On Tuesday evening we welcomed Peter Benson to our club via zoom. Peter gave a brief talk about his family's connection with photography going back to 1864. He showed a photo of his great great grandfather Willibald Zehr dated 1868. With such DNA in his genes becoming a photographer was inevitable.
Peter describes himself as a keen urban night scape photographer. He usually starts working about 8.00pm and finishes around 1.00am, depending on his clients. In some of his images Big Ben shows 4.00am. That shows dedication.
His Kit:
Tripod, Camera,
Lens 24 -70, 18 -55, 12 - 33mm
His images are taken with long exposure and manually bracketed and blended in photoshop.
It was a fascinating evening from start to finish with a great variety of images from across London. With the images came the history of the places giving a real sense of time and the ever changing scenery of London.
Peter reminded us that the image we are looking for is not always in front of us, but to look back over our shoulder and to work with the weather we are presented with.
His website is really worth a visit.
This evening's presentation was given by one of our members, Andrew Stringer. The talk was about the life of a fire fighter and photography. He explained how he got interested in photography.
Having attended an all boys school he was keen to learn about the opposite sex. He managed to blag his way into doing a fashion shoot. Without the knowledge of photography or a camera he consulted his uncle who gave him a crash course. He went out and bought himself a basic camera. He got the photos but not the girl.
He always wanted to be a fire fighter and after watching the film Towering Inferno he knew that he had to apply. But he had to wait until he was eighteen years. Still no girls but armed with his camera the first fire fighter photographer was launched.
Fire, smoke and water together helps to produce dramatic story telling images. He took his camera to every callout to capture the after effects. Safety was always at the forefront and these images would be used in training.
Ten of us went to Felbrigg Hall today. We had a lovely day on the estate, gardens and hall. So a variety of photo opportunities presented for all. The weather held up for us, and we all enjoyed lunch together.
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| SPLASH OF RED byAndrew Stringer |
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| METAL FIGURE by Andrew Stringer |
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| SPIKES by Andrew Stringer |
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THROUGH THE ARCH by Andrew Stringer             |
We welcomed Slawek who gave his presentation via zoom. He stressed that his aim is to capture the beauty of the outside world and immortalize it in his images. He tries to keep his images as naturalistic as possible.
His style is Telephoto landscapes. He showed us a range of his images and demonstrated step by step his approach to postprocessing. He starts with the detail - sharpening, using noise reduction and chromatic aberration with all of his images.
He also stressed the importance of light in relation to the angle of the camera and how he uses it, along with the shadows, to give the illusion of volume.
A visit to his web site will give you a flavour of his work. www.photoss.net
This evening we welcomed our members back after our summer break and we also welcomed Nick Akers to Judge our Summer Challenge. We had a varied selection of images ranging from insects to still life, monocrome to multiple exposures, making it very difficult for Nick to select a winner.
The winning images are below:
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| 1st Place: Hares by Jack Mitchell |
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| 2nd Place: Still Life by Jan Murphy |
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| 3rd Place: A Sense of Botswana by Robin Orrow |
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| Commended: Insects by Maureen Cambell |
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| Commended: Insects by Geoff Lingwood |
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| Commended: British Wild Life by Sandie Jardine |
