Contrasting views

If you were at last nights talk by Andy Beel you may of just noticed a smile appear on my face when just after he started talking he made a massive sweeping statement that nearly made me shout “YES”!.

“With digital it’s not just what you do in the camera.

What you do with the file afterwards is just as, if not more important!”

 

I should imagine that quite a few of you that used to shoot film probably turned off at that point and got all nostalgic about how digital isn’t really photography and there isn’t any skill to it anymore. I’m sorry I just don’t agree with you. Well kind of. Digital photography is a totally different skill set to film photography. But then again it all depends on how you take your pictures. If you shoot JPG and only do a little or no editing on the computer afterwards then you’ll find that it’s more like traditional film photography where you need to get as much, if not all of it right in the camera. Whereas if you shoot in raw then I believe you should be aiming to purposely shoot for a fairly flat image that retains as much detail across the whole of the picture from the darkest shadow to the whitest white. Because your going to edit it on your computer. You are going to choose where the brightest highlights and the deepest, darkest blacks are going to be. Everything in that image is yours to do with as you will. Which is obviously a totally different way of seeing photography. Which is better? I can’t answer that but I know which is best for me. If you haven’t figured out which you prefer yet then just give both ways a go. Experiment & see just how long it takes you to get bored sat in front of the computer. If it’s only a few minutes then maybe you need to re evaluate the way you take your images and go back to shooting JPG. There’s no shame in that. It’s only stuck up self righteous buffoons (there’s a good word I haven’t seen used in ages) that will tell you otherwise.

 

Oh yeah I was talking about Andy wasn’t I. Sorry I get distracted easi………

 

Andy talked quite a bit about curves and custom curves so I thought I would give you a couple of links. That way if you wanted to you could have a bit of a read about them. If you want to discover more about Custom Curves or just find out some background on Curves you can follow either of those links. Yes they both use Lightroom to demonstrate it but you can replicate it in virtually any piece of editing software that has curves.

Andy Beel

This week see’s Andy Beel presenting a talk entitled “Marvellous Monochrome”

Marvellous Monochrome is a talk that has inspired black and white photographers around the country. This interactive print talk gives the audience the benefit of asking questions as the work is presented and understanding the working practice of a successful monochrome photographer.  Andy Beel FRPS is a Fotospeed sponsored lecturer and Workshop Leader.

Everything was going really well, until the splash….

We started the day at Woodchester Mansion which is an unfinished Gothic style mansion. A great place inside and some wonderful grounds to walk around and take pictures. The front of the mansion is mostly complete but unfortunately they seemed to think that the addition of a huge, white, 30 foot long marquee outside the entrance would be a good idea. That kind of ruined the chances of getting any good shots of the house as the back was covered in scaffolding and you could see the marquee from the side of the house as well. Cloning things out from between tree branches isn’t my idea of fun so I quickly dismissed even taking a shot.

I had a nice long walk around the Orange route with Rich as we were going to find the boathouse and see if we could get a decent shot or two of it. As we were walking down from the house we bumped into Christine and found that her day wasn’t going to well. She’d removed the SD card from her camera the night before for some reason and had forgotten to replace it. So no pictures for her and a totally wasted trip out. As we continued on the Orange route we kind of missed a turn when a couple of cows decided to object to our presence. Which led to us taking a two mile round trip around a couple of lakes instead of only having to walk about 500 yards from the house to the boathouse! Next time I’m definitely bringing a jar of mustard to threaten the cows with.

When we got back to the mansion to our dismay the tea room had already shut and we were forced to endure a dry wait for the minibus to take us back up to the car park. The less said about that journey the better if only for the fact I want to forget that at one point the van was leaning over at 45 degrees when the driver had to reverse and went up on the bank. When we got up to the car park we found Myk & Angi waiting for us. It seemed that everyone else had decided to call it a day and gone home. We were also treated to a great display from the local Glider club as the flight path in to land went directly above the car park.

We all headed, literally across the road to the car park at Coaley Peak, which is a popular hang gliding spot. After capturing a few shots of the sunset we moved up to a more secluded part of the picnic area to do a little bit of light painting. That went really well but it seems we won’t be buying our wire wool at B&Q again as it lasted all of about 10 seconds once it was lit. After a little bit of discussion we decided to head through Dursley, via a fantastic fish & chip shop, to Purton Hulks. Where the plan was to go and do some light painting down amongst the decaying hulls of the boats. We arrived and promptly set off down the towpath to find a suitable spot. Stopping at one of the Hulks we set up and had a bit of fun with lasers, sparklers and various kid’s toys! If you’ve had a go at light painting before you know what I mean. We moved on again to another hulk and created some images  there. Then we had a great idea. Lets go back to the car park and spin some orbs & wool spin off the bridge over the canal! Great, what could possibly go wrong? So we start to set up and Angi decides to go down the tow path a little and try a different angle towards the bridge. She spots some steps going down to what, in the moonlight, looks like a solid piece of concrete. Unfortunately it was just algae covered water! Splash in she went, camera, tripod and mobile phone. Right up to her neck! Now on the bridge Rich was heard to say, bloody hell Angi you’ve scared the birds and spoilt the reflections! Myk jokingly said “It’s only Angie falling in”. Then we heard a HELP! And it was “Oh shit she has!”. Rich & Myk helped her out and I got my camera (I can’t see anything wrong with my priorities). As you can see from the picture she tried to take half the canal home in her shoe.

Practical Night

The practical night last night seemed to be a success. After splitting into two groups (outdoor and indoor) we set about demonstrating some light painting techniques. Light painting has been done for many years even before the digital age but it is now being taken to the next level with some fantastic images being created.Last night was about showing what fun it can be and how it can add a whole new dimension to taking pictures. Not only did members get a privileged glimpse at some of the tools used to create shapes such as orbs, domes, double domes and other effects, but also participate in creating images.Whether you were outside spinning wire wool or indoors making a man-o-fire, everyone seemed to enjoy it.

 

The priceless thing for me was after spinning the first orb, the first time the image appears on the back of the camera and you hear a “Wow” from nearly everyone. Great.

This was written by Richard Price but he had a bit of trouble posting it.
I’d like to add a great big thank you to Richard Price, Kevin Spiers, Myk Garton and everyone else who helped set this fantastic evening up. I was gutted to miss it but I’m really glad it was such a success. If I missed you off the names that helped I’m sorry and if you really want me to add you to it just let me know.