Blog archive - April 2009
29 April, by Joyce Streets. (Meeting and event reports & Interclub competition results)
Romiley Photoshow 2009
Gordon, Joyce, Dorothy, Tony, Alan, Jackie, Dave Billington and myself attended the Romiley Photoshow event, on Thursday 23rd April - this being the Print competition. Romiley members were very welcoming with the audience made up mainly from members of the 7 clubs taking part in the competition.
The L&CPU President – Norman Thompson DPAGB LBIPP - opened the show – he was also the judge for the evening. Some very good prints had been entered and Norman (as all judges do now) pointed out he would be giving his own personal opinions on each entry – which of course may differ from other judges. We were about to witness this difference when it came to the marking of North Cheshire prints. At the end of the evening the results were disappointing for us - we came joint 5th with Hyde PS – 74 points. The winning club was Bramhall with 80 points.
However it was a good evening and as always great to see the different images entered by other photographers.
On Friday 24th ten clubs entered the Digital Image competition – David, Linda and myself were there to wave the flag for North Cheshire. Norman Piper was the judge who took quite some time talking about the images and made some useful comments – there was quite a range of images - some monochrome some manipulated some landscapes and of course natural history. After coffee break he then quickly went through the images again and gave the scores – ranging from 13 to the one 20. Oldham won the competition with 82 points whilst North Cheshire and Stockport came joint 2nd with 81 points. A big improvement on the previous evening.
This is the last external competition for this season – it’s been an interesting experience attending the competitions as they are quite social events where old friends and acquaintances catch up with each other but also its great to see the many images caught by other photographers, also the results of new techniques used in Photoshop. So I would definitely encourage others to go along and see for themselves.
28 April, by Roger Dye. (Meeting and event reports)
Correction - Digital Workshop 7 April 09
The plug-in described by Roger was PTLens.
22 April.
New download available
This is an extended version of a tutorial originally supplied by Jon Allanson early in January. It now includes extra sections: "High Key type effects"; "Soft Focus Light Images (Irene Froy style)"; "To make more dramatic skies".
- "Selective Contrast Enhancement and other Photoshop Tips" (PDF tutorial by Jon Allanson)
- Also available on the Downloads page.
20 April, by Richard Scaife. (Notices and news)
We have been asked to do the Poynton Show again this year
Poynton Show is on August bank holiday (Saturday 29th August 2009), as always, on Poynton Park (behind Poynton Pool on London Road North). This is always a good opportunity for some interesting photos as well as a good day out. As we are the Official Photographers again this year we will have even more opportunity as we have access inside the rings and access inside the marquees while judging is taking place, when the public are not allowed. We also have our own stand which we need to "man" throughout the day. It gives us very good publicity.
We do have to take some official photos such as prize givings, but you can also take pictures as you wish. If you have not done it before it can be quite a new experience. On my first time I was asked to cover the Shire horses and the small animals tent including the mice!
We always need more volunteers. If you are interested get in touch with me (Richard Scaife).
17 April, by Bill Chadband. (Meeting and event reports & Members' competition results)
3rd Print Competion 14th April 09
Colin Douglas ARPS AFIAP DPAGB BPE3* of St Helen’s Camera Club was our judge for this last general print competition of the session. With 9 Beginner and 71 Advanced Prints he knew he had his work cut out to finish on time and choose winners. He joked that he would deduct marks from all jokey titles he didn’t laugh at. Trevor Rogers, author of Snow Place like Home, immediately looked glum. However he cheered up again on being awarded best beginner print.
Melissa appeared several times (shades of Lola Lamour?) The first Melissa was displaced by the second, who, in turn, was displaced by the third. And this time From Dawn to Dusk did not fare at all well. But Tony R came out smiling. Was it really true that his winning print, “Waiting for Walkies” was initially a make weight? Did the judge take pity on the Dog? Or on Tony? We shall never know.
In the event Colin finished in good time for the crowd to crowd into the Farmer’s Arms, where I am assured it was not the least crowded. Graham Johnson, in his Vote of Thanks, noted that he had known Colin for many years and that they were fellow members of the RPS Creative Group. It had been an excellent competition and all credit to Colin for walking us through the diverse multitude of images and giving us his opinions of them.
16 April. (Awards and acceptances)
Weekly winner in the Times travel photo competition
Martin Currie: |
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15 April, by Bill Chadband. (Meeting and event reports)
Digital Workshop 7 April 09
This Workshop was conceived as one devoted to answering questions raised by members. In particular Barry Pearson was asked to explain the workings of the WEB site, and then to explain his method of putting “Frames within Frames” Geoff Robinson was asked to expand on the subject of Blending Modes, following his earlier tutorial involving adding new skies to images. Roger Dye was asked to address the topic of installing Plugins and to expand on the way Lightroom can be used by photographers.
