DIG News - October 2017
‘The Gondolier’ by Susan Ashford LRPS
Winner of the forum competition this past month.
DIG LAUNCHES NEW CENTRE IN THE SE After many months of preparation the new DIG SE was launched on October 1st. They held a great meeting with over 140 people present to hear the inspiring Steven Le Prevost FRPS talk about his photographic art. It was great to see so many people present – DIG members, RPS and non Society folks. Everyone is always welcome to all RPS meetings. The SE Committee are to be congratulated and thanked for all their effort as starting a new Centre takes dedication and a lot of hard work. Having got the first meeting under their belt they now have plans to go on to provide other stimulating meetings in 2018.
from left to right – Bruce Broughton (SE Centre Organiser), Janet Haines (DIG Chair) Steven le Prevost FRPS and Barrie Brown (SE Centre Treasurer)
time to chat to friends and view Steve’s prints
DI EXPO Saturday September 23rd saw 240 attendees enjoying the DI Expo at Birmingham. It was a full day with stimulating speakers and the feeling coming back from the members was that it was a thoroughly good day out.
putting up the DIG Exhibition Here are just some of the unsolicited emails we got following the meeting Many thanks for inviting me to your event which I very much enjoyed, so much so that I came away thinking I must get out more with my camera!! (Liz Rhodes – Chair of the Travel Group) Thank you so much for all the hard work you and everyone from DIG put in to make today truly amazing. I don’t think I’ve ever known a day go so quickly. (Avril Christensen) Congratulations - a highly successful and enjoyable EXPO 17. (Peter Hemment) Just a quick note to thank you for yesterday. Not only was it flawless it was stimulating, encouraging, highly educational, inspiring and totally enjoyable. Massive thanks. (Derek Trendell)
Just wanted to thank you for another great well balanced day. Thoroughly enjoyed it. (Terry Hughes) It was a great day. I’ve been inspired again. (Diane Seddon) Nice to meet you last weekend. I thoroughly enjoyed the day - came out "fizzing" and desperate to take photos (had to take some of the multi-storey car park before I got in the car to come home)! (Malcolm Hackett)
Tim Flach Hon FRPS was one of our DI Expo speakers. He showed us some amazing animal photos, some of which will be in his new book ‘Endangered’. This goes on sale in October. Here is a link to his web site for more information www.timflach.com/book/
TRADE OFFERS Three of the trade organisations that were present at DI Expo have extended their offers. To take advantage of these see the very end pages of this DIG News and on our Members special offer page HERE. THE FLASH STUDIO Following the event we were conscious that many of the participants were rather disappointed with the portrait sessions. We apologise but sometimes things do not quite turn out as we had hoped and planned.
To try to recover a little confidence we have obtained a rather neat sheet, from Brian Collier and the Birmingham Flash Centre that shows how to set up lights to achieve different looks. This we will produce part of here. However what you see is incomplete so we will make the entire document available as a download from our web page HERE
AND FINALLY……. All attendees will have received a post event survey link. It is really helpful to us if you would please take the time to complete this. We really do listen to what you tell us and will be making future decision about DI Expo based on your feedback – good or bad! Thank you to those that have already completed the survey. To those that provided their email address for a response that will be made when the survey is complete.
NEW DIG DISTINCTIONS This month we have members with new letters after their name. All will have worked hard to achieve their Distinctions and are to be congratulated.
Westley Cockle LRPS Michael Herrmann LRPS Anthony Woods LRPS
Norfolk Dorset Worcestershire
Thomas Chan ARPS Malcolm Blackburn ARPS Victor Wong ARPS
Warwickshire Derbyshire Hong Kong <<<<<>>>>>
The recent successful panel we are featuring this month is from Lynda Mudle-Small ARPS. Thank you Lynda for taking the time to write us a short article and for showing us your work. I am sure it looked even better as a printed panel, but even at this size it looks super. Lynda Mudle-Small ARPS The challenge of trying to achieve an Associate distinction appealed to me when I ‘discovered’ the Royal Photographic Society award system. I like to have goals and it was the freedom to choose a subject and develop the photographic opportunities that appealed to me. I was advised to choose a subject “that came from the heart”, something I felt strongly about and had an emotional attachment to. I eventually decided upon the abandoned buildings of smallholders that surround our second home in Portugal. I wanted to convey my sense of sadness and poignancy for these buildings that had been totally discarded for modern life in town.
