Annual Competition – 1st week of judging 21/04/21

This week we began our first week of judging for this year’s annual competition. Due to

the power of zoom we had a judge outside our federation.

We welcomed David Kissman CPAGB BPE 2* from North & East Midlands

Photographic Federation, who was given the following genres Nature, Beginners, Open

and Sports Action and Photojournalism to judge.

David demonstrated his knowledge and his judging was very detailed, through in

explaining his marking, giving advice on how to improve images, depth of field,

composition, lighting, shape and processing which the author might have missed in the

execution of the image.

All in all, David was a pleasant judge and it was pleasing to hear his comments. For the images that were held back we will have to wait for the ‘Oscars’ presentation

later this year.

Monthly Challenge – Something Red 31/3/21

Club members were given the challenge of submitting an image which portray red with the additional entreaty that it should be interesting.

27 club members rose to the challenge and there was a wide variety of subject matter to view and vote on. Experienced members, Richard Fulcher and George Fewster, gave an appreciation and searching critique of the images displayed.

In the time remaining many of the authors were able to explain what and how they had taken the images which added to an enjoyable evening spent on our favourite virtual conferencing application.

Well done to all members who took part and congratulations to the three winners of the popular vote. Their images are shown here. There was no doubt which was the most striking image. The story telling and meticulous care taken in composing ‘Unrepentant’ shone through. Richard Fulcher’s record of an unusual display item was certainly eye-catching and Barbara Sheldrake’s use of negative space was thought provoking.

Unrepentant

Squashed Red Beetle

Something Red

1st – Unrepentant by Harry Wentworth LRPS EFIAP BPE5*

2nd – Squashed Red Beetle by Richard Fulcher BPE3*

3rd – Something Red by Barbara Sheldrake

Talk - Graham Dean - The Camera Doesn't Lie, But... 24/03/21

Graham Dean is a Lancashire based photography club member who regularly gives talks on his own patch. This presentation was in two distinct but connected parts. In the first section he took us through the history of photo manipulation since the dawn of our hobby. It would have been revealing to many that so many ‘tricks of the trade’ were applied to images to alter them over the last two centuries. A case in point was the work produced by Henry Peach Robinson in 1858 entitled ‘Fading Away’. Besides the finished image standing up to comparison with modern composites using old-style filters, it was interesting to learn that it was itself a composite of several images.

The second half of the talk illustrated the author’s own efforts to manipulate images to create the effect which he desired often using simple digital techniques available to most amateur photographers. His introductory slide of a sunset taken from his own attic presented with a quotation by neuroscientist, Beau Lotto, particularly struck a chord with those of us using basic manipulation of exposures to create what we saw in our mind’s eye when we took the picture. The camera sensor could not cope with the range of light values in one capture but the use of HDR or merging of similar frames at different settings can create what we intended in the first place.

In all it was a gentle tour through the subject delivered in an agreeable manner by a fellow club photographer.