The Official MIPP Newsletter
March 2015
FOCALPOINT
Issue No. 49
www.mipp-malta.com
EDITORIAL We recommend you get out there and brave the weather and capture those dramatic skies! March is here and cloud season will be at its best! I know that for some of you clouds are full of rain, but more often than not March offers some lovely cloudscapes!
This month we also have a great talk which should inspire those members who are planning their yearly trip! Guido Bonett will be taking us for a walk in Africa during his talk with his wonderful imagery. Make sure you do not miss out on this one ! Also there are so many events happening this March, make sure you check out the Top Image: Editor Therese Debono Above: Assistant Editor Kerstin Arnemann
exhibitions which Kerstin put together for you. With all these events one can’t hope that eventually this bad weather will ease off and welcome spring into our lives! Meanwhile enjoy a cup of coffee with this newsletter and enjoy!
If you want your photos featured on the newsletter’s front page just send the images to newsletter@mippmalta.com. Your contributions are always welcome!
Newsletter Team Editor: Therese Debono Assistant Editor: Kerstin Arnemann Design: Therese Debono Article Vetting: Vince DeBono Articles: Various contributors Editorial Advice: Kevin Casha
Find us on: Therese & Kerstin!
Contact: newsletter@mippmalta.com
MARCH 2015 pg 2 pg 4 pg 14 pg 18 pg 20 pg 22 pg 24 pg 27 pg 28 pg 29 pg 30
cover artist
President’s viewpoint Featured MIPP member Out & About MIPP Notice MIPP Talk Past Monthly Event MIPP Notice Invitation MIPP Calendar MIPP Notice Member’s Gallery
CONTENTS Guts & Passion: Achieving your goals! George Swindells March Events Give Malta a Centre for Photography Walking in Africa David Pisani Talk Kevin Casha at the US Embassy ‘The Overlooked Perfomance’ by Alex Attard Mark your diaries Studio Lights for hire PTYA Standings
Romana Wyllie This month’s cover is graced by Romana Wyllie’s image called ‘Elenya’. Her image was submitted in this year’s first edition of PTYA Competition. So far Romana is currently leading this year’s competition! Keep it up Romana!
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Guts & Passion: Achieving your Goals!
Kevin Casha
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was recently pleasantly surprised by the work of David Pisani, who recently kindly agreed to share his experiences and passion with MIPP members. It was inspiring to witness the difficult tasks and work that David not only set himself to do, but successfully accomplished. Due to his drive to engage himself in photography projects he believes in, without the shackles of a commercial brief, he has managed to come up with various photography ‘collections’ which not only have an interesting concept but have pictorially recorded various aspects of our urban life – aspects which would have otherwise been lost forever. David is a very unassuming, quiet and reflective person, but this exterior actually masks a boiling passion which internally pushes him towards his goals. He is not afraid to work on subjects which have no commercial prospects. When viewers engage with his work, the feelings and comments vary greatly – some love his work, others see it as only documentary – but that is the fascination of photography. The
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viewpoint
way viewers engage with photographs usually all boils down on their ‘conditioning’ and knowledge. That is one of the main reasons that viewers differ in their opinions. This is beneficial because if everyone liked the same things, the world would truly be a boring place with little variety in imagery! I particularly like David’s ‘Vanishing Valletta’ images. In this work he has, on many occasions, managed to see and create aesthetic and meaningful images from subjects which most ‘photographers’ would not even glance at. Yet, one project which particularly enthralled me is his night photographs of Paceville or PV (as referred to in the book, “Night and Day.”) This is one subject which is close to my heart and one that I had, for a number of years, been trying to instigate my students to tackle. Yet none took up the challenge until David brilliantly started this fascinating work. His work on this subject really brings out the decadent feel of PV and its trappings. The journalistic elements of the photo-
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graphs aptly depict and touch on the life of Malta’s main entertainment area. In my opinion, David has borne out in his images even, alas, the boredom and the hopelessness that some revellers seem to experience in what is primarily an area of entertainment. The feelings that the mostly youthful crowd of Paceville usually bear do not seem to be of happiness, inclusion or a love of life, but rather of despair and escapism through alcohol, sex and other substances. This is a project that David should revisit and continue to slowly expand on. It will raise awareness and definitely fill in some glaring gaps that we have when documenting youth and society in our country. The book NIGHT&DAY, by David Pisani and Elise Billiard, was part financed by THE MALTA ARTS FUND AND co-sponsored by SO Galerie and Computime Ltd. NIGHT&DAY is available online at www.edebooks.eu Article by Kevin Casha Images by David Pisani from ‘Night & Day’
featured member
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member THE HIDDEN NATURALfeatured WORLD
George Swindells is a regular at our monthly meetings, so this time round we decided to feature him. He came back with some amazing imagery which we just can’t not share! Read on and discover how George goes about his photography expeditions!
