Pictures on Permajet - Tuesday 17th March 09
By Irene Froy, FRPS, EFIAP, MPAGB , HonPAGB, BPE4*
Irene described herself as a pictorial photographer, with a leaning towards landscape, but with an interest in all types of photography. She lectures throughout the country and enjoys exhibiting in, and judging, National and International Exhibitions. She is sponsored by Permajet and not surprisingly prints exclusively on the range of art papers they provide. A photographer since her school-days, she has always supported her local photographic club, be it in Dundee, East Anglia (where she was President of the East Anglia Federation), or Telford where she and husband Gerry now live.
Irene began with prints recorded in the Tulip fields of Holland and raised the first question a photographer faces. Do you record the overall scene (with a wide angle lens) or zoom in on an individual flower. Not surprisingly she did both. We learnt that they only allow the tulips four days of growth before they are decapitated to preserve the goodness in the bulbs. We were interested to see the same fields before the flowering, at full flowering, and again following the decapitation! And the use of the rain on the windscreen as a blur filter on such scenes was an eye-opener to many of us.
As she went through her images it was clear that artistic expression was uppermost in Irene’s mind as she produced an image. The single Tulip shown had been through several processes to produce the emotional appeal she wished from the flower. Motion blur and the use of Layer masks were prominent tools employed by Irene to get the final result.
Looking out onto the North Sea they saw a sailing boat race in progress, and Irene showed several prints of images taken then. A slightly blurred impressionistic yacht on a sea of blue captured the audience’s imagination, as did a later textured shot of a wall with steps.
Irene expressed a fondness for blues, and shadows, and simple shapes. She believed in the mantra “Keep it Simple”, but was not averse to digital manipulation to produce the desired effect. If necessary she would import a bottom half to complement a different top half.
Irene kept her audience enthralled throughout her talk.
In his Vote of Thanks Brian Bower noted that it was the easiest he had ever had to give. He nowadays appreciated her restriction that the image should be within 100 metres of the car. It had been a very special lecture which had given us lots of ideas to try. And it had all been done with the assistance of a husband, but without the help of a Leica camera!