DIG News - February 2017
‘Snow Sheep by Eric Begbie LRPS’ We had two joint winners on the forum this past month.
THE MOST IMPORTANT THING THIS MONTH IS… DIG EXHIBITION PRINTS With a deadline for submitting your entry of February 20th 2017, now is the time to be making your prints and completing the entry form. This is a free to enter print competition for all DIG Members, whether you are in the UK or overseas. UK members need to send mounted prints and we have arranged many drop-off points around the UK to assist you (see web page for more information). For overseas members we have arranged a special UK printing service – again full information on how to use this is on the web site. You do need to submit your entry form with a digital image version of your prints – we need these for the Exhibition catalogue. You submit 3 prints and are guaranteed to have one selected for the annual DIG Exhibition. This year our three selectors are Viveca Koh FRPS Robert Albright FRPS Paula Davies FRPS Each will have 2 x RPS Ribbons to award, plus they will agree on the overall trophy winner. Announcements are made on the day and all prints are displayed in the Smethwick Old School House. It is an open class, so no restriction on what you submit in terms of style. However it must not have been submitted to any prior DIG national competition (i.e. previous DIG print exhibitions or the annual PI Comp). DIG Centre competitions do not count. We have downloadable documents on the web site to guide you through the submission process. Please read these carefully. And don’t miss that all important deadline for entries……….. MONDAY FEBRUARY 20th 2017.
If you go to the DIG web page HERE you will find all the downloadable documents there.
We hope that as many of you as possible will enter as in 2017 all your selected images will go on display at the DI Expo in September.
DIG AGM This year the AGM will be held on Sunday March 5th at our usual Smethwick location. Full information is now up on the web site – see HERE. No charge for DIG members to attend; just a small additional price if you wish to order a lunch. You can bring your own packed lunch if you prefer.
Our speaker is Viveca Koh FRPS –
If you wish to request any item be put on the Agenda, or to nominate yourself for committee, then do get in touch with our DIG Sec, Janet Davies via digsecretary@rps.org
DI EXPO 2017 We are open for bookings. The web site pages are now up HERE and everything is in place for DIG Members to take advantage of exclusive access in February to book their seats. We are giving our members this month when only you have been given the information about how to book. RPS and public advertising won’t start till March. There are 320 tickets available and DIG Members (and their partners) have been sponsored from central DIG funding to enable us to hold the price to the same as it was in 2015 – just £25 p.p. That represents really great value given the quality of our speakers, two working studios and an array of trade organisations attending. The DIG 2017 Print and PDI competition acceptances will be on exhibition. Another good reason to enter this year’s competitions so that your images are on display. You can also book for an Advisory session for LRPS and ARPS (excluding Nature) potential panels.
FORUM Unusually we have, for the first time, joint winners in the January Forum competition. The two members to congratulate are Eric Begbie LRPS and Paula Davies FRPS. We had to make a decision as to which to use as our front page to this newsletter - we used Eric’s image as that fits the page better for being in portrait mode. Here is what Eric had to say about his image …. Going from Gleneagles to Braco, I stopped to take a photograph of the sun setting behind a tree in a snowy landscape. While I was working out the exposure options, the sheep in the field began moving towards me, perhaps just curious or maybe in hope of a delivery of food. A stroke of luck that has given Eric a really great result. Our next joint first winning image from Paula is another stunning landscape. Blea Tarn Reflections We spent a week with Lakeland Photographic Holidays, near Keswick, in early November. Our last day dawned clear and sunny and it remained warm all day. Blea Tarn is a favourite location and worth a visit whatever the weather. We walked across the muddy field to the edge of the tarn and saw that the reflections in the calm water were superb. January’s competition was the final end of the year set of work. This time last year we announced that there would be a prize for the photographer with the highest accumulative score at the end of month 12. We have the answer – but you are going to have to wait till the AGM when the announcement will be made.
