DIG News - October 2016
‘On Yer Bike’ by Alan Dedman LRPS
This past months DIG Forum winner.
Alan has been a long term member of the DIG Forum and has been showing us his images for as long as I can recall. So it is good to see him getting the recognition from the members that his work deserves.
CONGRATULATIONS It is always great to be able to congratulate DIG Members on their Distinctions. Six new people with shiny new LRPS letters after their names this month – congratulations to you all. Jonathan Vaines LRPS Neill Taylor LRPS Paula Fernley LRPS Andy Swain LRPS Clare Lister LRPS John Marshall LRPS
Bedford Oxfordshire Devon Norfolk Norfolk North Humberside
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Dennis Russ is a relatively new member to the DIG Forum so when I spotted that he had recently gained his LRPS I decided to make contact and ask him to share his panel with us.
Here is what Dennis had to tell us about his road to his successful panel‌‌. My "L" RPS Panel by Dennis Russ I joined a camera club in 1997, but it was 14 years later that I gained a first distinction in photography. In late 2015 I went along to Barry camera club in West Glamorgan to see the LRPS/ARPS members Distinction panels. In awe at what I was seeing, as they were superb, I joined the RPS that day. I decided to choose as much variety as is possible. Top row became Monochrome of 10x6" prints. Bottom row was square format of 7x7" prints of four colour with a middle one Mono. I applied for May 2016 in Barry, West Glamorgan. On the day I had one referral. I put this down to a learning curve and sent in my 3 images of which my 'Ragged Victorian' had a good critique but was over sharpened. I redid that image, (No.9) and sent it in. On the 12th August 2016, I was proud to have achieved my goal. My shout of delight could be heard a long way off, I'm sure! Now to prepare for my "A" RPS.
Way Out
Ragged Victorian
DIG FORUM It seemed that the entries in to this months DIG Forum monthly competition were of extra high quality – they are normally pretty good, but the group surpassed itself in September. It is especially good to see new folks entering as well as the regulars. Alan Dedman LRPS won this month with the image on the front page of this DIG News. Well done Alan. As normal I asked Alan for a few words about his composition‌. I was standing on the pebble bank looking back over the marshes towards the village of Salthouse on the North Norfolk coast. Early morning is the best time to be out there as it is mostly the sky and its reflections you can capture in such a flat area.
Along this stretch of coast many bird watchers come to see the geese. Many stay over night in campers, or such like. The door of the camper near to me opened and a voice said 'I'll get some'. A figure emerged got on the bike and another voice, from within the camper shouted 'on yer bike'. I went snap, snap snap as I always bracket my shots in this sort of country side where the sky is important. Converted using Silver Efex pro2, red filter, with some dodging and tone mapping.
We had two joint 2nd placed images this month and oddly they are both from members who are appearing within this copy of DIG News in other sections. A sheer coincidence.
Fishermans Sunrise by Richard Hainsworth LRPS
Trafalgar Square in the Rain by Dennis Russ LRPS The benefits of joining the DIG Forum often brings rewards outside of DIG, as they did recently for Richard Hainsworth…. Richard got in touch to give us this follow up story……. “A while ago I put up an image on the DIG Forum monthly competition and got some feedback and encouragement about ‘Solace’ - taken on Crosby Beach. I thought you might like to know that this image has just won its category and come second overall in a national competition and got quite a bit of press coverage on national paper websites (and even as far as Der Spiegel I gather). I wondered if the RPS would like to know that an image has gone from one of their website's forums to see some success, and that the encouragement from there was one thing that led me to believe in the picture enough to enter it in things, so the process is working. The two images I entered both won their categories in the Ultimate Sea View Competition run by the Shipwrecked Mariners Society and came 2nd and 3rd overall. Details of the charity are in the press release.
The images are: Solace. I am very pleased to find that the judges liked my image taken on Crosby beach as it is one of my favourites. It was my first visit to the beach but I loved the way that the figures have over time become slightly different from each other - this one looked like he had gained some wrinkled clothing. The photo was taken last new year time, just after sunset to get the blue colour and is a 30 second exposure, using an ND filter. By this time, and with rain approaching and the tide coming in on a cold night, I had the beach almost to myself. For me the image captures the sense of solace and peace I find in the simplicity of the landscape when you are alone with only the sea and sky. For me it is about how you can be on your own without being lonely and how, for an introvert like me, this is in fact re-energising, which, as a Vicar just after Christmas, was what I needed to feel! This is the image I entered in the DIG Forum comp and was pleased to get some encouraging feedback on it, which led me to feel it was worth entering.
