FOCALPOINT September 2012 by Christopher Sammut

FOCALPOINT The Official MIPP Newsletter

September 2012

in this issue

featuring Duncan Cauchi and much more.....

www.mipp-malta.com

Issue No. 22

Dear Readers, Hope you are all well. Here we are again writing up the September issue of the Focal Point. Believe it or not, we will soon be celebrating two years from the birth of this newsletter, where we strive and do our best in keeping you constantly updated about the world of photography, and of course, the MIPP. Ever wanted to stand out of the crowd? Ever wanted to be different? Well, I’m sure that if you ask a secondary school teen, his/her answer would be, “no”, but ask that to a photographer, and surely the answer would be the direct opposite. Photography is a much loved hobby, with masses of individuals deciding to pursue it. Unfortunately, having this large crowd of ‘photographers’, some images tend to get repetitive, seen over and over again, in other words plain boring. Thus the question comes to play again, how can you stand out? What will make a client choose you over anyone else? What will make a judge choose your image over the rest? The answer to these questions and many others is just one; be creative! Creativity knows no limit. The only thing hindering your creativity is you, so get out of your way and start thinking. Yes, thinking, creativity involves a certain degree of planning before shooting an image. All creative images have to be planned out well. The best ones are those which tell a story. Photography, as any other subject, has rules. As one of my personal tutors has taught me that if one is going against the rules, never bend them, but break them completely. Of course, this might not always work, but surely it will be the start of something revolutionary, something never seen before, something creative.

Happy shooting!

Newsletter Team Editor: Rosalie Spiteri Design: Therese Debono Articles: Various Contributers Editorial Advice: Kevin Casha

CONTENTS pg 3 pg 5 pg 7 pg 9 pg11 pg 15 pg 17 pg 19 pg 21 pg 23 pg 25 pg 26 pg 28 pg 29 pg 30

cover artist

SEPTEMBER 2012

president’s viewpoint sergio’s blog featured mipp photographer member’s article foreign photographer upcoming monthly lecture past monthly event vox pop image critique monthly event in pictures sponsors calendar & PTYA archives upcoming september event members’ gallery

The Female Photography Revolution Reality, Surrealism, Vision, Interpretation Duncan’s Drops Instagram-me by Therese Debono Let’s go sailing with Thomas Eibenberger From Failed to Fellowship in 4 Years Thoughts about August Seminar World Photography Day Monthly Online Competition August Seminar World Photography Day at Avantech September Calendar & PTYA Standings Images from past events Fotoclub Le Gru Visit The best images of the month

CHRISTOPHER SAMMUT

Which of my photographs is my favourite? The one I’m going to take tomorrow. - Imogen Cunningham A At the age of 17, Christopher discovered a passion for photogrraphy. It was then when he first met Kevin Casha, who patiently w walked him through the secrets of photography. B Black and white photography sparked his imagination. At the ttime he used to process his work in a make shift dark room at h his parents’ house. Regretfully photography had to take a back sseat for some time until March 2011 when he purchased his first D DSLR and rediscovered his passion. IIn August 2011 he joined MIPP and once again, his old time ffriend and mentor, Kevin, took him under his wing. C Christopher embraced the change to the digital world. He sshowed to have an interesting point of view in different areas of p photography; however, once again turning to black and white, he iis now focusing on a new found love, architectural photography. C Christopher is also a committee member.

president’s viewpoint

What an upheaval, Digital Photography has brought upon this genre of the Arts! The Digital take over is now albeit complete and it is becoming quite common to meet young students who have no concept of film or the darkroom or of how photographers before them could work without a camera monitor! Yes, the change has been sweeping and very complete. Although there are still those few welcome diehards who persist in sticking to their film cameras and darkrooms, these are mostly romantics who will hopefully preserve historical darkroom techniques and practices for academic students, camera clubs and posterity. The more we become involved and engrossed with current digital technology and its quantum leaps, the more conventional film and darkrooms are becoming distant history.

