RPS - Benelux Chapter eJournal - Volume 6 Spring 2017

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Acknowledgements

VIEW FROM THE RPS BENELUX CHAPTER ORGANISERS The Benelux Chapter is growing and currently has 51 members: 31 from The Netherlands, 12 from Belgium, 4 from Luxembourg, 3 from France and 1 from the UK.

The Royal Photographic Society BeNeLux Chapter Copyright The copyright of photographs and text in this eJournal belong to the author of the article of which they form part, unless otherwise indicated.

Cover photo Hellen van Meene Hon FRPS Proof reading Dawn Black Editor eJournal Armando Jongejan Journal Editorial committee Richard Sylvester Eddie Maes (B) Dawn Black (NL) Simon Hauxwell (L) Janet Haines (NL) Webmaster Tony Roe

The chapter had a print exhibition of some 30 photos from their members at the RPS HQ at Fenton House in Bath from 17 January to 27 February which was very well received by both staff and visitors. Plans are underway to hold follow up exhibitions in the Benelux with the prints.

A summary of the Studio Workshop organized by Didier Verriest near Ghent in February can be found elsewhere in this issue.

The Rockin’ Rotterdam project is moving along nicely. Four photo walks have already been held with two more being scheduled on the last Sundays in March and April. See www.rockinrotterdam.eu for details.

The next Chapter meeting will be held on the weekend of 10 – 11 June in the charming Belgian city of Ypres, an area of the many memorials and mass cemeteries for the soldiers of the World Wars. Details of the programme have been provided in an e-mail to Chapter members and a short summary can be found on page 3. Please register with Richard by 1 April.

We would like those members who attend the Ypres weekend to put together a panel of 5 images to present at the following Chapter meeting that will be held in the autumn this year in The Netherlands. Armando will provide feedback on the panels of work.

Finally, we are thankful to Hellen van Meene, Hon FRPS, for her stunning contemporary take on photographic portraiture which is featured in this issue.

This is your Journal, so please provide articles and photos that are of interest to chapter members along with information about upcoming events in the Benelux for the next of our eJournal.

Janet Haines, ARPS Richard Sylvester, LRPS RPS Benelux Chapter Organizers

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UPCOMING DATES TO REMEMBER YPRES – BELGIUM | 10 & 11 June 2017 Our next RPS Benelux Chapter meeting will be held in Ypres, Belgium, on the weekend of 10 – 11 June 2017.

As part of this weekend, we would like participants, and especially those seeking a Distinction, to take a series of photos for review and critique at the next Benelux Chapter meeting that will be held in the autumn, probably in early October. Ypres is a city with a very rich and varied past. © Janet Haines

During the Middle Ages, Ypres was a flourishing trading centre. In those days, Ypres was one of the main Flemish cloth centres next to Bruges and Ghent. During the First World War, Ypres was reduced to a heap of rubble.

Today, Ypres is a charming city to discover. The citizens of Ypres have rebuilt their city with respect for the past. The memory of the war has been kept alive in the museums and the historic sites. The medieval character of Ypres can be experienced in the centre and on the ramparts.

The programme will start with a guided tour of the city starting at 11:00 on Saturday. The guide will introduce us to Ypres’ rich history and show us the Saint Georges Memorial Church, the beautiful interior of Saint Martin's Cathedral and the council chamber of the City Hall. A short stop on the Market Square will allow us to admire the impressive Cloth Hall before ending the walk under the Menin Gate.

A lunch has been organized on the Saturday afternoon followed by free time to take photos.

For those wishing to stay for the weekend, we will attend the Last Post ceremony on Saturday evening at 8:00 PM. We can also organize visits on the Sunday morning to the World War 1 Memorials and Cemeteries near Ypres.

Please fill out the registration form that was circulated and return it to Richard by 1 April. A participation fee of 6 euros per person should also be paid by 1 April.

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THE YEARS SHALL RUN LIKE RABBITS text and photos by Hellen van Meene Hon FRPS Over the last twenty years, Hellen van Meene has produced a complex body of work, offering a contemporary take on photographic portraiture. Characterized by her exquisite use of light, formal elegance, and palpable psychological tension, her depictions of girls and boys on the cusp of adulthood demonstrate a clear aesthetic lineage to seventeenth-century Dutch painting.

