DIG News - November 2015 When you got your RPS Journal recently and the little RPS Awards booklet dropped out how many of you took time to read about the individuals who have been given the various honours? On page 14 Alexander Melrose was awarded an Honorary Life Membership. Alex is a great supporter of the RPS north of the border – in the words from the booklet ‘has shown extraordinary support for The Society over a sustained period’. Alex has also been a DIG Centre Scotland member from its’ inception. So a hearty congratulations from your DIG colleagues Alex – a well deserved honor by all accounts. We are delighted for you.
CONGRATULATIONS We have three new ARPS and one LRPS members to be given our congratulations this month……. Kate Lomax LRPS
Hampshire
Mike Routley ARPS Deborah Degge ARPS Frank Geraedts ARPS
Kent Worcestershire Netherlands
Each month we will pick just one of those gaining their honors and ask them for the layout sheet showing their panel of work.
To start this rolling we have our overseas member Frank Geraedts ARPS panel. This is Frank’s Statement of Intent…… ‘Time to move – Time to look’ (Category - Pictorial) The Paleiskwartier (Palace Quarter) is a new development in the city of ‘s-Hertogenbosch, The Netherlands. Many people work, study and live there every day. I’m proud to be one of them. Architects have drawn straight lines; builders constructed the modern buildings. They will stand through time. But do we ever take the time to really look around us? We are busy people, this prevents us from seeing things, or even take time to take a quick look. My intent is to slow time down and speed up the steel and concrete. This challenges one to really take a look and see things that one normally cannot see. All images were produced in camera. Images were taken with a Nikon D800 and later D810 and processed in Lightroom CC, Photoshop CC and a little bit of NIK Silver Efex pro.
DIG FORUM
This months popular choice forum competition winner is Eric Begbie with ‘Cowgirl’ who pipped John Long and his ‘Descending’ by just one point. So we will enjoy both images as it was so close. Well done to both of you – great examples of the variety and quality of DIG members work. As we are endeavoring to show more examples of members work each month I asked Eric to let us have just a few words about the composition and the techniques used.
“Trying to make a bog-standard Camargue image a little different, I selected and copied the girl on the horse before converting the remainder of the image to monochrome. The selection was then pasted back with slightly muted colours before a layer of clouds was added at low opacity and, finally, Lightroom's new de-haze tool, used at a negative value within a graduated filter, was applied to give a bit of mistiness to the image.”
Cowgirl by Eric Begbie
Descending by John Long
DIG YOUTUBE
DIG now has a You Tube channel on which you will find a video of extracts of the various sessions, shot at the recent DI Expo. So if you missed the event you might be interested to see what went on. And if you did go along then it should be a nice reminder of the day we hope you enjoyed. Here is the link to the video https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcsLN3ZgXM3bbXZUNk4ew7Q
DI EXPO 2015 – Survey Results
Thank you to those of you who attended DI Expo and completed the survey for us. We had a 50% response rate, so that is pretty good. The full detail of the statistics are being evaluated but here are some interesting stats: • 80% said the main reason they came along was to hear one or more of the keynote speakers. • 94% found the ticketing process easy or very easy. • The most popular session was the lecture from Joe Cornish. • 94% visited the trade stands – 50% of these making purchases. • 95% want a similar event in the future.
DIG CENTRES
News from around the UK Centres starting with Scotland: Andy Hayes has stood down as the Centre’s Treasurer so we thank him sincerely for his services during his tenure. Eric Begabie has volunteered to take over the role and we thank him also as without willing volunteers DIG simply would not survive. Western: On December 13th at Merryfield Hall, Ilton near Taunton Jeff Morgan will return to give a talk ‘Ways to use Elements & Photoshop’. Jeff has given several talks to the group and is very popular as he really makes sure that the audience interact and take away new skills. For more information about the meeting and how to book go to the DIG web site www.rps.org/DIG/about and follow the link to the Western Centre down the RHS list near the bottom. Midlands: We have an individual who is trying hard to get the Midlands Centre re-established but he desperately needs some other local DIG members to step forward and volunteer to also be on the committee. Without this then it is impossible for him to get the Centre running again. So if you feel that you could help then please get in touch through Janet Haines digchair@rps.org
TONY MANT LEAVES THE RPS
Towards the end of October the Bath Database manager Tony Mant left the RPS to take up his love of working outside with animals and in the fresh air. Your DIG committee were particularly sorry to see Tony leave as he was a good friend to DIG and was always willing to help when we hit little problems. Given the important role he has played for us we felt that DIG should not let him go without making a small thank you to him on behalf of all DIG Members.
