Tuesday 1 December 2009

This months featured photographer...

This months featured photographer, and our last for 2009, is Ray maï or Rémi Tinel and he is from India, he say in his profile that photography makes him go out and meet people, saving him from a selfish life.

As you will see from his photostream his favourite subject is street portraiture and his images are full of emotion and are often heart wrenching to look at.

He was recently featured on Spotlight Seven if you would like to learn a little more about what makes him tick.

Previous featured photographers:
November '09 - *6261
October '09 - Vladimir Longauer
September '09 - LJ
August '09 - alex.alexander
July '09 - falsalama
June '09 - micmojo
May '09 - orvaratli
April '09 - ArTeTeTra
March '09 - Tom Hoops
February '09 - Strobist Favourites
January '09 - Tommy Oshima

Thursday 19 November 2009

Wednesday 18 November 2009

Cooliris... cool software...

Cooliris is one of the simplest and fastest way's to browse photos and videos from the Web or your desktop.

You can effortlessly scroll an infinite "3D Wall" of your content without having to click page to page. It will handle Facebook, Google Images, YouTube, Flickr, Picasa, Kodak Gallery, smugmug or any supported site.

You can get the browser plugin from here.

Monday 16 November 2009

Animal Kingdom...

As much as the club members enjoy taking holiday photo's, it seems they equally enjoy animal photography.

Forty-four images were presented, with a wide range of interpretation of the theme.... cats where a popular subject and land, sea, air and cuddly animals were all covered.

Nicolas presented for the first time and we welcome our newest member to what hopefully will be a photographically fruitful future...

Above you see Nico's wonderful reflection image of a swan gliding smoothly down the Danube (made you look twice didn't it !) and Baerbel's exquisite butterfly image full of melting pastel colours and a testament that film certainly is not dead.

As always the rest of the images can be viewed on the gallery pages, please leave comments and click those thumbs-up on all the photo's that you like.

As this was the last theme for 2009 the members can now take a well earned rest and just leaves me to say a big thank you to all, for your enthusiasm and participation which I hope will continue at their high levels in 2010.

Thursday 5 November 2009

One in 8 million...

The New York Times has a fascinating feature called 'One in 8 million' which is an oral history project in which a different individual among New York City's 8 million residents is profiled each week of 2009. The criteria chosen by the NYT to profile subjects is "Interesting person. Great talker. Never before mentioned in the NYT."

Its a fascinating series with a mixture of human interest stories with great photo reportage.

You can check out all the featured New Yorkers here and if you want to know some more background regarding the whole concept take a look here.

Monday 2 November 2009

This months featured photographer...

This months featured photographer is 6261 or TEIKO she is from Japan and has a real talent when it comes to creating wonderfully atmospheric images.

She still uses film and from what I can see Rolleiflex, Pentacon and Hasselblad camera's.

Her Flickr stream is well worth a visit...

Enjoy...

Previous featured photographers:
October '09 - Vladimir Longauer
September '09 - LJ
August '09 - alex.alexander
July '09 - falsalama
June '09 - micmojo
May '09 - orvaratli
April '09 - ArTeTeTra
March '09 - Tom Hoops
February '09 - Strobist Favourites
January '09 - Tommy Oshima

Monday 5 October 2009

This months featured photographer...

This months featured photographer is Vladimir Longauer a Slovakien who now resides in Dublin, Ireland.

Looking at both his Flickr and DeviantART galleries, you'll see a wonderful mix between landscape and portrait photography, a lot using shallow depth of field effects and something he calls 'tilt' where he deliberately puts the lens on his camera in crooked manner !!

He has also been featured in Issue 14 of Blur e-magazine (previously known as Bulb) and you can find his personal website here.

Enjoy...

Previous featured photographers:
September '09 - LJ
August '09 - alex.alexander
July '09 - falsalama
June '09 - micmojo
May '09 - orvaratli
April '09 - ArTeTeTra
March '09 - Tom Hoops
February '09 - Strobist Favourites
January '09 - Tommy Oshima

Monday 28 September 2009

One for the iPhone users...



You may remember Chase from previous blog entries, and he continues to innovate with his latest application for the iPhone. I'll let Chase explain what its all about in his video above... you should porbably check out his blog for further details and also his new iPhone image sharing site at thebestcamera.com.

He's certainly not one for letting the grass grow under his feet !!

Friday 25 September 2009

Dan Winters...





"People aren't gonna remember the things you do, there gonna remember how you made people feel..." says Dan Winters in his video where he describes his photographic process and the motivation behind both his work and approach to photography.