Van Meene captures the intimacy in the photographer/subject relationship, bringing out a sense of honesty and vulnerability from within her models and highlighting the beauty of imperfection. She carefully poses her subjects in their environments to emphasize their fragility, adding a palpable tension to the photographs. At the same time, she captures them at deeper, more introspective moments—masterfully moving between the staged nature of the portraits and the real experiences of her subjects. The combination of van Meene’s instinctive understanding of the universality of adolescent experience and the highly intimate collaboration between photographer and model makes for powerful portraits that resonate long after viewing.

Hellen van Meene (born in Alkmaar, the Netherlands, 1972) studied photography at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie, Amsterdam. Her work has been exhibited internationally and is in the collections of major museums around the world, including the Guggenheim Museum, New York; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Victoria and Albert Museum, London; Art Institute of Chicago; Brooklyn Museum; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. This will be her fifth monograph. The others include Hellen van Meene: Portraits (Aperture, 2004); Hellen van Meene: Japan Series; Hellen van Meene: New Work; and Hellen van Meene: Tout va disparaître.

See more at: http://aperture.org/shop/the-years-shall-run-like-rabbits/#sthash.QHyyes2h.dpuf

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CAMERA IN LOVE – ED VAN DER ELSKEN source: text and photos: Stedelijk Musem Amsterdam

“A must see for everyone who loves photography”

The Stedelijk presents the largest overview of the photographic and filmic work of Dutch photographer Ed van der Elsken (1925-1990) in twenty five years. A unique figure, Van der Elsken was renowned as a street photographer, and is recognised as the most important Dutch photographer of the 20th century.

Ed van der Elsken was a unique figure. The first true Dutch street photographer, he roamed cities like Paris, Amsterdam, Hong Kong and Tokyo seeking out colourful personalities, head-turning young women and wayward youth. Ed van der Elsken both chronicled, and influenced, the Zeitgeist. In his work, he developed a bold, unconventional and personal style. Van der Elsken’s presence resonates throughout his work: he cared about making a personal connection with the people he photographed and, like a playful art director, often staged situations, too.

The oeuvre of Ed van der Elsken is mentioned in the same breath as those of legendary international photographers Robert Frank (1924, CH) and William Klein (1928, VS) and his legacy inspires contemporary artists such as Nan Goldin (1953, US) and Paulien Oltheten (1982, NL).

© Ed van der Elsken, Vali Myers in front of her mirror, Paris, 1953. Ontwikkelzilvergelatine druk, collection Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam. © Ed van der Elsken/Nederlands Fotomuseum Rotterdam Breakthrough In 1956, the young Van der Elsken became an international sensation with Love on the Left Bank, a photographic novel inspired by his own life about a group of young bohemians leading an aimless life in post-war Paris. Van der Elsken recognised himself in their nihilistic view of the world but also maintained the detachment needed to capture them in pictures.

The filmic structure of the book, with flashbacks and ever-changing viewpoints, hints at the filmmaker Van der Elsken would become.

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Photo books More than twenty photo books were to follow, including Bagara (1958), which records impressions of village life, big game hunting, and rituals in Central Africa, Jazz (1959), Sweet Life (1966) which captured images from his world travels, Amsterdam (1979) a document of his love for the city that was his home for many years, Adventures in the Countryside his personal account of rural Dutch life near Edam (1980) and Discovering Japan (1988), which chronicles his many trips to that country. Van der Elsken’s books, combined with his films, are the core of his oeuvre and the exhibition’s starting point. Featuring book dummies, contact sheets, sketches and other materials, the exhibition explores how the books were made, and reveals Van der Elsken’s working processes. A selection of film fragments and slide projections accentuate his significance as a filmmaker, and the relationship between his films and photographic work. At the heart of the retrospective are over 200 iconic photos, in both black and white, and colour.