Barry had copied the NCPS website over to the Shuttle for demonstration purposes, since we did not have direct access in the room to the WEB. He noted that we had one of the larger Photographic web sites with about 1500 pages, and including over 800 images. The Archive went back to 1984. The Blog (News etc) was the first place to visit for updated information. When items (more than a month old) fell out of the Blog they would be found under the other headings. If all else failed the A-Z & Search button could be used.
Tony Redford noted that the Web Site was perceived as a great credit to the Club and Barry should be thanked for the efforts he put in to maintain it so.
Barry then considered the Borders within Borders system. By putting a border within the image with the main subject overlapping the inner border one could often emphasize the subject, separating it from its background more effectively. Barry went on to demonstrate the steps he used and was asked to include these steps in a new PDF script on the WEB. He included a description of how he used Rim Lighting to emphasize his subject and discussed when these techniques might be most appropriate.
Geoff recapped on the various Blending Modes available and indicated which ones he found most useful. The modes all have different names: some, like Darken, Lighten, Multiply, are fairly intuitive: others like Screen, Colour Burn etc less so, though he found them useful. The modes all represent different ways in which corresponding pixels in the two (or more) layers can be blended. Obvious ways are to take the lighter, or the darker of the two corresponding pixels and use them in the final result. More complicated is to take the average value, or to multiply the two values together to get the final result. The complication which sets in is that each pixel has three numbers representing the intensities of the Red, Green, and Blue components; so that performing the above simple combinations can change the colour as well as the intensity. Because of this the use of the various blending modes is best learnt by experiment. Geoff demonstrated the various modes using a Prague scene and a close-up of rusty metal.
Roger spoke of the use and availability of Plug-ins in general, and then considered a plug-in he had purchased, LensDoc, which corrects distortions caused by Zoom, and Wideangle lenses. He demonstrated the ease with which the Adobe program Lightroom could modify images, and argued that newcomers might be better served by buying Lightroom and Photoshop Elements, rather than the more expensive later versions of Photoshop.
14 (& 15) April, by Barry Pearson. (Members' competition results)
Third Clubworker Print Competition results
These are the results of the Competition judged by Colin Douglas ARPS AFIAP DPAGB BPE3* on 14 April.
All entered work was judged.
Competition results
- Clubworker Competition 3 - Beginner / Intermediate Prints
- Clubworker Competition 3 - Advanced Prints
Best print in competition
Tony Redford - Waiting for Walkies |
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"Worker of the Year"
- Beginner / Intermediate Worker - Katie Garner
- Print Worker - Dorothy Redford
- Slide Worker - Phil Riley
- Club Worker - Alan Saunders
Seasonal statistics
Total number of prints judged: 220
Total number of slides judged: 35
Total number of PDIs judged: 287
Total Beginner/Intermediate workers: 6 (including 1 transferring to "Advanced" mid-season)
Total Advanced workers: 26 (including 1 transferring from "Beginner/Intermediate" mid-season)
Total workers of both classes: 31
Number of people submitting various combinations of types of work:
| Just these | Just these & prints | Just these & slides | Just these & PDIs | All three types | Total | |
Prints: |
2 |
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1 |
19 |
2 |
24 |
Slides: |
1 |
1 |
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0 |
2 |
4 |
PDIs: |
6 |
19 |
0 |
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2 |
27 |
8 April. (Awards and acceptances)
2nd German Open Circuit 2009
This Circuit comprises 4 salons: 1st Teck Open; 2nd Penzberg Open; 2nd Kirchheim Open; and 2nd Filder Open.
AwardsMartin Currie: |
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Acceptances(The number of accepting salons is given). Martin Currie: |
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7 April, by Barry Pearson. (Notices and news)
Petition to clarify law on photographing police officers
The Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights recently observed:
We therefore recommend that, to eliminate any scope for doubt about the scope of the new offence in section 76 of the Counter Terrorism Act 2008, guidance be issued to the police about the scope of the offence in light of the decision of the Court of Appeal, and specifically addressing concerns about its improper use to prevent photographing or filming police.
There is an E-Petition at Number10.gov.uk which says:
On the 16th of February, the Government passed a law (in the Counter Terrorism Act) making it illegal to take a photograph of a police office, military personnel or member of the intelligence services - or a photograph which "may be of use for terrorism". This definition is vague at best, and open to interpretation by the police - who under Home Secretary guidelines can "restrict photography in public places". We call for these vague restrictions to be lifted, as they can easily be mis-used by the police.
