is a member of the Pretoria Photographic Society, where she served as President for 2 years and is an honorary member. Her favourite genres are landscapes and street photography.

Focus: Why would you encourage members of EPC to join the PSSA? EG: One of the big benefits of being a PSSA member is the discounted rate for entering salons. There is a 50% saving on entry fees if you’re a member, vs the non-member fee. Only PSSA members are allowed to apply for their Honours and so forth, whereas non-members aren’t. For me, club photography is a learning curve. Salons are competitions, and Honours are the examination. These are the three different things and I feel it’s advantageous to be a PSSA member with the various opportunities available. Some people might not care about the salon discount, but it’s good to belong to an association that provides guidelines for clubs.

It is advantageous for a photo

club to be affiliated with an association like the PSSA. Now that I’m the Liaison Officer for the PSA, I can see the different benefits that they are giving to their members – their competitions, their lectures and that kind of thing. Focus: I love what you said about club photography being the learning curve, salons being the competition and Honours being the examination; because so many people say “Why do I have to do that?”, but if you’ve entered a panel for honours, it isn’t easy and it is an achievement to obtain. We need to get this message across to new members that it’s a set of levels to progress through.


57 / FEBRUARY 2022 EG: As we know, every salon has different categories, so you’re constantly being challenged by entering these categories. The PSSA is emphasizing now that if you’re running a salon, the judges you choose must be experienced in that particular category. Now, if you win a medal at a PSSA salon in a non-manipulated category, you have to provide your RAW image. Also, a lot of emphasis is now on the fact that everything in your image must belong to you. Focus: There has been some chatter in some quarters about what elements you can use in your images if you’re using Photoshop. Some seem to believe that preloaded textures, or sky replacement backgrounds, for example, in Photoshop are acceptable; or if you’ve done an online course where some textures are supplied, you’re allowed to use those. This is a grey area, so we’re glad the PSSA is clamping down. EG: We have had instances of stacked images (i.e. a manipulated image) being entered into nature categories in salons, and this is a problem, and these images will need to be withdrawn from competition. Focus: Members are free to use textures or overlays if they’ve created them themselves…but not if they are not their own images. How does the PSSA see it’s role in upholding the integrity of submitted images and photographers. EG: Integrity is coming to the fore now as we’ve changed the salon rules regarding medal winners and COM winners that you must

be able to produce your raw image. This new rule will help the integrity of the PSSA as a whole. Focus: Should we also be looking at altered reality images and ensuring that each image overlay can be proven to be the authors own? Is that being asked for? EG: No, not yet. I think some clubs are, and it is something we should be going towards. Focus: We have to appeal to younger, more diverse photographers and change the demographic. Is the current demographic within clubs and the PSSA the future of photography? Everybody has a role but to keep growing as an organization we must attract new members. How do we encourage people to join a photo club like EPC when they’re a person of colour, or a younger photographer and then advocate for them to join the PSSA? EG: I hear what you’re saying. Let me ask you a question – let’s say there wasn’t a governing body like the PSSA, would clubs survive? Focus: No, I don’t think they would. The PSSA absolutely has a role. There would be no standard to hold people too. EG: It’s important to have a body like the PSSA to set certain guidelines but it is up to the clubs to decide how far to enforce the guidelines. Focus: Growing the clubs will automatically help grow the PSSA, and by changing the demographic of the clubs, we can help change the demographic of the PSSA.

We need to attract young enthusiastic members to our clubs. Introducing a cell phone category to EPC has helped that, and we’ve had a wonderful growth spurt recently with new members joining us. EG: The PSSA website is being revamped, and we’re updating the database which are all positives for the PSSA. We currently have approximately 1000 PSSA members nationwide, with 95 affiliated clubs. Focus: It’s up to the clubs, like EPC to promote the PSSA to members. EG: The individual clubs aren’t promoting the PSSA enough. My club has started a “Clicking Corner” before our formal meeting where we share the winning Senior and Junior images of the PSSA monthly competition and give them a score. We then share our club’s winning images, give them a score, and show the difference in scores to the PSSA winners. This helps promote the PSSA and allows club members to see work being done around the country. Focus: The PSSA has guidelines so we can achieve them. Without them, we’ll all just be Instagram photographers. We don’t have to agree with every rule and certainly you can break the rules if you’re photographing a wedding, or for Instagram, but if you play the club game then you must play within the rules of holding body. This holding body represents us to the rest of the world.


58 / FEBRUARY 2022 EG: Anybody can view or download all the images off the PSSA website for the Junior, Senior and website competitions. Analysing these images will show you what other clubs are doing and what standard is around the rest of the country. Choosing judges for your club night from different regions will allow you to get a sense of the standard in other parts of the country. Focus: What do you need from us as a PSSA affiliated club? How can we help the PSSA? EG: Let members see the work being done around the country. Share the images. Encourage them to join the PSSA and enter the website competition and see how their work fares against the rest of South Africa. We all learn from one another and we learn by comparison and competition. Focus: The Annual PSSA Congress is coming up in August this year, in Greyton (Western Cape). Despite our Chairperson Hanli being one of the speakers and presenters last year, we did a terrible job at EPC of advertising it to our members. This year we want to change that and encourage members to join the Congress. What value can people expect to get from a congress?

EG: There are some great speakers lined up for the Greyton congress and it is a beautiful area to do photography in. The 2021 congress was more people orientated; there are some marvelous landscape opportunities for this congress. The camaraderie of photographers getting together and sharing knowledge and having fun together is just wonderful. The talks and workshops are great platforms to learn from, but you’ll also make new friends and see a new part of the country. Focus: What do you want members to know about you and your role in the PSSA? EG: As PRO I get many questions and emails and because I’m passionate I will try in every way possible to help people when I can, and I really enjoy it. My passion for PSSA is strong too. I feel it’s advantageous to be a member because it all comes together at congresses, with camaraderie and we’re all learning from one another. Focus: What benefits have you personally gotten out of the PSSA? EG: I’ve learnt a huge amount about photography and all the different genres, and I wouldn’t be where I am today if it hadn’t been for the PSSA. Being on the Honours judging panel for a number of years is a huge learning for me. There have been tremendous benefits and learnings that take place with the discussions with the other judges.

Focus: Thank you so much for sharing your time and knowledge with us Evelyn.


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60 / FEBRUARY 2022

Closing dates for upcoming Salons 2021 find the information brochures on the PSSA website 2022-07-02 Witzenberg Photographic Society 2nd PDI & Pint Salon 2022 2022-07-16 Kosmos National PDI Salon 2022-07-30 Bloemfontein National Digital Salon 2022-08-13 PPS National PDI Salon 2022-08-27 7th Bosveld Fotografieklub Salon 2022-09-10 Krugersdorp Camera Club 17th National Digital Salon 2022-09-17 Amber Camera Club 2nd National Digital & AV Salon 2022-10-01 9th Swartland Salon 2021 2022-10-15 Kroonstad Fotoklub 65th Jubilee PDI Salon 2022-10-22 PSSA 22nd Up and Coming Competition 2022-10-29 International “Glass” theme AV Salon for 2022 2022-11-05 Tygerberg Photographic Society Salon 2022 2022-11-09 Danube Autumn Circuit 2022 (Edenvale Photographic Club) 2022-11-12 7th Centurion Camera Club Digital Salon

2022-11-19 2nd SANParks Honorary Rangers: Free State Region Nature Only PDI Salon


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Photos by Murial and Andrew

Mankwe

Weekend


62 / FEBRUARY 2022

Photos by Murial and Andrew

THANK YOU TO THE DEDICATED STAFF OF MANKWE


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