Van der Elsken, Sandberg and The Stedelijk The exhibition is curated by Hripsimé Visser, curator of photography at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, who has written widely on Ed van der Elsken, and curated numerous exhibitions of his work. The Stedelijk has followed Van der Elsken’s work since his career began in the 1950s. Sandberg also gave Van der Elsken several important commissions, such as documenting the exhibition Dylaby in 1961 – currently on view in the Tinguely survey. Today, the Stedelijk holds the largest museum collection of photographic prints by Van der Elsken. In 1966, the museum organised the major presentation ‘Hee... zie je dat!?’ and the survey exhibition ‘Once Upon A Time’, shortly after his death in 1991.

Catalogue The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue with essays exploring the central themes addressed in the exhibition, his photography, films, and the various platforms he used to present his work. The publication places his oeuvre within a cultural and historical perspective, and sheds light on Ed van der Elsken’s artistic practice.

288 pages | design: Mevis & Van Deursen Dutch museum edition softcover € 29,95, hardcover € 39,95, Publisher Hannibal | English edition hardcover, Prestel Publishing, € 39,95 French edition hardcover, Éditions Xavier Barral, € 39,95. Source: www.stedelijk.nl/en/collection/publications/e d-van-der-elsken-camera-in-love After the Stedelijk Museum the exhibition will travel to Paris (Jeu de Paume - 13 June - 24 September) and to Madrid (Fundación Mapfre).

Address Stedelijk Museum Museumplein 10 1071 DJ Amsterdam

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Open Daily 10-18 hrs Fri 10-22 hrs Exhibition 4 February - 21 May 2017

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© Ed van der Elsken, Selfportrait with Ata Kandó, Paris, 1953

© Ed van der Elsken, Man with machine, Durban, 1959

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Ed van der Elsken, Tokyo, Meisje in de subway, 1984

Š Ed van der Elsken, Nozems, Kamagasaki, Osaka, 1960

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© Ed van der Elsken, Nieuwmarkt, Amsterdam, 1961

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© Ed van der Elsken, Tweelingmeisjes op de Nieuwmarkt, 1956

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STATISTICS OF OUR EJOURNAL BENELUX CHAPTER text Armando Jongejan FRPS - source: ISSUU date 18th February 2017 Our first eJournal was published in Autumn 2015 and after the first reactions we decided to create an eJournal every half year though we would like to publish four times a year if possible. It takes a lot of time to write an article, to proof read the articles and to edit an eJournal. It's good to know how many people read our eJournal and how much time do they spend reading it.

Lifetime Statistics It is quite easy to discover. We distribute our eJournals using ISSUU, a digital publishing platform for Magazines. They have published over 30 million documents and have over 100 million unique visitors a month. That good to know, but how about the results for our BeNeLux Chapter eJounals? Well, we have seen progress since our first issue. We have more readers and the read time is growing. For example our 4th regular issue the total read time is 17 hours.

The average time spent is less for our 4th issue then issue 3 or 2. But what does that mean? We have 50 BeNeLux Chapter members, not 241. I did not made a real survey, but I presume that BeNeLux Chapter members spent more time to read then members from other countries.

On 19th January our 4th eJournal was published and 82 people read our eJournal on this day.

But the long terms figures are good too. On 13th February for example, we had 25 reads (figure 5). We can see from the figures our eJournal is getting more popular (source: ISSUU, date 18th February 2017). You can be assured your articles will be read by a lot of people from many different countries (figure 6). We will keep publishing more eJournals for our Chapter members and other interested photographers too.

figure 1: eJournal 2 Winter 2017

figure 2: eJournal 3 Autumn 2016

figure 3: eJournal 2 Winter 2016

figure 4: eJournal 1 Autumn 2015

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figure 5. Publication Performance 4th issue

figure 6. Readers Around the World 4th issue

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WASTWATER text and photos by Frank Geraedts ARPS I was asked to write an article about what keeps me busy. Photography wise that is. The answer is not easy, but let's stick to locations. There are a few locations that come across my mind at least once a day.

“Surely there is no other place in this whole wonderful world quite like Lakeland... no other so exquisitely lovely, no other so charming, no other that calls so insistently across a gulf of distance. All who truly love Lakeland are exiles when away from it.”

