I picked up this great online tip How to Shoot Great Portraits with Your Kit Lens article at www.LightStalking.com

I would add that if you want to shoot with the lens aperture wide open that it’s best to choose Aperture Priority mode on your camera as this lets you select the aperture and your camera will match with the appropriate shutter speed. For even more creative control and the chance to make some great mistakes and discoveries then Manual mode will also work fine. Some cameras have a Portrait mode that also will attempt to do similar things, but it’s often better to try Aperture priority to make sure you know what is actually happening to the aperture.

What a great result for the club, in our first ever CACC Rosebowl Final. Finishing fourth out of the top twelve clubs in the final round. This is a great result for us and I want to say Thank you to all the  members that contributed photos, sat in the dark to help with picture selection and travelled to the various rounds of the competition.

To say we were part of a formbook upset is a bit of an understatement, and the top clubs were very close on points, here’s the final top five and their scores out of a maximum of 120 points.

1. Oxford PS – 110 pts
2. XRR PS – 109 pts
3. Ealing & Hampshire House PS – 108 pts
4. ImageZ – 107 pts
5. Amersham PS – 106 pts

I look forward to see the pictures rolling in for next years Rosebowl competition and also to seeing how the clubs new selection group gets on with sorting out the entries that will go forward to represent ImageZ in 2012/13.

Here’s a gallery of the six pictures that we used in the finals, click on any of the pictures for a larger images.

So the challenge is on for the next season, we have some very tough rounds with strong competition from highly successful and experienced other clubs.

I recently saw something on twitter about f11, an online magazine for photographers that’s free, even the back issues are all easy to download as PDF files so you can read it on your computer or even iPad. Given that most photo magazines in the shops seem to be getting ever more expensive there’s quite a number of these kind of online only magazines so if you know of more please let other club members know. One thing that I like about the magazine is that it’s actually created by a small team of people based in New Zealand so it has a little bit of a different perspective to many of the UK created magazines that we often see.

Click on  the image above to go to the f11 Magazine website

Here’s some direct links to past issues where you can download the PDF

• Issue #1 – July 2011
• Issue #2 – August 2011
• Issue #3 – September 2011
• Issue #4  - October 2011
• Issue #5 – November 2011
• Issue #6 – December / January 2012
• Issue #7 – February 2012
• Issue #8 – March 2012
• Issue #9 – April 2012

Drew Gardner is giving a webinar with Manfrotto on 17th May 2012 from 19:00 to 20:00, it’s free to join, you need to register over at Manfrotto’s website.

Manfrotto School of Excellence, seminar registration

Drew Gardner is an award-winning London based photographer. His work is diverse with a narrative, ecompassing group portraiture to photographing beautiful and extraordinary people on location and in the studio. He has a burning passion for photography and people, getting the very best from any given situation. He lectures in advanced digital and lighting techniques in the USA, Europe and the Middle East. His work has been exhibited Worldwide.

In the webinar Drew will take you behind the scenes of his celebrity photo shoot, both on location and in the studio.

He will share some of the highs and lows of various shoots, and how he uses the lessons he has learned in his day to day photography.

Though Drew will talking about celebrities, the techniques he uses can be applied to everyones portraiture photography.

Yes hard to believe but Aussie Allan has notched up a half-century of birthdays. Some little bird tells me he was hoping for some new camera kit for his birthday… (don’t we all)

Be sure to wish him all the best in the comments or at the meeting at College Lake next week.

I randomly saw this video tip on the internet using a Mixer Brush in Photoshop CS5 to smooth skin, so I tried it on some less than ideal subject… er me!

Here’s the video:

Not just for Sony-folks, Canonistas or Nikonistas but for all photographers, the Fifth Exhibition from the World Photography Organisation is on in London now.

when: 27/April to 20/May at Somerset House

More details on the World Photography Organisation website

The idea is to capture daily life around the world on a single day, and anyone can join in the fun.

On this one single day we ask you to pick up your camera and help us photograph daily life. What is close to you? What matters to you? We will connect your images to images from all around the world, creating a unique online experience where photographs will be shared, compared and explored. Your view on life will be preserved to inspire generations to come.

- ADAY.org

Much more information is on the ADAY.ORG website.

Calumet will be holding free seminars at it’s Drummond Street store in London on 2/May. There’s plenty of seminars to keep most tastes amused and it’s all free. Click the seminar schedule below to find out more from Calumet’s site.

Twenty photographers from the Amersham Photographic Society are holding an exhibition of prints at The Mezzanine Gallery, High Wycombe Library from Tuesday 1st of May through to Sunday 20th of May.

The exhibition is open at the following times:

• Tuesday 9:30am to 8pm
• Wednesday 9:30am to 5:30pm
• Thursday 9:30am to 8pm
• Friday 9:30am to 5:30pm
• Saturday 9:30am to 5:30pm
• Sunday 11am to 5pm
• The exhibition is closed on Monday

The library is in the Eden Centre, High Wycombe, HP11 2DH