There is much more at the full article ....
6 April. (Awards and acceptances)
25° Concorso Fotografico Internazionale della Repubblica di San Marino
"Turismo nel mondo"
- ASFA, Associazione Sammarinese Foto Amatori
- FIAP: International Federation of Photographic Art | FIAP Patronage Service | FIAP Patronage 2008
AcceptancesMartin Currie: |
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5 April, by Bill Chadband. (Notices and news)
Do You Keep your FOCUS, or Bin it?
Originally, FOCUS was the main means of communication. In recent years the articles have appeared on the WEB soon after they are written. Members who regularly consult the WEB, and who do not keep FOCUS as a ready reference of, for example, competition results, may find the printed version superfluous to them. In which case, if they so inform the editor, they can be removed from the circulation list, saving paper and effort. Please let the editor know if you wish to save paper in this way!!
4 April, by Bill Chadband. (Meeting and event reports)
Producing AV Sequences
On the 31 March Martin Currie demonstrated how, with the aid of the program Pictures-to-Exe, a photographer could produce a variety of delightful sequences with patience and with artistic flair, but without having to have a deep programming knowledge.
Martin began by showing a variety of P2E sequences illustrating the possibilities of the program. The images he used had not been taken with P2E in mind; rather, he disarmingly suggested, they were simply Snaps with Sound. He began with images taken at the Poynton show and followed this with a contrasting Black and White and Grainy Sheepdog trial sequence. A sequence looking at Dunstanburgh Castle from various positions preceded a startling 1 second sequence of a bird diving down to earth from on high. Images of China illustrated moving images with people sliding in and out of the frame. A sequence which began with reflections in water and then turned to Flamingos both flying and still was accompanied by Guitar music from Julian Bream. Piano music accompanied images from around Poynton Pool; to be followed by Martin at his most artistic with surreal images, often blurred, accompanied by piano Music by Chopin. In response to questions Martin thought that a 70-200mm zoom lens with vibration reduction was a favourite. An exposure of about 1/60th second often softened his image nicely.
Turning to the P2E program Martin noted that, once you had bought the program, upgrades were free. (The latest version was P2E deluxe 5.6) He had found Barry Beckham tutorials helpful in getting started. He reduced his jpeg images to 1600x1200 to suit his monitor (using compression level 6 to reduce file size). The P2E5 program automatically scaled the images to suit the projector. One can place any object (images, text labels with drop shadows etc) on a slide and customize complex animation. A great range of transition effects between slides (including 3D effects) is possible and one can add background music, sound and text comments to a slide. One can synchronize slideshows to music. A slideshow in EXE format can be played on any computer under Windows XP, Vista, 2000 without the need of any other program (not even P2E itself).
Martin used the free program “Audacity” to arrange his music. He demonstrated how one would alter the length, add silence, fade in and fade out, and combine tracks to produce the effects he desired. The P2E program would show the music waveforms alongside the time line to allow synchronization.
In his Vote of Thanks Frank Hutchinson noted the superb quality of the presentation from start to finish; and he had loved the music. Martin had been generous in sharing his expertise with us. The spontaneous applause from the audience reinforced Frank’s comments.
3 April. (Awards and acceptances)
27th Rushden Open Photographic Exhibition - 2009
AwardsGeoff Robinson: |
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AcceptancesJon Allanson: |
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Geoff Robinson: |
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2 April by John Garner.
New download available
After a recent digital workshop I was asked how to take images for HDR with a Canon 40D. I haven't had a a try yet myself but I have checked it out. Having done the research I thought it may be worth including on the Website notes. I attach my findings. Also, the Adobe Web site has instruction on using Photoshop which newer members may not know about.
- HDR (High Dynamic Range) with Canon EOS 40D (PDF by John Garner).
- Also available on the Downloads page.
1 April, by Tony Redford. (Notices and news)
Keswick Update
I've just had a call from Jack Bamford who reports that he has now secured the services of a judge for the Anglo-Scottish battle in November.
Jack has been organising this event for many years and has managed to find a top judge, with a personality to match this special event, year in and year out.
For the first time we are to be enlightened and entertained this year by a lady judge, no less than Karen Storr. Those unfamiliar with the name may wish to type it into Google, which comes up with a whole series of interesting links. Alternatively visit Karen's own website.
Please be sure to add your name to the list for Derwentwater reservations which is now circulating on club nights, or contact me direct.
| News and blog archives | March 2009 | ||