Thanks to those that managed to attend our ESIG this week. A few of you have emailed me to say how much you enjoyed it, which is great - thank you. Here's the recording of the meeting - https://youtu.be/QrtgZk6U5ac
We had two speakers:
Brian took us through a selection of the award winners from the International Garden Photographer of the Year competition (IGPOTY). I think we were surprised by the number of categories offered, not all of them having an obvious link to gardens. Our feeling was that the organisers have increased the categories to boost the number of entries. We had doubts about some of the winners, particularly in Abstract for example, but that said, there were some beautiful images on show and well worth reviewing again here - https://igpoty.com/garden-photography-winners/.
Well done Brian for your Finalist Award in the 'Discovery in Cambridge University Botanic Garden' category.
I then showed the work of an American photographer, Cole Thompson. Cole is self taught and claims his qualifications are his images. We looked particularly at his ‘eye and vision’ gallery which showed examples of images before and after post processing. This was Jackie’s suggestion (good idea) and generated lots of discussion. Cole converts all his images into black and white, and uses just a few Photoshop tools to significantly alter the brightness and contrast of selective parts of the images. See here - https://colethompsonphotography.com/home/eye-vs-vision/. Take a look also at the ‘Story behind the images' gallery, where Cole gives an audio description of the story behind a number of his images - see https://colethompsonphotography.com/story-behind-the-image/
Cole is an advocate of of ‘Vision driven Photography’ and promotes this approach at every opportunity. I’ve always found this elusive concept, but Cole has written an interesting blog post on the subject. See ‘How I Found My Vision’ - see https://colethompsonphotography.com/2014/05/09/finding-vision/
One of the steps Cole suggests to help us find our own personal vision is to select a number of our very favourite images from our back catalogue and then, Cole argues, these will in effect reflect our own Vision. The blog post explains in more detail, but I invite you to have a go at this and show us your results at our next meeting. This could generate an interesting discussion.
Our Portfolio session this month produces some imaginative images (Gerry’s bombing raid and Paul’s boat) and some images of the highest quality. Excellent. I feel sure that HPS is producing work that is certainly up to the standard of the big exhibitions. Something to aim for.
Our next meeting will be on 22nd April. I don't have any speakers lined up at the moment, so please step forward.
We had two speakers:
Brian took us through a selection of the award winners from the International Garden Photographer of the Year competition (IGPOTY). I think we were surprised by the number of categories offered, not all of them having an obvious link to gardens. Our feeling was that the organisers have increased the categories to boost the number of entries. We had doubts about some of the winners, particularly in Abstract for example, but that said, there were some beautiful images on show and well worth reviewing again here - https://igpoty.com/garden-photography-winners/.
Well done Brian for your Finalist Award in the 'Discovery in Cambridge University Botanic Garden' category.
I then showed the work of an American photographer, Cole Thompson. Cole is self taught and claims his qualifications are his images. We looked particularly at his ‘eye and vision’ gallery which showed examples of images before and after post processing. This was Jackie’s suggestion (good idea) and generated lots of discussion. Cole converts all his images into black and white, and uses just a few Photoshop tools to significantly alter the brightness and contrast of selective parts of the images. See here - https://colethompsonphotography.com/home/eye-vs-vision/. Take a look also at the ‘Story behind the images' gallery, where Cole gives an audio description of the story behind a number of his images - see https://colethompsonphotography.com/story-behind-the-image/
Cole is an advocate of of ‘Vision driven Photography’ and promotes this approach at every opportunity. I’ve always found this elusive concept, but Cole has written an interesting blog post on the subject. See ‘How I Found My Vision’ - see https://colethompsonphotography.com/2014/05/09/finding-vision/
One of the steps Cole suggests to help us find our own personal vision is to select a number of our very favourite images from our back catalogue and then, Cole argues, these will in effect reflect our own Vision. The blog post explains in more detail, but I invite you to have a go at this and show us your results at our next meeting. This could generate an interesting discussion.
Our Portfolio session this month produces some imaginative images (Gerry’s bombing raid and Paul’s boat) and some images of the highest quality. Excellent. I feel sure that HPS is producing work that is certainly up to the standard of the big exhibitions. Something to aim for.
Our next meeting will be on 22nd April. I don't have any speakers lined up at the moment, so please step forward.