My biggest challenge was the light, the Mediterranean light is very harsh, so I had to time my visits accordingly. Morning and evening light might be best, but sometimes the light was right just for a few minutes in the day when it shone through doors or holes in the roof and lit the dark interiors. In addition to the ambient light, reflectors, fill flash and light painting were all used to get the effect I wanted.
Eventually in June 2017 I had the panel I wanted and I was delighted to receive my Associate in the Fine Art category. From 2014 when I started my ‘L’ to now has been an amazing journey and due to the award process my photography has improved immeasurably and, will I hope, continue to do so.
DIG MEMBER GETS AN RPS AWARD The following was lifted from the Society’s Press Release that went out following the recent RPS Awards evening. The Members’ Award and Honorary Life Membership For an ordinary member who, in the opinion of Council, has shown extraordinary support for The Society over a sustained period. 2017 Recipient: Paul Hurst ARPS Paul is an Associate of The Royal Photographic Society and has published articles in The RPS Journal. Over the last ten years he has helped with the Society’s online forum. Well done Paul – we are delighted for you and it couldn’t have happened to a nicer bloke …. and he is pretty good at photography too!
Paul Hurst ARPS receiving his Award from President Walter Benzie HonFRPS
FORUM We were particularly impressed with the winning image in the September round of the Forum competition. So much so that even before the winner had been voted for we had asked the photographer if we could do an article for DIGIT about the work. In view of this we are keeping the information to a minimum this month, as all will be revealed in a future DIGIT.
‘The Gondolier’ by Susan Ashford LRPS – see front page of this publication. I recently returned from a trip around Europe , and was excited to have captured beautiful places such as Venice. My resulting photographs were rather similar to those we usually see and seemed lack lustre in comparison to many talented Travel Photographers . In my minds eye I could visualise a creative effect for impact, and set out using Brushes, Layers and Blending Modes. It was difficult to know where to stop as each layer resulted in something unexpected, which was all part of the pleasure in creating the end result.
Second placed was ‘The Timekeeper’ by Dennis Russ LRPS
Third was â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Single Stagâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; by Eric Begbie LRPS
GETTING TO KNOW YOU Here are two DIG committee members whose names you might recognize as each looks after one of our DIG annual competitions. First up is Marilyn Taylor ARPS who organizes the DIG prints competition and exhibitions for us. Not only does she work inordinately hard around the time of the submission of prints and the selection, but then throughout the year makes sure she hangs the chosen prints at the many venues around the UK. If you have a prospective venue near you that you know of then do get in touch with Marilyn on digexhibitions@rps.org
How long have you belonged to the Society and why did you join? I joined in July 2008. I am a member of the Guildford PS, and Walter Benzie was a member. He gave a talk about the distinctions program one evening, and Roni Barrett (who later went on to be an 'F') helped me to put together a L panel and I joined after that.
How do you approach planning for your Distinctions and choosing the theme? My first A panel was 'Eyes'; my daughter is an optometrist, and it seemed a natural choice. When I was told it was a very difficult theme, I had to do it, but I didn't succeed. My next attempt was based around the thousands of images that I have taken as a member of the Sealed Knot - an English Civil War Society. My images do have a very strong people content, and that, together with some good action images enabled me to be successful. Choosing a good balance of images is essential; selecting your best image is not always the right choice. Is there a particular photographer (or photographers) who inspire you? There are some excellent creative photographers within the UK who do inspire me, but not one that I particularly follow. Please provide us with your personal favourite image and tell us why you like this work of yours best. This has to be my gorilla image. I took it at Port Lympne, when I was waiting for one of the young male gorillas to stand up and walk on two feet like a man. Instead of doing that, one decided to have a fight over some peanuts. I caught the whole sequence. When my best image of
the set didn't do very well in a natural history competition, I decided to manipulate it with some filters in Photoshop and casually entered it into the RPS DIG PDI competition. To my great surprise, it won.
Silverback Gorillas fighting
We also asked some questions of David Taylor LRPS who is our DIG PI Competition Organiser. Again he works extraordinarily hard around the time of the competition and (I am speaking on his behalf here) would find life so much easier if only members would read the instructions properly please!
