Hi Folks,
Last night was another members’ presentation evening where club members could talk about their passions in photograph.
Chris was the first to talk about Blipfoto.
There are 350 million photos uploaded to Face Book a day.
450 million to Instagram.
And 3.2 billion photos a day loaded on social media
and few of them are documented for historical purposes
Chris talked of Joe Tree CEO / founder of Blipfoto who started a small website in his bedroom in 2004 by posting a picture of a day in his life. It soon became addictive to Joe who was always looking for interesting things to take. Soon he had a regular following of a dozen people looking at his photographs. Others spoke to him and asked if they could join in or if he could set up something for them to take part and Blipfoto was born. It proved so popular that he was awarded a Bafta in 2006.
The site did crash one weekend and he was surprised at the response with people saying they did not realise what a good thing it was for them until it went down. The servers were fixed over a weekend. Blipfoto had helpers who were just giving their own free time to run it and as it got bigger they had to come up with a plan to make it work as a business. The solution was to asked members to contribute £25 a year, with the added production of Tee-shirts and allowing members to produce books of their photographs the company in 2012 began for real.
Blipfoto is now available worldwide, Amazon is providing the storage of the photographs and members can store their images through Blipfoto.
One can bring up a set of pictures to see how one has improved over the years and the first picture taken by Chris in 2012 was in the top right of the image below
Blipfoto gives one a reason to go out to capture that required photograph, especially after everything in the house has been taken lol.
One looks at things in another light and from different angles that would not normally be noticed.
Also precious moments are stored
and they act as a documented day in one’s life. Chris said before 2012 he could not remember what he did but since then he has a record of them all.
Also just like a diary one can write about a photograph and what had happened on that day.
Blipfoto connects you with new friends who have the same hobby and passion for photography. One can exchange ideas or visits and even act as guide for a person visiting your area.
Blipfoto has been recognised by the British Library as a site for people to do research into the past.
Blipfoto is not profit making and one can view the photographs for free but you can’t download photographs unless you are a member which now costs £35 at the moment of writing.
There are staff on hand to help you
Chris has posted a photograph for 2,646 days and he said imagine where the next 2,646 would take him.
Some of his images to see
And the latest set of other people’s images as the come on line at this moment.
This is an image photographed by a lady Chris knows in Switzerland who puts a picture on everyday and looking at the wonderful scenery makes him wonder what he is doing living here.
and another from a nature lover.
Next to give a talk was Chenxi
Chenxi loves taking swans and apparently in the early days of photography Alan said, swans were so popular, that nearly every photograph competition had a swan in it.
Chenxi said, taking pictures of swans are quite difficult as they are so white that the textures of the feathers just appear to get blown out. However, in Photoshop and other software the whites can be reduced to bring out more of the texture. The neck of the swan was a bit dark in this image so he lightened it with a brush to enhance it. The shadows slider can also be used to lower or higher the background lighting on the image.
In this heron shot below Chenxi cropped out the unwanted background of the bank. He cloned out the bits floating in the water and brought up the lighting on the heron to bring out its texture of the feathers.
The flamingos on the edges of this image had to be removed so Chenxi cropped them out.
The background was also too prominent
so he blocked red and orange colours from any adjustments / changes made and darkened all other colours
The bird below has been taken in a zoo but the grass was too prominent.
in the image below only the greens were darken down and as there was no green on the bird that remained unchanged
Then sharpened it a bit
Then changing it to a blurred green background
Next to give a talk was me
I am always looking for unusual pictures and spotted a misty moon in my garden. There was an owl sitting on the fence so I snapped it. This image was straight out of my camera. Do you think it would fool a judge ??
I had to confess in my next picture the owl is always perched there in all weathers lol
In this shot Des and I visited Kidlington on a sunny Sunday and walked along the canal, after a couple of miles it became quite rural.
We found an inlet pipe and using a low shutter speed setting I took my first milky water image as a practise for my next visit to a waterfall.