A few bottles of the liquid nectar were presented to Tony who should now be enjoying them whilst relaxing into this new lifestyle. He says he hopes not to see a computer screen for a while and was planning to celebrate with the first bottle the night he left HQ. So thanks for everything Tony. It has been very much appreciated. You will be missed.
OVERSEAS MEMBERS
Quite naturally overseas members are far less likely to be able to join in with the various DIG events and meetings and may well feel less ‘included’ than UK based members. Whenever we can find an opportunity to make them feel part of the DIG Community we do, through such means as the monthly article from an Overseas member. Also by marking their entries in our Projected Image and Print annual competitions with their country of origin and sending their quarterly DIGIT magazines to them via airmail, so that they do not have to wait too much longer than UK based members.
If you are an overseas member why not consider getting involved with our active Forum and/or the forum monthly competition? It is certainly one place where you are on even ground with all other members around the globe. Currently only one member from Australia posts regularly, which is somewhat surprising. It is easy enough to do – just login to the RPS web site and follow the link at the top to ‘Forums’ and then at the bottom you will see the Digital Imaging Group area. You will be made very welcome and the members are always very respectful to one another, giving generous feedback on images posted and generally exchanging ideas and questions. Did you know that DIG is the most active part of the RPS Forum? We work hard to give our members a lively area to interact with one another – so whether you are an overseas member or not, everyone is welcome to join in.
FOCUS ON OVERSEAS MEMBERS The start of my photography voyage from Nick Padfield - RPS member New Zealand. When Janet emailed and asked if I would be prepared to contribute a short article for the overseas members section I was equally flattered and apprehensive. Living in New Zealand I have not been able to attend any society functions so far, but I read the societies magazine every month and I look for inspiration in the fine images presented there. I have a problem when it comes to photography, or any artistic pursuit come to that. I’m a Chief marine engineer with 35 years at sea and I’m sure I don’t possess an artistic bone anywhere in my body. If I do it’s staying well hidden! I re-awakened an old interest in photography about 4 years ago when I bought my eldest son a DSLR for his
birthday . When I had a play with it I realised what a smart piece of kit it was and bought myself one soon afterwards. It seemed the perfect hobby to learn at sea, quiet, interesting, technical and less disturbing to my shipmates than learning a musical instrument. I enrolled in an online professional photography diploma, which I passed and set about capturing images of anything that interested me. Now comes the crux of the problem, I have a good technical knowledge of all the obscure stuff like the inverse square law of light and circles of confusion, how light travels through lenses and the causes of noise in images. I get asked for explanations by others who struggle with those concepts and I can usually explain them in laymans terms. But nobody takes me seriously because I refuse to use photoshop for my images, I’m a luddite right now. My reasoning is simple. If I’ve spent a lot of money on a quality camera, and I have, I should learn to use it. If I wanted to take poor images and then fix every one I would use my cellphone, which I believe has a camera somewhere I’ve never used! I did weaken and start to use Lightroom after my practice shots reached 10,000 and needed to be organised and that’s as far as I’ve got. No doubt I will learn to use Photoshop before too long but until then everything is straight out of the camera and deleted if it’s too bad. I take images of anything and everything, break the rules and experiment, looking for something to specialise in and find the missing link between technician and artist. I hope to be a photographer first and a computer operator second so I’ll just play with my camera and lenses and gadgets for the time being. I’ve just started anther leg of my photography voyage by enrolling on the RPS linked Open University course in Digital Photography. It started in October and I hope it will help me arrive at Licentiate level in the Society soon.
Maybe next time I’m invited to contribute I’ll be submitting a different style and found that artistic bone. Good luck to everyone wherever your passion takes you. Nick.
Glassblower at work
House fly head
Light painting at local artwork
New Zealand rodeo
As I have said a couple of times throughout this edition of DIG News we want to try to get more ‘members’ work and achievements in DIG News. This is your Group so if you have something you feel we should feature or include then do let me know. Maybe you are going to have an exhibition of your work, are organizing workshops, or know something that has not come to our attention – then do share it for the benefit of all DIG Members by emailing me at digchair@rps.org
Regards
Janet Janet Haines ARPS DIG Chair digchair@rps.org