RPS Travel Group eNewsletter #40

TRAVEL GROUP e-NEWSLETTER

#40 November 2018

Travel Image of the Month is: “Moscow River, near the Kremlin” by Dmitry Tveryanovich

©DmitryTveryanovich

Well done Dmitry - there’s some good detail in the sky and overall it’s a view that most of us will never get to see...

Contents Springboard 2019 News Meet the Committee Article by Caroline Anderson, OU Photography Student Bits & Bobs - “Leaving on a Jet Plane ...?”

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TRAVEL GROUP e-NEWSLETTER

#40 November 2018

Springboard 2019 News Members of the Travel Group Committee recently visited the Springboard 2019 venue at The Lowry, and here is John Riley’s report from there:

©JohnRiley

Springboard 2019 @ The Lowry - Salford Quays Next Spring we will be meeting in Salford for our annual get-together; Saturday 13 April to be precise. So Liz, our Chair, together with our new committee member Roy Morris, me (John Riley) and Linda Riley spent a couple of hours exploring both the content of the event and the wonderful location for our meeting.

We had a very enjoyable meeting with the Event Manager, Chelsea Foster (who will be looking after us on the day) and our two Guest Speakers, Lucy Dusgate and Andrew Brooks. The input from both Lucy and Andrew was full of enthusiasm and forward thinking, so I reckon we will have a real treat ahead of us. We all left sharing the same thought – “This is going to be something very different and something very special”.

We are also hopeful that both our competitions, ie Print and Projected Image, will be able to be viewed in a public area in and around the Theatre Bar. The Lowry welcomed the idea of an exhibition of our work and so all we have to do is find a way of displaying our images.

We are planning a Photographic Event on Friday 12 April so watch out for further announcements. For nonphotographers, there is The Lowry Outlet shopping centre. There are also BBC and Coronation Street tours, both of which need to be booked in advance online. For Manchester United fans, the ground is just over Trafford Bridge adjacent to the Copthorne Hotel.

Linda and I stayed at The Copthorne. It was very comfortable with excellent food and a very welcoming staff.

Don't forget you can reserve your rooms at the RPS-discounted rate by calling 0161 873 7321, quoting RPS. I would strongly recommend that while visiting Salford Quays you make time to explore both the Lowry Gallery and the Imperial War Museum (both FREE).

To see so much of Lowry's work is wonderful and you will perhaps realise that there is so much more to the man than simply 'Match-stalk Men and Match-stalk Cats and Dogs'. Take time to sit through a short film about him which illustrates what a troubled person he was.

The IWM is a truly immersive experience. It uses recordings of interviews with those who experienced WW2 and combines them with projected images of film and photos together with the sounds of aeroplanes and sirens. It is so powerful because it is so real.

There were several groups of young children visiting and they sat on the floor of this very unusual theatre. It was so moving to see them all spontaneously take to their feet and applaud as the lights went up.

Springboard is up and running in the Events section of The RPS Website, so take a look and book your place!

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TRAVEL GROUP e-NEWSLETTER

#40 November 2018

Meet The Committee...

This month it’s the turn of TG Secretary John Speller to introduce himself to the members:

...and now meet TG Member Caroline Anderson

Caroline is a new(ish) member of the RPS who joined after completing the Open University TG089 Digital Photography Course, and here’s her illustrated article.

“I am drawn to a magazine article about the small Scottish border town of Hawick, the images in the article have captured the town’s architecture and surrounding countryside in a way that I had never seen before.

This was personally very inspiring, I grew up on the outskirts of Hawick on a small family run farm and seeing creative images of the environment in which I had grown up portrayed so well really impressed me.

This was the start of my realisation that we are surrounded by images that can easily be taken for granted and thus my interest in photography was born.

I have always had a love of photographs, a captured moment that can produce so much emotion and the more I learn about photography, the more I appreciate other photographer’s creations and how hard they work.

Until earlier this year my photography skills were very much point and shoot and ‘auto’ was my go to setting, that’s why I decided to enroll on the Open University TG089 Digital photography course: creating and sharing better images, developed and presented in partnership with The Royal Photographic Society.

It’s a ten-week online course, with a series of weekly hands-on assignments which enable you to practise the skills that you learn. It was very motivating looking for places, people, objects and movement to photograph each week and seeing things in a new and captivating way.

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TRAVEL GROUP e-NEWSLETTER

#40 November 2018

Ardvreck Castle

The course was perfect for me, I could work at my own pace and it focused my attention to details which definitely helped me to understand my camera and develop my photography skills. I found the post processing both thought provoking and challenging, and gained a great deal of knowledge by learning how a good photograph with a few enhancements could become a wonderful work of art.

As I progressed through the Open University course module by module my photographic abilities improved steadily, each one presenting unique challenges designed to stretch your imagination and skills.

Everything looks so different when you start to see the world as a photographer.

