Royal Photographic Society Digital Imaging Group News January 2017

DIG News - January 2017

‘Wensleydale Portrait’ by Andrew Williams LRPS This past months DIG Forum winner.

DIG AGM This year the AGM will be held on Sunday March 5th at our usual Smethwick location. Full information is now up on the web site – see HERE. No charge for DIG members to attend; just a small additional price if you wish to order a lunch. You can bring your own packed lunch if you prefer.

Our speaker is Viveca Koh FRPS –

If you wish to request any item be put on the Agenda, or to nominate yourself for committee, then do get in touch with our DIG Sec, Janet Davies via digsecretary@rps.org We also hold the selection of the annual Exhibition Prints at the AGM – see separate item.

DIG EXHIBITION PRINTS Each year at the AGM we hold the selection of the members prints.

Every DIG member is eligible to enter 3 mounted prints (unmounted for Overseas members) and are guaranteed to have one selected for the travelling exhibition. This is a FREE TO ENTER competition.

This year our three eminent selectors are Viveca Koh FRPS Robert Albright FRPS Paula Davies FRPS Each will have 2 x RPS Ribbons to award, plus they will agree on the overall trophy winner. Announcements are made on the day and all prints are displayed in the Smethwick School House.

It is an open class, so no restriction on what you submit in terms of style. However it must not have been submitted to any prior DIG national competition (i.e. previous DIG print exhibitions or the annual PI Comp). DIG Centre competitions do not count.

Our Exhibition Organiser, Marilyn Taylor works enormously hard in preparing for this event and then making sure the various exhibitions held around the UK are hung on time and look their best. She has prepared two downloadable Word documents for you. One is the application form and the other a detailed information sheet. Please help her by reading these thoroughly and getting your submission prepared accurately. We ask you to submit digital files as well as your prints, as we need these for the exhibition catalogue, which we print and comes out to every DIG Member.

Postage is always a barrier to some members submitting work so we have endeavoured to give assistance with this. You will find a list of people/meetings around the UK who are acting as drop-off points for prints. Full information about this is within the information document you can download. Return postage costs can be paid online through the RPS online payments system. OR of course if you are attending the AGM, or know someone who is, then you can bring your prints on the day, having completed application by the deadline of MONDAY FEBRUARY 20th 2017.

Special arrangements are being made to encourage our Overseas members to submit their work. A separate email will go out to all OS DIG members shortly.

If you go to the DIG web page HERE both downloadable documents can be found there. Or if you prefer then click on the icons below.

We hope that as many of you as possible will enter as in 2017 all your selected images will go on display at the DI Expo in September.

RPS DISTINCTIONS HQ tell me there are no ratified new panels for December so no members to congratulate yet.

Except one who passed his LRPS first time a few weeks ago – Greg Dunn LRPS. Well done Greg. I know you worked really hard to put this panel together, even going out and specially shooting the mono street view, to show movement, to ensure you demonstrated that specific skill.

So I asked Greg to write a few words and show us his work‌‌.

In the summer of 2012, soon after relocating from Canada to The Netherlands, I joined a local photography club. It was through a couple of members at this club that I was introduced to the RPS. After viewing their work, and the society's website, I recognized the professionalism it represented. Aspiring to that standard I set about working towards my Licentiate distinction.

Putting together my Licentiate panel taught me three important lessons: 1. Photograph with purpose.

Identifying and demonstrating the technical skills and competence required for a Licentiate distinction gave my photography a new purpose. I wasn't simply capturing vacation snaps or Facebook fodder anymore, I was deliberately creating work of a much higher standard. This intentional approach has stuck with me.

2. The importance of feedback and support.

I was fortunate to have been part of a Chapter "study group", where a number of members in our particular Chapter, all working towards a distinction level, met once a month to show and discuss our progress. I also took part in an Advisory Day. This was a big

step, a tough step, but in the end a positive one as it helped me identify weaknesses and strengths in my panel and focused my work even further.

3. My photography improved.

As I packaged up my prints to take them to my assessment I reflected on the progress I had made not only in the quality of my work but in my approach to it as well. I am very proud of achieving my LRPS, but I'm equally proud of the effort I put into it.

I am now working towards my Associate distinction, in part because it is the next logical step, but mostly because of the creative drive that was sparked by simply putting in the work to attain my Licentiate distinction.

FORUM Even though it was December the Forum competition had a good number of entrants, including one or two new comers. So it was good to see one such ‘new comer’ win. We hope this will encourage other DIG members to have a go too.

Our congratulations to Andrew Williams LRPS with his lovely sheep portrait. In Andrews own words………..

Thank you to all who voted for me, it's my first try at the forum competition so I really didn't expect a win.

Each year my wife, who is a felt maker, and I go to 'Woolfest', an event held in a cattle market near Cockermouth, Cumbria celebrating everything wooly. While she takes in the trade stands to stock up on supplies, I take the opportunity for some photography. Several Sheep breed societies have stands and show off their immaculately groomed prize animals in the market pens.