Chris recently mentioned that reflections in the water are darker than above and that he often uses a graduation filter to compensated and level out the light. Unfortunately his talk was after I had taken this image but I have borne that in mind for next time.
We have a large tree near us and I once spotted a red kite in the tree but by the time I had grabbed my camera it had gone.
However, my wife spotted it again recently and just manage to get my camera set on a fast shutter speed and on rapid shots before it flew out of the tree.
It was a dull day and I am now waiting for it to happen again on a better day
I noticed Lacey Green on google maps had a windmill and that it was opened on a Sunday afternoon 2pm till 5pm for a cost of £2.50. However, I did not see the bit about it being open from April and unfortunately it was March.
There is a farmer’s field fenced off around the front of the mill stopping one from getting a front view of it from distance.
However, I used the opportunity to get some nice angles that judges seem to like in a picture.
This last Friday my wife and I visited Ascott House gardens run by the NT and is situated just the other side of Wing.
Cost for entry to the garden as of this moment is £7 and garden and house is £12. There is free parking in a field set up for it.
There is a large pond with a fountain which I again tried my slow speed shutter again for the milky effect from the fountain.
Part of Ascott house photographed which has a guided tour given every so often in the afternoon.
The gardens and hedges are kept immaculate
If you remember my shark picture that I thought for about two weeks on how I could make it my own this fountain got me thinking again.
However, this one troubled me more for a solution
but I am now waiting for the theme ‘What happened to Shergar’ lol
Quite a few people were walking around and I had to wait for another photographer to capture close macro shots of the flowers but I eventually got my turn of a shot of the tree.
Lovely fields of daffodils there but most of them were dead Jim. So one needs to go early March to get them in full bloom.
I was some distance from these stairs when I noticed four people walking down them and their faces were full of concentration going down each stair.
I thought it would make a good picture so waited for the next elderly couple but on viewing the stairs the lady chose to use the embankment at the side.
In the end, a young couple just cruised down them as if the stairs did not exist, so another opportunity lost but perhaps another day lol
So finally taking dead daffs with a tripod before we had a tea and scones in their cafe.
Last to speak was Brian
Who gave a talk on a new light diffuser box
Lastolite Ezybox Speed-Lite 2
that can be attached to one flash unit attached to your camera. It is easy to set up and use.
Inside it comes with a lining of silver or white but Brian said there is not a lot of difference.
It gives a nice soft light from the sides of the box and if used on the camera it is best to point it at an angle away from the subject.
Or if used off the camera it can be held just to the side above a person’s head.
The front cover is removable which will give a stronger light if needed.
Brian carries two boxes around with him as they have proved to be so useful.
One can purchase them in Jessops or Wex’s for around £50
Thanks for those who gave us their talks and some good information on their photography
Other announcements during the evening came from Julia who has obtained a 15% discount for club members from Fine Arts for printing paper. Please see Julia for the discount code.
Secondly, Lawrence sent around an email with the club’s proposed constitution amendments and after a show of hands last night it was approved / accepted.
Thirdly, Chenxi reminded everyone that the Chiltern Exhibition judging takes place at our hall on Sunday the 7th April and the judge will give his summing up for the awards on Sunday evening between 7pm and 9pm for any member who wishes to attend.
Finally Brian reminded everyone that the 4th round of the Club’s league championship next Tuesday has a ‘print only’ in the ‘open’ section so please only submit a print in that category but you must enter it on the website as a viewing image as usual.
Next week is
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Chiltern Images Print Selection Evening
Sunday April 7, 2019 from 7pm to 9pm
Where:Weston Turville Village Hall, School Approach, Weston Turville, Bucks, HP22 5RW, UK –GOOGLE MAP
Tuesday April 9, 2019
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Competition – Club Challenge Round 4
Tuesday April 9, 2019 from 20:15 to 22:15
Where:Weston Turville Village Hall, School Approach, Weston Turville, Bucks, HP22 5RW, UK –GOOGLE MAPDetails:Theme (Love) and Open categories – pdi & print
Digital for Theme & Print for Open
Judge: Amanda Wright (E&HHPS)