Cameratalk February/March 2018 by Photographic Society of New Zealand

NZ CameraTalk To p r o m o t e t h e w i d e r e n j o y m e n t o f p h o t o g r a p h y

T H E O F F I C I A L M A G A Z I N E O F T H E P H OT O G R A P H I C S O C I E T Y O F N E W Z E A L A N D I N C Fe b r u a r y / M a r c h 2 0 1 8

Editor’s corner I’ve been to at least nine, beginning with Greymouth a long time ago and working through to last year’s thoroughly enjoyable event at Stratford. From West Coast bellydancers on the beach to a Taranaki farm visit last year, the regionals have provided a range of inspiring speakers, practical workshops, great field trips – but above all, heaps of photographic fun!

PRESIDENT Peter Robertson LPSNZ PO Box 2, Westport 7866 t. 03 789 8745 e: president@photography.org.nz

VICE-PRESIDENT Moira Blincoe LPSNZ 16a Burleigh Street, Grafton, Auckland 1023 t. 09 379 7021 e. blincoe.communicates@gmail.com

TREASURER David Knightley PO Box 99470, Newmarket, Auckland 1149 e. treasurer@photography.org.nz

SECRETARY Patrice Nilsen 8 Raroa Terrace, Tawa, Wellington 5028 t. 04 232 1565 e. secretary@photography.org.nz

EDITOR Lindsay Stockbridge LPSNZ 14 Poynter Place, Whanganui 4501 t. 06 348 7141 or m. 027 653 0341 e. dilinz@actrix.co.nz

ADVERTISING & LAYOUT Paul Whitham LPSNZ PSNZ Councillor t. 04 973 3015 or m. 021 644 418 e. paul@pwfotos.com

CAMERATALK DEADLINE The next CameraTalk deadline is 1 April 2018 Email your contributions to the Editor at his email address. Editorial should be sent as Word or .txt files. JPEG images generally should be saved at 300 dpi, compressed to high to medium quality. Include return postage if you wish material to be returned. The opinions expressed in this newsletter are not necessarily those of the Editor or of the Council of PSNZ.

TONIGHT, IT ALL happens... or perhaps it doesn’t! Our club has received an urgent request from Toya Heatley LPSNZ ANPSNZ, Councillor for Conventions. Would the Whanganui Camera Club consider running this year’s Central Regional Convention? Our committee had already set up a conventions subcommittee, tasked with setting up the framework of a Whanganui convention – with no specified date. With Toya’s request, things became more urgent; perhaps we had to consider a date! A fortnight ago, Committee asked the conventions subcommittee to consider whether Whanganui could host this year’s regional. The subcommittee met a week ago, and it has a recommendation to hand back to Committee which gathers tonight. I know what that recommendation is, and by tonight we’ll have a decision to send back to Toya. Democracy at work...

Regional conventions, though, don’t organise themselves. Each convention is planned and run by a Convention Organising Committee which undertakes a huge amount of daunting but rewarding work to produce a successful gathering and sends home a hundred or so smiling conventioneers. If your club is asked to run a regional, how will you respond? It’s a big ask, and a hard ask, but you’ll have a framework within which to work, with lots of support and guidance from Toya. All of the above brings me back to tonight’s committee meeting here in Whanganui. Watch this space!

Lindsay Stockbridge LPSNZ Editor

They said YES!!!

Regardless of tonight’s decision, which might appear as a ‘PS’ at the bottom of this editorial, I’m thinking back to the regional conventions I’ve attended.

On the cover Trees and light by James Gibson APSNZ AFIAP. See more of James’ images from page 14.

Helping us to help you

WELCOME TO A new photographic year. We hope that you were able to get out and about with your cameras during our long hot summer before Cyclone Fehi brought such a dramatic end to it last week. February marks the beginning of another exciting year of activity for the Society with submissions now called for PSNZ Honours applications, NZ Camera, Canon National Exhibition, Canon Online and many more opportunities for members to exhibit their talents. Keep an eye on our emails and Facebook page for more details as the year unfolds. We hope too, that you have taken the time to respond to our recent brief survey. By getting as many responses as we can, we can build up a better picture of what you, our members, want to see us put our energy into, and thus develop better events and services. We will continue to send out small targeted surveys as we seek to get feedback from the rather large group of members who do not regularly attend conventions. Maybe we should initiate some other kind of events? Travelling workshops perhaps? We wonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t know unless our members tell us, so if you have in the past been largely silent, please participate when the opportunity arises and help us to help you get the most out of your membership.

Kind regards Peter Robertson LPSNZ President

From the President's desk

In this issue Canon Online results

Judging competitions

Photographing the landscape

Did you know?

Audio-visual notes

Member profile: Newell Grenfell

Convention news

The soapbox

FIAP news

Club news

Councillor profile: Shona Kebble NZ secondary schools photographic competiton

Never stop learning

Membership matters

Canon Online winner! CONGRATULATIONS GO TO Carolina Dutruel APSNZ AFIAP for achieving top marks in the Canon Online competition for 2017. Carolina attained the top spot by being awarded two 1st places, a 5th and an 8th during the bimonthly rounds for the year.

Carolina Dutruel

Thank you to everyone who entered this competition, making it a worthwhile event for PSNZ and Canon. I hope to see everybody entering in 2018. An entry consists of one image per round and is submitted through the PSNZ website. The first round for 2018 closes on 25 February.

Still by Carolina Dutruel - Ist in round 2

One by Carolina Dutruel - Ist in round 5

Captured by Carolina Dutruel - 8th in round 6

Flautist by Carolina Dutruel - 5th in round 4

PSNZ Canon Online Results from Round 6, 2017 OUR JUDGE FOR round 6 was Shona Kebble APSNZ from Auckland. Shona stepped in at the last minute, and we thank her for her time and expertise. It is much appreciated. Our congratulations go to Pauline Smith LPSNZ from Takanini for her lovely image which is very pretty and dreamlike. Congratulations also to the other nine place getters. Round 1 for 2018 closes on 25 February and all financial PSNZ members are welcome to enter. One image only please, sized 1620x1080 and uploaded on the PSNZ website. Have a happy and safe 2018! Sally Phillips APSNZ PSNZ Canon Online Coordinator

Comments from the judge: Shona Kebble APSNZ 1st Other-worldly by Pauline Smith LPSNZ This image transported me to a fairyland world. I enjoyed the colours, the bokeh and the placement of the main water droplet in the image. The droplet is sharp and is illuminated nicely.

Other-worldly by Pauline Smith

The chase by Glenda Rees

2nd The chase by Glenda Rees You have caught the moment precisely. I really like the diagonal created by the bird and its concentration on the little bug in front of its face. The spread of the tail feathers as it adjusts its flying angle gives the bird more interest. I also like the space you have left around the bird. It feels free and not cramped into a tight frame.

3rd I tua atu i te ma (Beyond white) by Cheryl Muirson APSNZ This is a very creative use of two images. I like the way that the structure creates a halo for the ladyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s face. Eliminating the colour from the image and just leaving the red lips, black eyes and nose keeps me completely focused on the face.

I tua ati i te ma (beyond white) by Cheryl Muirson

continued from page 7

PSNZ Canon Online: 4th Isolated by Jo Curtis LPSNZ This triptych has been cleverly constructed. Each part is an image in itself. I like the moody feel of the image and the progression from one tree to two trees; then the group of buildings work well. The drop shadow used on each window makes it stand out from the background.

Isolated by Jo Curtis

5th Flautist by Carolina Dutruel APSNZ AFIAP The light in this image is exquisite. The flute leads me nicely to the face as does the shoulder of her left arm. The triangular shape created by the flute, her arm and her head gives the image strength.

Flautist by Carolina Dutruel

6th Love and sensibility by Mary Livingston LPSNZ This shows a beautiful tender moment between mother and baby. The emotion shows in the mother’s face and the baby is totally secure in its mother’s arms. The black and white treatment suits the subject and the textures in the skin and hair are great.

Love and sensibility by Mary Livingston

7th Portrait of white-fronted terns by Marie Bilodeau LPSNZ What got me about this image is the way the wing of the adult cuddles around the baby, keeping it safe. Both birds’ faces are nice and sharp. The baby seems to be echoing the parent with the open beak.

Portrait of white-fronted terns by Marie Bilodeau

continued from page 9

PSNZ Canon Online:

Pieces of eight by Bill Hodges

8 Pieces of eight by Bill Hodges APSNZ EFIAP th

The storytelling aspect of this image has been very well done. All elements come together nicely to help to tell that story. I enjoyed the creativity and the way the man stands out from his background. The little touches like the birds and lightning add interest.

9th You looking at me by Caroline Ludford LPSNZ LRPS A stunning bird portrait. Those sharp eyes, looking directly at you, draw you in. The mouth being open gives it more interest that if it was closed. The bird stands out well and the colours all work well together.

You looking at me by Caroline Ludford

10th He won’t bite by Annette Johnston LPSNZ I love the interaction between these two. The guy has got down to the child’s level and is really engaging with her. There is nothing obtrusive taking our eye away from the main players. A very nice story told here. The light is lovely.

He won’t bite by Annette Johnston

Are we getting through to you? AS THE VAST majority of PSNZ members are on email, we use that medium to send out information to our members. Recently we changed the method by which those emails are sent. Since that change we have noticed that a large number of emails appear to fall into black holes and are never opened. We know that the email addresses are correct, and therefore suspect that spam filters are causing the problem. All emails coming from PSNZ will now come from mailing@photography.org.nz so can we please ask that you add this to your list of trusted senders. That should avoid the spam filter.

A note on unsubscribing At the bottom of each email that is sent out is a link that will unsubscribe you from the list. Please note that if you select this action then you will no longer receive any updates from PSNZ, with the exception of notices surrounding the AGM or nominations. We have set up an automatic response that gives you an option to rejoin the list in the event of a mistake.

Judging competitions Shona Jaray APSNZ raises some points for competiton secretaries to ponder

PSNZ ACCREDITED JUDGES are available to judge competitions for affiliated clubs. They work on a completely voluntary basis. The job of assessing images and preparing comments generally takes quite a few hours to complete. Here are some guidelines which the Judge Accreditation Panel would appreciate clubs considering when they are approaching judges. •

•

Please plan well ahead when asking judges to assess your images. This will ensure that you are more likely to get the person you want. If you are emailing a number of judges at the same time, please ensure that you use Bcc and do not have all recipients’ email addresses available for public view. Ensure that you provide the judge with clear guidelines as to how you wish the images to be assessed and rated. For example, you may ask that in C grade or beginners grade there are no “not accepted” assessments. Please explain your grading system. A copy of your club competition rules is also helpful.

•

If you have a set subject, please provide a definition to the judge.

•

Do try to keep the number of images to a maximum of 50 to 60. Larger clubs may need to have different grades assessed by different judges.

