Hi Folks,
Members project night 26th April
Throughout the year various club members had set themselves a project to achieve and last night was a chance for those members to show the rest of us what they had accomplished.
Well the evening certainly had some extreme and entertaining projects demonstrated.
Allan Thomson’s project
To start the evening off the first project came from Allan Thomson with Allan saying that Architecture photographed by Chris, where Chris’s photographs tend to look up buildings from ground level, had started him thinking that another interesting way would be to take pictures from the top of the buildings looking down.
However, Allan went on to say, “Without access to buildings he wasn’t sure how he was going to manage to get to the top” and reaching for his large shoulder bag he said, “He had an idea”. A titter came from the audience as somebody asked if he was about to reveal a Jet Pack lol but Allan had invested in a drone which he then took out from his bag.
We were shown the controls which also had a small screen. Allan explained he has spent several hundred hours flying time but due to bad weather most of those hours had been spent flying it in his lounge. The Drone is equipped with a selected Sony camera and Allan went on to explain how accurate and steady the drone is for taking razor sharp pictures, although we never saw any home pictures of his cat with its hairs standing on end.
Allan answered a series of questions on the limitations of flying drones and explained various built in devices the drones now have preventing them from flying near Heathrow and other devices that prevented them from colliding with other objects. Allan went on to say he hopes to put some aerial photography entries into the competitions next year but whether these ‘high flying’ photgraphs will ever top Steve Beckett’s photographs this year will remain to be seen.
Now what does a Stag look like from above lol.
Chris Andrew’s project.
Chris explained he wanted to constrain himself into producing a series of pictures using the same set of post processing options he has set in Photoshop. All his pictures were set to Sepia and he said the process had enabled him to notice greater detail in subjects that he had previously just walked passed and missed.
Chris then displayed a series of photographs highlighting textures on columns, symmetrical walkways, spiral staircases, water reflections which all create geometrical designs he had uncovered in the Barbican.
Dawn Cave’s Project
Dawn Cave then announced her project was to take things in threes
We were shown a series of pictures starting with the first showing 3 vintage suitcases photographed outside Pickering station. This was followed by some photographs taken in India, the first being of three vases/pots around a smoking fire, Dawn said they often burnt various objects in a fire. Next we were shown three ladies sitting on the beach next to waves, then a second photograph of the same three ladies being soaked as they had underestimated the wave’s strength.
Dawn went on to say that India virtually has a festival everyday and they are colourful opportunities where people love to have their photographs taken and pointing out in one photograph that three girls were rushing to her train carriage for her to take a picture.
From there Dawn took us to the more rural parts of India where three ladies on the road were carrying piles of sticks on their heads and in another three other ladies were each picking tea (I couldn’t see whether it was 3 tea leaves they were picking lol).
Anyway, back in Mumbai railway station Dawn had spotted three window arches to photograph and a further picture of three boys sitting on a railway line amongst the debris and rubbish. Apparently the train comes through and they all just move. I did see a programme on television where the train runs through a crowded market and market awnings are taken down to make room for the train. Anyway three cheers for Dawn’s presentation.
Jan Dell’s Project
Jan started her talk telling us she had invested in a light pad for the cost of £35 to create some unusual photographs of fruit. A stunning picture was displayed and Jan went on to tell us how she achieved it. Her equipment used was the light display pad, a clear dish, some hair gel, kiwi fruit and lemons.
Jan first filled her bowl with blue coloured hair gel, Jan explained she would have preferred green but that colour wasn’t available. The gel has a speckled effect and on the gel Jan layered slices of lemon and kiwi fruit. The bowl was placed over the light pad to give a lovely effect for the photograph.
Jan said she has spent many happy hours in the winter months experimenting with different items which included a sliced red onion to good effect.
John Timbrell’s project
Just before the break John had laid out various prints and went on to say that having taken a picture of speed motion using a quarter stop in order to capture movement in a blurred fashion, it then spurred him on to make a series of similar prints.
John finds places like stations are good for subject matter but not being able to use a tripod some of the shots are hard to achieve and he has often had to rest the camera on balconies. He did take some of his shots in Madrid but found he had to alter the stop speed by another quarter, as the Spanish either walked quicker or slower but I wasn’t sure of which lol
Then a coffee break
After the break
Ni Chenxi’s Project of water drop Collision
Well after coffee we seemed to have dropped into a future world with a big splash and hopefully I got the gist of some of it lol
Ni happy to work with electronics and he wanted to recreate a stunning shot of water droplets he had once seen on the internet.
Here am I thinking a dripping tap falling into a washing up bowl of fairy liquid was the answer.
Ni has taken this to Star Trek levels. Ni says there are three pieces of equipment necessary to achieve the photographs he requires. The first being a good macro lens (think he uses f2.8), the second a trigger (and they cost around 300 dollars) and a Solenoid valve system to release water droplets at the right time.
Ni explained being a bit of a dab hand with electronics he could make a trigger from a card with some relevant chips on it. After the first attempt most of the photographs were too blurred and after showing us photographs of the apparatus, one conjured up an image of what might have been the inside of CP30 on a bad day.
After which Ni decided to box up all the loose wires and parts. Then to overcome his problems NI decided to add a set of electronic dials (for adjustments) which showed the speed timings of various sections of this machine.
Eventually Ni showed us some of his latest shots which are stunning. Ni has added colours, olive oil and sugar to the water, also placing an overhead light and underneath, coloured wallpaper to enhance it. However, Ni is still not happy until he has achieved a certain shot created by someone else on the internet.
The target shot that he wants to achieve was shown to us on screen, so good luck with that one NI.
Luke Callaghan’s Project
Luke has had a look at 360 degrees photography, Luke said some of the early work in this field used fisheye lens but these caused some distortion. However, there is software on the internet, some of it is free, which will help achieve 360 deg pictures. The most important piece of equipment needed is a tripod which has a specialised head to hold the camera in position and allows the camera to be angled around from the same position without moving the tripod legs.
Luke demonstrated the set up for us using his tripod
Luke showed us a superstore that he had photographed which was used from a series of photographs taken from the set position. Having got the photographs on computer there are programs that will stitch all the photographs together. Once the pictures are joined, another piece of software creates a revolving 360 degrees scene where the user can also zoom in and out in the created scene.
Finally Steve Beckett Project
Steve for his project has decided to keep all selected backgrounds in his photographs in focus with a good depth of field and then waited for his street people to walk into that particular spot. Steve said this needs really good timing and is a good discipline and help in taking street photography. No panning is used and we were shown various pictures of people walking passed portraying their everyday lives from one subject pushing wheeling barrow to others carrying brief cases etc.
Steve did set up a shoot in the middle of a street in Belgium and said if any cyclist came around the corner they would apologise to him in English. He came to the conclusion it was either his peak cap or that only the English would be mad enough to stand in the road lol.
Thanks to all the presenters that gave up their time to make the evening.
One other thing, I was asked to mention is that Vicki would like the names of all those wishing to attend the dinner and presentation night on the 24th May to please bring all monies in next Tuesday.
Derek