OPS Weekly Newsletter 15 October

  • Next week, Tuesday 24 October, is our first Print Competition 1. Please upload your digital images of your prints to Photo Contest Pro, deadline is midnight this coming Saturday. Two colour, two monochrome
  • Only a few days left to visit Uwe’s and Bharat’s exhibition if you haven’t already done so

  1. Last week’s meeting – Review and evaluation of your images

I trust that you all enjoyed the experience of reviewing and evaluating other members’ images and having your own images critiqued by fellow members. The most important judge of your photographs is yourself. If you like what you see then that is all that is needed. You took it, it is yours, you are the final arbiter of it.

In photography what is good and what is not so good is very subjective, it is an art not a science. We can all increase our appreciation of our photography if we look a little deeper into our images and spend time considering them. It also helps to hear what others have to say about them and consider their views.

There is a very good video by Neil Danson that has some tips and ideas on how to analyse your own photos. He says “It only really matters what you think of your photos.  But do you know why a good photo is good and a bad photo is bad?  Understanding this can massively help you improve your photography.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZE9cmdgaUQ

The internet is full of advice on ‘what makes a great photograph’. Each blog or video is different due to the subjective nature of the subject. Many make the point that the ‘craft’ of making photographs is one thing and the ‘art’ or ‘communication’ is another. See an interesting view here:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iB8fUiVQ_FE

And the Sean Tucker who was mentioned in the previous video has a very good video on ‘What makes a Great Street Photograph?’ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFASULzj6pc

  1. Next Tuesday’s meeting Upcoming meetings in October

Tuesday 17 October: Interesting Stuff with Justin Minns

Justin Minns is an award-winning professional landscape photographer, best known for atmospheric images of East Anglia

“The thrill of watching the first light of the day creep over the frozen stillness of a wintry landscape, while the air and my fingers tingle with the cold, and the challenge of capturing the atmosphere of moments like this is what it is all about.”

A quest to find interesting subjects to photograph is one of the things that keeps me motivated, the question is what makes an interesting photograph, the subject or the photographer?

https://www.justinminns.co.uk/

  1. Upcoming meetings in October

Tuesday 24 October: Print Competition 1

Judge is Peter Cox

Our first Print Competition of the season

Tuesday 30 October: “The Art and Science of Studio Techniques” with Tony McMaster of Camera Club Live

The first half of the presentation it all about the Science, f stop, inverse square law, flash energy, etc. Sounds a bit daunting but I will make it as interactive as possible with lots of audience participation.

Then after the break the second half will be practical sill life table top shoots, with your members being able to use their own cameras to capture some pictures.

Please encourage your members to, not only bring their cameras but also, bring along interesting things (not too big) to photograph.

Tony runs a You Tube channel Camera Club Live which has over 14,000 subscribers. See this channel here: https://www.youtube.com/c/cameraclublive

 

  1. Members news

Images from the Digital Darkroom featuring Uwe and Bharat

14-28 October, 2023

The Barn Gallery, Oxford

St. John’s College, 21 St. Gile’s, OX1 3JS

Images by Uwe Ackermann and Bharat Patel, plus video art by Terry Flaxton

https://www.codeack.co.uk/

  1. General photographic interest

The Black Country’s bright side – in pictures

Tom Hicks’s Black Country Type series began in 2017, when he started photographing striking sights while out cycling in the West Midlands. Since then, the artist, writer and curator has taken hundreds of photographs of brightly coloured buildings and unusual signs, now collected in a book. “It’s a free-form exploration of a region that people don’t know much about,” he says. One of the trickiest aspects of the project is his self-imposed rule about using the sun as natural lighting. “If the sun’s out, I get my bike out. For me, the sunshine lights up the buildings: it illuminates all the textures, revealing things you wouldn’t see on a gloomy day.”

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2023/oct/14/the-black-countrys-bright-side-in-pictures

Digging into emotion: a tour of 212 Photography Istanbul – photo essay

Highlights from Turkey’s annual international photography festival, which runs until 15 October

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2023/oct/13/212-photography-istanbul-highlights-turkey-photo-essay

Festival of ethical photography – winning projects

The festival of ethical photography in Lodi, Italy, has announced the winning projects in this year’s World Report Award | Documenting Humanity. Twenty exhibitions display the work of nearly 100 photographers from 40 different countries

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2023/oct/12/festival-of-ethical-photography-winning-projects

Leica award winners, Elliott Erwitt honoured

The Leica Oskar Barnack Award (LOBA) is one of the most prestigious prizes in photography, named after the German inventor who designed what would become the first commercially successful 35mm stills camera. Winners tend to be portrait, documentary, fine art and travel photographers (though not always)

https://amateurphotographer.com/latest/photo-news/leica-award-winners-elliott-erwitt-honoured/

Curator Osei Bonsu walks us through Tate Modern’s new African photography show

A World in Common presents 36 artists using photography to reimagine Africa’s place in the world. Here, Bonsu shares his highlights, insights and the show’s historical contexts

https://www.1854.photography/2023/09/tate-moderns-new-african-photography-show/

Your photography guide to London’s Frieze Week

Most of the best photography is being shown beyond The Regent’s Park tent, as institutions and galleries mount their biggest shows of the year for the visiting masses

https://www.1854.photography/2023/10/frieze-week-photo-guide-london/

   

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