•

Please allow the judge plenty of time to assess the images; 2-3 full weeks is ideal. That is the amount of time the judge has access to the images, not the amount of time between the images being collected and the date the comments are required back.

•

If you are using a trainee judge, please ensure that the online feedback is completed in a timely manner. This is an essential component of the trainee’s progress towards full accreditation. Feedback for PSNZ Accredited Judges is always welcome.

•

If you have sent prints, please ensure that there is a courier ticket included in the package for the judge to use to return the prints (unless the judge is presenting comments in person).

•

When you receive the prints back, an email or a text to the judge acknowledging their safe arrival is always appreciated.

•

If the assessments are done in person, a petrol voucher for the judge is always appreciated. Remember, the judge is doing this for your club in their own time and at their own expense.

•

When the job is complete, please send a “thank you” card or email.

We now have 53 PSNZ Accredited Judges on our database, and by following the above recommendations you will help to ensure that they all remain a happy bunch! Shona Jaray APSNZ Judge Accreditation Panel

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Photographing the landscape We asked for tips and tricks from members about shooting landscapes. Over the next 23 pages we have some serious and not too serious advice.

Lake Roundabout, Ashburton lakes. 12 shots stitched (two rows of six). 20mm f/1.4, 20s By James Gibson

Warning - objects in the viewfinder may be closer than they appear! By James Gibson APSNZ AFIAP IT’S EASY TO become enthralled by a stunning sunset or captivating seascape and be utterly oblivious to the dirty great power pole running neatly through the middle of the scene. When looking at a landscape it’s easy to see either the big picture or home-in on some specific detail, and your mind helpfully blocks out all the distractions. I’ve spent hours failing to redeem images that I thought at the time of shooting would be incredible and turned out for a variety of reasons to be, well, not.

Lake Heron on a particularly bleak and wintry evening. The waves hitting the foreground rock were also splashing t

Landscape photography uses the same basic compositional ‘toolbox’ as any other genre of photography, or visual art for that matter – we are trying to generate some emotional reaction to an image using shape, form, texture and colour. We can work with our viewer’s memory to help tell a ‘story’, either by using elements they are familiar with; the sun or moon, rocks, trees, fences, buildings or common landmarks (a certain tree or church, for example). We can also work with our viewer’s imagination and use abstraction to create mood or drama – converting an image to monochrome or using a long exposure on a cascade. Using an extremely wide field of view or extremely narrow depth of field are all camera-specific tools that present an image that the eye doesn’t see.

So, with all this in mind, what can we do to help capture what we intended and minimise the number of duffers that never leave the hard drive? Here are the more persistent things that I have picked up along my journey. I make no claim to the originality of these points – they were things I have read or been told by better photographers, and to those people I’m so grateful to have had the opportunity to learn from their wealth of experience. The more one practises, the easier it seems to be for this toolbox to stop being something one consciously concentrates on - and become a tacit, subconscious reaction…hopefully! I am going to cover five concepts in this article: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Don’t panic, there’s enough time Less is more Let the creative juices flow Learn to use your computer Wear sunscreen

Let’s dig into these in a little more detail.

All images in this article taken by the author

the camera! 24mm, f/16, 1s

A snatched moment, using monochrome and a shallow depth of field to simplify the image. The blurred landscape helps isolate the kea and abstracts the view â&#x20AC;&#x201C; are we looking at snow, scree, clouds? Does it even matter? 105mm, f/4.5, 1/400s

continued from page 17

1. Don’t panic, there’s enough time

opportunity we were presented with. The moral here then is to plan ahead – and be open to opportunities that may appear along the way.

Let’s start with this one as it’s clearly untrue; there’s never enough time. On a recent club trip to Twizel we were aiming to arrive at a jetty on the shores of Lake Ohau by sunset. The light was looking fantastic as we drove along the canals, and we stopped repeatedly to capture the stunning crepuscular rays as the sun rapidly plummeted into a bank of clouds over the far mountains; tripods out, quick snap, try a panorama but a bit rushed to do it properly, back into the car to hare off towards the jetty - just in time to watch the sun sink into the cloud one last time. Instead of the side-lit lupins and shorelines, we had to deal with a very flat foreground. Sunset is pretty predictable; my phone will even tell me what time sunset will be, so there really are no excuses. We left with sufficient time but got distracted. This would have been fine, only we didn’t really commit to the moment, worrying we might miss the sunset at our destination; we rushed through the

It’s quite rare that I’m going to a location and know exactly where I intend to put the tripod and what lens I’m going to use. Sometimes I have a concept for the shot in my head and this forms the basis of the image, but often the location will be something new to explore, so it’s worthwhile arriving with enough time to have a good look around.You don’t need to pick up your camera yet; think about the key elements you want in your composition and try different angles and viewpoints to see how they might best fit together. Work out what caught your eye and how best to represent that in a photograph. If you’re on the beach, river bank or in snow, pay careful attention to where you put your feet, because you might be putting footprints into the foreground of the next shot! Some people work well under pressure and love the opportunity to run back and forth as the light changes, trying to catch it all. Other people prefer

The large background rocks and small foreground starfish at the Motukiekie reef work well together with a wide-angle lens. 16mm, f/8, 4mins

to contemplate the options, think through the shot and then commit. Work out how you perform best whether you embrace the stress and work with it or whether you find the pressure blocks your creativity – and then plan accordingly.

2. Less is more A cliché, but it can be especially important in landscape photography. Landscapes are big. There’s a lot in them and it’s pretty easy to get distracted by some gorgeous patch of light on a hillside, or a wisp of cloud over a distant peak. Don’t instantly go for the wide-angle lens; the interesting feature may be a really small part of the vast vista and become insignificant in your viewfinder. Focus the viewer’s attention on what caught your eye and how you saw it by making sure it has appropriate visual ‘weight’ in the frame. This will probably involve some footwork; wide-angle lenses will capture everything, but objects more than a few metres away will be reduced in size proportionally with the distance from your lens. If your foreground object is large then a wide-angle lens will make it look even bigger in proportion to the background, so perhaps consider moving away from the object and use a longer lens to ‘compress’ the distance between your foreground object and the background. Really wide lenses will also distort objects on the periphery of the frame, which can be used to benefit some images, for example the clouds in the Motukiekie image racing towards the centre of the frame. For more familiar objects like people, buildings, cars etc, it will distort them in generally unflattering ways, which might be less desirable. When focussing in on a single interesting feature in a landscape it’s important to not crop in too close – it’s good to keep some context in the shot. As the telephoto lens brings the background up close, it also has the effect of flattening the image, making it harder for a viewer to make the mental leap from a 2D image to the 3D physical landscape that you have invited them into. The reduced depth of field of telephoto lenses also needs to be taken into account. If you want the foreground and background sharp you may want to consider focus-stacking several shots or, conversely, use the narrow depth of field to further emphasise one element of the image. More on this later.

3. Be creative Have you all watched the John Cleese speech on creativity? If not, head over to YouTube and watch it now. Don’t worry, I’ll wait ‘til you get back. https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pb5oIIPO62g. Excellent! It’s a good job I watched that before I wrote all that stuff about having enough time and exploring your landscape. The point that John Cleese is making in the video is that “creativity is not a talent; it’s a way of operating”. He goes on to suggest that you need to be in an open, playful, state of mind to allow creativity to occur, and to achieve that state of mind you need several things: space, time, confidence (to try stuff and not feel worried about the consequences) and humour. As you’ve chosen to continue reading this I’m going to assume that you’re enjoying it so far and are therefore in an open, creative mode; keen to learn, curious to experiment, and enthusiastic to get out and play. I shall now utterly quash this by returning to the toolbox… Whilst we are playing and experimenting, there is a lot of value in being aware of the ‘rules’ of visual composition. The better these concepts are understood, the easier it is to employ them as tools in your images, either at the time of capture, beforehand to help visualise what you’re going to create, or afterwards in post-production. I’ll summarise a few here, but there are tons of resources on the internet on graphic design (and if you’re a library member, have a look at Lynda.com as the online courses there are all available free – perhaps have a look at the photography foundations section). Vertical lines are strong and rigid, especially as they become thicker; horizontal lines are calm, and diagonal lines have energy and dynamism. Aligned objects have a feeling of order, curves feel soft and graceful, hard edges are artificial, soft edges feel more natural, and so on. The same applies to colour. Colours on the red side of the colour spectrum (red, orange, yellow) are commonly associated with feelings of warmth, comfort, anger, urgency, speed and energy. The cooler colours (blue, green, purple) are often thought of as relaxing, calm and quiet, but also can relate to sadness, distance, isolation and so on.

This divisive telegraph

h pole in the middle of a snowy field splits the image and is intended to emphasise the symmetry of the background Mackenzie country hills. 112mm, f/9, 1/400s

Pastel tones and a long exposure have been used to try to give a contemplative feel to this sunset image at Kaikoura. 35mm, f/16, 5s

continued from page 21 It’s worth considering the visual design concepts (form, shape, texture, colour etc) when arranging a shot, as it can steer your viewer to the feeling you are trying to convey.You can use stark contrasts between sharp, coarse features and soft focus or long exposures to draw attention; leading lines and diagonals to create pace and dynamism; or use soft pastel tones to create dreamy, quiet, peaceful images. The physical limitations of what the camera can do are also benefits; they allow the photographer to present an image that’s utterly unique, something that can’t be seen with the naked eye. Exploiting the fact that cameras don’t have a high dynamic range or an infinite depth of field, using a long shutter speed, a lensbaby or a high ISO will create an image that engages the viewer’s imagination by presenting a view which is unexpected or challenging. As long as it’s creating an emotional response then that’s a success, right?

I’ve also got one more point here, but don’t hold me responsible if a judge disagrees. There’s nothing wrong with blocked blacks or blown-out highlights – done deliberately and with thought it can create mood in an image... but this isn’t an excuse for poor exposure!