Source: Alfred Wainwright

This is the opening text in 'A pictorial guide to the Lakeland fells', book one, written by the world famous Alfred Wainwright. For those who don't know Alfred, he was a British fell walker, guide book author and illustrator. He wrote seven books, published between 1955 and 1966, that became the standard reference work to 214 of the fells in the English Lake District. Let’s go back to the text. Yes, I feel like a kind of exile when I’m not in the Lake District.

There's really no place like it. It is an astonishing beautiful location in the northwest of England.

In the last four years I've visited the area three times. And I'm sure many more will follow. It is always beautiful, always different and there is always weather.

Every day of the year, the Lake District is a beautiful place. In the fall, it is exceptional. Nature shows it’s colours and there are fewer tourists, when compared to spring or summer. This relatively small area boasts a large variety of landscapes. There are lakes, tarns (small lakes), green hills, rocky mountains, dry stone walls and sheep.

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And there is Wastwater. This place is very special to me. When I saw a photo of this particular lake, I knew immediately that I wanted to visit. It is one of the lakes in the west and, according to European standards, it is remote. From the central Lake District it takes over an hour to get to the most western tip of the lake. It is the only entrance to the area. The location looks larger than it is. The lake is only 5 kilometres long and the hills and mountains around it look very high. Actually it looks like some place from a country far away. And despite the

many tourists that visit every day, in the fall you feel like you are alone. What makes this lake so special is the light and weather. In those times that I visited the Lake District, light and weather were never the same. It has been sunny and windy. Rain fell, some hail too.

Sometimes I could see Great Gable from quite a distance and sometimes it was not visible at all. Wastwater always surprises me.

I forget about the people around me and I forget about time. And that is a good reason for me to go back. In some way I get closer to nature, no matter what the light and weather is.

The photos in this article were made in October 2014 and October 2016. The sunny ones were made in a very short period of time. It had been raining all day and for about 15 minutes the sun came through the clouds. After that the sky turned grey again. The other ones were made over the course of two days. The weather was pretty stable. It didn’t reflect my mood, but shows how the lakes can be.

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THE ALTERNATIVE WORLD OF INFRARED PHOTOGRAPHY

by Dawn Black (ARPS) Think of the word “infrared” and what comes to mind? Remote controls, night vision, thermal imaging, meteorology and forensics to name but a few. There is a world of photographic possibilities out there too. Infrared film was notoriously difficult to utilise but with the age of the digital camera the possibility for infrared photography has increased especially with the advent of good mirror-less systems. Whether other-worldly colour effects are your thing or you convert the images to black and white, the creative possibilities are huge. © Dawn Black ARPS: Dungeness straight out of camera

© Dawn Black ARPS: Dungeness Channel Mixing False Colour Effect

© Dawn Black ARPS: Dungeness Black and White conversion

The science bit The visible light spectrum that our eyes are generally able to see is an average range from about 380 to 780 nanometers (nm). On either end of that spectrum is invisible radiant energy with wavelengths shorter and longer than the visible spectrum. Ultraviolet (UV) light falls in a range of 100-400nm at the blue/short end and Infrared (IR) light in a range of 700nm-1mm at the red/long end of the spectrum.

There are two principal ways to be able to incorporate these IR light wavelengths into your photographs - by adding infrared filters of varying strengths to the front of the lens or by converting your camera. Let’s look at these options individually.

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Filters This is a relatively cheap way to discover if you like the effects of Infrared as a filter will only set you back about €50 -100. Filters are available to block the visible light and allow only varying degrees of IR light through to the sensor. The downside of this is that they block the overall amount of light getting through and slow the shutter speed down meaning you may need a tripod and people photography is hard. Great for those that like long exposures though! If you purchase screw-in filters you will also need a filter for each lens if they differ in diameter.

Once the light is blocked your autofocus may have difficulty functioning well.