On the plus side you can get really close and shoot at a low level through the bars, on the minus side it's quite dark and the backgrounds can be messy, as can the floor where you have to kneel!

I get a lot of queries about the processing of this image, particularly the textured background. In fact this is almost a straight shot and the background is the original riveted, galvanised steel sheet at the back of the pen.

Apart from some delicate Photoshop work in removing a bright yellow plastic ear tab, the image was processed in Lightroom to bring out the shadows, particularly around the eye and the texture in the fleece. The background was darkened to set off the portrait.

It’s ended up as one of my favourite prints but ironically not really my style ‌ the search goes on.

In second place we had an interesting street scene from Richard Hainsworth LRPS

Rua Do Cemiterio (Cemetery Road)

Third place shows the variety of work we get on the forum with this dramatic one from Mike Bennett LRPS

Trawler at Sea

TUTORIALS FROM KEN PAYNE Thought it might be good to get back to some basics to start the New Year. First how to improve your image from the camera. Click the image to go to the YouTube video from Ken.

And for the next one in Kens own words……

MEMBERS GALLERIES This month I have selected two galleries showing the wide variety of work produced by our DIG members. Click the gallery photo to link through to see all their work.

Christopher Osborne, from Northampton, says of his gallery of work‌..

Donavan Hand - Mono London A wide variety of work. Interesting angles, iconic buildings, all well shot and processed. A good example of using different techniques and lenses; unusual shooting angles and playing with light.

By the time you get this newsletter you will have just a few days left to make up your minds and get your vote in – deadline January 17th.

As difficult as it might be to make up your minds I would urge you to vote and not waste the opportunity.

There is a lengthy posting on the RPS main Forum where many individuals have expressed views. You might find it interesting to read these to see if they resonate with you and help you to come to a decision. This LINK will take you directly to the posting, but you do need to be logged in to the RPS web site first.

If for any reason you have yet to receive your official notification papers through the post don’t forget that you can download the proposals and a voting form by going HERE on the RPS web site.

NEW DIG LOGO A new year – a new start – a new look DIG. The observant ones amongst you may have noticed on the header of this DIG News that the DIG logo has changed. We hope you like the ‘new look’. Having had some feedback that the old logo was rather 90’s and out of date, your committee concluded it was time for change. A time to update ourselves, to reflect the evolution of the Group and bringing us in to the decade where the simplicity of logos seems the rule.

In our next edition of DIGIT there will be a feature about the designer and how the new logo emerged from his creativity. Over the next couple of months you will see us using the new logo as it rolls out and the old one disappears.

Hope you like it – of course we totally accept that not everyone will as change often takes a little longer to get accustomed too.

DO NOT BOOK YOUR SUMMER HOLIDAY BEFORE READING THIS

On September 23rd 2017 DIG will be holding their biennial DI Expo at the Airport Holiday Inn, Birmingham, near the NEC. This one day conference will have several headline speakers throughout the day, live studios, the DIG Exhibition and a great selection of trade stands. It is a ‘not to be missed’ national meeting.

In 2015 we announced the DI Expo in March and members told us that they had needed to know the date earlier as they had already booked their holidays. So this time we are giving you an early heads-up, with details of the event still to come when everything is fully confirmed, which should be within the next month or two.

So keep that date free! We are sure you will want to join us for the day.

DIG CENTRE ROUND-UP Links to all the Centres web sites can be found on any page of the DIG website, down the bottom of the right hand side links.

Thames Valley Centre reports that sales of season tickets for their 8 events are selling well. To ensure tickets are available for those wishing to only attend the occasional event via a day ticket, they limit the number of season tickets they sell. More complete details of their 2017 events are being added to their web pages as they become available.

The year starts on 15 January with Colin Harrison and a Digital Adventure. Full details can be found at the Thames Valley Centre web page...http://www.rps.org/digtv

Editors note – Colin Harrison has been a long term DIG member and submits some super work to our competitions.

Some of you may remember the cover of DIGIT Issue 67 of the skiing hamster – that was Colin. It will be a good presentation and well worth making the effort to get along to. <<<<<>>>>>>

A meeting not to miss at DIG Western……..

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And for DIG Southern………….

RPS Digital Imaging Group, Southern Centre

Sunday 22nd January 2017 10.30 am to 4.00 pm Doors open 10.00

Greyfriars Community Centre 44 Christchurch Road Ringwood, BH24 1DW

Macro Photography Bob Brind-Surch and

Sensor Cleaning Demonstration Peter Brogden Nature Macro Photography Macro work is a fascinating field of photography which can seem very baffling and very expensive. In this talk Bob will explore the options open to photographers who want to experiment with macro and also show some examples of his mainly nature images.

Bob will cover very basic, hybrid camera options but spend most of the time looking at the options available to SLR owners including some of the possibilities brought about by very advanced lenses and specialist software.

