Tonight the club welcomed Keith Hildreth, who is the chairman of the Nature Group of The Tynemouth Photographic Society who was our first guest speaker of the year.
Keith is a very experienced wildlife photographer with a deep love of the countryside, its flora and fauna and the landscape itself. The theme of Keith's presentation was a view of a year through the lens of his camera. Using a rich and varied selection of images, he lead us through the seasons from early spring to late winter illustrated with the animals, insects, plants and landscapes he loves which was so clearly demonstrated by the quality of the images and the care, patience and knowledge required to photograph each individual subject. Not content with merely sharing his images, he engaged with his audience, explaining the methodology, techniques and tricks he employed to capture the images he wanted, whilst at the same time inviting questions and comments. A measure of the success of Keith's presentation and his infectious enthusiasm for his chosen field of photography was that before anyone realised, it was nine o-clock and time to draw the meeting to a close and allow the community centre to close and lock up. This was a most enjoyable and well received talk and well as educational, not only in relation to developing photographic skills, but also a rare insight into the beauty that surrounds us and so often goes unseen. Tonight was the club's annual general meeting which started with the election of club officials. Alan Thompson was proposed and elected as Chairman, Gordon Coull as Club Treasurer and Tony Stevens as Secretary.
Alan then gave his Chairman's report covering his first full year as Club Chairman. In it he outlined the strengths of the club, which although small, or perhaps because of its small size was able to maintain a friendly, informal easy going culture which was reinforced as he reiterated the clubs involvement in various different forms of photography over the last year including macro, time-lapse, astronomical, long exposure, flash and portrait photography. He talked about the success of the clubs first weekend trip away in May 2013 when the destination was Killin on the shores of Loch Tay in Scotland and looked forward to the up and coming weekend trip to Caernarfon in Wales. Although disappointed by our missing out on the Puffin Run last year (thanks to filming by the British Broadcasting Corporation) he looked forward to this year’s visit to the Farne Islands as arranged by Dave Brennan and a further chance to photograph the beautiful birds of prey of Andy Howey and his staff. He finished by adding that we had seen a modest rise in club membership possessing a wide range of skills and abilities and looked forward to the club going from strength to strength. Gordon submitted the Club Accounts for 1013/2014 for apporoval which remain healthily in the black despite the purchase of a new projector, printing and mounts for exhibitions, trophies and memory sticks. It was proposed and accepted that membership fees would remain unchanged following last year’s slight increase. The theme of this evenings meeting was the use of flash in photography lead by Alan Thompson.
To begin with, he quickly skipped though the various aspects of this particular photographic tool, namely: - Manual flash, TTL (Through The Lens) flash, Direct flash, Bounce flash, Fill flash, Flash Compensation, High speed flash, Stroboscopic/Repeating flash, On-camera flash, Off-camera flash, Soft light, Hard light, Double Exposures, Umbrellas, Softboxes, Beauty Dish, Snood, Grid, Flags, Lighting Ratios, Butterfly lighting, Loop lighting, Broad lighting, Short lighting, Rembrandt lighting, Low Key lighting, High Key lighting, Creative Lighting System (CLS), Advanced Wireless Lighting (AWL), Commander Mode, Master, Slave, FV Lock, Inverse Square Law, Guide Numbers, Continuous light, Instantaneous light, X-Sync Speed, Diffusion Domes, Light Modifiers, Reflectors, Light meter, Incident light, Reflected light, Optical trigger, Infrared trigger, Wireless trigger, Modelling light, AF Assist Illumination, Slow Sync, Rear Curtain Sync, Key light, Back light, Fill light, Strobist, plus a zillion other things he didn’t know about, care about or remember... Once everyone had picked themselves off the floor, he demonstrated that flash photography was easy and entailed just sticking your camera in one of the auto modes and letting it decide when you need a flash and how much additional light is required. He added that you’d get a perfect shot every time and so ended the talk on flash photography, or did it? Alan then covered the basic advantages and disadvantaged of the use of a camera’s built in flash, external flash, off-camera flash, TTL and manual flash exposure, off-camera verses on-camera flash and what camera mode is the best to use for various situations. To accompany this, he provided clear examples of what to do and what not to do, to get the best results from the use of flash. This lead to a general discussion covering the use of light sources in other aspects of photography as well as flash, including natural light, diffused light, studio lighting etc. Alan’s interest in this field of photography was infectious and progressed naturally to the planning of a full day at a fully equipped photographic studio in Newcastle planned for later this year. There was however one wee drawback to the evening. Whilst we discussed artificial lighting, Mother Nature was proving once again that she was true light artist by giving the greatest display of the Aurora Borealis we have witnessed for many years. Anyone who knows Dave BRENNAN will be aware of his wealth of skill and experience as a photographer and his ability to produce superb images.