Ironically, I am currently contemplating to again set up my darkroom so as I can show students what it was all about but, to be honest, there is no way I will go back to working those long, lonely and depressive hours in it. The only thing I miss from the darkroom is actually the “magic” of the print’s appearance in the developer. To my mind, working for hours on end to produce, fix and wash, hundreds of boring, postcard size, terribly exposed and artless prints in “prison like” conditions, was not my idea of fun. Granted, producing exhibition hand prints was another kettle of fish.Still, apart from all this, I think that the main radical effect of the digital revolution has been the im-

The Female Photography

REVOLUTION Is a woman’s place in front or behind a camera? Read on to understand better what Kevin thinks about this.... pact and influence this has had on the female photographer. Bar a few notable female photographers, such as Margaret Bourke-White, Cindy Sherman, Diane Arbus and others, the first century or so of photography has been mainly dominated by male photographers. During the earlier stages of the history of photography, many more pictures were taken by men than by women.

ferent, and so the horizons and vistas of photography are now being further widened and explored. Although in my opinion and through my experience, women still seem to shy away from learning proper technique – and learning to walk before they run – this barrier does not seem to be holding them back from exploring and exploiting photography in, perhaps, newer and more exciting ways than before.

During my first years of teaching photography, around 80 per cent of my students would be male. I could only attribute this to the feeling that most women, although artistic and engrossed by the medium, would shy away from learning its technicalities. For some reason, they seemed afraid that it was too difficult or boring. In fact, if one looks into the biographies of early women photographers, one finds that most of them went into photography by chance and not by design. Could this be why most young women opted for modelling in front of the lens instead of taking an active role behind the camera?

This new push by the gentle sex to embrace the passions of photography is clearly demonstrated by the number of females currently joining tuition courses and academic certification in the field of photography. These days, in my own courses, females have now regularly started outnumbering males and I am sure this is not because of my looks!

Digital technology, and that great invention, (or is it?), of the camera monitor, have changed all that. Now it is child’s play for anyone to capture an “image,” even if it is with a mobile phone, let alone with the advanced breed of cameras we have today. This fact has given a breath of freedom to female photographers. They have now taken up photography in droves, and this can only be beneficial to the medium. The vision and perception of woman photographers compared to male is often quite dif-

As Hungarian artist, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy so aptly put it, in the 1920’s:

“Anyone who fails to understand photography will be one of the illiterates of the future.” I think it is fantastic that photography is now no longer dominated by males but accessible to all. It is a shame that our local politicians have not taken up the message so ably understood by the female gender. When I think of my appeals to local politicians and governments to recognize the power of photography and locally give it its due importance, unfortunately I cannot help but ponder on Moholy-Nagy’s statement about “the illiterates of the future!”

sergio’s blog

Reality, Surrealism, Vision, Interpretation Photography is a relatively new artistic medium, counting in at just over 150 years; just a snippet of time in the history of art. However, during its short lifespan, it has gone through a crash course in artistic development. Being initially influenced by other fine arts, it has gone all the way through to influencing other visual arts in its own right.

self triggered an experimental phase which brought photography into the picture as a medium that could produce, rather than just reproduce.

The history of photography is rich and captivating, marked by challenges, obstacles, failures and triumphs. One thing, however, remained constant throughout – the struggle to bring to photography the recognition it deserves as an artform in its own right. The height of this endeavour took place around the turn of the 20th century, when traditional fine art itself was experiencing a revolution which would propel it into new directions. This revolution, triggered initially by the establishment of the Dada movement, which strived to deny all that were the traditional concepts of fine art, affected photography positively, due to the adoption of this new medium by major artists as a form of mutiny towards other forms. This in it-

Indeed, this was, and probably still remains, the greatest struggle for photography – convincing society that there is a highly intricate creative process behind the creation of a photograph; that in fact a photograph is the interpretation of a subjective reality and not the portrayal of the absolute. It is no surprise that photography was the medium of choice of many Surrealists – the members of the artistic movement succeeding the Dada movement. Their main aim was to break down the links between the mind and reality, producing work which was a direct interpretation of their dreams and thoughts. One of the main contributors to the Surrealist movement, Man Ray, was particularly fond of the photographic medium, experimenting new tech-