Solace (People and the Sea category)
Talacre Lighthouse. The Point of Ayr Lighthouse on the North Wales Coast not far from where I live, is a popular photo spot. This one was taken in July 16. I was hoping for a colourful sunset, but heavy clouds filled the sky giving a more rugged and foreboding feel which perhaps suited this weathered but resilient structure better. About 10 minutes after I took this shot I got drenched running for the car! Both taken with a Canon 5DMkiii and 17-40EF f4L and processed in DXO Optics Pro 11 with further work (mainly to contrast and tone) in Serif Photoplus X8 and Topaz Clarity. As you can tell, and whatever judges say, I do like putting the subject in the middle of the frame. If you want any more info about me I am 37, a Vicar by profession, live in Northop in North Wales, have been into photography for about 20 years off and on, but seriously for 3. I did my LRPS last year and I am a member of Mold Camera Club.� Rev Dr Richard Hainsworth Vicar of Northop, Northop Hall and Sychdyn
Talacre Lighthouse (Coastal view category)
Thank you for sharing this with us Richard and well done on your success. Pretty good going from about 800 entrants. I very much enjoyed Solace the first time I saw it and now all over again. I love the way the solitary ‘man’ breaks the horizon, is central to the composition and the colour palette is superb. -----------Richard has a web site if you want to see more go to www.andtherewaslight.co.uk The following Press Release gives us a little more info about the competition and the organization – some impressive judges too…. CHARITY REVEALS UK’S ULTIMATE SEA VIEW Photography Competition Winners Named By Shipwrecked Mariners’ Society Link to winning images: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/ le2uurw0me043gy/AAD__ 8WZVTDijrmqhQFK0m1ya?dl=0 September 2016 The winners of a national photography competition to find the UK’s ultimate sea view have been revealed by one of the UK’s oldest maritime charities, the Shipwrecked Mariners’ Society. With almost 800 entries from all across the UK, the judges faced a difficult decision in choosing this year’s winner, but unanimously picked as the overall winner amateur photographer David Lyon’s dynamic photograph of the sea overwhelming a ferry entitled ‘Nice day for a Cruise’ taken in Newhaven, East Sussex. The competition was judged aboard the HQS Wellington in London, by a prestigious panel of media and maritime experts, including the picture editor at the Sunday Times, Ray Wells, picture editor at the I, Sophie Batterbury, senior features writer at the Amateur Photographer magazine, Oliver Atwell, and the chief executive of the Shipwrecked Mariners’ Society, Commodore Malcolm Williams.
The Society, which provides financial support to former seafarers and their dependents, was on the lookout for images of ships, harbours, ports, wrecks, seafarers and seascapes. The competition ran from the Society’s new website www.shipwreckedmariners.org.uk , and across social media. ----------------------------------------------------------
NEW DIG VOLUNTEER EDITORIAL TEAM Plan B. After telling you all last month of our new appointees most regrettably our new Editor has not been able to take up her post due to health reasons. We wish Laura a full and speedy recovery and hope that she will be able to return to work with us sometime in 2017. Having spent the last month working tirelessly to put together the PI Comp catalogue Gary Beaton has now kindly agreed to take over the Editors role. We thank him and can assure him that he will have our full support as he takes on this new role. To contact Gary then use his email address DIGITeditor@rps.org
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
TUTORIALS FROM KEN PAYNE We are hoping that members find these tutorials useful and stimulating. Obviously the skill levels vary, as does the software used. We hope that by offering variety that we hit the spot for some of you from time to time.
This month how about trying Elements 14 – Adjustments for Balance This video is fairly basic but does show you how complacent we can be over a picture. Make a few adjustments and the picture becomes so much more powerful. It was done in Elements but of course it can be done in Photoshop as well. To link to the YouTube video then click HERE
Then one for LightRoom – Smart Previews Click HERE
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DIG WEB PAGES – HEADER IMAGES
We would love to have some new images for our revolving slide show that appears at the header of the DIG web page. However they are rather a strange shape so we need your help in finding good member images that can be cropped to fit this unusual size and ratio. They need to be 1085px wide and 605px high and named like this - A Summer Day by John Smith ARPS.jpg Email your images to our webmaster Chas Hockin at digwebs@rps.org The more the merrier, so do hunt some out and send them in please. ------------------------------------------------------
DIGIT ISSUE 70 – follow up on VIVID For those of you who enjoyed reading the article from our Aussie member Tony Healy you might like to see some more of the spectacle by watching a complete video of the Sydney Opera House lighting on YouTube HERE. It is about 16 minutes long and shows the amazing blends and designs that are beamed on to the Armadillo shaped roof.
