WPS Archives 2006

The President's Exposure 2006

The Club President, John Greenwood, writes an editorial for the clubs' newsletter, Aperture. Usually there is a monthly edition, but probably in 2006 at least, they wont be so regular. Find out why in the December 2005 Exposure filed away in the archives.

August

Tim Williams Quartet - Concert!

Recently Janet and I had the most enjoyable experience of attending Tim Williams Quartet's Lunchtime concert at the Academy of Performing Arts at the University.

What a delightful hour of stunning entertainment. Tim and his team played a variety of jazz style music which, while it may not be "everyone's cup of tea", was a feast not only for our ears but also our eyes if one is even slightly up with what playing a musical instrument requires in concentration and practise.

Tim, who is a WPS member, leads the quartet with his sensitively amplified Violin (Fiddle - would probably be a better word, and it would certainly have been the term if he was in the USA, particularly the deep south!) The playing was superb. Tim has a nonchalant style as he starts to play but seems to become completely engrossed in what he is playing. His eyes are often closed as he concentrates on the sounds he is producing. His left hand dances up and down the fret with his fingers moving in concert with the music's rhythm. Meanwhile his right arm is plying the bow to the strings (except for the pizzicato sections) with a determination and at the same time a delicacy which draws the very best of sound from the instrument that is tucked under his chin. I really enjoyed watching Tim's skill.

Trevor Braunias on the acoustic Guitar was likewise a pleasure to watch. His solo performances were wonderful and he obviously had complete mastery of his instrument. This skill doesn't just happen.

Then Pete McGregor on the string bass. Wow! I watched his left hand fly up and down the fret of the bass as his right hand plucked away at an, at times, furious rate and as far as I could tell (and I do have some musical knowledge), he never seemed to hit a wrong chord. Pete's solo's were also stunning.

The drummer, Owen Kneebone, with 50 years of drumming under his belt, was likewise superb. He would play one minute in a hushed almost reverent tone and volume and a few seconds later was delivering a splendid exhibition of a raunchy drum solo. The speed his hands wielded the drum sticks or brushes was amazing.

The combination of these musicians was breathtaking to me. I thoroughly enjoyed the total performance.

Now what has this got to do with Photography?

Tim and his team did not just pick up their instruments and start playing. A violin in the hands of a learner is a pretty painful sound. Skill like this takes years of commitment and hard work. I can remember as a kid having to spend time every day practising my cornet for years, before I got to be "Solo Cornet" for the Manaia Brass band! Music is a discipline that takes time and commitment to master it.

So is photography. Sure, as a novice I fluked a few great shots, but I also had many, many disasters. I did eventually have the privilege of having the Government pay for some of my film, and I also sold a few images in the process to pay for film and cameras. But! (and this is the big but), I put in a many days taking photographs whenever and wherever I could. When I joined Lands and Survey Department as a Ranger I was told I would need to take lots of photographs. Their criteria was three or four really good shots from each 36 roll of slide film. Well, I got far better than that eventually. But the principle is the same for us photographers as it is for Tim and his band of merry musicians. Lots of hard work, try and try again and eventually it will come together and you will start to produce really good images. Sometimes in the darkroom I would ditch seven or even eight pieces of paper before I got a print that looked the way I wanted it to.

Today with most of you using digital technology there is no excuse for not taking heaps of pic's. However you need to be as ruthless as a judge and as critical of your own work as judges are if you really want to make progress. I well remember my music teacher making me play a particularly difficult cadenza over and over until I got the sequence right. On another occasion he made me play a really slow and beautiful piece over and over till I got the "right expression" into it. Tim will know what I am saying - eh Tim!

You need to do the same with your photography. Try and try again. Don't be afraid to experiment and be prepared to go back and do it all over again and again. Of course you still need a bit of creativity, flair, and "a seeing eye" but I am sure that with determination and a little experience you will improve your photography beyond what you can ever dream today.

So get to it. Don't blame the judge because your pic hasn't made the grade yet. You be your toughest critic and you will be surprised at what comes out the other end.