“....I photograph the things that I do not wish to paint, the things which already have an existence.”

niques at length. His philosophy was one which has been adopted by many artists who followed: “I paint what cannot be photographed, that which comes from the imagination or from dreams, or from an unconscious drive. I photograph the things that I do not wish to paint, the things which already have an existence.” Fast forward eighty years. While technology has advanced photography into new heights, the one thing which made photography the powerhouse it is today remains constant. The photographer’s eye has brought us into an era where the real and surreal meet and sometimes overlap, creating that niche which photography so much longed for. It is this overlap that earned photography its deserved place in the most prestigious art collections. As a photographer I often ponder on what I would like to achieve through my photography. It is a constant exercise which I find very important to the production of my work. As I look back at the history of photography and art it clearly tran-

Featured image in this article by Sergio Muscat(FMIPP FSWPP) Follow Sergio here: www.sergiomuscat.com

make that photographer stand out from the crowd and become great. How we interpret our vision is irrelevant. It is the vision itself that is relevant and the will and skill to bring that vision to light. As I develop as a photographer, it also becomes clearer that vision must be strived for. We are not born with a concept in mind – it is something that comes through a constant journey of self-discovery. This journey has only a beginning and no destination. Its path is only dictated by the next step. My personal journey has until now taken me into a number of directions – architecture, street photography and abstract to mention a few. Each of these

spires that photographers, more than any other artist, cannot be judged by a single photograph, but by their life’s work and the concept behind their creations. If we look at the greatest names of 20th century photography such as Henri Cartier-Bresson, Alfred Stieglitz and Ansel Adams, to mention a few, we keep stumbling into patterns. These photographers did not just take photographs. They followed a vision, a concept which drove their life. Photography was their way of interpreting this vision. It is this vision that makes a photographer more than just a person with a camera, and it is the ability to interpret this vision into images which move and transport the viewer that

directions has been fuelled by curiosity, passion, belief and opinion. It is these convictions and traits that give artists the extra dimension that makes their work remarkable, and allows their vision to permeate onto the viewer. While artistic discovery is a very personal voyage, its final purpose is to externalise what is within the artist, and therefore shared with the world. Photography, I find, is an ideal medium to achieve this. It is difficult to beat the feeling of being shown what is seen every day and not recognise it. Photography is the link between all this – no other artistic medium can claim such an intimate relationship with reality while holding control over its interpretation.

featured mipp photographer

DUNCAN’S

DROPS

In this issue of the Focal Point, we have newsletter by being one of its first desig

Duncan has always been a happy snapper. Back in 1992 when he was still a student at the Technical Institute, Duncan started taking an interest in photography, especially macro and creative photography. His dad had seen this flame in him and gave Duncan his very first camera, an Olympus OM-10! This gift gave Duncan, “a huge boost” since being a student at that time; his wage did not stretch far enough. Sadly, however, this was short lived, as with the amount of images Duncan was shooting, it was becoming very expensive to develop all, and had to put this flame aside for a long while until three years ago his wife, at that time his girlfriend decided that as a wedding gift she’d bought him a dSLR. This really came as a surprise for Duncan, and was really happy about it as finally one of his dreams, which was to own a Digital SLR, came true. It was then that Duncan joined MIPP and started attending lectures and courses. Still at that time he was shooting everything that came in his way from landscapes, portraits and macro, but he felt that he was becoming a bit of a jack of all trades, and shooting what everyone else was shooting. Thus, Duncan decided to pick a subject and make it his passion and learn more about this type of photography while shooting this subject, this is where his obsession with abstract and water photography began. This was not an easy subject as water is very challenging and can react and reflect in many different ways but once tackled, it’s fun.

e decided to feature Duncan Cauchi, who has contributed in this ners. Duncan related this story about one of his images: “The most challenging water image I’ve ever made is the image I named “My World”. To describe it in few words, this is an image of a drop with the refection of the map of the world in it. Every time I look at this image I feel fulfilled as this was the most technically difficult shoot I’ve ever shot so far, as I could not get the reflection of the world right and in the same time eliminate the reflections of the flash strobes on the water droplet. Sadly enough everyone who sees this image thinks that the map was added later in post processing.” This obsession for water gave Duncan some of his best moments in life so far. He has won various competitions in Malta and last January, he was awarded the Society’s Macro photographer of the year 2011. The advice Duncan would give to someone starting photography is; to pick a subject, own the subject, be passionate about it, feel the subject. All Images by Duncan Cauchi