Its good to hear the emotional side behind photography and not just the technical chit-chat that we are endlessly bombarded with.... very refreshing indeed...

If you want to know more about him you can check out his web site here, and these articles at strobist and FLYP.

Thursday 24 September 2009

Chema Madoz...



Chema Madoz is a master of changing the ordinary into something sublime and unexpected... Just where does he come up with all his ideas... amazing..!

Monday 21 September 2009

Holidays 2009

Look like the club members really enjoy holidays.... and REALLY enjoy showing off their photo's....

We had almost 50 images to go through in what was once again, a couple of hours of wonderful stories of holiday adventures, mixed in with a good smattering of photographical tips and techniques.

The members have once again travelled far and wide with a full range of photo's to be appreciated from landscapes to sunsets and travel reportage to the comical...

Above you see a wonderful sunset taken by Toni and below a contrasting image from Bjoern with sublime muted colours and tones...

We only have one more theme before its time to start putting together the book for this year... So I look forward to another high level of participation to close the year perfectly....

As always please go and check out the gallery, leave comments and give your thumbs up to all those photo's that you like...

Friday 11 September 2009

This months featured photographer...

This months featured photographer is Lee Jeffries who goes under the flickr name of LJ.

His specialty, as you will see, is street portraiture that goes from being candid to heart wrenching.

I couldn't find too much out about him, but he has his own web site here and looks like he does a lot of charity work for the homeless as well.

Enjoy...

Previous featured photographers:
August '09 - alex.alexander
July '09 - falsalama
June '09 - micmojo
May '09 - orvaratli
April '09 - ArTeTeTra
March '09 - Tom Hoops
February '09 - Strobist Favourites
January '09 - Tommy Oshima

Monday 10 August 2009

Zuckerman on Wisdom...

Andrew Zuckerman always looked up to his elders and identified them as the ones having answers to many of life's questions....

Using this as a motivation for a personal project... he travelled the globe to photograph and interview 50 significant personalities from the world of politics, art, religion, music, fashion, film and TV... all of whom are 65 years old or above.

The result is the book 'Wisdom' with an accompanying DVD documenting all those wise words on subjects as diverse as Love, Work, Environment, Conflict and of course... Wisdom...

There are some wonderful videos on his website for the book here... don't forget to look at the ones regarding 'the making of' as well just to see the enormity of the project he took upon himself and to get some insights into why he chose to shoot it the way he did and just how much equipment he needed to achieve the look of all the images.

.... and for more information on his other projects check out his personal website here...

Monday 3 August 2009

zemotion....



Zhang Jingna (张晶娜 aka zemotion) is a 21 year old photographer from Singapore who has had a meteoric rise to fame after trying out photography only 3 years ago.

This former International Air rifle champion always liked the idea of becoming a photographer and in the same year as picking up a camera won the 'Singapore Master Photographer of the year 2007'...!

She has already worked for the likes of Mercedes Benz, Ogilvy & Mather, Pond's, Wacom, Architecture International, Harper's Bazaar, L'Officiel and Cleo.

Plus launching her photobook 'Something Beautiful' in 2008.

She is also very active on all the major photographic websites such as Flickr and deviantArt.... and even has time to run her own blog and personal website... which is really quite impressive..

Her work which is predominately fashion orientated shows a maturity beyond her years and includes many self portraits. The overall effect is very cinematic and the retouching all being done by herself as well.

It really is worth while checking out her images in further detail...

This months featured photographer...

This months is another anonymous photographer from Flickr, whose mastery with the Hasselblad 500 I find mesmerising along with his subject selection and shallow depth of field techniques....

Here is what he says in his flickr profile :

'What lenses or cameras do I use? Does it really matter?
Is it all about your creativity, skills, self expression, originality and ART?

It's more than just an idea to please your eye, isn't it?

Should your work reflect your personality and style?

What makes you wonder around in one spot for few hours on some rainy Wednesday with a hope of capturing an extraordinary person or moment?

What is the meaning of my photographic quest?'

Enjoy...

Previous featured photographers:
July '09 - falsalama
June '09 - micmojo
May '09 - orvaratli
April '09 - ArTeTeTra
March '09 - Tom Hoops
February '09 - Strobist Favourites
January '09 - Tommy Oshima

Thursday 30 July 2009

Wise words on pet portraiture...

The Five Biggest Photographers on the Internet...

Photo District News (PDN) have an interesting article where they attempted to identify 5 photographers that they think dominate the 5 most popular photographic platforms; those being blogging, Flickr, YouTube, Facebook and Twitter.

