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...

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.

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.

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.

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

Jane Bown...

Whatever you want 2010...

We started the years presentation's with the usual 'Whatever you want' theme and 15 members presented a total of 43 images. Not a bad start to the year if I do say so myself.

As we have suffered a lot with the weather this winter there were a number of 'snowy' images, with this one by Debbie catching the presidents eye due to its composition and great usage of depth of field.

There was a fair variety of images presented as you may imagine, and the participation to the presentation itself was lively, with lots of discussion and questions.

As always, you can view all the images over on the gallery pages, where you are encouraged to leave comments on fellow members images, plus an explaination of your own, and don't forget to give a thumbs up to all those that you like.

Next theme is 'Unusual/Extreme perspective', until then... happy shooting !

This months featured photographer...

This months featured photographer originally from Guam, but now living in San Diego, is Kent Mercurio with, amongst many others, his wonderful landscape images very reminiscent of Micheal Kenna and Josef Hoflehner.

A master of the use of film and long exposure with a number of different medium format camera's, spend sometime browsing his Flickr stream or his webpage, it's well worth it.

Previous featured photographers:
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

The Man Who Shot the Sixties...

THE MAN WHO SHOT THE SIXTIES from CHRIS DUFFY on Vimeo.
Brian Duffy one of the 'Terrible Trio' of British photographers from the sixties, probably not as well remembered as David Bailey and Terence Donovan, is often considered the more talented. After deciding to 'chuck it all in' he took most of his negatives from his studio and burned them before leaving photography completely to pursue other activities.

Recently his son Chris has put together what remains of his father photographic legacy and also staged Duffy's first exhibition in decades. The video above is absolutely fascinating as Duffy explains his entrance into the photographic world and features people like David Bailey and Joanna Lumley who explain what he was like all those years ago. It's almost an hour long but well worth a view.

More details about Brian Duffy can be found on his website here.

Yearbook 2009 published...

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

The yearbook has increased once again, this time from 160 to 200 pages. With a new style cover which shows all the images presented in all the themes throughout the whole of 2009.

You will also see a blurb badge on the top right of the blog, just in case you would like to buy more copies for friends and family (just click it and it will take you to the shop). There is also a 'book preview' with a selection of images to give an idea of what the books about.

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

Club 'Themes' Poll...

Poll will close on the 10th February...

NatureScapes Images of the Year 2009...

NatureScapes has just posted its 'Images of the Year 2009'.

Follow this link to see all the winning images.

This months featured photographer...

This months featured photographer is Chris Dessaigne a.k.a Midnight-digital, he has a very complete profile, a part of which I include below for you to get a feeling about what sort of art he produces :

"Christophe Dessaigne is a French artist who lives in the south of France, in a small town called Perpignan, near Spain on the Mediterranean coast. His creations are open doors to fantastic and dreamy horizons where digital photography serves the fanciful imagery of surrealist photo-montages. His universes are desolate, vast and insubstantial. Gigantic scaled structures rule the landscapes, dwarfing human beings to the size of ants. His post-apocalyptic kingdoms, equally poetic and terrifying, are visions of the end of the world. His work has appeared in cover art book and CD covers in Europe, and has recently been featured in Advanced Creations and PSD Photoshop Magazine. His photographic visions are invitations to remote and chimeric territories. A travel into a mysterious journey."

Previous featured photographers:
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

Hand-held Macro Photography...

Since the club recently purchased a macro lens for its members. I thought that this article recently published on the well known Naturescapes website maybe of some interest.

Crying Wolf...

Jose Luis Rodriguez has had his title of BBC Wildlife Photographer of the year removed, after the judges re-convened on evidence that the wolf which appeared in the winning image was not wild but indeed a trained one available for hire.

The wolf apparently called Ossian was allegedly photographed at Canada Real Open Center near to el Escorial.

The photographer denies that the wolf was hired for the shoot and states that he wasn't even there when the photograph was taken, as his camera setup was activated with infra-red triggers.

Further information can be found on various news sites (BBC & el Mundo).

There are many debates on many Nature web boards of the impact of this decision both on the integrity of the competition and nature photography in general. I'm not going to comment on any of that, but looking at Jose Luis' work you have to say he is a very talented photographer indeed (Pbase galleries, Mirada Natural galleries and his personal website).

Sun Bouncing....

Amongst some of the clubs recent purchase's was the Sunbounce MICRO-MINI PRO with flash bracket. This light, fast to assemble reflector, can be used with both available light and with flash to direct the light exactly to where you want.

The material for the reflector is white on one side and a mix between gold and silver
on the other (see image below), which produces a wonderfully warm light, like that found at the beginning and end of the day, without being too over the top.

I hope to get more of these products for the club in the future, especially the SUN-SWATTER and BOUNCE-PRO, which means you can effectively work in the midday sun and still produce wonderful images, something that's no very easy to do in Spain with its unforgivingly harsh midday light.

Also, take a look at the video above where Bert Stephini of Squeeze the Lime fame, gives us a more light hearted look at the MICRO-MINI's many uses.

This months featured photographer...

This months featured photographer is one of the more popular groups on Flickr, this 'invite only' group has many fine art images covering the colour, B&W and alternate processes genres.

Happy New Year to all of you and enjoy the images..!

Previous featured photographers:
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

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

Scary and amazing...