Above: ‘My World’, the misinterpreted image which is Duncan’s most challenging image!

member’s article

Instagram -me W

hen I got my first Smartphone, my life became easier, especially with the easy access to emails which is so convenient to my lifestyle. When I saw Instagram images being uploaded on Facebook, the first thing I saw was cross processed images...and my heart started racing, because cross processing editing is a type of editing which I love to use. Somehow there is a certain feeling which this type of editing gives, that reminds me of my childhood and so I get all fuzzy because I had a happy childhood. So these filters, in my opinion, were attractive enough to make me go as far as to changing my Smartphone to be able to download this Instagram app and now I can say I have gone Insta-happy! What really and truly is fantastic about Instagram is the ease with which a regular snapper can transform their regular images into unique creations. Nowadays Smartphones have great cameras too which are convenient because you carry around less bulk. I am not saying that I would ditch my SLR in favour of my smart-

phone however if you are out and about minus your beloved SLR, these smartphones come in handy and in daylight you can actually get a decent image too. Now add Instagram to the mix and you get an image with a ‘feeling’ too. I do not know how I can describe these filters in Instagram, except that they give a different ‘feeling’ to an image. There are filters in it which pop out colours more, there are others which give a more faded tonality, another has the added rounded corners framing which takes you back to the 70s prints, my favourite must be ‘1977’ filter. Maybe I am biased because the filter is named after my birth year, however I love the warm tones which this filter gives to my images and the white border. ‘Nashville’ and ‘Early Bird’ are a close runner ups to the former filter. So whether you want to record your birthday party in a serious black and white by using the ‘Inkwell’ filter or give it some saturation with ‘Toaster’, with Instagram you can play whichever way you want with its choice of filters and change the theme of the images. Suddenly with Insta-

gram one can take an image and give it a ‘feeling’ or enhance it better to stand out! It has also become part of networking. It’s not the first time that my friends go Insta-happy during events, just because we all downloaded the app and want to try this filter and the other.....its endless really!

Here are some tips which I found useful when using the filters: The first filter is called Normal and as its name suggests this is a ‘filter free’ filter so you can use this one for just about anything. X-Pro II has warm and saturated tones with an emphasis on aquas and greens and I have read that this is a filter ideal for that photo of you and your new man (girl) to make your ex jealous! (I still have to try this out!). The Earlybird has that faded, blurry effect with an emphasis on yellow and beige so I find it ideal for photos with friends during brunch...to give a feeling of dreamy nonchalance

So what is it about the Instagram app that has made people go crazy for it? Therese here gave in to temptation and downloaded the Instagram app to see for herself what this application is really all about!

and comfort, and also to give a self portrait some nostalgic feeling... Lomo-fi is ideal for food porn! With its dreamy and slightly blurry effect with saturated yellows and greens it can make food stand out more than in real life! I find Sutro to be ideal for mundane stuff like a shot of your morning coffee mug or your keys, with its lovely sepia like effect with an emphasis on purples and browns. Toaster has high exposure with corner vignetting so I find it nice if you want to focus on the subject in the middle since the high exposure highlights the subject and the vignetting works further by directing you towards the desired focus. Brannen with its low key effect and emphasis on greys and greens and contrasty Valencia with slight gray and brown overtones are ideal for pictures of your pets. (These really suit my cat!) Inkwell is ideal for old images because it gives them a classic old school effect and disguises bad lighting surprisingly well for a simple filter.