They also tried to ensure that they were photographers only known for their online work.

Very interesting read and don't forget to look at the comments as well... personally I think the list is a little short at five and heavens know why facebook and twitter are considered to be photographic platforms..!......

.....and they should have looked at smugmug as well, for sure we would have got a mention.. ;-)

Anyway, take a look at the article here on the PDN website.

Wednesday 22 July 2009

Clay Enos and Street Portraiture...

Above is an interesting video which would have come in handy while preparing for the 'People' theme recently.

Here we have Clay Enos showing how he sets up a street studio then invites passers by to have their picture taken.

You can see more of his work on his website here.

He's also the photographer behind all the images for the film 'Watchmen' by the way.

Wednesday 1 July 2009

This months featured photographer...

This months featured photographer is falsalama, couldn't really find out a lot about him other than that he is an English photographic artist currently living in Tokyo.

However, what you will find in his Flickr stream is some absolutely stunning street and portrait photography...

Enjoy...

Previous featured photographers:
June '09 - micmojo
May '09 - orvaratli
April '09 - ArTeTeTra
March '09 - Tom Hoops
February '09 - Strobist Favourites
January '09 - Tommy Oshima

Monday 29 June 2009

People...

A rather modest number of images and turnout for the clubs latest presentation.

Hardly suprising I suppose, what with the holiday season finally here, workshops popping up every day, recently launched satellites taking up our time and the list goes on.


In spite of this there was still a lot of discusion and a few surprises... go and check out a certain image from Alberto and see if you can work out what he has done... then check here and here to see if you guessed right.

I have pulled rank on this blog entry and included the picture of my son... well basically because I'm a proud Dad..

...and you'll also see Mar's wonderfully natural street portrait...

So then... time for a well earned rest for everyone and the 'Holidays 2009' theme will be back in September, where we get to show off all the fantastic things we are about to do over the holiday period...

But.... (there's always a but isn't there)... before you all disappear.. please do leave you comments and thumbs up...

Take care...

Fauna & Flora in Europe...

Came across this website Wild Wonders of Europe, where you can see some truly stunning nature images from all over Europe...

Spain is quite well represented as well... might come in handy for the 'Animal Kingdom' later on this year ??

Hasselblad Masters...

Always known for their excellence in the image making business, the top 100 finalists in the Hasselblad 2009 Masters Awards Competition have now been selected.

and...............

............this year the voting to determine the final 10 has been opened to the public....!

If you want to vote follow the link...

Monday 1 June 2009

This months featured photographer...

This months featured photographer is micmojo, aka Jan Scholz. Born in Hamburg, Germany he now lives and works in Maastricht, Holland.

He started portrait and fashion photography in April 2006 as a spare time activity, as a creative counterweight to his job, which he still continues to do up to this day. He uses a wide variety of film camera's of different formats along with digital...

His imagery is beautifully crafted and considering he does this in his spare time, the level of excellence he has reached is extraordinary...

Inspiration for our next theme 'People' maybe...?

Previous featured photographers:
May '09 - orvaratli
April '09 - ArTeTeTra
March '09 - Tom Hoops
February '09 - Strobist Favourites
January '09 - Tommy Oshima

Monday 18 May 2009

Reflections...

Another fantastic participation from the club members with both Aitor and Tiziano presenting images for the first time.

In the more intimate environment of the A Building meeting room the discussion was fast and furious with members beginning to experiment further with their images, with the words 'cropping' and even 'cloning' being thrown around like true experts.

Image variety was high as well, with water, metals, glass and even bubbles ?! being used as reflective media... there were also the more philisophical members who interpreted the theme to mean human reflection... like I said people had really done their homework..!.

As always please go and leave comments on the gallery page and start giving those thumbs up to all the images you liked...

Next theme is 'People' which I'm sure is going to attract even more participation...

Until next time..........

Tuesday 5 May 2009

This months featured photographer...

This months featured photographer is orvaratli, who is from Iceland and as you can see from his images he has a passion for landscape photography..

Hope you enjoy it...

Previous featured photographers:
April '09 - ArTeTeTra
March '09 - Tom Hoops
February '09 - Strobist Favourites
January '09 - Tommy Oshima

Thursday 30 April 2009

Pocket Wizards..;-).....



Newly released film camera !?!...

Just to show you all that film is not dead quite yet, Cosina/Fujifilm have brought out a new film camera based on a design from the 1930's.