Camera Conversion: Although an expensive option - a conversion will set you back €300-500, the advantage is that you do not lose any light meaning speeds are faster and you can usually use any of your lenses. Plus, your viewfinder and live view will function normally too. So how is it done? In most cameras the sensor is just as sensitive to infrared light as it is to visible light but the manufacturers counter this by placing a hot mirror filter in front of the sensor to block the infrared part of the light spectrum while still allowing visible light to pass. In order to convert the camera to infrared this hot mirror filter is removed and replaced by a filter allowing varying wavelengths of light through but blocking visible light. You choose what strength you wish to have fitted from a choice of 590nm (for false colour), 665nm (for false colour and black and white), 720nm (mainly black and white), 830nm (black and white), or clear (full spectrum e.g. for astro photography).

“Seeing” in IR When you first set out in IR you may be disappointed with the results as you need to learn to “see” in infrared. If you take a picture of a light coloured wall, with beautiful foliage and red roses with a sky including lovely white clouds you’ll end up with a very white looking picture. Gradually you learn to see with your mind rather than your eyes as you learn what effect different colours and objects have in IR. Remember that foliage is a living thing and creates heat so will render as a bright white, blue sky comes out dark and the textural detail in clouds can be amazing. Reflections work very well too. By using all that you know of composition from your “normal” photography and “seeing” in IR you can create stunning images.

© Tony Roe LRPS: Kralingseplas Molens, Rotterdam Channel Mixing Effect

Infrared Photography throws up some technical issues that need to be considered when starting out, namely, focus shift and hot spots when shooting, white balance and how to process those images once taken.

Next page: © Dawn Black ARPS: Three Brothers, Yosemite Valley, California, USA

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Focus

Š Michiel Fokkema

IR light is longer in wavelength than visible light and hence it focuses differently.

Regular lenses are made to focus with regular light with no regard for "out of band" light like IR. The focus shift will change throughout a zoom lens. On some zoom lenses you will find red markings alongside the normal indicators - these indicate the shift at the various focusing lengths.

When converting your DSLR camera, the company doing this for you will ask which lens you are using and calibrate the focus accordingly.

You may still experience some back or front shift in focus and the only way to know for your camera/lens combination is to test it. Using live view to focus on a DSLR helps to negate this issue. Those who have converted a mirrorless camera have the advantage here as these cameras rely completely on the imaging sensor to focus and thus are able to "see" the IR focus shift in real time and adjust accordingly, making them the ideal choice for infrared photography.

Hotspots Hotspots can be a problem with some lenses.

They manifest in the form of a bright circle in the centre of your image and they become more pronounced the narrower the aperture used. Hotspots are caused by the coasting on the inside the lens barrel reflecting the IR light or the interaction of the light between the coatings of the various lens elements. The only solution is to use a different lens. If your hotspots are not too pronounced it is possible to minimise the fault in post processing. You can find a fairly comprehensive list of lenses not to use at this link. Š Dawn Black ARPS: Hotspot

White Balance If you use Auto White Balance (WB) the image will appear completely red. To have more versatility it's advisable to create a custom WB from a patch of green grass by following your camera's custom WB instructions. Often, the company that converts your camera will create a custom WB for you. You can also adjust in post processing but there are limitations, especially in Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop as the minimum colour temperature you can reduce to is 2000K and the ideal for these images is less than that. If converting to black and white this is less of an issue than if you are trying to achieve the false colour effects.

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Post Processing Everyone has their own vision of what they are trying to create with their infrared images. There is no right or wrong method but here I will lay out my workflow which will give you a starting point from which to develop your own.

I use Adobe Lightroom 6 (LR), the plug-ins Nik Color Efex Pro and Nik Silver Efex Pro plus Adobe Photoshop CS5. Workflows will be similar in other programs. Having captured my RAW IR images I import them to Lightroom, go through the shoot to rate those worth editing, then go through them again to narrow it down further. Don't waste time editing images that don't make the cut!

© Dawn Black ARPS: Original straight out of camera (converted Fujifilm X-E2) Initial edit • In LR reduce WB temperature to 2000 and tint to -75 • If there is evidence of a hot spot use the radial filter to reduce the Exposure and Highlights and increase clarity until eliminated.