Walden and Hefe go hand in hand when it comes to making your party photos at the beach or next to the pool look nice and blue thanks to Walden’s washed-out colour with bluish overtones effect and Hefe’s help which adds a 1960s feel to the image. Nashville and 1977 scream out nostalgia. The former one gives sharp images with magenta/purple tint and framed with a film strip border and the latter one has the Diana Ross Flair which gives photos an effect which scream out 70s disco. Kelvin is an uber saturated filter which gives images a super retro feel with an original scratchy border so it’s ideal for images which need a punch due to its over saturation. So those are the filters in a nutshell! By all means this app just cannot take over any SLR cameras but if used properly, if you still follow the normal photography rules: reading light and composing well you can get stunning images which can serve their purpose nicely on social network pages.

Above: a nostalgic self portrait using Earlybird filter

Above: an image given the Lomo-Fi filter pumps out colour in food

Author’s Note: The words ‘Instagram-Me’ and ‘Instahappy’ are all inventions of the author. This article is written from a completely personal experience. All images by author.

featured foreign photographer

Letâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s go sailing... with Thomas Eibenberger

After following Thomas Eibenberger for the past months on Facebook and being enchanted by his sailing images, Therese had a brief interview with Thomas...and here is what he has to say about sailing photography.... Thomas lives in Hamburg and works as a graphic designer, however he is also a freelance photographer. He took up photography 5 years ago when he got fed up working away on a computer. Coincidently 5 years ago he also took up sailing and somehow these two passions of his gelled pretty nicely. His favourite photographic genre is sailing photography however he is also interested in landscape and people photography. At age 43, he started photography late, however he believes there is no set time when one can find a passion and nurture it. He loves the fact that now he can combine graphic design and photography. For him it is the perfect situation, and he also works for a German yacht magazine plus he also does work for big german sponsors like Audi and SPA. However his favourite work is the solo artistic projects, where he produces high end prints for private residences. When asked about the positive and negative aspects of taking photos whilst out at sea he very quickly answered that there are no negative aspects in sailing photography! Well maybe he is biased however he loves this genre because of the beauty of yachts and the landscaping.

â&#x20AC;&#x153;It is very interesting. The situation out at sea changes very quickly and one has to observe the movements of yachts very meticulously to capture the right shots at the right time!â&#x20AC;? He describes his photographic style as graphic and reduced. For him, when he is out at sea, it is as if he is meditating on water!

Thomas stresses though that in the beginning it is very difficult to get into this business since everyone wants to travel on yachts and take photos and unfortunately there isn’t much money to be done through this genre, however if you work for the big sponsors, then it’s a different story because you do make money. But Thomas is not very keen to work for big sponsors since he does not want to end up being a commercial photographer. With a smile he recalls a funny story during one of his trips, which shows how responsible and determined you have to be during such assignments! During his first trip to the Voiles D’Antibes in 2009, he had one too many drinks and too much sun during the day and whilst at a boat party he fell and broke his nose. He had to be taken to hospital and operated there and then! After the operation the doctor recommended that Thomas stayed in hospital to recover for a few days, but how could he possibly do that during the Voiles d’Antibes!? He quietly slipped out the back hospital door in the morning and continued working on his assignment. Now that’s what I call brave?! Or reckless? Shows a man who wants to shoot! In fact his determination was rewarded with outstanding images! For those equipment buffs out there, Thomas uses a Nikon D700 and actually he has three of those, plus several other lenses. He also concludes that working with a full frame format model is of utmost importance.

Images in this article by Thomas Eibenberger

upcoming monthly lecture

FROM FAILED TO

FELLOWSHIP IN 4 YEARS

sergio says achieve

"I would have never thought I'd a fellowship qualification in 4 years, particularly considering the jittery start. I failed my Licenciate qualification in 2007, and then went on to fail my Associateship in 2008.

great lessons along the way, particularly “don’t give up!”

This talk will take the form of an informal chat about the key aspects to achieving your targets and getting back up on your feet after the inevitable failures. We all fail. the key is in knowing that it just means you’re one step closer to

success.