Tony has also been in touch to point out that in the opening header to the article on Page 31 it mentions two of the installations, the echidna and chameleons, photos of which were not printed in DIGIT. So he has kindly posted them on the DIG Forum / Images for Discussion. So we grabbed them from there to share with you all.
Chameleon – the only one that the public could interact with and change the colour.
Echidna – looks like a cross between an ant eater and a hedge hog to me. A very strange Aussie animal I guess.
DIG NEWS on ISSUU We thought you might find it interesting to see just how far and wide DIG News was read last month. The following world map shows us where our readers are – lets’ see if next month we can reach other countries and get them in the top 10.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
MEMBERS GALLERIES Two more randomly selected galleries from our members this month. If you have a good gallery that you want to draw our attention to then why not email and let us know digchair@rps.org
‘The Joys of Captivity’ shows us a selection of zoo animals. And here is the challenge – read Greg Clucas’s words next to his work and I deny you not to get trapped into an ear –worm. Click the adjacent image to link to the gallery.
Sue Chapman ARPS is showing us a delightful set of images featuring bees and flowers. Here is what she has to say about her gallery… A selection of my creative work ranging from the use of a veritable variety of plug-ins and filters to in-camera creativity too. Again click the image to visit the gallery. Or to see more of her work then her Flickr account is https://www.flickr.com/photos/no39pwblask e/
DIG CENTRE MEETINGS IN OCTOBER Some meetings to enjoy and worth getting along to if you can… Eastern Centre 9th October at Foxton Village Hall Roger Hance FRPS – The Law of Averages Says…. Contact Mark Gillett for more information mark_gillett@icloud.com Thames Valley Centre 16th October at Woosehill Comm Hall. Presentations by attendees plus the Annual Print Competition. Contact Laurie Pate on digthamesvalley@rps.org Western Centre 30th October at Ilton Village Hall Alan Bastin & Di Wilkins – Lightroom. On1 and textures. Contact Paula Fernley via paula.fernley@icloud.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------
BRICKBATS AND BOUQUETS We had one or two informal communications from members saying how much they enjoyed the latest DIGIT. So thanks to those of you who got in touch. I have just opened the latest DIG magazine (it’s been on the desk for a week) and have found some fantastic articles. I love Eric Johannsen’s work and the piece is great and then there are the bits on B&W by Andy and choice of paper by Redgrave and Tanner. All in all a fantastic edition. Well done to all involved. Denis McConnell
Good or bad we welcome your feedback. DIG News and DIGIT are for you, the members. We want you to feel involved and to reflect your interests. If we are getting it wrong then let us know.
DID YOU KNOW? In this new section each month we are going to try to impart some information that some members might not know about, or perhaps fully understand. I know when I first joined the RPS it took me for ever to understand the interaction of the various groups and sub-sets of the Society. Recently I tried to do a rough schematic to show how everything interrelates. This is my understanding, but even having been a member for very many years it is possible that there are still more sub-groups that I have not yet discovered or understood. But this is the basic set up‌. When you join the RPS you get assigned to your local Region, using your postal address. I found this put me in the Southern Region according to the RPS, but in reality I lived closer to the SW Region for attending their meetings. So I elected at that time to be associated with the SW Region. So if you wish to change your Regional allegiance then just contact the membership department at HQ. If you live overseas then you automatically become a Chapter member if one exists in your country. Again if one does not exist then you can opt to join one of your choice if you wish.
Joining a Special Interest Group (SIG) is your choice. Some SIGs are genre specific and others have a technical bias. In the first year of RPS membership you can join one SIG for free – so take advantage of that. Each SIG charges a modest additional annual subscription. All the SIGs are on the RPS web site HERE. You can join as many SIGs as you wish. Obviously if you are reading this DIG News then it is fairly likely that you have chosen to join DIG – a good decision (who said I was biased). Now for my (unofficial) schematic…
The Council members are also the Societies Trustees. They are elected by the members. Indeed all Regional and Group committees are member elected, with the exception of the HQ Staff, who are the only paid employees of the RPS. The Distinctions Advisory Board (DAB) is appointed and not member elected, but they are still volunteers. As stated in the text above the RPS relies very heavily on volunteers, without whom we simply would not have an operational Society.
