Another interesting and varied ESIG last week I thought. I’ve made a few notes below on who spoke and what we covered. I’ve also forwarded an email from Bruce Percy, who all landscapers will know as one of the best landscaper photographers around at the moment. I include it because it’s interesting, and contains some excellent photos, but also because he refers to previsualisation and also the being ‘in the present’, which is linked to Mindfulness. We covered both these on Tuesday.
So as a reminder here’s what we covered:
As part of my introduction I mentioned that the RPS are running a number of talks/interviews with well know photographers, they are free and the recordings can be found here. Well worth viewing. https://rps.org/qualifications/arps/catch-up-for-live-talks/
Peter Whitehead gave a little presentation about previsualisation and used this as a starter to exploring the subject. It’s a difficult one to get to grips with, but is being written and talked about a lot at the moment. Peter distinguished between previsualisation at the taking stage and in post processing. The group as a whole were a bit divided. We came down in the end to saying it’s all about clarity of purpose, intent. Good discussion, we should have more like this.
Vaughn followed on with some shots taken of a Tiger Moth air display. Vaughn wasn’t expecting to see an air display when he set out but was delighted to find it taking place. There were lovely images of close up and formation flying, and some of the pilots and engineers to give some human interest. Vaughn declared that none of the images were taken with any form of previsualsation!
Peter Wilson gave us an interesting overview of one of his current projects, which is being the ‘in house’ photographer for the Wheathampstead Players theatre group. Peter had take over this role a year or so back and produces images for each production. The images are used in the programmes, for promotional posters, publicity and for members of the cast to keep. It has been a steep learning curve, but in Peter's usual way, he has mastered the technicalities and produced some excellent work.
Brian gave us an in depth review of phone photography and the capabilities of his latest iPhone and the software he uses to manage and process his images. Brian uses Lightroom for mobiles, and uploads the images to the cloud from the phone and then downloads selectively images to his computer.
Zoë is a new member of ESIG and wanted to share some of her photos to get our reactions. I though some of them really stood out and, with hindsight, I wish we had paused to study them more closely. Zoë mentioned Mindfullness photography and referred to a workshop she had attended with Paul Sanders, who happens to be our first speaker of the new season in September. It’s interesting that Bruce Percy alludes to Mindfullness in his email copied below.
Malcolm showed us the reworking of some safari images he has made following a workshop with Tom Way. Tom had demonstrated a technique of converting to mono using Nik filters and a preset Antique Plate ii (query check this). The results were striking and certainly transformed the image from the original colour.
Gerry’s time was cut short so will be first up at the next meeting, but there was time to show one image taken that morning. This was an 18 image stitched photo of the International Space Station (ISS) passing across the sun. Gerry explained he’d uses transit-finder.com to determine when a transit was occurring, a sturdy tripod and a Herschel filter over the lens (essential). The ISS takes only 0.75secs to cover the sun, so the camera was set to video and ran from before to after the transit. An impressive photo. Well done Gerry.
So as a reminder here’s what we covered:
As part of my introduction I mentioned that the RPS are running a number of talks/interviews with well know photographers, they are free and the recordings can be found here. Well worth viewing. https://rps.org/qualifications/arps/catch-up-for-live-talks/
Peter Whitehead gave a little presentation about previsualisation and used this as a starter to exploring the subject. It’s a difficult one to get to grips with, but is being written and talked about a lot at the moment. Peter distinguished between previsualisation at the taking stage and in post processing. The group as a whole were a bit divided. We came down in the end to saying it’s all about clarity of purpose, intent. Good discussion, we should have more like this.
Vaughn followed on with some shots taken of a Tiger Moth air display. Vaughn wasn’t expecting to see an air display when he set out but was delighted to find it taking place. There were lovely images of close up and formation flying, and some of the pilots and engineers to give some human interest. Vaughn declared that none of the images were taken with any form of previsualsation!
Peter Wilson gave us an interesting overview of one of his current projects, which is being the ‘in house’ photographer for the Wheathampstead Players theatre group. Peter had take over this role a year or so back and produces images for each production. The images are used in the programmes, for promotional posters, publicity and for members of the cast to keep. It has been a steep learning curve, but in Peter's usual way, he has mastered the technicalities and produced some excellent work.
Brian gave us an in depth review of phone photography and the capabilities of his latest iPhone and the software he uses to manage and process his images. Brian uses Lightroom for mobiles, and uploads the images to the cloud from the phone and then downloads selectively images to his computer.
Zoë is a new member of ESIG and wanted to share some of her photos to get our reactions. I though some of them really stood out and, with hindsight, I wish we had paused to study them more closely. Zoë mentioned Mindfullness photography and referred to a workshop she had attended with Paul Sanders, who happens to be our first speaker of the new season in September. It’s interesting that Bruce Percy alludes to Mindfullness in his email copied below.
Malcolm showed us the reworking of some safari images he has made following a workshop with Tom Way. Tom had demonstrated a technique of converting to mono using Nik filters and a preset Antique Plate ii (query check this). The results were striking and certainly transformed the image from the original colour.
Gerry’s time was cut short so will be first up at the next meeting, but there was time to show one image taken that morning. This was an 18 image stitched photo of the International Space Station (ISS) passing across the sun. Gerry explained he’d uses transit-finder.com to determine when a transit was occurring, a sturdy tripod and a Herschel filter over the lens (essential). The ISS takes only 0.75secs to cover the sun, so the camera was set to video and ran from before to after the transit. An impressive photo. Well done Gerry.