This single tall grass stem stands high against a shadowy hillside, deliberately dropped to soft focus with a telephoto lens. 130mm, f/5.6, 1/500s

4. Learn to use your computer I’m sure we’ve all been through this debate at some point in our photographic journey: Photoshop is cheating, and the image should be exactly as it was shot. Well, great - go for it. I am all in favour of doing everything I can to capture the scene in-camera; however as we’ve discussed previously, there’s only so much that the camera can do. There is so much more that becomes available with the world of postprocessing, and it can be as much fun playing with images after capture as it was when you were actually there, pressing the shutter button. A lot of real estate images use HDR to help balance indoor lighting and outdoor daylight. Portraiture frequently uses artificial light and reflectors to create drama, and there’s no reason you can’t use either or both these techniques in landscape photography. Personally, I enjoy taking night sky images using a panoramic head and a very fast, wide-angle lens to capture very wide fields of view. This requires time on the computer afterwards to reassemble the image, and a degree of pre-visualisation at the time of shooting, to understand what the final image will look like, as you can’t see it all in the viewfinder at once. Stitching images together is now a standard feature in most image editing packages, along with focus-stacking, HDR

and all sorts of other creative filters and compositing features. Of course, fully embracing technology isn’t something everyone is totally comfortable with (or even interested in), but it is worthwhile understanding the sorts of things computers can help with as it might help realise that creative idea or concept. There are plenty of techniques to have a go at; they won’t all be ‘your cup of tea’, (and it’s important to understand eligibility criteria if you are submitting images into competitions), but they will definitely expand the way you approach your photography. Even basic black-and-white conversions can take otherwise bland photos and create dramatic, striking compositions. Full daylight can give some great monochrome effects; sunlight tends to add a yellow hue to objects, making them very easy to separate against a blue sky by simply adding a Black and White adjustment layer in Photoshop and taking the blue slider left (darker), the yellow slider right (lighter). (Note: I have tried this in Lightroom and found that it often causes some nasty banding. PS doesn’t seem to exhibit the same issue.)

A daytime shot of a snow-covered landscape and moonrise, converted to monochrome in Photoshop. 300mm, f/8, 1/125s

A shift-panorama, also using tilt to keep the barn vertical. Three shots stitched. 24mm, f/10, 1/13s

continued from page 27

5. Wear sunscreen In homage to the classic (!) 1999 Baz Luhrmann track, which in turn is a quote from a famous 1997 essay written by Mary Schmich (http://www.chicagotribune. com/news/columnists/chi-schmich-sunscreen-columncolumn.html), my last point is a bit more general. We’ve covered (somewhat esoterically, perhaps) planning, composition, technique and post-processing. I would just like to finish up with some more general comments.

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Appreciate where you are and treat it well.

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Enjoy the experience of creating images and try to find flow. Sometimes it’s good to go out on your own; sometimes it’s good to go into the field with other people. It’s sociable and safer - but give yourself space.

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If you’re heading out in summer, wear sunscreen and take water.

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If you’re heading out in winter, wear warm clothes (especially warm socks!) and take a torch.

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Go to the iconic places – they’re iconic for good reason – and then get off the beaten track, explore and find places that are unique. It’s not hard in New Zealand as there are so many of them. Go out at all times of day and night. My best images aren’t related to the time of day; they are almost entirely dependent on how enthusiastic I’m feeling.

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Be prepared to carry stuff.

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Don’t leave your best gear at home because it’s too heavy or it’s raining.

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The images you get will be directly proportionate to the effort you put in.

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I also carry a PLB (Personal Locator Beacon). At only 120 grams it’s the lightest thing in my bag after my lens cap.

James Gibson APSNZ AFIAP

Kilauea crater. 14 shots stitched. 250mm, f/5.6, exposures vary from 8s to 0.5s to retain detail in the flames and edges of the crater.

Landscape tips:

Richard Laing sent in quite a list: 1. Use a tripod if you can. 2. Use a remote trigger or a timer rather than the shutter button. 3. Use ‘mirror up’ if your camera has that feature. 4. Think about your focus. If you want front to back sharpness, use hyperfocal distance. A rough guide is to focus about 1/3 of the way into the scene. 5. Some apps can be useful; PhotoPills is good. 6. Look for good light. The ‘golden hour’ is great but before or after a storm is too. 7. If the sky is dull (DFO - dull, flat and ‘orrible), don’t include it. 8. Don’t forget to think about monochrome options. 9. Make sure you have an interesting foreground to go with the background. 10. Landscapes work well with wide-angle lenses, but telephoto can also make great images. 11. Keep your horizons straight - unless you don’t want it straight, in which case make sure it is obvious. 12. Intentional camera movement can be interesting to try whenever you can get the shutter speed slow enough. 13. Landscapes don’t have to be in landscape format; portrait format can work too. 14. Neutral density filters are useful for photographing water; graduated neutral density filters are good too. 15. Try a polariser, but watch out when using a wide-angle lens or shooting panoramas.

Red centre sunrise by Christine Jacobson LPSNZ

Milford Sound by Ian Thomson FPSNZ

We also heard from Bob Scott LPSNZ… There are no startling insights to come, probably because my landscape images are not very startling. However, my process involves a couple of common aspects: •

Looking for patterns in the landscape; from the obvious like rows of vines or other crops, to the less obvious like ridge lines mirroring each other.

•

Looking for depth. Big landscapes go a long way back, so look for devices that emphasise this; successive regions of the landscape becoming more pastel/grey the further away they are from the camera, or leading lines taking the viewer’s eye deep into the landscape.

However I sometimes reduce the depth of an image to emphasise the pattern by choosing to use a telephoto lens to compress and flatten out the scene to accentuate the relationships between the elements of the image and enhance the pattern. One other technique I use is to consider the parallax effect. I try to visualise the scene from a different angle and decide what the relationships between the foreground elements and the background elements will be if I move to different viewpoints, thereby making a call regarding the extra effort required in moving!

SCOTT FOWLER

EFIAP, FPSNZ, SPSA, PPSA

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Shearing Workshop*

Focus on B&W*

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11th - 14th May 2018

Samoa Photo Tour 2nd - 7th June 2018

Winter Landscape Workshop** 1st - 7th July 2018

5th - 8th October 2018

9th - 12th November 2018

Focus on Creative Photography* 30th November - 3rd December 2018

Workshops are at: * Otematata station. ** Maniototo valley, Wedderburn

Contact: Scott 021 069 5583 scottfowlerphotography@scoiwi.com www.scoiwi.com

And then we had a Facebook conversation… BH “Stealing directly from Scott Kelby: Step 1 – go to somewhere where there is a good landscape.” VW “There is no better way to get a good landscape!” AS “Step 2 – find the local pub and wait there until the golden hour.” BS “Conversely, look at the place in which you are standing and find an image to record!” BH “It’s not fair BS, you have a better starting point than most.” BS “BH, I do – and I enjoy it daily! However I tend to go away to take photographs.” PW “Yeah, just go an uncomfortably cold spot at a ridiculous hour and wait hopefully for some magic light. Then take a photo of it (just kidding).” HM “Sounds weird, I know, and it could be a reflection on me, but I work a landscape like a crime scene. Set up wide, take an image. Then slowly zoom in, taking images along the way. Zooming could well mean moving further in. Working this way usually allows you to work with other landscape photographers around you if you work in the same manner. Just my two cents’ worth!”

Waikawau River by Keith Linforth

22nd Laurie Thomas NZ Landscape Salon 2018 by Team Leader Carolyn Elcock ANPSNZ AFIAP NEW ZEALANDâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S PREMIER salon for landscape projected images is run by Christchurch Photographic Society and will be held again this year. The salon is named in honour of a pioneer member, Laurie Thomas, who was a devoted member through the 50s, 60s and 70s and was recognised internationally for his New Zealand landscape photography. The salon trophy presented to the winner is unique, designed by Lesley Sales FPSNZ. Known as Wind and Water, the trophy symbolises the essence of the New Zealand landscape: water, wind, trees and light. Lesley says the outline shape suggests a mountain and the forces acting upon it to carve out the landscape. Mountain streams flowing down the mountain sides are depicted by internal cut-out lines. The action of the wind is suggested by an invisible, implied line that begins as a curl on the outer edge of the mountain and flows across the landscape. Trees clinging to the mountain sides add another dimension, that of vegetation and plant growth. Light defines the shape of the mountain, illuminating the waters, the shapes, the trees, silhouetting the shapes of the landscape. Each year this trophy is given to the winner of the salon to keep. The 2018 Laurie Thomas Salon is open for entries and the closing date is 25 May 2018. Go to www.lauriethomassalon.com for details.

Has two new promotions starting on 1 February and running until the end of March: $100 Cashback on the SC-P405 printer $200 Cashback on the SC-P600 printer For more details visit â&#x20AC;&#x201C; www.epson.co.nz/promotions

Did you know? THE RESULTS OF the 2018 Members survey will be released later this year. However, in looking through the comments that people made we have unearthed a number of misconceptions about PSNZ membership that we wanted to correct as soon as possible. Here are some of the misconceptions.

Canon Online is restricted to Canon only shooters! Our Canon Online competition is generously sponsored by Canon New Zealand; hence the name. Its aim is to promote photography and is open to all members of the organisation, regardless of the brand of camera they shoot with. Judges are discouraged from looking at the exif of images as well.

New members canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t compete in Canon Online! The competition is open to any members, not just those who have been in PSNZ for a long time. Each round has a separate judge and therefore it is entirely possible that a different result would have been achieved with the same image entered twice. There have been occasions in the past where the competition has been won by a relatively new photographer.

Your membership is linked to your club! In following up on a number of members who resigned, it appeared that they were under the impression that being a member of a camera club was a requirement for membership of PSNZ. This is not the case at all and there is no requirement of PSNZ members to belong to a club.You are asked to provide a clubâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s name because that makes the distribution of New Zealand Camera simpler and cheaper. It also makes it easy for club secretaries to work out who to exclude from the levies that each affiliated club pays.

There is no online forum for discussing matters! PSNZ maintains a private Facebook group that can be used to ask questions, raise concerns or just share news. It is found at https://www.facebook.com/ groups/PSNZgroup/ and around half the members of PSNZ belong to it.

You lose your honours letters if you resign! While this used to be true, the PSNZ Council removed this requirement some time ago. It was felt that as the achievement of the honours (LPSNZ, APSNZ and FPSNZ) was something that you had earned on your own, it was not appropriate that they be removed simply because you no longer paid an annual membership fee.

Audio-visual notes by Trish McAuslan APSNZ AFIAP AAPS – JSMT Coordinator

Audio-visual competitions CONTRATULATIONS IF YOU won an award or achieved a ‘commended’ in the Jack Sprosen Memorial Trophy competition. That is a real buzz but, if your AV was not successful, don’t give up. If you can, find out how your AV could be improved and maybe make some changes. This may be different from the way we often consider still images. AVs take considerable time to create and they may not be at their best the first time they are shown. With an AV, be prepared to make lots of changes and have several versions of your programme, each one being an improvement on the one before. Also, remember that one judging panel is likely to see an AV differently from another panel, so do be prepared to have another go. To illustrate this, last year I entered the same two AVs in two different salons. In one salon both AVs were accepted and in the other salon both AVs missed out. So don’t give up share your AVs by entering them in as many salons as possible.

Tauranga AV Salon For 2018 there is only one change from last year. During the year we watched many audio-visuals, from New Zealanders as well as overseas authors. One thing we became aware of was that many successful AVs were quite short - less than five minutes long. We also noted that sometimes it required a bit more time to successfully tell the story in a documentary.