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Photography has been off and on,
blown hot and cold with me for some 60 years now, but I only came to Nature Photography recently. Previously my main interest lay in landscape, derelict buildings and street photography. I was not a people photographer, too shy! With these subjects I was able to keep to myself but at the same time chase my quest for images with atmosphere, character and mood. In the analogue days that meant finding subjects that conveyed all the attributes I wanted and rendering them on film in my camera. The film I used most would be colour slide, cheaper and quicker to see final images. How surprised I was to find subjects that gave me the images I desired in my photographic quest literally right under my feet. Please understand I was not and still am not any sort of expert on nature and I approach my subjects as photographic models. But you cannot follow this genre of photography without some degree natural history being absorbed. In my case I have been very lucky to be able to walk on the wild side with my good friend and naturalist, Guido Bonett. Since taking an interest in Nature and Macro Photography I have come to realise how much of our world we
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tend to ignore because we don’t see it. When you walk in the country side, or even down your streets, unless you are specifically looking for something different you will miss the fact that you have seen 5 species of butterfly (they are just butterflies) you’ve crushed various species of flora and scared away a whole range of fauna. It is not until you get intimate with the natural world and start ‘seeing’ what you have before your eyes that you realise that there is a vast landscape and range of micro seized subjects waiting to be photographed. But here’s the rub, nature is ever changing and when you go out to photograph her it is as though sometimes she is shy, as if though there is nothing to be seen. An awful truth is that there are many subjects that a couple of years ago would be in abundance, today you may not see any of them at all. But when nature puts on a show, be prepared to be amazed – like the African Monarchs, a butterfly that had migrated from Africa in November 2013 and covered the island within a couple of days. When Guido saw the first one I thought he was going to have a heart attack. He told me it was so rare to see them. Some days later we stood in a Carob tree (Harruba) in Foresta 2000 at Ahrax in Mellieha and it was as though we were in a butterfly house. I was also privileged to see for the first time a chameleon hunting. I was pho-
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tographing a Red Admiral in brilliant condition in the same tree when I noticed a chameleon slowly creeping up. He became motionless and I realized he was going to strike. I managed to get some of the action but not the actual contact. I get ahead of myself. I wanted to cover ‘how’ we go about photographing the world of nature we follow, which is predominantly with macro lenses and whenever we can long lenses for birds. Macro is essential to get into the world of plants, insects and reptiles. Also it is essential to get down and dirty to get the right angles to give eye contact and subject isolation from backgrounds. Whatever we photograph we find sound photographic techniques are just as important as they are in any other form of photography. When I first started out in this genre I was using a 70mm Macro Lens on my K10 PENTAX. In our world a true macro lens is one with 1:1 magnification, anything else will not do. I soon found out the 70mm Sigma, despite being a classic macro lens with brilliant image quality, it was too short. I was having to get too close to the subject, which frightens my subjects away. My next lens was a 100mm Sigma 2.8 lens now on a PENTAX K7. This was much better, however since it increased in length when focusing at 1:1 it also caused problems with being too