Join us for this lecture on 4th September at Corinthia San Gorg to hear all about Sergioâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s journey as he succeeded in achieving his Fellowship after some serious hard work!

images above by sergio muscat

past monthly event

Once

every now and then we meet persons we have a distinct feeling will impact our lives in some way or another. This happened four years ago, when I first met Witold Flak. I was then a very green, keen photographer with a will to do something more than photography and no idea where to start. I had just failed my second qualification attempt and understandably wasn’t in the best of moods. I had almost given up in my quest, resigned to the fact that photographers are just photographers, and they will never realise what a vast and beautiful world exists beyond it. Then Witold took the stand and started showing me the kind of pictures I thought I would never see. Images that didn’t care about sharpness or technique, but that only cared about emotion. Witold’s images are perfect in their beautiful imperfection - they portray life as it is, not as we see it in photographs. They are those kind of images that you get lost in, not caring about the details, because details are irrelevant - emotion is relevant. Witold Flak was one of those key persons who unknowingly gave me the will to persist. When I got to know that Witold would be visiting the island once again this year, it was great news. I was curious to know how he had evolved, whether we would still see things similarly, or whether the world had changed him. What I discovered was a

person that has evolved, but not changed. His work is slightly more controlled – quite probably the result of a more confident person behind the camera – but not lacking the emotion and mood that is his signature. What I was even more curious about was a new name that would also be visiting the seminar. I saw Chiara Fersini’s work on her website, but nothing prepared me for the actual encounter. Chiara started off as a painter, but, very much like Cindy Sherman, found the process to be too long - long enough to not be true to the original mood that engulfed her when she dreamt of the image. She moved to photography because it was the ideal medium for her it would allow her to focus on the dream, rather than the process. Very much like Cindy Sherman, she is the protagonist of the majority of her work - how can I expect a model to express genuinely the mood and emotion that I am feeling? She would say. Her work is autobiographical, and that is where she differs greatly from Sherman, who portrays characters that are invented, that are not her. Chiara’s work is not invented, it is dreamt. Creating the photograph is for her the only way to get rid of the dream. Like a true artist, every piece of art is a piece of her – and it shows, or rather, it feels. Images are ripe with emotion, often something verging on the dark and sad, a sign that she is at her best

Sergio Muscat’s thoughts about the speakers who participated in the August Seminar....

when she needs to get rid of something – a common trait amongst artists. But in the sadness, we can see hope – a focus on the light at the end of the tunnel. In every artist there is an internal battle between the true self and the ideal, and the situation is quite ironic in itself. The artist will continuously search for that unification of self, where the truth is merged with the ideal, but the moment that happens there is no more need for art, and so the artist, given the choice, must choose between art or internal peace. This internal battle is one of the recurrent themes in Chiara’s work – something she is strongly aware of; a key driver of her art. Putting Chiara and Witold in the same room, speaking after each other in alternation was a stroke of genius. Their styles are different, their characters are different, but somehow, somewhere in the ubiquity of art, they meet, they merge and agree. In their own ways, they are both artists. For them the camera is nothing more than a tool - it just happens to be the right tool for them. For them, photography - art - is a means of escape. It is a drug that hooks you because whenever you create a photograph you get that high that keeps you going, and as soon as you stop you’re back to the place you need to escape from, and the only way is to create again. Chiara and Witold are artists, although

they might not readily admit it. They are the kind of artists we rarely see, because there just aren’t that many of them around. They are two persons whom I know will impact my life, because they already have.

Above: Chiara’s & Witold’s images work perfectly described by Sergio in this phrase “Their styles are different, their characters are different, but somehow, somewhere in the ubiquity of art, they meet, they merge and agree”.

VOX POP

This time round we contacted more of our members and asked them about ‘World Photography Day’. How did they get to know about this day? What does this day mean personally to them? How would they ideally celebrate it and a few suggestions for next year’s celebration! Although Kerstin always had a passion for photography she only got seriously involved in this passion in 2012, so she got to know all about World Photography Day only this year. She says that thanks to photography she manages to capture many memories in her life and also love and emotions, which is what she actually loves about photography. Asked about what makes photography so challenging, she replied with Ansel Adams’ quote ‘You don’t take a photograph, you make it’. For her WPD holds no special meaning since for her every moment spent with a camera in hand is special, however she does see this as an opportunity for celebration and get togethers like the last MIPP Seminar, which she totally loved. She continued saying that she personally does like MIPP’s idea of a seminar and photowalk for this special day, and suggests that maybe one could combine a small exhibition of the best photographs from the different MIPP groups over the whole year, and out of this collect some money to go towards a beneficial organisation. Another idea of hers is to co-ordinate an exhibition at our local hospital to bring some joy to the people who are not involved in photography.