We decided to give authors of documentaries the opportunity to tell the story more fully by allowing them up to seven minutes. This only applies to AVs entered in the documentary category. The maximum length in all the other categories is still five minutes. Be aware that no change to the length of AVs is being considered for the Jack Sprosen competition. If you create a documentary which is longer than five minutes for the Tauranga Salon, you will have to create another shorter version to enter it into the JSMT competition later this year. It is time to consider creating at least one new AV to enter this year. Entries open on 1 May and close on 6 June, so there is still plenty of time.

International 321 Challenge for 2018 Here is an opportunity to enter a short AV into an international competition. The main rules are that the maximum length is three minutes 21 seconds and the AV must have been created in 2016 or more recently. Entries close on 31 March. The entries will be judged in many locations across the world, and the best of them will be shown to audiences in each location. This competition is different to most in that there are cash prizes. Please go to their website www.challenge321.org for all the details.

3rd PECC International AV Festival This is an international competition organised by the Port Elizabeth Club in South Africa. There are only a few international competitions each year and some of them are in countries like France, Italy, Turkey or Poland. In these countries you have the added problem of language; do you use English anyway or do you find someone who can speak/translate your information into the language of the country? In this competition you will not have that problem. Entries close on 31 March. Finding information and entry forms on their

The award winning audio-visuals from the recent Jack Sprosen Memorial Trophy competition will be shown during the PSNZ National Convention in Dunedin.

website is really difficult. I have obtained the relevant copies so please contact me if you are interested.

Adding a spoken story During the judging of the JSMT competition last year, particularly the documentary category, a thought that often came to mind was that a spoken story would have made many of these AVs so much stronger. Some people told the story by adding text to slides or a few text slides at the beginning, which is better than leaving viewers to sort out the story for themselves. But the spoken story would be so much better, because more information can be given and viewers can look at the images while they listen to the information. So, why don’t New Zealand AV workers do it?

Is it the embarrassment of hearing one’s own voice? Sure, and to start with it often doesn’t flow and maybe it feels stilted. Image you are telling your story to a group of friends or even to one person. This gives you a focus for talking and will help you to develop a conversational style. It does take time, so keep trying. The alternative is to ask someone else to do the spoken bit for you. Unless they are trained speakers, you have the added task of explaining how you want them to tell your story.You have to be able to demonstrate the emphasis and feeling that you want and they have to interpret that into the narration. This

is a lot harder than it sounds. Is it a lack of equipment? The best system I have used is a lavalier microphone (lav mic or lapel mic), similar to the ones they use on TV, but they have a cost - more on that another time. Firstly, check out your mobile phone to see if it comes with a recording app or if you can download one. The better ones come with a graph which shows the recording level, an option for saving to mp3 and a way of transferring the recording to your computer. Try putting the phone on something soft and maybe putting some cushions around it to absorb some of the surround noises. I have heard some recordings that are amazingly good. A lack of editing software, perhaps? Apple users either already have or they can download Garageband which is an excellent editing programme. It is primarily aimed at musicians but part of it is also for recording or editing voice. Both Apple and Windows users can download Audacity which is free. It has a number of tutorials available on the internet. In the next issue of CameraTalk I will have some more information about adding a spoken story to your audio-visual. Note that not all AVs need a spoken story but it is a useful skill for AV workers to develop. Trish McAuslan APSNZ EFIAP AAPS mcauslanav@gmail.com JSMT Coordinator for PSNZ

A long and surprising photographic journey:

Newell Grenfell Hon PSNZ FPSNZ FNPSNZ GROWING UP IN England, I hated photography. My highly competitive Kiwi father was more than a keen photographer. He was a photography fanatic. Driving from A to B, he thought nothing of leaving the family in the car for an eternity if he spotted “a picture”. He processed and printed all his own black & white images. He would come to the dinner table with an alarm clock when processing films, and cry “Shop” and return to his darkroom when it was time for the next step in the process. There’s no denying that his work was good. He gained a Fellowship from the Royal Photographic Society (FRPS) and became an RPS judge. From time to time in my teens I would be summoned to his darkroom to see the next masterpiece. The darkroom stank. It was awful. It wasn’t just the chemicals. Remember, this was the 1950s - when men also smoked in the darkroom, didn’t use deodorants and Xpelair hadn’t been invented. I resolved that if I ever took up photography - which at that point seemed unlikely - I would make colour slides, essentially because they went off to Kodak for processing. Realising that I could not be enticed into black & white photography, my father brought home a little Ilford Advocate camera and showed me how to use it. The Advocate was the first British 35mm camera. It had a distinctive ivory enamel finish, a 35mm-wide fixed lens and no light meter.You focused manually and guessed the exposure from the diagram provided with Kodachrome slide film (ISO 12).You chose a speed and aperture setting by moving rings that circled the lens. An exposure was made by pulling a little lever at the top of the camera, beside the knob with which you wound the film on to the next frame. I made a few pictures, but never thought of taking the camera with me when I duly left home and went off to university.

University About six months after I left home, I sent my father a letter to thank him for some Cup Final tickets he bought for me. I fatefully added, “I wish you could be in Oxford with your colour camera right now - it’s glorious.” While my father had a sense of humour and his photographs told great stories, he was a man of few words. A few days later, a small brown-paper parcel arrived. At the bottom of a box, protected by crumpled newspaper, was the little Advocate camera. There was no letter, but a short message, written on a piece of brown paper torn from the parcel’s packing. It read, “Take the bloody things yourself!”

At the end of the first university year, my mother had a bright idea. She was also a Kiwi, but inspired by Winston Churchill’s wartime speeches, she had become more English than the English. “Why don’t you and your father go abroad on holiday together?” she suggested. Going abroad meant sunshine. England likely meant rain. I agreed without a second thought. Two weeks before the holiday, I woke in the night with a panic attack. What on earth was I going to do while my fanatical father was out all day with his camera? I would be miserable. Only one solution offered itself: “If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.” Armed with the little Advocate and a dozen rolls of Kodachrome, I enjoyed my first ‘photographic’ holiday. Although he was well qualified to do so, my father never instructed me on photography in the field. He would usually be out with his camera before I woke up. I hadn’t yet heard about morning light. I do know my father was pleased with my new interest, however. On a postcard home to my mother, he reported we were both sunburnt and added, “Talk about photography, the other fellow’s worse than me.”

before my father left for work, and long before I woke up. (I was still on holiday, remember.) When I arrived at the breakfast table, the yellow boxes had been opened, and the slides sorted into two piles - one with three or four slides and one with about thirty. I asked my father what this meant. He pointed to the three or four. “You can keep these,” he said. “The others, throw away.” This was my introduction to photographic judging. One morning, Dad had set aside a slide showing a wreath at the Menin Gate Memorial in Ypres. “You didn’t take this, did you?” he asked. I assured him I did. “I waited a long time for some people to come along, but no-one came. So I just took it. Why do you ask?” My father grunted, “It’s good.” Some time later, I was persuaded to join the Hoylake Photographic Society - of which my father was a founding member. The wreath shot, titled ‘Lest We Forget’, was my first winning image in a club competition.

Instruction came when we got home. Kodachrome slides came back mounted, in yellow boxes, delivered by post, which in those days came to the front door

Photojournalism projected images: Honours in the 43rd Dunedin Festival of Photography. Newell Grenfell, ‘Lifetime Collection’

Abroad After graduating, I had an urge to return to my parents’ homeland before starting work. With the help of a neighbour in shipping, I was able to travel on a cargo ship as supernumerary crew. My limited luggage included a collection of around 200 slides that I showed to friends and relatives along the way. In the days before television in New Zealand, most people I visited had slide projectors. Returning to England after travelling for a year, I began work in the market research department of an advertising agency in London. After a couple of years, I was invited to join a German research organisation with a company in Thailand and ambitions to extend to Malaysia. A major appeal of the opportunity was the photography I thought I’d be able to do. I spent Christmas 1963 in Cambodia, visiting Angkor Wat at a time when hardly a tourist was in sight. I shot about four rolls of colour slides. In the next 14 years, I shot none! Starting a business from scratch in Malaysia left no time for hobby photography. In 1968 I married Jacqui, and we made albums of colour prints to record family happenings and holidays. But I took no colour slides.

Christchurch By the end of 1977, the business had spread throughout Southeast Asia and I was ready to stand back from day-to-day operations and focus on the marketing and promotion of the business. We left Malaysia and moved to New Zealand. We chose Christchurch because my parents had come from there. Thinking I might get back into photography, in 1978 I found the Christchurch Photographic Society (CPS). I began in ‘B’ Grade and won the Photojournalism Cup the first year with a slide called ‘Run!’, made in my teens with the little Advocate camera. In due course I was promoted to ‘A’ Grade and encouraged to join PSNZ. I returned to Asia on business trips three or four times a year and was at last able to do some of the photography I had thought I might do when I first went to Malaysia. In the 1980s, relatively few Kiwis travelled around Asia and back street scenes were something of a 44

novelty. Having lived there, I was comfortable in the environment and my images scored well. I enjoyed photographing landscapes in New Zealand, but in Asia did documentary and street photography. I also became known for a type of sports photography. The Hong Kong Sevens had become a popular event. By some extraordinary coincidence, my research companies often seemed to have meetings in Hong Kong when the Sevens were on! Working with words, I enjoyed finding titles for images. My favourite title came to me before I pressed the shutter. A New Zealand supporter at the Sevens had a large fern leaf painted on his ample beer belly. I called the picture, ‘Gross National Product’.

Admin and Honours Aware of how much I was learning as a member of CPS, I wanted to put something back into the club. I joined the committee, became editor of the newsletter, and did a three-year stint as president. In 1991 a senior CPS member suggested I apply for an Associateship of The Photographic Society on New Zealand. APSNZ was the entry point at that time; there was no LPSNZ. To be honest, I wasn’t particularly interested. I knew one of the club’s top members had applied and not succeeded. They reportedly had not been told why they didn’t succeed. I had come to believe the Honours Board was a bit of ‘an old boys club’. However, vanity got the better of me. I applied and was successful. Instantly convinced the Honours Board wasn’t ‘an old boys club’ after all, a couple of years later I applied for a Fellowship. I failed. The letter delivering the bad news on my ‘F’ attempt thoughtfully invited me to discuss it with a member of the Board. An opportunity arose at the 1993 Convention in Greymouth, which Board Chair Matheson Beaumont was attending. Matheson held my plastic sheet of 18 images to the light and gently pointed out that I had not read the Fellowship requirements very carefully. “You have given us a mixture of photojournalism and people-pictures. For a Fellowship, you need to concentrate on just one type.” I decided to create a portfolio of environmental portraits of children in Asia, and next year was successful.

