Newsletter, May 2022

Field Trip St Patricks Church

Only 3 of us , Robin, Norman and me, were able to make the club meeting on 19 May so it was a "gentleman's outing".   Unfortunately we were too late to catch the blossom on the crab apple trees to the front of the church, maybe next year.

4Ws

I get the impression the 4Ws were more of a challenge that I had envisaged.  The idea of the challenge was for us all to take the same 4 images and then to compare and contrast each others interpretation and contrast.   Of my 4 images, my favourite was the back-gate W

where I interpreted the brief literally by focusing in on the W in order "to be different".    If you look carefully, however, you can see my reflection in the shiny metal background.

My selected images are available in Google Photos.

Follow this link to view Rosie's images including my comments and some suggested edits.

Follow this link to view Norman's images.

We still have to work at getting you all to upload your own photos to Google Photos.

May June Assignment

May/June's assignment is to take close up photographs of flowers.  I think that will be a lot easier. flowers are around us all over the place. I included some hints in my last posting which I can summarise with the instruction "get up close and personal" with your subject.  We are not after images of beautiful rose bushes in this task but of single rose blooms, or any other flower you might choose.

Both these images are of the same flower, both meet the brief but the one on the left is more close up than the other.

It will be interesting to compare the closeup capabilities of our various cameras and smartphones.  You need to pay a lot of attention to focusing and depth of field when working so close to your subject.

Hint

View your images in Google Photos and you can use "Google Lens" to identify your subject and link to details about it on the Internet!

My working images for this assignment can be viewed below.

Composition - Viewpoint

We go through life looking at the world from a viewpoint approximately 1.5 meters off the ground and with a 50 degree field of view. 

Consequently when you use that viewpoint to take an image such as that of the dandelion to the right, the brain stifles a yawn as it thinks it has seen that scene so many times.  It might be the most perfect dandelion in the world but "so what".

On the other hand, get down low and take the same subject and the brain wakes up and takes interest.  "Wow, I cannot remember last time I saw this!"

OK it is still just a dandelion but the image is more interesting and holds your attention for longer.

I once read an article by a photographer describing the essentials of his kit bag.  High up on his list was a plastic bin bag for kneeling, sitting or lying on wet ground.

If you can no longer get down there, why not consider a "selfie stick", around £10 on Amazon, so that your smart phone can.

Date of Next Meeting

Our next meeting is scheduled for 16 June.  I think we should have a lot of images to catch up with and can discuss some simple post production editing of the images.

Close Up Flowers Working Album