A folder no less !!!! that means you can fold it up and put it in your pocket (well almost ;-))

It will go on sale under the Voigtlander Bessa III brand and of course the design has been brought right up to date with a mechanism for switching between two different film formats (6x7cm and 6x6cm) and auto focus.

It is fitted with an 80mm f/3.5 fixed focal length Heliar lens and weighs 1kg and measures 178x109x 138mm when opened. The body is cast in magnesium alloy with aluminium parts, and the camera can be fitted with a hotshoe flash.

Its quite pricey at around 1700GBP, but hats off to Cosina/Fujifilm for making such a bold move no the less, I'll be interested in how well it sells...

Tuesday 28 April 2009

MADRIDFOTO...

Following the resounding success of Paris Photo and Miami Photo, MADRIDFOTO is the only international contemporary photography fair in Spain focusing on private, corporate and public collections.

MADRIDFOTO will be showcasing 47 national and international galleries targeting a new brand of photography collector. Several publishing houses and specialist magazines will also be contributing.

The work of 230 artists will be available for viewing in pavilion 6 at IFEMA. The fair is scheduled from the 7th to the 10th May and according to the architect Andrés Jaque "the exhibition hall has been designed to ensure a pleasant and comfortable experience for visitors, while making sure than the works on view at the stands of the various galleries are seen to their best effect".

For all the details head on over to their website here.

Wednesday 1 April 2009

This months featured photographer...

This months featured photographer is ArTeTeTra (Roberta), as you will see from the slideshow of her Flickr account she manages to create many wonderful images, images that push you to think and interpret plus the addition of music also adds a new dimension. Her photostream is a constant source of inspiration....

Hope you enjoy it...

Previous featured photographers:
March '09 - Tom Hoops
February '09 - Strobist Favourites
January '09 - Tommy Oshima

Monday 30 March 2009

Nighttime...

We received again a high number of entries for what I consider was a very hard theme.

We had many technical discussions regarding colour temperature of lights, stitching with wide angle lens and off camera lighting which was all very 'enlightening' considering the subject ;-)

The club president showed his darker side by presenting the above image of an attempted mugging.. you'll be relieved to know that he came to no harm by firing his flash into the eyes of the attacker, temporarily blinding him while making good his escape....

Also, Nico brought along this wonderful image of Segovia taken from a secret 'locals only' location that he has sworn not to disclose...

There are many more great images over on the gallery pages so head over there and enjoy. As always, comments and 'thumbs ups' are always appreciated, and if the authors of the images can leave a few lines on how and why they took the image it would be great as well.

Next theme is 'Reflections' another theme that at first glance appears to be trivial but in execution is not at all..

Until then.......

Wednesday 18 March 2009

Sony World Photography Awards announced...

The winners for the second edition of the Sony World Photography Awards have been announced.
In total 44 photographers from 22 countries were selected, both in the amateur and professional categories.

The winners will receive their prizes at a ceremony in Cannes next month, where one will be named the recipient of the Iris d’Or – the Sony World Photography Awards Photographer of the Year.
Check out all the images here.
(source BJP Online)

Friday 13 March 2009

"when the famous start thinking of immortality, they call for Karsh of Ottawa."

Yousuf Karsh (1908-2002) a Canadian Photographer of Armenian descent, is considered to be one of the most famous and accomplished portrait photographers of all time.

The title of this article was a quote that appeared in the 'Sunday Times' and gives you a clue of the significance that he has had on portrait photography and the respect that he commanded amongst the greatest icons of the world. During a career that spanned more than 60 years he had more than 15,000 portrait sittings producing more than 150,000 negatives, which is absolutely staggering !

He used almost exclusively an 8x10 large format camera and has photographed the likes of Winston Churchill, Fidel Castro, Albert Einstein, Ernest Hemingway and George Bernard Shaw just to name a few.

Currently in Chicago, there is an exhibition of more than 300 of his prints at the Art Institute of Chicago, just in case you happen to be around that neck of the woods.

The OnlinePhotographer has a very interesting article thats well worth the read, and, an absolute must, is a visit to the Yousuf Karsh website itself where you can read a short comment of a number of his most famous portraits explaining what happened during the portrait sitting (absolutely fascinating), there is also a quite extensive wikipedia entry about him too.

Sunday 1 March 2009

This months featured photographer...

This months featured photographer is Tom Hoops, as you will see from the slideshow his Flickr account contains many beautiful portraits, which not only demonstrate his ability behind the camera, but also his skill in post processing as well.

If you'd like to know a bit more about Tom and what makes him tick you might want to read this interview on the '6 Million People' website. His personal webpage can be found here.