Two years later, I was invited to join the PSNZ Honours Board. It was a privilege to be on the Board for twelve years, from 1996 to 2008, succeeding Matheson as chair for the last three years. During this time, aided by the introduction of the Licentiate and some active promotion, interest in honours increased enormously. The annual number of submissions rose from around 30 to more than 100.

New challenges I returned from an overseas business trip to learn that CPS had received a significant bequest from the late Laurie Thomas, a prominent member of CPS and one of the pioneers of PSNZ. I was told I had been ‘volunteered’ to chair a sub-committee to advise the CPS management team on the use of the funds. We recommended two events to keep Laurie’s memory alive. One was an annual winter school for club members; the other was a New Zealand Landscape competition, open to slide workers throughout the country. The Laurie Thomas NZ Landscape Salon is now in its twenty-second year. Last year it attracted 651 digital

entries from 169 entrants. I was proud to win the second salon in 1998 with a slide called ‘Sun Kissed’, featuring Californian poppies beside Lake Tekapo. I was hugely surprised and delighted in 2015 to become the only person so far to win the salon twice when my digital image ‘Inland Kaikouras’ was successful. My most significant administrative role in photography had its starting point in 2002 when Lynn Clayton, then President of PSNZ, asked me to take on responsibility for New Zealand Camera, an annual showcase of PSNZ members’ images. At that point, the publication was a 64-page magazine. Sally Mason and Bevan Tulett were appointed to work with me. At our first meeting, I asked both which particular aspects of the job interested them. They replied almost in unison: “None.” They had the vision of turning New Zealand Camera into “a real book” - not just continuing a magazine. Thus was born the idea of the coffee-table book we know today. To help fund New Zealand Camera as a real book, advertisers had to be found. I visited and/or spoke to around 40 potentials around the country. In the end, while PSNZ budgeted to lose up to $10,000 in each issue, the first three issues for which I was responsible gave PSNZ a surplus of around $2,000. More importantly, PSNZ membership rose by 34 per

Wash down - 3rd in the 2017 New Brighton Photojouralism Competition

cent, from 755 to 928, during the life of the first three books. The longest loyal sponsor of New Zealand Camera has been the Rhema Broadcasting Group, now known as Rhema Media. It was Lynn Clayton’s idea that I approach them. I frankly thought it was crazy because Rhema themselves rely on donations. However, I had friends there and made the approach. They asked if I’d be able to supply them with images for the front cover of their quarterly devotional, The Word for Today. To cut the story short, I agreed. Twelve years later I am still providing Rhema with images for the cover of The Word for Today. It is a wonderful photographic challenge, as each issue has to fit the season and feature different types of people relating to each other, and there’s no budget for models. I have now done 55 covers. With the publication’s circulation of around 120,000, in modern terms that’s over six million ‘hits’.

Keeping on A further (surprising) landmark in my personal photographic journey occurred in 2006 when I was just the third person to become both a PSNZ Fellow (FPSNZ) and Fellow of the Nature Photography Society of NZ (FNPSNZ). I have been a PSNZ Accredited Judge longer than I can remember. My most memorable judging event occurred while judging prints for the Waikato Photographic Society on 22 February 2011. I took a break for lunch, leaving prints on the dining room table, just before the Christchurch earthquake struck. I survived in a ‘triangle of life’ on the kitchen floor while cupboards collapsed above me and windows blew out. Fortunately the Waikato prints received merely a little ceiling plaster dust! Some 30,000 colour slides found their way onto the floor of my home office on that fateful day. Every one had a number and could have been laboriously returned to its box. Having made the transition to digital in 2008, after a few days’ thought I despatched all but about 1,000 favourites to the dump.

My most recent photographic challenge has been audio-visual making. I scanned a sequence of slides from the Hong Kong Sevens and got a silver medal in the Jack Sprosen Memorial Trophy competition. I had similar luck with a sequence called ‘Kilmarnock Pride’, made at a wonderful social enterprise in Christchurch that employs people with intellectual disabilities. Halfa-dozen AVs can be found under my name on YouTube. I have enjoyed speaking at clubs and conventions around NZ and in Australia. The 2017 Central Regional, shared with Ron Willems, was most enjoyable. Perhaps the best fun was a presentation called ‘The Three Fellows’ that Ron and I shared with Bevan Tulett in 1999. The concept was a take-off of the famous operatic group, ‘The Three Tenors’. We showed selections of slides - seemingly trying to outdo each other. Copying the tenors, we dressed in suits and wore red bow ties.

The three Fellows: Ron Williams Hon PSNZ FPSNZ FAPS AFIAP ARPS, Bevan Tulett FPSNZ & Newell

The presentation was well received and we were asked to repeat it at the following year’s Australian National Convention (APSCON) in Queensland. Ron and I were already planning to go, but Bevan couldn’t make it. So we borrowed a tailor’s dummy and rolled him on stage to complete the trio! For a while I entered competitions in Australia, but I have never sought FIAP letters. I don’t have a personal website, nor do I make use of social media. However, I have just put together a book of my favourite colour slides from the 1950s to 2007 which is available on blurb.com A second volume, showing my embrace of digital, 2008-2017, will hopefully follow soon. It’s almost twenty years since my wife, Jacqui, first described me as “a failed retiree”. I am doing my best to live up to it.

Newell and Jacqui

Naturally Dunedin 2018 19–22 April 2018

THE YEAR ALREADY seems to be gathering speed, and preparations for the National Convention are gaining momentum! Registrations are mounting, and some field trips are very close to filling up now. Both of our boating trips, the Monarch Cruise field trip and the Otago Canyons Boat Trip optional activity, have proven to be very popular, so if you’re interested in either of these but haven’t registered yet, it’s time to get clicking! See below for more information on our registration process, and on confirmation of field trips. If you’d like to be kept updated on the convention, please feel free to follow us at these places: •

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NaturallyDunedin/

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Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/naturallydunedin/

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News and updates: http://2national.psnzconvention.org.nz/news-updates/

Registering for the convention When registering, the most important piece of information to get correct is your email address. We have implemented a two-stage registration process, which means you start the process by entering your email address. We then send an email with an embedded link to that address, and you click on it to continue the registration process. This ensures we have a correct, working email address. So far, this has been working well, but we have had one known case where the initial email with the link did not arrive. It usually takes just a minute or so. If your link does not arrive, please contact our registrar Craig at natcon2018registrar@gmail.com and we will work out a way to get you registered. Our system has been designed to let more than one person use the same email address. However, the link received can only be used by one person. If two people use the same link, the second person overwrites the first registration and we may end up never knowing about the first. So, always request a new link for each person.

Field trip confirmations These have started going out, particularly for the boat trips that have a definite maximum number of places. At the time of writing (end of January), everybody who has registered so far will get their first choice. There is still time to register and get your preferred trip. When a trip is full, the description will change to include ‘wait listed’. If your first choice is wait listed, it is still worth selecting as your first choice as quite a few people have been changing their minds. If you do have second thoughts about your trip choices, let us know. We are very happy to change them.

Profile on Katherine Williams “Creative, fresh and honest, with each of the images reflecting a quiet beauty” was how judges described Katherine Williams’ 2016 New Zealand Professional Photographer of the Year winning portfolio. Her work provided a new direction for photography, now seen to be moving away from the more constructed. Katherine is an award-winning portrait and wedding photographer who specialises in capturing the spirit and personality of her clients. Whether it’s a dramatic scene or an emotional moment, she creates photographs that draw the eye, making creative work that is both striking and thoughtful. As a Master of Photography, Fellow, and President of the New Zealand Institute of Professional Photography (NZIPP), Katherine is as accomplished as she is experienced.Year after year her clients and peers regard her work as industry-leading; her most recent accolade is the prestigious 2016 Epson/NZIPP New Zealand Professional Photographer of the Year. Examples of her work can be viewed here: Tandem Photography Katherine’s presentation will be on Capturing Connection. At the heart of great photographs of people is connection. Getting the very best out of them is integral to capturing photography that draws emotion from the viewer. What’s the story you are looking to tell about the people in your photos? Katherine will present tactics to entice the very best from people in your photos, and how to capture these with ease.

If you plan on extending your stay in Dunedin before or after the Convention… Here are some links with various local highlights that you might want to schedule in: Wild Dunedin: NZ Festival of Nature, running from 20 to25 April. Their soon-to-be-released programme will be well worth checking out. More info at http://www.wilddunedin.nz/ Seven Wonders of the Otago Peninsula: http://otagopeninsulatrust.co.nz/otago-peninsula-seven-wonders/ Lonely Planet’s top choices, including some of our most popular cafes and restaurants: https://www.lonelyplanet. com/new-zealand/dunedin/top-things-to-do/a/poi/362683 Trip Advisor’s recommendations, with all the classic tourist attractions and more: https://www.tripadvisor.co.nz/ Attractions-g255119-Activities-Dunedin_Otago_Region_South_Island.html And if you feel like venturing a bit further out, these recommendations include a few day-trips: https://www. lonelyplanet.com/new-zealand/dunedin-otago/top-things-to-do/a/poi/1320112

Speaker Craig McKenzie - featured in D-Photo Hot off the press, the latest D-Photo Magazinefeatures our very own Craig McKenzie, one of the convention’s guest speakers, writing about a subject on which he is truly an expert. Although he’d never admit it, he was recently described as one of New Zealand’s best bird photographers, so you will definitely not want to miss his talk!

The soapbox by Paul Whitham LPSNZ

Can I sell you a formula? Since its inception, photography has been heavily ingrained with formulas. In the era of wet-plates, chemical formulas were needed to make the photographic plates. Extreme care was needed, as the combination of chemicals could result in anything from an unusable print to an explosive combination. Even when cameras moved into the realm of film, those who delved into the darkroom still had chemical formulas to deal with. However, now the chemicals probably came premade and the formula now involved working out the exact time to leave the print exposed or at a stage in its development.

make progress themselves through practice and experience. In my opinion this has got worse in the internet age. People sell formulas (such as Lightroom presets) or lighting setups, and photographers lap them up. Why spend 10 years learning lighting when I can download a video that shows me the settings and placement of the lights?

When colour film came along, so did the option of cross processing. As I understand it, chemical solutions were developed specifically for different types of film. Whether as a deliberate action, or as the consequence of a mistake, photographers learned that processing a colour film with the “wrong” chemicals could produce interesting final images.

The problem with this approach is that it stifles true creativity and produces sameness in the images. I am part of a Facebook group in which a US photographer has sold a video with his “signature” lighting style. Now the group is full of images that all look essentially the same.

Alongside the actual development of the film, the action of taking the image involves formulas that use the three elements of shutter speed, aperture and ISO (or ASA in the film days), along with the focal length that the image is taken from.

Now I learned lighting the old fashioned way, by being taught initially - in person. Then I took that and practised a lot, and watched a lot of YouTube videos. Many of the images at these sessions were poor, but what I learned through the process was not only what worked but, more importantly, what didn’t.