close to the subject, especially with insects and reptiles. In the end I had to ditch my Pentax cameras, as the lens I wanted and needed was only available for Nikon and Canon mounts. I bought the Nikon D7100 and the Sigma 150 2.8 macro lens. This lens is a classic but heavy. Lighting wise we found the ring flashes we were using were giving flat images. Guido also had a problem when photographing snakes for his field work and wanted a rig that allowed the standard flash to be mounted in such a way that it was positioned over the top of the lenses front elements. I researched flash mounts for him and came up with a solution that resolved the problem. This is now the rig we both use. It is also important to have a good angle finder to allow camera angles at ground level. One other essential piece of equipment has no photographic technology in it and this is a pair of knee pads. Believe me you will not go on many macro nature expeditions without them. And last but not least a flask of coffee. The final reward for a day’s shooting in nature is to sit and enjoy a cup of coffee in the tranquillity of natural surroundings. With all this packed in my backpack, a nice but not too hot a day
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with light winds, and it is as close to heaven a nature photographer can be. The other branch of nature photography I love is the use of a long lens for birds. For me the ultimate experience was when we went to Bulgarian wetlands to photograph birds on migration. It was amazing. I am still trying to finish my editing of the images taken and quite frankly I am amazed at some of the images I got that I had not realized were so good. But that’s another story.
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Article & Images by George Swindells Page 4: African Monarch Page 7: Female Common Blue Page 8: Egret Fishing Page 10: Small Flowered Tongue Orchid Page 12: Chameleon with catch
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OUT AND ABOUT
March Events
Since art is not only about photography, Kerstin came up with the brilliant idea of selecting a few monthly events and pointing them out to our members so that you visit these interesting exhibitions/installations/ book launches and be inspired! Enjoy!
Afterselfie – A Collaborative Maltese-Italian Exhibition Venue: ST James Cavalier, Valletta Dates: 13th February - 15th March 2015 http://valletta2018.org/events/afterselfie-a-collaborative-maltese-italian-exhibition/
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The Overlooked Performance by Alex Attard Venue: St. James Cavalier, Valletta Dates: 7 March at 10:00 to 5 April at 21:20 https://www.facebook.com/events/781654661914718/?ref_dashboard_ filter=upcoming
A Brush with Passion by Joseph Casapinta Inauguration 9th March 2015 at 18:00hrs Open to the Public 10th – 16th March 2015 Venue: The Palace, Valletta Opening times Mon - Tues - Wed: 09:30 - 16:30 Thur - Fri - Sat - Sun: 09:30 - 18:30 https://www.facebook.com/ events/789065714513739/?ref_dashboard_ filter=upcoming
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Alluring Vignettes by AlfieAlpha Opening Exhibition: 5th March 2015 at 19.00hrs Venue: Malta Society of Arts, Republic Street, Valletta 6th March- 26th March 2015 Monday to Friday 8.00 to 19.00 Saturday 9.00 to 12.00 https://www.facebook.com/events/780366665350243/
Exhibition by Daniel John Bugeja Dates: 7th February to 31st March 2015 Venue: Palazzo de Piro http://palazzodepiro.com/27-forthcoming-events/312-exhibition-by-daniel-johnbugeja
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Women in Malta by Amanda Hsu Portrait Exhibition Dates: 9th to 20th March 2015 Venue: Malta Chamber of Commerce http://amandahsu.com/exhibition-project-women-in-malta/
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Give Malta a Center for Photography! We would like to appeal to all MIPP members, friends and photography lovers
to go on Facebook and ‘Like’ this page. More important, please share the page and tell all those who are sensitive and believe in this genuine appeal. It is important that we have numbers so that perhaps the authorities might think it worth their while to listen. Let us all try and push for something which would benefit all Maltese photographers. The link is: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Give-Malta-a-Center-for-Photography/403398533156103
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Walking in Africa
Guido Bonett
Guido’s talk this month is about his long journey of circa 5,700km through four african countries; South Africa, Namibia, Botswana and Zambia on a truck and camping out in the wilderness! Do not miss out on this talk!