Blea Tarn Reflections
Third place was Janet Haines ARPS
Portholes
DIG ON FACEBOOK This month we are delighted to advise our members, wherever you are in the world, that DIG now have a Facebook page. Love it or hate it Facebook is a great way to communicate. Personally I belong to several photographic FB sites and enjoy the interaction with like minded photographers. They are not full of the childish, socially inept people that get FB a bad name. But polite, serious and helpful virtual friends. We learn from each other through asking direct questions (say) about how to use a specific tool in Photoshop, or posting images for feedback. The DIG FB is a closed user group – only members of DIG will be able to join. But unlike the RPS main FB page, which is information from HQ, ours is interactive and anyone can post and comment. It will be moderated, but we would hope most sincerely that everyone will respect each other and that moderation will not be necessary. To join just go to the site HERE and click the ‘join’ button. You will be validated as a DIG member and given access. This is a manual process so please do not expect instant access. This is a great opportunity to engage with your fellow DIG members from the comfort of your armchair. So we hope to see many of you joining up and making it a lively place to be.
A final note – to assure the users of the DIG Forum that we are committed to still support you and there are no plans to try to migrate you to the Facebook site. It will be business as usual on the Forum.
MEMBERS GALLERIES We hope you are enjoying looking at your fellow members work by clicking through to their RPS gallery. Why not put some of your work up and perhaps you might get featured? When choosing what to highlight we look galleries with high quality images that demonstrate the skills of our members. A gallery needs to have a decent number of photos within it; one or two shots won’t get you mentioned. We are all familiar with our own RPS Distinctions and that these comprise of panels of work. The other popular scheme in the UK is run by the PAGB (Photographic Alliance of Great Britain). If you are not familiar with them you need to understand that each image is judged by a panel of judges as an individual print or DPI. They are judged and marked in seconds so it is imperative that images have instant impact. So quite a different challenge to our RPS Distinctions. This month we are highlighting the successful CPAGB (10 images) work from Richard Hainsworth LRPS CPAGB. Note the diversity of work.
Click on gallery images to go through to the web site to view.
EGM RESULT
Last month we were encouraging you all to vote in the EGM so this month it felt appropriate to draw your attention to the result.
Only 2000 votes from a RPS membership of 11000 was, in my view, a little disappointing. It is appreciated that the proposal and the Councils response were not very clear and the potential outcome of voting either way even less so. But as an RPS member your views do count and unless you vote then it is no good complaining that you do not like the direction the Society takes. Some key DIG members instigated and contributed to a lively and well argued forum debate. This helped many to come to their own conclusions on which way to vote. Interestingly our President, Walter Benzie, even came online to contribute. So he was reading the views being expressed which is very encouraging as whatever the outcome was likely to be he was reading first hand how the members felt. One would like to think that even though the Council won the day with a resounding victory that the result is not taken as a vote for the status quo. That the strong feelings expressed by the members will influence Council decisions as they inevitably discuss the result.
DIG CENTRE ROUND-UP
This month we have only had the one ad submitted from the DIG Western Centre. But next month we are hoping to have some exciting news about a new DIG Centre.
FREE ONLINE PHOTOGRAPHY COURSES …. Are now being offered by Harvard – Alison courses.
To read all about the course and the certificate you will gain upon a successful completion go to HERE.
SIGLINK - A new word for you to consider. Last month we told you that there is a new initiative for SIGs to work more closely together – we are calling this SIGLINK. And this month I am delighted to be able to prove that it is happening. DIG members have an invitation from the Documentary Group (DG) to engage with a rather interesting project that is going to take place in the Exeter area.
Towards the end of 2016 the Documentary Group was approached by Dr. James Wallis, an Associate Research Fellow at Exeter University, with an invitation to work on a project looking at the importance of First World War photography in a "Then and Now" Framework. The project will be led by Professor David Harvey and Dr. James Wallis of Exeter University. The proposed project, the scope of which is yet to be defined, will run during 2017 only. A workshop which will be at no charge to RPS Members will be held in March to explore project scope with the aid of subject matter experts. Our discussions with Dr. Wallis have led us to think that this project has potential to interest members of SIGs other than DG, so we would like to invite DIG members to join us. The information posted to date on the DG site is here http://www.rps.org/special-interestgroups/documentary/blogs/2017/january/then-and-now-photographyof-the-first-world-war
RPS SCOTTISH REGION Another invitation has arrived for a rather super weekend in Dunfermline, weekend May 20th-21st 2017. They have a programme packed with some top notch speakers - here is what they have to say‌..