--------------------------------------------------------
FOCUS ON OVERSEAS MEMBERS Palli Gajree Hon FRPS is a member who lives in Australia; a long term RPS and DIG member, who posts regularly on the forum. It felt like a good idea to find out more about him and how he gained his Hon FRPS. I had no idea he was quite so well acclaimed all around the world…….
Service to Photography Before touching on the above subject, it would be appropriate to give a brief history of my involvement in photography … now spanning over six decades! I was born and brought up in Kenya, my parents having migrated from India in the mid20's. Ever since my school days, I was keenly interested in photography and always wanted to pursue a course in the subject at some stage in the UK.
Travelling to the United Kingdom in 1953, I did a two-year full-time course in Photography at the Manchester College of Technology (now known as the Manchester Metropolitan University). I also joined the RPS in 1954 while still a student at the Manchester College of Technology. After the completion of studies, I turned to London and joined the WestEnd portrait studio with the well-known photographer, the late Walter Bird FIBP, FRPS. Bird himself was a known Salon exhibitor, which was to provide even further incentive in competing with other exhibitors around the world. My first exhibition success came in 1957 when one of my portraits, taken at Walter Bird Studios, was accepted and shown at the London Salon of Photography. In 1958 I returned to Nairobi to set up my own portrait and commercial studio with some degree of success. To be a successful portraitist one has to be very much aware of the importance of recording the human personality, coupled with rules of composition, lighting, background and so forth. A couple of years later, a job offer as a senior cameraman emerged from the Kenya Government Information Services, an offer too good to refuse. This gave me good exposure to various other branches of photography, including Press, Photojournalism, Architectural, Wildlife, Landscape, etc., etc.. My other passion, needless to say, was to submit photographs (mainly black-and-white) from Kenya to various exhibitions around the world, including Australia. Australia incidentally, was a happy hunting ground for many of my awards from major International Exhibitions from my new adopted country! Since arriving in Australia in 1972, I've given decades of "Service to Photography" by way of lecturing, writing, judging and exhibiting. I was invited to become a member of the Judging Panel of the Murray Bridge International Salon the year we arrived. This was just the beginning, and to date I've judged 12 Internationals, 35 Nationals and countless Club competitions in the State of Victoria, New South Wales, South
Australia, Tasmania and the Northern Territory. I have also represented Australia in a number of special and restricted "Invitation Only Exhibitions" namely 5 Continents - 5 Photographers, held in Nivelles, Belgium; six "Masters of Photography" from around the world featured in an exhibition in the Pablo Picasso Galleries in France; "Authors Salon" shown in Bucharest, Romania, to name a few. Additionally, my work is represented in the RPS Permanent Collection, the Photographic Society of America (PSA), the Australian Photographic Society (APS), the International Federation of Photographic Art (FIAP) and the Federation of Indian Photography (FIP). All of this has added towards the service I've given over the years. For "Service to Photography", I have received the following awards: RPS Honorary Fellowship (Hon.FRPS) - "For promotion of photography over many years, particularly in Kenya and Australia, as exhibitor, judge and teacher". FIAP Honorary Excellence (Hon.EFIAP) - "For a lifetime of service to photography in Africa, Asia, Europe, North America and Australia". Extracted from a lengthy Citation! PSA Honorary Membership (HonPSA) - "For his years of service to photography as a teacher, judge, exhibitor and lecturer. His contributions to photography are international. He has travelled extensively in India, his place of origin, Africa, South East Asia, Great Britain, United States, Europe, and Australia for over 40 years doing photography". This also is a brief extract from a lengthy Citation!! Last, but by no means least, I was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) in the 1989 Queen's Birthday Honours List for "Service to Photography" ‌ my most treasured award to date.
Hangover
Venice from Water Taxi
The Mound
Three Columns – Angkor Wat
Thank you to all members who have contributed towards this months DIG News. If you have something to say or tell us then go get in touch. If you are hanging an exhibition then tell us the venue, times and dates, maybe even one of the images that will be shown. Members in the area would most likely enjoy seeing your work. With the nights drawing in and the clocks about to change (in Europe at least) how about some night shots? If you have any stunning work to share then do send it in, with the title and your name, to digchair@rps.org Tell us your camera settings so we can all learn.
Regards
Janet Janet Haines ARPS DIG Chair digchair@rps.org