But at this point the formula starts to break down. In the chemical world, mixing the same ingredients together in the same quantities, and same variables, will result in essentially the same result - most of the time. The exceptions are generally the result of human error, or another variable change. With non-chemical formulas, being able to use the formula to replicate the same image becomes limited. That has not stopped people wanting to know the settings that an image was taken at, and then trying to replicate the effect. In fact people often want that information because they believe that having the formula for an image will make all the difference to their photography, rather than taking the time to

The reality is that most aspects of photography are an art and not a science. The same combination of the shutter speed, aperture and ISO for one image may be completely wrong for the next one. So the next time you ask a photographer what settings they used on a shot, follow up that question with “Why did you chose that combination?” and hopefully you will gain some insight, providing the answer isn’t “Don’t know - the camera was in auto mode”.

34th FIAP Black and White Biennial Invitation to enter The PSNZ invites members to submit images for consideration for selection for this year’s PSNZ entry into the FIAP 34th Black and White Print Biennial being judged in South Africa. At least one of the New Zealand prints will be included as a part of the B & W Exhibition being displayed in South Africa during the 34th FIAP Congress in mid-August this year. About 40 countries will be entering and we are aiming for a top ten finish. The theme for the PSNZ entry is: Contemporary Architecture This entry intends to present architecture in a non-conventional way.

Sarah Caldwell APSNZ from Auckland Photographic Society has kindly allowed us to use her images as a guide to the kind of composition/technique/vision we are looking for. Our entry will be a portfolio of TEN 30x40cm black and white images, which will be printed in Auckland (at no cost to the successful authors). The final selection will be a portfolio which is coherent from the point of view of inspiration, conception, flow and presentation - similar to an APSNZ portfolio. The Biennial will be awarded as follows: •

Black and White World Cup for the best national federation.

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FIAP Gold medal for the federation which comes second.

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FIAP Silver medal for the federation which comes third.

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FIAP Bronze medal for the federation which comes fourth.

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Six honourable mentions for the federations which come 5th to 10th.

The authors of the federation coming first receive:

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One honourable mention

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One FIAP gold medal

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Two FIAP silver medals and three FIAP bronze medals will be awarded to works of exceptional quality, independent of the subjects chosen by the federation and independent of the federation’s classification.

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In addition, the Photographic Society of South Africa (PSSA) donates three Judges Choice PSSA Gold Medals.

•

Each author can only receive one prize.

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Each selected author will receive a catalogue (format 21x21cm).

At least one New Zealand work will be reproduced, as well as all prize-winning works. The selectors for the NZ submission will be: •

Lynn Clayton Hon PSNZ APSNZ EFIAP ESFIAP

•

Brian Cudby Hon PSNZ FPSNZ EFIAP ESFIAP

•

Moira Blincoe LPSNZ

You are invited to submit a maximum of two borderless images in jpeg format only; 30x40cm (landscape or portrait format); compression 10, at 300 dpi. Please include your name as a part of the file name. The PSNZ entry can only have one image per author. Unsuccessful image files will be deleted shortly after the selection process is concluded. No watermarks are to be included on images. Images that do not meet the above criteria will not be considered for selection. The selectors’ decision will be final. Each entrant will be advised of the outcome of their submission. If you have any queries please e-mail Ann Bastion : ajbastion@gmail.com Send your file entries to lynnmc46@gmail.com with “FIAP B & W Biennial 2018” in the “Subject” box by Friday 23 Feb 2018, but preferably early in February.

FIAP NEWS From Ann Bastion FPSNZ EFIAP, FIAP Liaison Officer

In November last year, three of our clubs participated in the “FIAP World Cup for Clubs” in which affiliated clubs from all over the world placed an entry of 20 club images to be judged. I have much pleasure in telling you that all three clubs (Auckland Photographic Society, Christchurch Photographic Society and Kapiti Coast Photographic Society) had more than 50% of their images accepted. So, congratulations to them and their achievement on the world stage.

IT IS TIME to select your very best images to put forward for selection in New Zealand Camera 2018. It’s not too late to create something new, something magic or something with a twist. Entries are open now and will close midnight Sunday 1April. New Zealand Camera is PSNZ’s flagship publication for the wider audience. It aims to showcase outstanding photographic images from members of the Photographic Society of New Zealand. Each PSNZ member can submit two images, but only one can be selected. There is a limit to the number of images we can print each year, so not every entrant will have an image printed. Our aim is to create a great looking publication and every year some absolutely stunning and highly awarded images just don’t fit. But on the other hand, selection is anonymous and some new photographers do get published. Each year, the book has a themed section, and for the coming book – 2018 – the theme will be KIWIANA. Kiwiana are certain items and icons from New Zealand's heritage, especially from around the middle of the 20th century that are seen as representing iconic Kiwi elements. These "quirky things that contribute to a sense of nationhood” include both genuine cultural icons and kitsch. The selection team will have a fairly open mind about the definition; we are looking for quality and interest as well as fulfilment of the theme. Submission is via the members area of the PSNZ website.

PSNZ Council Nominations Nominations are hereby called for the election of Officers of the Society for the 2018/19 term of office. The elected Officers of the Society are: • President • Vice-President • and eight Councillors Officer Nomination Forms for the upcoming term, which includes further details, have been emailed out to all members with email and posted to those that don’t. If you have not received one then please contact Patrice on psnzsecretary@xtra.co.nz or phone 04 232 1565 or 021 723 353. Nominations can be returned by email or mail. Please ensure your nominations are returned by the due date to the Secretary, with all signatures and attachments/biographies as requested. Nominations must be received by the Secretary no later than 5.00pm on Friday 9 March 2018.

MOST OF YOU will have read the story of Karen Anvil, who took a photograph of Prince William, the Duchess of Cambridge, Meghan Markle and Prince Harry at Sandringham on Christmas Day. The image was taken on her iPhone and later tweeted on Twitter and was quickly recognised as the best of the bunch. Newspaper editors realised that it was better than any of the images obtained by some 20 professional photographers covering the same event. Fortunately for Mrs Anvil, she was quickly advised to seek professional help and not to give the image away, due to its potential earnings value. That advice came from the professional photographers who were present when the image was taken. One of them put her in touch with an agent called Ken Goff (GoffPhotos. com).

With the advent of technology and computerisation it is very easy to capture an image and share it with the world in a matter of seconds, as proved by Karen Anvil. You can add images to your Facebook page, Instagram or Twitter, so that your close family and friends can view the images instantly and respond to you with feedback about the occasion or the image. Simultaneously, complete strangers can also view your images and, if they feel so inclined, download them and use them for their personal benefit. Ninety-nine percent of the time you will be totally unaware of the theft of your work. Yes, THEFT, for that is what it is unless the user has approached you for consent.

Within a very short space of time, Karen placed a statement on Twitter telling everyone that she owned the copyright and if anyone wished to use it or share it they should contact her before doing so; clearly good advice from a professional adviser. (At the time of writing this article the full royalties emanating from sale of this image have not been published but they are expected to reach a six figure total i.e. in excess of Under the New Zealand Copyright Act 1994 ‘artistic’ works are automatically afforded protection under that 100,000 pounds sterling.) Act from the moment they are created. The creator of So, what has this “Good News” story got to do with the work does not need to register the work or apply photographers in New Zealand? to any formal body for recognition of the work. Artistic work is copyrighted from the moment it is created by Like many of the Society’s members, I regard myself the author. Section 2(1) defines ‘artistic work’ as being “(i) as a very keen amateur photographer. I occasionally a graphic work, photograph, sculpture, collage or model, undertake the odd job for payment (usually within irrespective of artistic quality…” So, even the worst image the newsprint or magazine arena) and I get great ever taken is protected by the laws of copyright in New satisfaction from seeing my work published. Maybe Zealand. this is one of the reasons so many of us like to enter competitions - it’s the pleasure of recognition which “So,” you ask, “if the law covers my work, why do I need accompanies a successful entry that provides a boost to do anything at all?” The answer to that question is to our self esteem. located in Section 7(1) of the Copyright Act of 1994 which states that “For the purposes of this Act, a work is of unknown authorship if the identity of the author is unknown…” In other words if the ownership cannot be established, copyright is not protected.

Section 7(2) of the Act goes further and says, “For the purposes of this Act, the identity of an author shall be regarded as unknown if it is not possible for a person who wishes to ascertain the identity of the author to do so by reasonable inquiry…” To satisfy section 7(2), I suggest that there are a couple of basic things that you can and should do. Firstly, identify yourself in the metadata of every image file you create. This may sound complex and time consuming but it really isn’t. Lightroom has a facility which allows this to be done at the click of a button on exporting your images from the software.Your identity, contact phone numbers, address, website, and copyright data can all be recorded within the metadata file. This file can be accessed by anyone, anywhere in the world, if they really need to identify the author and copyright owner. The metadata in your image file can be obtained quite simply by going to a website such as www.metapicz. com. Following the simple online instructions, upload a jpeg copy of the image you need information about and metapicz.com locates the metadata and reproduces it for you to read on screen within a few seconds. Section 7(2) is important because if you don’t mark your images, it is very likely that the authorship will not be ascertained by “reasonable enquiry”. However, by completing the metadata, you will have demonstrated that you can easily be located should the person seeking the ownership of the image be prepared to do a little research. In the event of a dispute this information could become vitally important in establishing that the copyright owner could be established by “reasonable enquiry”. It is quite common these days to see the © symbol together with the author’s name located in small print in one corner of the image. That alerts the viewer to the fact that the image is subject to copyright but it doesn’t always provide the necessary contact details which can appear in depth within the metadata. Instances have been reported where unscrupulous picture editors have cropped off the copyright logo and published images without that information or even a credit to the author. This could be in a most obscure publication that you are unlikely to be aware of. Even

company pamphlets and brochures have contained images taken from the internet and used liberally without references to the owner of the copyright. Consider the following cases which have recently been brought to my attention. Case Study 1 Imagine a situation where you have entered a local or regional competition which has been organised by a reputable authority. The rules say that copyright remains with the author but that the governing body can use any of the submitted images to publicise the event (or future event) and that all winning entries will be published in a local journal or newspaper and on the organiser’s website. The rules of the competition say that by entering your image into that competition, the author accepts this condition and the organisers (their agents etc) will not be in breach of the author’s copyright.

Just a word of warning. Social media sites such as Facebook and Instragram strip most of the metadata from the files. They do maintain the copyright line, so make sure you have sufficient information in there to be identified.