For tonight’s meeting, Dave volunteered to share some of the secrets of his success with a talk on this processing tool of choice, Adobe Lightroom. This was despite his suffering from a particularly bad bout of Influenza Gentlemanus. He began by outlining what Lightroom was, an editing software program that gives the ability to download, organize and catalogue a lot of images ,especially files in one of the various RAW formats specific to various manufacturers, Canon, Nikon, Pentax etc. Taking the path of natural of progression, Dave started at the very beginning, which was a very good place to start, and demonstrated his favoured method of using Lightroom’s library mode to import and organise his files. He then moved onto the development module in which he demonstrated the use of the tools that enable its use as his RAW manipulation tools of choice. In addition he explained the use of specialized tools for cropping, spot removal, lens correction, noise reduction, an adjustment brush for masking exposure, contrast, saturation and a variety of other controls. This included an explanation of the ability of the program to manipulate the use of the histogram to ensure perfect exposure, highlights, whites, blacks and shadows and how the understanding of the histogram can help ensure the successful development of an image. He also included an overview of the use of the history and snapshot options allowing the user to return to any point in the development process should he or she so wish. Finally he moved on to the export and printing which lead in to a group discussion about achieving the correct representation of colours during the printing process via screen calibration. Throughout, he encouraged other members to contribute to the evening by sharing their own hints, tips and methods of choice with the group. The talk was pitched at the perfect level, enabling everyone, whether a novice or experienced user to gain some benefit from his knowledge and expertise in the subject. Tonight was the first meeting in 2014 and an opportunity for the club members to discuss Metering Mode and the scenarios when the photographer has to adjust the way the camera measures the light in a particular scene or situation in order to capture the best image.
However before Alan kicked off the discussion, he was able to welcome a number of potential new members to the club. Further good news followed with confirmation that Dave Brennan has been able to secure the hire of a boat for this year’s Puffin Run on the 21st June. The Puffin Run has in the past proved to be one of the most popular events of the club year, involving a trip to Inner Farne and Staple Island when the islands become a riot of seabirds raising and feeding their chicks. These include the iconic Puffins, the aggressively protective Arctic Terns and not forgetting Guillemots, Cormorants, Shags, Fulmars, Razor Bills, the list is endless. The cost will be a mere £40.00 per person for what promises to be a fantastic opportunity to home your skills in photographing wildlife. In addition the date of the visit to Caernarvon and Snowdonia was confirmed as from Thursday 8th May for three nights until Sunday 11th. Accommodation for the trip will cost £116.00 per person plus an additional £25.00 to include the three breakfasts. Then onto metering. Alan opened, explaining how knowing how metering works and what each of the metering modes does is important in photography, because it helps photographers control their exposure with minimum effort and take better pictures in unusual lighting situations. The first mode discussed was evaluative which works by dividing the frame into multiple zones, which are then all analyzed on individual basis for light and dark tones. One of the key factors that affects matrix metering, is where the camera focus point is set to. After reading information from all individual zones, the metering system looks at where you focused within the frame and marks it more important than all other zones. There are many other variables used in the equation, which differ from manufacturer to manufacturer. Nikon, for example, also compares image data to a database of thousands of pictures for exposure calculation. Next was center-weighted metering which evaluates the light in the middle of the frame and its surroundings and ignores the corners. Compared to matrix metering, center-weighted metering does not look at the focus point you select and only evaluates the middle area of the image. Finally was spot metering which only evaluates the light around the focus point and ignores everything else, evaluating a single zone and calculating exposure based on that single area, nothing else Alan the injected into the discussion the fundamental flaw in that all in-camera light meters in that they can only measure reflected light. This means the best they can do is guess how much light is actually hitting the subject rather than accurately measuring the incident light. The group then discussed their views on the various metering modes available on most modern cameras, outlining their particular favoured methods when using evaluative, centre weighted and spot metering and how they compensate for the camera’s failing with the use of exposure compensation, hand held light meters and camera presets. As Christmas approached, we decided to go ‘Off-Piste’ and this year’s Yuletide meeting was held at The Willow Farm gaststro-pub for a meal, a drink and night of total relaxation. No presentations, no minutes taken, no attempts to sort the buttons and deutschmarks from the subscription payments.