• > Edit in > Nik Color Efex Pro ◦ in this plug-in first use the White Neutraliser to further improve the WB ◦ Add the Tonal Contrast filter (standard) ◦ Save (it will re-open in LR as a .tif)

© Dawn Black ARPS: Image with white balance correction & tonal contrast added in Nik Color Efex Pro

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To edit as a Black and White image • > Edit in > Nik Silver Efex Pro (of course you can do a conversion in Photoshop or LR itself, this is just my preferred way of working). I have a preset I have created in Silver Efex that I apply to the image and then tweak as each image will need a slightly different treatment.

• Save (it will re-open in LR as a .tif) • Zoom in to clean up any dust spots as they show up much more in a mono image! (You can also take it into PS to do this if you prefer)

© Dawn Black ARPS: Black and White version, processed in LR and Nik Silver Efex Pro To edit with Colour Channel Mixing

© Dawn Black ARPS: Colour version, processed in LR, Nik Color Efex and Photoshop CS5

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• > Edit in > Photoshop • create a new adjustment layer > Channel Mixer ◦ select the red channel and invert the sliders so the Red = 0%, Green = 0%, Blue 100% ◦ select the blue channel and invert the sliders so the Red = 100%, Green = 0%, Blue 0% • create a new adjustment layer > Hue/Saturation ◦ use the pointer to select different colour channels and adjust to your taste (usually affects cyan/blue/red channels) • create a new adjustment layer > Colour Balance ◦ adjust the balance for each of the colour balance levels firstly for the midtones, then the shadows and highlights.

• Go back into each layer and tweak to get your ideal colour mix/balance • Flatten layers • Inspect at 100% to do any cleaning up of dust spots • Save

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Remember, it is not an exact science! Experiment, find your own vision and above all, enjoy the process!

Dawn has been taking Infrared photographs since early 2013, first using a converted Nikon D300 and now a converted Fuji X-E2. Both cameras were converted by ProTech Photographic (www.protechrepairs.co.uk/) based in East Sussex, England (to our knowledge conversion is not currently available in The Netherlands). She prefers to use IR for black and white work and has a gallery on her website dedicated solely to her Infrared work which can be seen www.dawnsblackphotography.com/infrared.

Š Dawn Black ARPS: Oostpoort, Delft

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RPS BENELUX CHAPTER STUDIO WORKSHOP text and photo by Richard Sylvester LRPS The Benelux Chapter of the Royal Photographic Society organized a Studio Workshop on Saturday, 4 February, which was hosted by Didier Verriest, ARPS, in his studio Argus Photography in Drongen (Ghent), Belgium.

The workshop was attended by 12 participants, 7 from The Netherlands and 5 from Belgium.

Using the lighting equipment in his studio, Didier taught us how to prepare a studio shoot and shoot portraits, with the goal of achieving the sought-after results.

The workshop was divided into two parts: 1. A static tabletop bouquet of flowers, to explain general continuous lighting rules and demonstrate the effect of different light modifiers, reflectors and lenses.

2. A live portrait model, to explain and experiment with various portrait lighting setups.

© Richard Sylvester LRPS – model Sophie

After Didier explained the lighting setups, their philosophy and demonstrated his shooting process, participants put Didier’s knowledge into practice, hooking up their cameras one by one to Didier’s studio lighting system.

The most interesting and fun part of the day was with the live model, Sophie. Everyone had a chance to shoot portraits of her in different poses. Having many years of experience, Sophie was excellent, putting the photographers at ease, while at the same time giving advice to the photographers to help them achieve better portraits.

Many thanks to Didier for having organized such an interesting workshop for us.

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PHOTOGRAPHIC SOCIETY OF AMERICA (PSA) Text and phots by Jainet Hanes ARPS Many of you will be aware of the Photographic Society of America (PSA), especially if you enter international salons and are working towards their PSA Star Rating system. This is when you accumulate ‘acceptances’ from salons that are endorsed by the PSA. From 2016 the PSA introduced another award scheme, but this time for portfolios of work broadly similar to the RPS Distinctions.