You do well in the competition and your image is placed in the top 10. Subsequently, it is published as per the terms and conditions of the competition rules. Some months later, a friend tells you that he was recently looking at a realtor’s website when he spotted your image being used to advertise a particular location. He congratulates you on the image but this comes as a great surprise to you as you had not given or signed away your rights in the image which would permit the use of the photograph in such circumstances. What can you do? In this case the owner of the copyright located the managing director of the company which was using the image. He wrote a polite letter explaining that use of the image without permission was in contravention of the NZ Copyright Act. The photographer enclosed an invoice in respect of its use and asked for payment to be made by return. The matter was settled

immediately and without redress to further legal action. My advice is that you always, always, remain polite and succinct in your correspondence in such circumstances. Case Study 2 A small local newspaper asks you if you would permit the editor of that paper to publish one of your images which suits an article the editor is going to publish locally.You verbally agree that the editor can use the image specifically as a ‘one-off’ in support of that article.You clearly state that there is no extension to the use of your image beyond that of a ‘one-off’ print by that newspaper. Many weeks later, your attention is drawn to the fact that your image has been published in a national newspaper. How will you react? In this case the photographer approached the local editor to whom he had given permission to use his image as a ‘one-off’. Although very apologetic, the editor explained that his paper was a member of a larger organisation and that the image had been entered into the company’s data base. It was subsequently picked up by another paper in the group and used. There was nothing he could do but apologise. The photographer was not satisfied with the answer and sought legal advice. A suitably drafted letter to the editor was sufficient to obtain a reasonable sum of money for use of the image without permission.

Case Study 3 You are approached by someone who says that a mutual friend recommended you to undertake the production of a few product promotion images on behalf of his company.You agree on terms and accept the commission on the understanding that you license those images for a specific print task as disclosed by the company. The licence specifically states that you retain the copyright in the images and that this is not passed on to the company even though a small payment has been agreed. You later discover that your images have been so well received by the company and, without further reference to you, the company has authorised a nationwide print run and is planning on using them to publicise their products overseas and via a website. Authority for this was not contained in your licence agreement. Where do you stand? 58

Section 21(3) of the 1994 Copyright Act states: Where— (a) a person commissions, and pays or agrees to pay for, the taking of a photograph … and (b) the work is made in pursuance of that commission,— that person is the first owner of any copyright in the work. [Note: Subsection (3) applies subject to any agreement to the contrary.]

In this case the author was on safe grounds as he had arranged a licence for use of the copyrighted images in a particular situation. It is now a question of renegotiating a further licence so that the company can legally use the images worldwide. Doubtless, there will be an additional payment in respect of the new licence if the company chooses that option. Had the author not agreed with the company beforehand on the terms which were offered (i.e. his retention of the copyright) then legally, the copyright would have belonged to the company as they had commissioned the images in the first place. (Note: This would also apply to wedding photography unless you use a licence agreement to retain the original copyright.) Each of the above case studies occurred in the Bay of Plenty between October and December 2017. I feel this is only the tip of a very large iceberg. As photographers, we need to be vigilant about our work and how we protect it before sharing images with anyone. Many of you may share images via Facebook and other websites. I have heard people say that they only do so by creating small resolution jpeg images. That’s fine up to a point, but how many of you have actually read the terms and conditions which you agreed to on signing up with FB? It is worth noting that when you join Facebook, their Terms and Conditions include the

following statement about the permission you grant to them just by agreeing to their terms and conditions:

content or your account unless your content has been shared with others, and they have not deleted it.”

“You own all of the content and information you post on Facebook, and you can control how it is shared through your privacy and application settings. In addition:

In other words, FB acknowledges your ownership of the copyright but in return you grant them all the rights associated with the copyright in respect of anything they do with it without payment or further contact with you.

1. For content that is covered by intellectual property rights, like photos and videos (IP content), you specifically give us the following permission, subject to your privacy and application settings: you grant us a non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, worldwide licence to use any IP content that you post on or in connection with Facebook (IP licence). This IP Licence ends when you delete your IP

I do hope this information is useful and that you will give consideration to ensuring that you make provision to reserve the rights in your work. Most members will have invested large sums of money in obtaining their gear. They will travel to locations, venues and events with a view to obtaining a different and/or an original perspective for their images. Over a number of years they will have learned the skills and techniques which make them masters of the camera and the brains behind a successful image. That’s called ‘experience’. Please, don’t just throw it all away.

Entries open for the Trenna Packer Salver Competition! by Salon Coordinator Carolyn Elcock ANPSNZ AFIAP Trenna Packer Salver is the annual New Zealand nature inter-club competition run by the Nature Photography Society of New Zealand. The competition is for sets of six nature projected images and is open to all clubs in New Zealand. The objective of the Trenna Packer Salver Competition is to illustrate the diversity of the natural world in New Zealand and its offshore islands. We hope that by running an annual New Zealand nature inter-club competition we can promote an increasing interest in photographing the natural world while encouraging best practice in photographing nature subjects. Entries close on 15 June 2018. For details, go to www.naturephotography.nz/trenna-packer-salver

Peter Wise FPSNZ - Nelson Camera Club’s new life member. Don Pittham FPSNZ ANPSNZ summarises Peter’s photographic journey It was with great pleasure that the Nelson Camera Club awarded Life Membership to Peter Wise FPSNZ to recognise his outstanding contribution to the Club and its members. Born in Gisborne to a photographer father it is not surprising that Peter knew the delights of photography and darkroom processing long before leaving school. After school came the air force where Peter spent a few years learning to take pictures the air force way. From aerial images of the land far below to mug shots of raw recruits, from close-up details of armaments to documentary coverage of passing out parades and visits of VIP air force top brass, our boy did the lot. One can have too much of a good thing, and after using a significant portion of the tax payers’ contributions to the defence bill on darkroom chemicals and photo paper Peter headed for civvy street to a job managing a Langwoods photo store. A sharp learning curve with Langwoods saw Peter starting a photo shop of his own in Palmerston

North - everyone has to start somewhere! Taking portraits, covering weddings, running a photo processing unit and selling camera gear, Wise was doing it all. Realisation eventually dawned that there was more to life than rushing around trying to keep everyone happy with rock-bottom prices. Peter rationalised the shop by selling off the photo processing machine and concentrated on taking photographs and framing them for a sensible price. But why stay in Palmerston North when the South Island offered so much more in the way of one of Peter’s other great loves - tramping? A move to the Mainland saw Wise’s Picture Framers open up in Nelson. While in Palmerston North Peter had been a member of the Manawatu Camera Club. He must have done something to impress because before he even completed his move to Nelson, the Nelson Photographic Society had wind of his arrival and invited (or should that be demanded?) that he join not just their Society but their committee. Peter held many positions with the Society and was President when the Society went through the trauma of deciding that two photography clubs in a city the size of Nelson was one too many and sadly it was time to call it a day.

Peter receives his life membership from Club President Dianna Hambleton LPSNZ

Club news With the winding up of the Nelson Photographic Society Peter was able to devote yet more of his time to the Nelson Camera Club. It would be too time-consuming to itemise all the ways in which Peter has contributed to this club. He has been on the committee - it seems like forever -and held most posts including that of President.

If your club has information or events that it would like to share, email the details to Lindsay Stockbridge LPSNZ at dilinz@ actrix.co.nz.

As a respected judge his opinion is often sought by members of not just the Nelson club but most of the clubs in the top of the South Island, and he has judged at national level for PSNZ’s National Exhibition (NATEX).

Peter has achieved success in regional, national and international competitions. His “umbrella shot” which graces the front cover of the 2010 New Zealand Camera book brought a smile to many faces. He gained his Fellowship of the PSNZ in 2006 with a stunning set of still-life images.

Since coming to Nelson Peter has had a close association with the Photographic Society of New Zealand; firstly as an individual member and then serving as a PSNZ councillor for eight years, only relinquishing that role in 2015. His portfolios included Councillor for Inter-Club Competitions, Trans Tasman and Four Nations Competitions and the National Exhibition (NATEX). His work for PSNZ was recognised in 2016 by the awarding of a PSNZ Service Medal.

However it is not primarily for his undoubted skill with a camera that Peter is held in high regard but rather for his generous help, freely given to the photographic community in general and to the Nelson Camera Club in particular. It’s not surprising that his friendly manner and willingness to provide unbiased advice on all matters photographic has made his shop a place to congregate for many members of the club. If you do drop in just don’t tread on the dog!

Events & services Services

Courier or storage boxes. Contact Sean Dick, sean@evokestudio.co.nz

Printcases for 16”x 20” prints. $75 plus post. Contact Jocelyn Barrett, the.barretts.jl@gmail.com

Remember that CameraTalk is now a digital production. Please remind your club members that the digital version of CameraTalk can be found by searching for the word “CameraTalk” at www.issuu.com.

Club Scott Fowler APSNZ EFIAP PPSA Workshops For information on Scott’s courses, go to www.scoiwi.com/section828118.html Email details of services, upcoming photographic workshops, seminars and exhibitions to Lindsay Stockbridge LPSNZ at dilinz@actrix.co.nz

Councillor profile:

Shona Kebble APSNZ recounts her photography life WAY BACK IN 2002 I took my mother to Australia. I took along my current camera (film type) and â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;snappedâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; as we travelled. On arriving home I thought that some of my photos were not too bad but wanted to know more about how to get them to look like magazine photos. I enrolled in night classes at the local school and the tutor turned out to be John Reece Hon PSNZ APSA ESFIAP (an old time very prominent PSNZ member). After completing the course I asked where I could go to put into practice what I had learnt. John suggested Howick Camera Club and Pakuranga Camera Club. I joined both and continued learning all I could from competitions and talks. Pakuranga has now closed down but I still belong to Howick Camera Club. When I joined Howick in late 2002, I was put in B grade and the following year was promoted to A grade. Success came in club competitions and so I started entering national competitions. I have had a reasonable run of successes there too, with several medals over the years. In 2005 I was awarded an APSNZ. I was elected to the committee at Howick shortly after starting at the club and then served my two years as

President. In 2010 I went on the PSNZ Council and have served eight enjoyable years, firstly holding the portfolio of Conventions and then Competitions, but I am standing down this year. I am also an Accredited PSNZ Judge in Open and Nature. I enjoy attending PSNZ National Conventions. There is always something to learn and the presenters are extremely interesting. The many people I have met through photography have inspired and encouraged me. Long may that continue. During 2018 my husband and I hope to travel extensively through the South Island and opportunities for photos should abound.

Dying beauty by Shona Kebble

Gnarled by Shona Kebble

Badumna lomginqua with Aphis mellifera by Shona Kebble

Texting God by Shona Kebble

We three by Shona Kebble

Sentinels by Shona Kebble

Striated heron by Shona Kebble

Terns by Shona Kebble

White-fronted terns by Shona Kebble

Wide eyes by Shona Kebble

Organisers Sally Zhang and Petra Patterson report on a nationwide photography competition for teenagers, created by teenagers, organised by teenagers, to inspire teenagers and promote their work.