A fantastic end to a great and successful year. This being the last meeting of 2013, it seemed only right that tonight’s agenda should start with a short review of the year. This started with a presentation of a compilation of image taken by members at the Blue Flames firework display in November followed by an AV presentation by Alan Thompson of the trip to Scotland using images and time lapse videos taken during the three day trip by Alan, Garvin, Dan, Craig and Dave. This lead naturally to plans for a similar event in 2014 when it is hoped for a four day visit to Caernarvon in May. Finally there was the opportunity for members to share 5 images they’d taken that had special meaning to them. Dan showed us samples of his favourite subject, birds (of the flying variety) although an aeroplane flying over Big Water did manage to sneak in, together with a view of River Tyne at Newcastle and a macro study of a flower. Tony showed a series of firsts, his first ever attempt at a ‘proper’ photograph, the subject being his brother taken in 1965 (ish), his first long exposure, his first night trails his first ever published photograph, an image of a razorbill from the Evening Chronicle and the first photograph ever to gain a place in a competition, albeit third The Church Of St Nectan. Finally Dave treated us to five if his most iconic imaged including the inspiration for the Puffin Runs, his illuminated glass chess pieces, the Tyne Bridges at night, a robin at take-off and a wonderful portrait of the man who inspired him to take photography seriously. Another full evening, starting with the news that our table has been booked for the Club Christmas dinner on our last club evening of 2013 at the Willow Tree Inn.
That and a few other details out of the way, it was time to move on to the subject of tonight’s meeting, namely black and white photography. Each member was invited to submit and showcase a selection of their monochrome images in order to explore this field of photography, its merits and limitations and the challenges it presents. Alan Thompson opened the proceedings with a photograph of the 0-4-0ST Tank Locomotive Sir Cecil A Cochrane now preserved at Tanfield Railway which beautifully demonstrated how the use of monochrome can place a subject in its proper place in time. He then presented us with a stunning yet informal family portrait incorporating Tynemouth Priory before moving on to an upturned boat hut on the Holy Island of Lindisfarne, again demonstrating the power and impact the careful use of this style of photography can portray. Dave Brennan followed with a demonstration of his skills in this area, presenting a varied collection of his work incorporating studio work using his ever patient daughter as a model, a fly past by a Lancaster bomber, street portraits and studies and a selection of urban landscapes. Each image was discussed in detail, with Dave sharing his thoughts on why each image benefitted from it's lack of colour. Next was Derek Rootham who took us on a tour of Newcastle from Scotswood to the Quayside evoking images of the past with his sepia tinted photographs. This journey included the bridges over the Tyne, to long forgotten remains of its industrial past, through to the old and sometimes ancient bars and waterfront buildings surrounding this once bustling port. John Redpath then again demonstrated his ability to get the shot most people miss with his trademark use of very low points of view combined with his mastery textures and exposure, this time of a view from Hadrian’s Wall west towards Cawfield Quarry skilfully rendered in black and white. Finally, Tony Stevens gave his take on the use of monochrome by using the removal of colour from selected areas of a photograph to either highlight a subject or create a comic effect, and on to how he preferred the use of monochrome to created dreamscapes using an array ND filters to extend exposure time. Throughout the evening, everyone was able to comment on the images shown, giving or seeking advice and suggesting ideas that would allow the subject to be taken that little bit further. The night ended with a discussion on Dave Brennan and Alan Thompson’s offer to arrange a days use of a fully kitted and equipped studio for use by the group. A subject to be discussed in more detail at a later date as time again ran out tonight. The main subject of tonight’s agenda was a group discussion on the subject of night photography.
However before Alan opened the debate, there was a review of the previous Sunday’s outing to Andy Howey’s Birds of Prey Centre and the visit to the Blue Flames firework display on the 5th of November. Every one present who had attended agreed that the visit to the birds of prey centre had been an unqualified success and, although high winds had prevented Andy from safely flying his birds, this had not prevented members from capturing some fantastic images both at the centre and later at Roughting Linn. This success was thanks in no small part to the hard work and effort Andy and Juanetta who showed their understanding of the needs of photographers and worked tirelessly to ensure that everyone had the opportunity to work with the birds and get the shots they wanted. Again, everyone who had attended the firework display gave the event big thumbs up having enjoyed the challenge that shooting pyrotechnics presented. There followed a brief and informal presentation of the results of these visits. On to the main subject of the night’s meeting, night photography. This discussion was lead by Alan who introduced the subject and highlighted bullet points to stimulate discussions amongst the members. He began with the basics, such as dressing appropriately, knowing your location (including the use of an ephemeris and knowing tide tables) , carrying a torch, protection for the camera etc, The group discussion then progressed through to subjects covering focusing in the dark, lens choice, ISO, shutter speeds, exposure. Everyone had their own views, opinions and preferences for getting the best from a night shoot, ideas that were discussed at some length and shared with the group. As the evening drew to a close, Alan gave a short presentation to demonstrate his skills and his passion for night- time street photography. This consisted of a montage of images captured in and around Newcastle upon Tyne including the Tyne Bridge and Quayside, light trails at the busy Swan House Roundabout and a festive collection of images enhanced by light painting. A busy and stimulating evening that drew to an end all too soon. Next meeting? : - "Get it right with Black & White" - members are invited to showcase and discuss some of their best monochrome images. |
Archives
October 2015
Categories |