How did you become aware of the RPS before you joined? My life with photography started some 60 years ago, my father taught me the basics which included processing, how to black out the kitchen and use it as a darkroom. Valuable lessons were learnt which I have never really forgotten. So to answer the question it was a dream of my fathers to become a member and gain a distinction for his work, sadly that was not to be. I cannot remember when I decided but it was about 15 years ago that I joined and gained my LRPS. What made you choose DIG as your special interest Group? It seemed logical at the time because I was running a Wedding Photography business and my Business Partner and I purchased one of the first digital cameras the Nikon D100, shortly followed by the Fuji S3Pro. So hence joining DIG hoping to gain some insight in to the world of Digital Photography. You are a very busy working person so why do you choose to volunteer for committee work? What a question; yes I am busy as I run my own company and I travel all over the world delivering IT Training Consultancy to businesses. My spare time is precious and I do struggle to get everything in that I want to do. So why take on the role of committee member; well I guess that answer is easy - I enjoy giving something back to DIG. Sometimes it is a challenge especially when it comes to running the Projected Image Competition. If you spoke to my wife she would tell you there are some very interesting moments when I am looking at the entries that have been submitted. But overall it is rewarding when you see the images being presented to the selectors and we get the results. It makes it all worth the effort of being a committee member.
What style of work do you do you like for yourself? I suppose the answer to this is question is I love wildlife photography because it is a challenge to get the image that has the wow factor. To get a true wow image is totally being lucky to be in the right place at the right time. Careful planning, understanding your subject of course helps, but you are in the hands of nature and nature never works to a given set of rules. Along with wildlife I enjoy Landscape photography. Both of these subjects help me to relax and get away from my everyday job within IT and computers “and yes I know what you are thinking – Digital Photography…away from computers”.
David’s personal favourite image is this pano of a glazier but knowing it wouldn’t reproduce very well here we also asked for a normal version.
PROJECTED IMAGE COMPETITION Various presentations to the winners have been made this month. Several were at the DI Expo and were presented there, including the overall RWT Trophy winner Brian McCarthy ARPS (photo left)
Sheila Haycox ARPS (right)
Len Claydon ARPS (left)
KEN PAYNE TRAINING VIDEOS This month Ken is showing us how to use Luminosity Mask Blending.
click the image to link to the video
iPHONEOGRAPHY – Apps reviewed by Jo Cope
Slow Shutter Cam by Cogitech Software - For iPhone £1.99 There are apps for Android that are for slow shutter but as I only have iPhone I have no experience of these.
This is a great app for creating Intentional Camera Movement (ICM) shots. Think of it as a shutter priority camera app. It is easy to use but worth looking at the instructions first which are found by scrolling down the menu (bottom right icon when you open the app) There are some settings you might want to check whilst you are in the menu e.g. the file format, aspect ratio. Some useful settings, such as workflow, you can go back to later once you become more familiar with the app. When you open the camera you have a screen with top and bottom control bars- the top is the flash and focus and exposure locks and an 'eye' brings up a useful small screen so you can see the while effect whilst moving the camera. The bottom bar has the shutter, which can also be controlled with the phones volume buttons and the most important 'cog' which is used for the three different modes. It is useful that when you change the ISO or shutter speeds that these are retained whichever mode you switch to. Each mode then has one control that is specific e.g. Low light has a noise reduction control. To get started I suggest choosing a scene and take the same shot using all three modes and comparing the differences. The scene will of course determine how you will then have to adjust for amount of light but as two sliders remain constant it is not to difficult to experiment. After the shot is taken you then have the option to clear, save or edit. The edit tools are simple and another app could be used for more detailed editing, except the freeze control which allows you to select a different frame of your capture rather than the default middle section. You can also do double or triple exposures by simply pressing the shutter after the first shot but you must remain in the same capture mode to do this. One slight quirk with the app is that the share option only is available in the edit mode, this however is not a problem as you can always share once the shot is saved to the camera roll.
These are two of my favourite ICM photos taken with this app and then enhanced in Snapseed. The trees in Epping Forest was selected and exhibited in a London iPhone show and the Norfolk Coast shot was a finalist on the Mobile Photography category of the 2016 Travel Photographer of the Year Competition. Jo Cope
Who could believe they were taken on an iPhone â&#x20AC;&#x201C; arenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t they beautiful?