THE BAYLEYS FOUNDATION New Zealand Secondary School Photography Competition, created by Sally Zhang and Petra Patterson, two Year 13 students from Kristin School, Auckland, provides an opportunity for budding young photographers to expose their art to the wider community. The inaugural competition took place from early November, 2017, to late January, 2018, and it invited applications from all secondary school students in New Zealand who could enter any photographs they wished so long as they fitted the theme of Wonder. Why Wonder? “Because we want to know what inspires the youth of New Zealand, whether it is the colours of autumn or an act of human kindness. We want to encourage these high school students to seek and actively capture this Wonder they feel, to find the beauty in the ordinary, especially when the world is being portrayed in such a negative light,” said the two project managers. From over 400 photographs submitted, just 20 photographs have been selected by adjudicators from the Photographic Society of New Zealand, all of whom are PSNZ accredited judges. These photographs are to be displayed at the Bruce Mason Centre for a month. Further prizes, including cameras and photography equipment, will be awarded to the top three photographs as well as the People’s Choice Award at the NZSSPC award night. Sally and Petra are both passionate young photographers who felt that there has been a lack of exposure for the artistic flair of the New Zealand youth. They hope that this competition will call for students to flaunt their talent and get them excited about art. But, most of all, they want to support teenage artists and nurture their love for photography by providing this opportunity to really showcase their skills.

“We are extremely grateful to our generous sponsors Bayleys Foundation, Photographic Society of New Zealand, Panasonic NZ, Joby, Lowepro and Photogear as well as our teachers, parents and friends who have supported us on this project. The NZSSPC gallery is the result of all our efforts to expose the works of some of the best secondary school photographers in New Zealand. Through the lenses of these photographers, we hope you too will be inspired by what our generation considers to be Wonder.”

The gallery will be available for viewing at the Bruce Mason Centre from 10 February to 5 March. If you are unable to make it to the physical gallery, the shortlisted images will also be available for viewing on www.nzsspc.com where voting for the People’s Choice Award will also take place.

Karen Lawton, PSNZ Councillor, adds: As part of our sponsorship and support of this competition, the Photographic Society of New Zealand (PSNZ) was pleased to be able to provide three accredited judges to review the NZSSPC images. The range of genre to interpret the theme Wonder was exceptional. There was a huge diversity of subject matter and we are very confident that the top 20 – and more especially the top three – embody the theme of Wonder. Reviewing these images gave us an interesting insight into the refreshing images being produced by school students, and it was interesting to see a variety of in-camera and post-production techniques applied. We applaud the effort, planning and promotion that the organisers achieved and look forward to attending the announcement of the winners in March.

Never stop learning! Good advice from PSNZ Secretary Patrice Nilsen

I CONSIDER MYSELF a novice photographer; having bought my first DSLR in 2011 I have a lot of learning to do yet. I head off to conventions and look at all the wonderful images in the National Exhibition and the Honours Sets, and only dream of one day seeing an image or set of my own on those walls. When I first got my camera I attended a few workshops, learnt more about my camera and started to take some good images – I thought, anyway. I spent valuable time learning from Simon Woolf and it was his input that set me off on this journey of learning. I needed to improve a heck of a lot before I could do any more. Having worked in the Learning and Development field for many years, I decided I should apply some of the same learning strategies to my photography if I was to improve. I went back to basics and completed an online learning Diploma in Photography in 2013 to try and nail it. When I had finished it felt good and my photography was slowly changing. I dabbled in a few different genres over the next couple of years, during which time I attended an eight-week portrait workshop. At the end of it we held an exhibition of our work. Seeing my work actually printed and on a wall made a huge difference to the way I felt about my images. Suddenly they looked better.

I set my computer up with a whole array of processing software which, by the way, is rendered totally useless unless you actually learn how to use it! After a period of time trying to get everything right in camera, I realised that to make my images better I had to process them properly. This meant learning to use the software programmes. That’s a journey I am still on and I have a long way to go. In the last two years I have narrowed my genres to nature and landscape. I have made it my mission to attend at least one workshop a year with a small group of photographers interested in the same things.

Okarito workshop In 2016, along with 11 other keen photographers, I attended a workshop with Andris Apse at Okarito on the West Coast of the South Island. I decided to make a road trip from Wellington so I could take as much as I wanted without baggage restrictions. What an amazing time I had, and the opportunity to get some amazing images in such a beautiful location made this all worthwhile. I learnt so much from Andris about the art of seeing and reading the light, and using the light to capture specific images. After continually ‘snapping’ away on the first morning I noticed over the period of the

Okarito wharf at dawn, Okarito Lagoon

workshop that I took fewer and fewer images, except those I specifically had a purpose for. Not only did I learn from Andris, but also from the other photographers on the workshop. It was not about just getting your own images, but the opportunity for everyone to share knowledge and help each other to get the most out of it. We spent all day from dawn to dusk together as a group - capturing moments, eating way too much, sharing knowledge, boating, and when we could we had inside time learning from Andris and seeing some of his previous works. I feel very privileged to be one of the 12 people who had the opportunity to attend that workshop, and remain in touch with several attendees still. Abandoned laundry, Otematata Station

Otematata workshop In 2017 I saw a message on the PSNZ Facebook group page from Scott Fowler, saying he had one space left on the Otematata workshop in November. I had seen his workshops advertised previously but had never taken much notice. I had heard of Scott but had no idea what sort of photography he did, but recalled that a lady I had met on the Okarito workshop had attended 10 of Scott’s workshops. I messaged Scott and jumped at the chance to head south once more to attend a workshop with six other keen photographers. This too was an amazing opportunity to see a stunning part of the country I had not visited. What I didn’t realise was exactly how much more I would learn on this trip. Everyone was so freely giving of their knowledge, sharing camera settings, props, and setting up scenes for everyone to share. The comradery within the group was fabulous, and we had many opportunities to get to know each other before the photography started as we travelled down together from Christchurch to Otematata. When you stay with a bunch of people you don’t know, under the same roof, you have to work together, share, and take in all those moments and bits of knowledge.

Learning Don’t be fooled into thinking that having the best gear, the most expensive lenses and accessories makes you a better photographer! You still have to invest in yourself, and your own learning. Learning is a whole process in itself. As photographers, I am sure most of us are hands-on, practical people. I know for myself, that I learn by doing as a preference. Looking for opportunities to learn, taking those that are presented, and never fearing to admit I don’t know has certainly helped me continue on my photographic journey. So much so, that I am determined to make the effort to learn more about post-processing this year and get some of my own images printed and shared, and I may even have a go at my Licentiate Honours in 2019. Finally, a big thank-you to all those photographers and masters in their art that have helped me on my journey, and also to those friends in photography who I can call on to go out with cameras in hand and play around.

I added so much more to my basket of knowledge on Scott’s workshop, not only from Scott but also from the other six participants. I came away with more new friends in photography and many as yet unprocessed images! 69

Southern Alps reflection, Okarito Lagoon by Patrice Nilson

Cottage in the rapeseed, Waimate by Patrice Nilson

Membership matters An update from Vivianne Baldwin APSNZ, Councillor for Membership

A REMINDER THAT PSNZ membership subs were due to be paid by 1 February 2018 for the Society’s financial year ending 31 December 2018. The cost of a subscription is •

$85.00 for an Individual member

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$95.00 for double membership (two people at the same address)

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$105.00 for a family (three or more people at the same address)

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$52.00 for junior members under the age of 18

•

All amounts are payable in New Zealand Dollars (NZ$), and for New Zealand residents, includes GST.

Please note that a late payment fee of $5.00 will be applied to all subs paid after 1 February 2018. On 1 March 2018 an automatic email will be sent out to all members who have not paid advising that your subscription will be suspended for non-payment if it remains unpaid by 31 March 2018. Your membership will be recorded as cancelled and this means you will no longer receive communication from the Society.

Thank you I would like to thank Libby Hitchings APSNZ who has made the first contact with new PSNZ members since 2014! Libby is about to set off on a few new adventures this year and as a result I have recently taken over this role. Thank you Libby - PSNZ runs well because of volunteers like you!

Benefits of PSNZ membership include Meeting and forming friendships between likeminded people who share and expand ideas. Obtaining discounts for Society activities, including reduced entry fees for •

PSNZ National Annual Convention

•

Discounts on major NZIPP events

Receiving a copy of New Zealand Camera, a book with a retail value of $69.95. (Members are entitled to submit images for selection in this prestigious annual publication.) Additional copies are available for order online via the PSNZ website, for a member discounted price of $40.00. Enjoying our online newsletter, NZ CameraTalk which brings you news, reviews, upcoming events, competitions, and showcases some of the best photography around. Members are entitled to submit a portfolio of images to achieve an Honours award (LPSNZ, APSNZ, FPSNZ) which recognises your photographic competency. Once achieved you can display letters after your name. Members are entitled to submit images for selection in the Canon National Exhibition. All members are entitled to enter Canon Online, a bi-monthly online competition kindly sponsored by Canon NZ with trophies for each round and the overall winner each year. Members •

are entitled to attend Judge Training Workshops at no cost.

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are entitled to promote a link to their personal website on the PSNZ website.

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have access to the members only area on the PSNZ website.

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have access to online submission forms and many resources, such as help sheets.

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are entitled to join print circles to help improve photographic skills and promote friendship.

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Coming soon – an AV circle! More details will follow in our next issue of CameraTalk.

Join the PSNZ Facebook page for social chat with other members; keep up to date with news and happenings on the public PSNZ Facebook page. Receive regular Blog posts and stay up to date with the latest news on events, activities and special offers through bulk emails. Obtain product discounts and savings.

Here are some handy links to our web site: •

NZ CameraTalk: https://photography.org.nz/ about/camera-talk/

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PSNZ website: https://photography.org.nz

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Access PSNZ’s online membership database at https://psnz.knack.com/ membership#membership/ to check and update your own details, and to search for other members and clubs.

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The Society’s Rules and By-Laws: https:// photography.org.nz/about/rules-and-bylaws/

PSNZ members are entitled to a discount on camera equipment insurance via the focus plus product. This is arranged through Rothbury’s Insurance brokers on a similar basis to that offered to NZIPP members. From time to time receive offers from our trade partners and associated companies.

Congratulations To Hartmut Joschonek who is the lucky winner of the members survey printer draw with the prize kindly donated by Epson.

PSNZ Interclub Competition Entry forms for the Chance Cup, the Wiltshire Cup, the Bledisloe Trophy and the Bowron Cup are now open and are available on the PSNZ website. The closing date is midnight on Sunday 18 March. These competitions are open to all PSNZ affiliated clubs and include prints and projected images. The cups and trophies will be presented at the banquet at the National Convention being held in Dunedin this year.

The last image

Lonely tree by Karen Thorne APSNZ AFIAP