There are three levels; Bronze (BPSA), Silver (SPSA) and Gold (GPSA). They require a Statement of Intent to accompany a panel of work and at every level you submit a themed, cohesive panel. Prints or DPIs are accepted. You are allowed to start at the SPSA level, but not jump straight into the GPSA. The panel must not have been used elsewhere previously.

Two years ago I was eligible to submit my work to their Annual Large Prints competition.

Eligibility to this is from gaining a PSA award in an international salon the previous year.

Having gained one such PSA silver medal for my print ‘Rhapsody’ I duly sent over a copy of the print to the States, not really expecting to hear any more. To my amazement she was given the honour of winning the Large Print class in 2015 and went on to be hung in the Yellowstone Park National Gallery and was used on the cover of their monthly Journal. From this I concluded that the PSA American judges seemed to like my work.

Towards the end of 2016 I became aware of the new PSA Portfolio Award scheme and decided I would have a go. I like doing panels; I like the challenge of entering award schemes as I believe in doing so I improve my work. Maybe a little of me also likes collecting the letters after my name. As a PSA member I was eligible.

So what should I enter? Then I remembered that they had liked ‘Rhapsody’ enough to give her a top award so decided she was my starting point. As the composition is a portrait that I had embellished with texture I felt that was a good way to go. Also a style I had quite a few to choose from out of my library. ‘The Art of Portraiture’ was born. I wrote the Statement of Intent and put together the 20 images needed for an SPSA panel. Ideally I would have liked to have submitted them as prints as I do consider myself to be a print worker; when printed on a quality art paper it really enhances the finished look. But the postage costs for 20 mounted prints to the USA changed my mind for me. It was already going to cost me about 100€ to submit work without the high postal costs on top of that. So I settled for a DPI panel.

On February 15th 2017 we got our results – I had gained my SPSA and can now use those letters after my name. I am the first photographer from the Netherlands to gain this new honour; in the UK one other person and I gained our awards at the same time. Now my challenge is to be the first to gain my GPSA. Janet Haines SPSA ARPS EFIAP DPAGB (stupid isn’t it – all those letters)

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The Art of Portraiture Photography is an art form and in all my work I set out to interpret the faces of beautiful women, whilst simultaneously producing works of art.

First I capture the essence of the model; a mood or look. Sometimes with a wacky fun twist to the work and often with a contextual overlay to enhance the artistic look and feel I set out to achieve.

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FROM DUNKIRK TO DOVER - WAITING FOR THE FERRY text and photos by Armando Jongejan FRPS Every year I want to make a small photobook. The subject: “it is about, rather than of”.

At the Channel crossings from France to England – Calais, Dunkirk and the Channel Tunnel – thousands of travellers, both tourists and migrants want to travel to the UK. Most of the migrants came from the Horn of Africa, Somalia, Sudan and Eritrea.

The Guardian, Friday 18 July 2014 “At the three most popular sites for migrants to attempt a Channel crossing, Calais, Dunkirk and the Channel Tunnel, a total of 10,500 migrants were arrested in the first six months of 2014, compared with 5,133 for the same period in 2013.”

There were many reactions on the Internet, both positive and negative from aid organisations and migrants concerning the actions taken by the French authorities. But is there a solution that pleases everyone?

The answer is not easy; neither the problem.

And, not for the ferry companies either. How do you create a safe and secure environment for legal travellers, like tourists?

The migrants want to make the crossing to England too. How do you keep illegal ones outside the ferry departure areas?

The result in Dunkirk is a large fence, equipped with razor wire to make unauthorized access to the site impossible. It evokes mixed feelings inside this area, in between the car and caravan parking lanes. If on holiday, you have the choice to travel legally, while the migrants have little or maybe no choice to leave France. It is a huge problem for national and local governments, and of course for the migrants.

In the lanes is written N O. Coincidence?

These images were taken early in July 2014 as a photographic report of the results of migrations just before the crossing between France and England, both legal and illegal.

See also the book http://nl.blurb.com/books/5541520-from-dunkirk-to-dover

BeNeLux Chapter eJournal - number 6 - Spring 2017

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BeNeLux Chapter eJournal - number 6 - Spring 2017

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BeNeLux Chapter eJournal - number 6 - Spring 2017

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