Previous featured photographers:
February '09 - Strobist Favourites
January '09 - Tommy Oshima

Tuesday 17 February 2009

Whatever you want '09...

The club made a fantastic start to the year with its biggest ever presentation of a total of 52 images from 18 members.

Baerbel, Debbie, Erik, Nacho and Toni presented images for the first time, hope the experience wasn't too traumatic !?

I highly recommend taking some time to go through all the images on our gallery pages, you won't be disappointed as there are lots of crackin' shots.

Don't forget to give a 'thumbs up' to those you like and comments are always appreciated as well.

Owners of the photo's can also use the same comments mechanism to give a bit more information regarding their image if they so wish...

The next theme is 'Nighttime'.... am I being too presumptious in thinking that we can better this first presentation of the year ?

Friday 13 February 2009

Word Press Photo Awards


The Word Press Photo Awards 2008 were announced yesterday. Have a look to the winner.

You can review the whole list of winners for the different categories here.

http://www.worldpressphoto.org/index.php?option=com_photogallery&task=blogsection&id=19&Itemid=223&bandwidth=high

Have fun.

Ricardo

Wednesday 4 February 2009

What the heck is an Octa...!?!

I mentioned the other day that the club had purchased an octa, if you don't know what one is or what its capable of.... take a look at the following videos:





Tuesday 3 February 2009

Historic + modern pictures of cities


During the last club meeting some one (Nacho, I believe) mentioned the idea of repeating old photographs of Madrid showing how those scenarios look like nowadays.

There is a quite implementation of this idea in this page.

The picture on the right is a nice example.

Sunday 1 February 2009

This months featured photographer...

This months featured photographer slide show isn't really an individual photographer at all. It is all the images that have been favourited by strobist in their flickr account.

Enjoy... as it really is a stunning collection of images...

Previous featured photographers:

Saturday 31 January 2009

Gallery pages re-designed...

Our gallery pages have been given a complete facelift as you can hopefully see from the image on the right.

The homepage now consists of a very snazzy slide show, the top 12 most popular photo's to showcase the clubs images that have received the most 'thumbs up'and 'ratings.

You will also find links to the 'members', 'theme' and 'most popular' galleries, as well as one to this very blog !.

We also have a new logo with a fun space theme.

Try it out and let me know what you think...!

Sunday 25 January 2009

Yearbook 2008 published...

As you already know, our yearbook has finally been printed and most of you have already received your copy.

The yearbook has increased from 80 to 160 pages, it has a new style 'imagewrap' cover, and utilises blurbs new heavy weight premium paper.

This year the president got the cover and Celia the back page as they were at the top of the 'most popular' images on our gallery pages. Don't forget that it always the most voted image over the year that gets the cover so its a good idea to enter images into all the themes and add images to your personal galleries as well.

As you can also see at the top right of the blog is a blurb badge which if you click will take you directly to our shop, should you wish to purchase further copies for your family and friends.

As always, thank you all for contributing to making the club such a success and we could never really hope to produce this book if it wasn't for your enthusiasm and participation in the club activities... my hats off to all of you..!

Blog style change..!

As you have probably already noticed the blog has had a major re-style and now has a few more features:

  • Each month we will feature a slideshow of chosen photographers images that we think are wothwhile to showcase.
  • Blurb book badges that take you directly to the clubs shop page to purchase our yearbooks.
  • Links have been re-organised into groups to ease use.

....anyway, hope everyone likes it, and if you have any more suggestions please feel free to let us know...

Saturday 24 January 2009

Round up of 'Best of 2008'...

National Geographics Editor in Chief, Chris Johns selects some of his favorite photos published in the magazine in 2008. click here

The Online Photographer posts its list for Photobook of the Year. click here

Nature Photographers online magazine pick their Favourite images from 2008. click here

The Sacremento Bee has a number of galleries, for Photojournalism click here, Sports click here and The US Election click here.

The NY Times has a slide show of the Best of 2008. click here

Reuters have their best of 2008. click here

Song Title...

This theme proved to be tricky with a smaller than usual number of images presented, but it was still very interesting to see which song titles you all chose to represent.

For example this image presented by Celia would you have guessed it was 'African Eyes' by Sister Sledge....

...or the one below from Alberto as 'Lonely stranger' by Eric Clapton

This was our final theme for 2008 and marks the end of what has been a very successful year for the club.

As is our tradition the first theme of 2009 will be 'Whatever you want' look forward to seeing all you images soon...