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Past Monthly Event There was a good turn out for David Pisani’s talk on 12th February titled ‘The Professional Artist: Conflict & Compromise’. David Pisani gave a good talk mentioning how he barely shot anything on his first assignment in Sicily whilst on a voluntary event due to the culture shock. His first exhibition was in the Binneale in Paris, and he got his Dubai assignment after his Valletta Project. After that he went on to Cyprus photographing buildings which were destroyed by the war and never restored, and also how he progressed onto Japan. He emphasized alot about the delicate balance between being an artist and a commercial photographer, how both are good in their own respects. David Pisani published two books, ‘Transit’ and ‘Night & Day’ and both can be purchased from http://edebooks.eu
Above: David Pisani
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Above: Kevin Casha introducing David Pisani
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Kevin Casha at the United States Embassy MIPP President, Kevin Casha, recently delivered an informative lecture on the work of iconic American coloured photographer, Gordon Parks. Parks was an incredibly talented person whose star studded career included working with Life Magazine and Vogue as well as being the first Afro-American to Direct a movie. The Embassy talk which was very well attended, was the first in a series of lectures on iconic American photographers who historically, have left an indelible mark through their photographic work as well as in their outstanding personal achievements. The lecture, which was held at the United States Embassy, in Ta’ Qali, was also attended by the United States Ambassador to Malta, H.E. Gina Abercrombie-Winstanley and the Deputy Chief of Mission, Mr Terry Flynn.
Caption shows Kevin Casha being greeted by Deputy Chief of Mission, Terry Flynn
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THE OVERLOOKED PERFORMANCE Exhibition by Alex Attard
This Friday 6th March sees the opening of Alex Attard’s Exhibition called ‘The Overlooked Performance’, curated by Dr. Vince Briffa.
‘Renzo Piano’s parliament for Valletta is nearing completion. For over two years, photographer Alex Attard observed the site as it developed and recorded the ephemeral art beneath the face of this historic architectural intervention’
Alex Attard is an MIPP member and he kindly agreed to give a personal walkthrough of his exhibition in order to informally discuss the concept, preparation and work involved in producing his engaging exhibition. Family and friends who are interested are invited to attend on Friday 20th March at the Upper Galleries of St James Cavalier, Valletta at 19:30hrs. The exibition will be open for the public from the 7th March till the 5th April.
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CALENDAR 3rd March Monthly Talk with Guido Bonett 19:30hrs, Le Meridien
10th March Int. Online Competition - Session 2 19:30hrs, Le Meridien
22nd March One Day Seminar Venue and schedule tbc
7th April Models & Portable Flash on Location, Keith Darmanin; 18:00hrs; TBC
14th April PTYA Judging Session - Live Events 19:30hrs, Le Meridien
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STUDIO FLASH UNITS AVAILABLE FOR RENTING This set of electronic studio flash units has been kindly donated to the MIPP by PHOTOIMAGES (photoimages@maltanet.net ) of Laurent Ropa Street, Birkirkara, who are now under the management of Matthew Briffa. Photoimages are the distributors of Interfit lighting and a host of other accessories useful for both the hobbyist and the professional photographer. To further increase the service we give to MIPP members, we are happy to announce that the MIPP is now in possession of an INTERFIT EX150 MK.3 KIT. The MIPP intends to rent out these lights to members at a very nominal fee, thus members who could hitherto not afford to practice studio photography, because of lack of studio lighting equipment, will now have an opportunity to do so. This adds another tangible benefit to our members, and I would also like to remind members that there is also the possibility of being loaned picture frames from the MIPP for exhibition purposes. Those who are interested to rent out the lights are to contact Sergio Morana on sergio.morana@gmail.com.
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MEMBERS’ GALLERY
Above: The Mask by Tom Lee
Above: b Three by b Romana Wylie l
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PTYA Session 1
Above: The Sheppard by George Abdilla
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