Monday 26 April 2010

Unusual/Extreme Perspective...

What I thought would be a difficult theme with a low number of images, turned out to be easy for many of you with more than 30 images being presented. Well done to all of you.

Silvia and Ivan presented images for the first time, with Silvia's dramatic image of a tower in Aukland and Ivan's Fake Tilt/Shift of a village in Bulgaria going down well with the members attending the presentation.

Thanks to all of you for putting in the effort and presenting so many high quality images.

All the images are available on the gallery pages, so go and leave some 'thumbs ups' and comments if you feel so inclined.

Our next theme will be 'Macro'... so I hope to see another big turnout for all the images of little things... see you all in June for the presentation..!

5 Photographers a week for 100 weeks equals....

Pieter Weisse has come up with this great idea of show casing each working day a photographers work for the next 100 weeks building up a fantastic resource of reference material of 21st Century photographers. Check it out here...

Friday 23 April 2010

Amazing images of Eyjafjallajokull volcano...


The Boston Globe have a fantastic gallery of 35 images from the recent Eyjafjallajokull volcanic eruption in Iceland, well worth a look.

Monday 19 April 2010

David Fokos...


David Fokos on Plum TV from clifford reese on Vimeo.
I came across David's work recently and being a fan of the long exposure and good old analog Black and White Photography, I thought he warranted a mention on our blog.

You can quickly draw parallels between his work and that of Michael Kenna and Josef Hoflehner and it was extraordinary to note that he can spend up to a hundred hours post processing each image, he appears to be an absolute perfectionist ensuring that every image that makes it into his portfolio is of the maximum possible quality.

His artist's statement is also very interesting with respect to his reasoning of why he does what he does :

"Using long exposures, ranging from 20 seconds to 60 minutes, I have worked with the camera’s unique ability to “average time” in order to examine and understand the mechanisms of human perception and to reconcile our differing subjective and objective views of the world.

I believe that our sense of experience is built up over time - a composite of many short-term events. For example, if you meet someone for the first time, your impression of that person is not a snapshot in your mind of the first time you saw that person, but rather a portrait you have assembled from many separate moments. Each time that person exhibits a new facial expression or hand gesture, you add that to your impression of who that person is. Your image of that person - how you feel about that person -- is formed over time, rather than upon a single expression or gesture.

Likewise, I believe that our impression of the world is based upon our total experience. For example, the ocean has always made me feel calm, relaxed, and contented. If I were to take an instantaneous snapshot of the ocean, the photo would include waves with jagged edges, salt spray, and foam. This type of image does not make me feel calm - it does not represent how the ocean makes me feel as I stare out over the water. What I am responding to is the underlying, fundamental form of the ocean, its vast expansiveness and the strong line of the horizon, both of which are very stable, calming forms.

With this series of images I have used the camera as a scientific instrument, the way a biologist might use a microscope or an astronomer a telescope, to reveal what is felt but often unseen."


The video also provides a unique insight in how he works and its always interesting to see a professional in action.

For more information and more of his stunning imagery you can check out his website.

Friday 16 April 2010

Chase Jarvis and creativeLIVE...



Chase Jarvis has recently announced his latest initiative of offering training/workshops via a GoToWebinar environment completely free. You can watch any of the presentations free when they are broadcast live, if you would like to view missed presentations or keep them on you local hard drive then you have to pay.

There is a wide variety of topics from "Fundamentals of Digital Photography" though to "DSLR Cinema", plus many well known photographers and instructors such as Art Wolfe and Vincent Laforet involved.

You can also participate live in the class via GoToWebinar and twitter technologies.

I've seen a couple of the classes and there not too bad, and they are broadcast at reasonable times for the Europeans as well.

Anyway, watch the video above for a short overview and hop on over to creativeLIVE.com to see the current course availabilities and schedules.

Monday 5 April 2010

This months featured photographer...

This months featured photographer originally from Prague, but now living in Kuwait, is Lucie Debelkova. Her travel imagery is absolutely wonderful and she has now visited 78 countries, so there is plenty of variety in her photo's too.

In her Flickr profile she explains her evolution with respect to her equipment choice, plus you should also visit her website which gives a bit more of an insight into what makes her tick.

As I know there are a lot of travel photography fans in the club, hopefully these images will provide further motivation and inspiration in your own images.

Previous featured photographers:
March '10 - Kent Mercurio
February '10 - Midnight-Digital
January '10 - Art Libre
December '09 - Ray maï
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