“We are lucky to have Dan Hartman, Laura Pannock, Tom Stoddart HonFRPS, Roger Reynolds HonFRPS and Walter Benzies HonFRPS on Saturday 20th May. Dougie Wallace, Alexandra Fazzina, Faye Yerbury FRPS, Trevor Yerbury FRPS and Dan Hartman are on Sunday 21st May. “ This is the link they provided to book www.rps.org/events/2017/may/20/dunfermline-springweekend-2017 Or you may wish to contact the RO James Frost on james.frost11@btinternet.com if you want more details.
FOCUS ON OVERSEAS MEMBERS This month we asked Paul Ashton, who is a member living in Spain, to be our OS member of the month. To go with an article we usually ask the individual to provide a selfie, but got a laugh when Paul’s somewhat unusual one arrived….. On retirement, after a total of some 40 years as a practicing vet in Yorkshire and here in Torrevieja on the Costa Blanca and in order to fill in the time I bought myself a digital camera (Canon Pro 1). I had become interested in digital photography as a result of using the new digital cameras in my clinic. I was impressed by how easily we could record visual case details with them.
As I have no formal art background, I found a couple of basic courses on-line to get me started. These opened my eyes as to just how much there was to imaging and how digital technology was giving me two hobbies, not one: - the taking of pictures with my camera, and digitally enhancing them later. Reading books like of Margaret Livingstone's “Biology of Imaging”, and Richard Zakia's “Perception and Imaging”, I became aware of the difference between how we create our perception of the world and how our eyes and cameras see it. For example, how do we perceive a three dimensional depth in an image on a flat sheet of paper? It's not what I thought, but artists it seems have known instinctively how to create these effects since the Renaissance. Copying their tricks during in the digital manipulation of my images has become an obsession!
Got Anything for Me?
I have come to believe that we view images, whether photos or paintings, with two different “eyes”. One sees the cognitive content, faces, mountains and other recognizable content; while the other sees the composition and pattern of lines, shapes and colours etc, that make up that content. I believe that how we rate the image depends more on our emotional response to the latter, and I try to keep this in mind when taking and processing images, so I tend to think of myself more a student of imaging than a photographer. For several years, together with a colleague, I have run “Get The Most From Your Camera” and “Introduction To Lightroom” courses for a surprising number of newly retired expatriates that turn up with shiny new cameras. The teacher probably learns as much as the students in my case. To keep in touch with them, we have weekly digital enhancing workshops and monthly meetings. Together with photographic trips, we have an enjoyable social life.
Cool Clear Running Water
Two or three years ago I was persuaded to enter (unsuccessfully) a panel for the LRPS Distinction. I was stunned to witness on the day how closely the adjudicators viewed my presentation, and just how high the standards are, particularly for presentation. Unfortunately, I have always been an impetuous soul and not paid enough attention to detail. Since joining the Society I am learning a lot from the magazines and presentations and website and I'll be back for another go! Can I extend a welcome to anyone visiting Torrevieja or the Costa Blanca to contact me - my e-mail is paulandmary2@wanadoo.es My selfie! - “Should have gone to Spec-Savers�
Up Close and Personal
Painterly
Another busy month coming up – don’t forget though to find the time to enter the DIG Exhibition Print competition. UK members should take advantage of our drop-off points and OS members our special print arrangements. We have made it as easy as we can for you – the rest is up to you. Good luck. We hope to see as many of you as possible at the AGM. No more reminders about that as the next DIG News will come out after the AGM. …….. and don’t forget to join us on DIG Facebook. See you there. Regards
Janet Janet Haines ARPS DIG Chair digchair@rps.org