UPDATE on SNAPSEED which we featured recently……. Since writing about Snapseed in a previous edition of the newsletter there has been an update to the app.
The main changes are in the interface so all the edits are accessible from the 'Tools' on the bottom of the screen. There is now a quick filter menu, which is accessed from 'Looks' at the bottom of the screen. Once you are in each tool they are much as they were previously. The place where you save you own combination of edits is now in the ‘Looks’ menu. The perspective correction is a useful addition to the Tools menu. It is now easy to access basic camera and location details of each shot from the information icon at the top of the screen. New in this upgrade is the ability to send a look (edit) you have created to other people using a QR code. This is accessed from an icon at the top of the screen. The updates are good and simplify some processes. However I found trying to use the QR code caused the app to crash and to scan a code sent from someone would mean you have to have the code on one gadget screen whilst scanning with the phone.
SPOTLIGHT ON AN OVERSEAS MEMBER We spotted some work from this member recently and thought it was worth bringing him to the attention of our members. Don McCrae ARPS is a Brit living in France …… but let him tell you more. A warm welcome from SW France, where I run a variety of photoholiday courses at Studio Lavalette.
As a photography teacher, I am regularly asked “what are the three most important pieces of kit a photographer needs?” – here are my answers: 1. The most important piece of equipment is a decent colour calibrated monitor. It takes a fraction of a second to take a photograph, but you will spend several minutes, or more, editing it; so all your judgements concerning, colour temperature, light, shade and colour etc will be based on what the computer display shows you. So, which monitor? Microsoft develops software that it licences to computer manufacturers, who in the main concern themselves with the display of text and numbers and not images. Apple also develop software but they also invest their time and money in perfecting their monitors, so their iMacs are my choice. The only thing I dislike about the Apple screens are that they are reflective. I use an app called SuperCal to calibrate the monitors in the Studio – SuperCal is not that intuitive and it will take you several iterations to get the calibration right.
2. The second most important piece of kit is your lens. The light passing through it creates the picture and is what the camera senor sees. If you have a fixed budget, then my advice is to invest as much as you can in a lens over the camera body and I’d never recommend you buy a second-hand lens. Use an ultraviolet filter to protect the glass – I’ve broken many filters, but, so far, I’ve never cracked a lens. And buy a lint-free cloth to clean the lens regularly.
3. The last bit of gear on the list is your camera body and try, if you can, to find a body that allows for the easy and accessible control of the aperture and time values as well as the ISO. I see all sorts of camera makes and models at the Studio and increasingly the operation of these three key picture-taking controllers is subordinated by on-board software “features” (ha!) that my clients do not and will never use. I’ve always been a “creative” both visually and musically. So, in addition to an array of digital and film cameras, I also own, and regularly play, a range of guitars, synthesisers, drum machines and associated music software/plug-ins. Music is a fun activity, however I’m actually better at, and more successful with, imagery. Not only do I teach photography, but I am also co-founder of Artiq Ltd., now the UK’s largest art consultancy, that supplies artwork, (including my photographs), to workplace and hotels. I was also co-founder and CEO of Fo2Pix Ltd., and the person responsible for bringing the range of “buZZ” Photoshop plugins and standalone image editing software, such as
“PhotoArtMaster” and “ArtMasterPro” to market. For both music and photography, the digital world has enabled and democratised the lives of us creatives and made their environments more accessible, whilst creating churches that are very broad and very wide.
DIGIT – a bit of a slip up We hope you all enjoyed the latest DIGIT, which you should all have received during September. However those of you who have read it from cover to cover might have noticed a small oversight on page 32 ‘Feeding Station’ by Kenneth Ness ARPS. With apologies to Kenneth, and our readers, we managed to print the image of the various component parts of his compilation work but overlooked including the final finished work. Here we will repeat the ‘before’ and ‘after’ images – it really is a fantastic piece of work. Very many apologies Kenneth.
before
after
We hope you have enjoyed this issue of DIG News. If you have something to share with members then do get in touch. Maybe you have an exhibition you wish to promote or a get together walking day. Deadline each month is the 25th for the following month.
Do take advantage of the special offers below â&#x20AC;&#x201C; they wonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t hang around waiting for you. Regards
Janet
Janet Haines ARPS DIG Chair digchair@rps.org
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