For Keith WFD does not mean much only because he thinks about photography everyday so he does not need any special day for it. However he really enjoyed this year’s MIPP Seminar and was highly inspired by Chiara Fersini or how he prefers referring to her as Himitsuhana. He is one of the artists he really admires and really appreciated having her sharing her work and ideas during this recent seminar. When asked as to how he would ideally celebrate WFD, Keith said that he would like to see more people understanding photography as an artistic expression rather than relying too much on the equipment’s power. “I consider the final image as the most important thing, for it is the product of all your hard work which conveys the message you want to portray. It does not make any difference through which camera the picture was taken or if it was on digital or film.” As a tip for next year he mentioned that inviting other artists to inspire the community as a definitely good idea and to also keep it open to the general public and not only for SLR users. He loved the initiative of mobile photography. He suggested an organised event where everyone can take part in, so that the awareness of photography as an art is increased. By this he stresses that more education is needed to distinguish between good photography and just images. “We have become so used to using the term “modern” to cover up any mistakes and flaws. You cannot stop anyone from taking pictures, but we must start distinguishing between photographs and works of Art. You shoot to learn, but you need to learn to shoot” For Silvanne World Photography Day is also a new thing. She got to know about it last year during an MIPP event prior the day itself. For her this day means more and more photos. She says that it’s a day where photography lovers meet to click the day away and enjoy the pleasure of snapping images and upload them on Facebook later. She continues sharing her thoughts by stating that nowadays everyone has a camera, so it’s only natural that everybody wants to capture moments. So for her it is ideal and she prefers to spend this day with others as a collaborative organised day rather than snap alone. It’s perfect to socialise and get to know people and she when the day ends its nice to share images for others to see and judge! She suggests a Treasure Hunt for next year’s celebration!

image critique

MONTHLY ONLINE COMPETITION

Alot of you are taking part in our Monthly Online Competition. Below Charles Calleja, who was the judge for the last session of this competition gave us a few words of judgement for the gold winners. He also chose an image from the other categories including the Unclassified section and let us know why they did not make it to a higher level. Gold - Anthony Cilia (left) The image here has a powerful design element. It has made the mark due to the fact that it is developed to a high standard, plus the content of the image strikes out as a powerful subject. Even though the content is simple, the eye continues to travel around the image. Tones in the shadow area are well seen to. Most of us loose looking at things from a different angle, and here the photographer carefully chose to look up at the structure, and has created a dynamic image.

Gold - Christopher Azzopardi (left) This image is well balanced. The standard in editing is very high and brings out all the detail in the architecture. Seeing the image high resolution, one can appreciate all the delicate areas, which look almost 3D.

Silver - Keith Ellul (right) This image nearly makes it to gold; it has a sense of mystery to it, which keeps the eye looking for more. The lighting is good and makes the image stronger. What failed this image to gold is the pose, which could have been a bit softer, just a slight bend of the left leg. The design of the image is well done.

Bronze - Matthew Cutajar (left) Good image, - well designed, but fails in editing and cropping. I would have like to see a bit more legroom. Even though the image has some detail in the shadows, most of it is blocked and even the highlights are burnt out. The amount of contrast and sharpness added to this image has not improved it.

Unclassified A beauty shot, good, but when considering this kind of photography pay attention to all the details. The girl in the image has some lighter patches from the shoulder straps that happen due to exposure to the sun. These need to be eliminated in this genre of photography.

AUGUST SEMINAR IN PICTURES The August seminar this year was surely one event to remember! Chiara Fersini & Witold Flak wooed the crowd at Corinthia and left everyone full of inspiration and wanting more!

Kevin Casha with Chiara & Witold

Witold captured the audience!

Maria Fenech

Chiara Fersini with a fan!

Exhibition opening

Chiara Fersini

Members at Corinthia

Witold Flak

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