After such a short time from graduating from the auto, point & shoot era of skills, I recognised that I was very much a learner at taking and processing photographs, I have learnt the hard way, that it doesn’t matter what photographic subjects or opportunities present themselves, without a memory card or charged camera battery you are merely an observer and not a photographer, school boy errors that I try not to repeat!

During this summer my partner and I accompanied by our 3 dogs went on a road trip around the North Coast 500. In short we drove to North of Inverness, with the sea on our right, we followed it all the way round via John O Groats, Durness, Stoer, Applecross, and Glencoe eventually ending up at Loch Lomond 7 days later. What a fantastic place to practise photography. From the dark shaded ruins on the shore of a loch, gorgeous deserted beaches, highland cows, to rubber glove trees on the beach.

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TRAVEL GROUP e-NEWSLETTER

#40 November 2018

I was recently asked whose work has inspired me, which is a very difficult question for me to answer, as there is just so much talent around the world, however I’ll name a few. I admire Jonathon Collins work, his eye for detail and wonderful compositions. Alex Vasyliev - each of Alex’s photographs tells a story, in such a cold climate in Yakutia, he captures the lives and surroundings of the locals. I absolutely love Africa, the colours, people, culture, and sounds. Of particular note is Khadija M Farah’s images, I find them enthralling, they completely absorb you.

So what’s next for me? I will continue to take lots of photos, as it’s only through trial, error and continuous learning that my work will improve. At some point I would like to gain a LRPS distinction, however my panel is still a work in progress and I would like to attend an Advisory Day prior to making an application.

Ben Hope

I intend to travel as much as possible, Egypt and Bali are already booked for next year, as well as few trips within the U.K. Saving for a new camera is also top of my list.

A friend once told me that ‘photographs are the best souvenirs from your travels’ and I believe that to be true, travel definitely broadens your mind and exposes you to new experiences and concepts. My bucket list is so full of places that I would like to visit and photograph, I’m just hoping I win the lottery one day.

I see the world as an adventure and take my camera everywhere I go, capturing moments in time that I can keep forever.”

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TRAVEL GROUP e-NEWSLETTER

#40 November 2018

Ard Neakie

Text & images©Caroline Anderson

Bits & Bobs Did you know that only circa 3 % of the world’s population have ever travelled by plane?

Yet air-travel is responsible for 3 % to 5 % of greenhouse gas emissions.

©GrahameSoden

Leaving on a Jet Plane....?

A little while ago I took a 90-minute internal flight to Stockholm. Printed on my ticket were the carbon footprint & emissions for my journey. I can’t now remember what they were, but staggering just about covers it.

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TRAVEL GROUP e-NEWSLETTER

#40 November 2018

I did a little research for some up-to-date information – there are plenty of sites on the internet to choose from – and chose a couple of sources at random. I’m sure there are plenty of sources that take a contrary view and others that will support; I make no claims one way or the other, other than to say the information is illuminating and perhaps something we should, as we Travel, be aware of. A couple of examples from my research: “A few years ago, environmental group Germanwatch estimated that a single person taking one roundtrip flight from Germany to the Caribbean produces the same amount of damaging emissions as 80 average residents of Tanzania do in an entire year: around four metric tons of CO2.”

“On an individual level, there is no other human activity that emits as much over such a short period of time as aviation, because it is so energy-intensive," Gössling explains.”

“Driving in a relatively fuel-efficient car (25-30 miles per gallon) usually generates fewer greenhouse-gas emissions than flying. In assessing the global warming impact of a trip from Philadelphia to Boston (about 300 miles), the environmental news website Grist.org calculates that driving would generate about 104 kilograms of carbon dioxide (CO2)—a leading greenhouse gas—per typical medium-sized car (regardless of the number of passengers) while flying on a commercial jet would produce some 184 kilograms of CO2 per passenger. https://www.thoughtco.com/flying-driving-which-better-for-environment-1203936” “Journalist Pablo Päster of Salon.com extends the comparison further, to a cross-country trip, and comes to similar conclusions.

Differences in the math are attributable to the use of slightly varying assumptions regarding fuel usage and source equations. Flying from San Francisco to Boston, for example, would generate some 1,300 kilograms of greenhouse gases per passenger each way, while driving would account for only 930 kilograms per vehicle. So, again, sharing the drive with one or more people would lower each individual’s carbon footprint accordingly.”

Makes you think - or doesn’t it?

I’ve recently commented on our Facebook page about how pleased I am by the quality of many recent images posted, and by the general tone of the posts. If you’re receiving this newsletter then please come on in and add your thoughts, ideas, and images. You’d be very welcome.

Coming soon - a bumper Christmas issue - yes it’s that time of year again - and don’t forget to let me have your news, information, articles, c&c for inclusion in the newsletter, or just drop me a line to say “Hi!”.

See you next issue Grahame

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