This is a very practical talk and Bob demonstrates many of the techniques described.

He will bring along a great deal of macro equipment to demonstrate and discuss.

Lighting macro shots is always a problem so some time will be spent exploring options.

Also discussed and demonstrated will be techniques of particular value to macro photographers such as focus stacking.

Sensor Cleaning Peter will be explaining and demonstrating how to test and clean your camera’s sensor including some practices to avoid.

All welcome: DIG Members £8 All others £10 Tea and Coffee on arrival, Bring a packed lunch

Advanced Booking Strongly Recommended Forms available by download from www.rps.org or from

Barry Senior: email: digsouthern@rps.org T: 01425471489

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DIG Scotland.

After two years of organizing the Centre Doug Berndt is standing down so we thank him most sincerely for his time and effort. He gave the Scottish members good meetings and some interesting presenters.

Dave Hunt ARPS has kindly offered to take over. As an RPS general member he has even become a DIG member to facilitate him becoming the CO. So thanks Dave. I am sure all the members in Scotland are really happy to know they wonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t be loosing their DIG Centre meetings.

George Neilson is also joining the committee to assist with the workload. Welcome to the pair of you.

So I asked Dave for a short bio of himself, but I understand the members will have the opportunity to see his work at his first meeting.

Following a long career in Broadcast TV in London and abroad I am now based in the Scottish Highlands working as a Portrait and Fine Art photographer.

Taking up full time photography in 2006 my work has covered a range of styles from landscape to still life and fine art portrait to art nude, I simply follow whatever inspirations I experience at the time.

My driving force has always been to create images as fine art prints, something that you can hold and present in a physical form and to achieve this I work in a variety of mediums from traditional digital and mobile platform photography to large format film and vintage alternative processes. I always seem to have an experimental aspect to my work, maybe I am fearful of being labeled as a specific type of artist?

Accredited with an Associate Distinction in 2009 in the category of Visual Art with a panel of monochrome studio art nudes. Together with wife and fellow photographer Gillian Hunt ARPS we run our own small fine art photography studio near Killin in Perthshire, Wildgrass Studio, offering print sales, framing and photography workshops. www.davehunt.eu

BRICKBATS AND BOUQUETS A good example of strategically giving out DIGITs and Catalogues……

I have now received the catalogue of the Digital Imaging Group competition. It’s a fabulous production and credit goes to everyone involved. Thanks very much for sending me a copy.

In the meantime I am so inspired by the groups efforts that I think it would be a good idea if you would have me back in as a member.

Thanks again John Boyd LRPS DPAGB Welcome back John

SIGs MEETING I thought members might like to know a little of what is going on behind the scenes.

In December all the Special Interest Groups (SIGs) Chairs were invited to a meeting at HQ. This was initiated by the SIGs as there was a consensus of agreement amongst us all that we should explore how to work together better and stop working in silos. 8 of the 14 groups’ attended, with some not being able to make the meeting but are broadly in support of what we are aiming to achieve.

It is recognized that there is much cross over of skills and styles within the groups, but each have their dedicated members who wish to preserve their identity, which is as it should be. DIG, perhaps more so than others, has a huge cross over as many of our members are nature, landscape or travel orientated, or perhaps creative, contemporary or documentary. The statistics that were provided for us from HQ makes interesting reading (see table below). We know from this that many of you belong to more than one SIG as shown by the actual figures in the table.

Armed with this and other interesting data the SIGs unanimously agreed that we should try to work across boundaries more. To that end you will start to see projects and meetings emerging over the coming year. As things come to fruition you will of course be given the details.

This might mean a DIG Centre holding a joint meeting with a.n.other SIG, or perhaps having a speaker from a different genre come and talk to us about how they approach their photography a little differently. Or us being invited to attend their meetings or holidays etc.

There is a lot of hard work being undertaken to make this happen but with good will on all sides then I am confident that you should see some results in the not too distant future.

Finally may I wish you all a very Happy New Year and all the best for 2017 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; may the light be with you.

Apologies that DIG News is a week late. The holidays got in the way of getting things organized as quickly as usual. I even managed to miss asking an OS member to do an article for us. But we will return to that next month.

2017 promises to be a really busy one for DIG. The Centres all have great looking forward programmes and, of course, there is the DI Expo in September to look forward to. The normal free to enter member competitions in the form of the Print Exhibition (March) and the PI Comp (August). All our valued DIG volunteers put in a lot of work to make these things happen for the benefit of the members â&#x20AC;&#x201C; our reward is to see you participating and enjoying the events. So do play your part and get involved. Come along to meetings, enter the competitions.

Consider submitting work to DIGIT. All these things will make you feel part of the group wherever in the world you might live.

Get in touch about anything â&#x20AC;&#x201C; anytime. We are always pleased to hear from you, good or bad news.

Regards

Janet Janet Haines ARPS DIG Chair digchair@rps.org