Happy shooting

John

July

Don't throw it away - it may come in useful!

On a number of occasions lately I have been tempted to dispose of some surplus Photographic gear. I even am thinking of letting my darkroom equipment go too. Ask me about the large 20 x 24 inch paper trays!

However, recent developments have meant that I am now rather more careful about what I dispose of.

I recently bought a new Olympus 330 SLR with the new "Live View" facility. It is a pretty new innovation and a "first" in the camera world. You do need a 198 page manual to work out what it can do though and I am still working on it.

I still have in my possession a couple of 35mm SLR cameras, Olympus OM2 and OM4, plus a battery of lenses. I had been thinking of selling them now I am well and truly into the Digital world. However, a study of the System Diagram for the 330 showed an OM lens adapter. Wow! Can I really use that battery of lenses on the 330? What tipped the balance for me though was that I have also for the OMs a bellows unit I used for ultra close-ups in the past. Like, I am talking about filling a 35mm frame with a match head, really close! Now could I really use that bellows unit with the Digital SLR? Yes I believe I can, and a whole new world of opportunity would open up for me again. So I have ordered the adapter.

Then I remembered my Bronica SLR, that wonderful 6 x 6 format camera I still use occasionally when clients demand a very large image, like three metres square! Yes, I still get requests like that. And I remembered also that I had a "Sunpac" Auto 555 Tyristor Professional flashlight. 240 volts, batteries, swivel head on it and a reflector to bounce light into Brides' faces. I wondered, would this work with my Digital SLR? So I got it out to have a play with. Well, I discovered that the normal couplings would not work, but I did have one for connecting the OM cameras to this big light. "Eureka" it worked and now I have a powerful flash capability that I never expected to get for the Digital SLR. What's more it is not fixed permanently to the camera and can be moved round to get the best light.

Digital Cameras are in need of big light sources. If you are taking photographs that require long exposures, then noise creeps into the image, that frustrating blotchy looking stuff in the shadow areas. No, the computer can only do so much after that - it is in the taking of the pictures.

So now I have enlarged my capability (no pun intended although it is quite good one, eh!) with my digital equipment and - hey "watch this space" and see what I come up with in the near future.

The moral of this story is: "be careful before you throw stuff out". My garage is full of things I think may be needed sometime. Well it is surprising how often the "Sometimes" comes round.

However, if you do decide to dispose of some Photographic equipment or material, make sure you really consider what you are doing. I did recently dispose of some Black and White paper that had been in my freezer for perhaps 10 years or more, probably more. However I sold this for a song to some young people from St Johns College who were studying photography and finding the costs a bit much. Well, we may pick up a member or two one day, eh!

So become a hoarder. It may be in your long term best interests. At worst those old cameras could become valuable antiques.

Happy shooting

John

June

The second meeting last month was unusual in that we had the opportunity to view some amazing pictures from the "Hayange" International Salon of Photography.

I don't know about you, but I was stimulated as I watched the wide range of very competently presented images. Now you know what Roger Taylor is on about when he says you should try to see a wide variety of other people's work. The most important thing is to use this as a benchmark for what we need to, at least, aim for in our personal work. I have talked about this before but it bears repeating.

As long as we only see the work of our own club members our photography and our imagination will be limited to what we are seeing. The opportunity to see and in this case discuss other people's work will always be a stimulus to strive for something better in our own work.

Secondly, seeing other people's work, or them working, is or should be a stimulus to explore our own creative "genre" to make our own creative images. This goes for film photography as well as digital. No, we should not attempt to copy other people's work, but allow their creativity to stimulate us to think outside the square and "Do our own thing".

In the past we have seen the crazy situation of a group of members going to a workshop with some overseas "photographic guru" and then we have seen a whole raft of images in this particular genre in club competitions and in National Salons. Some certainly have been good, others - well, to be charitable, a bit boring. Ho hum, yawn, more of this or that Guru's style. Apart from any other reason, it is not really "cricket" in my view to simply copy another person's style of work without putting some personal creativity into it.

So let's use the stimulation of what we saw last month to be the trigger to some creativity on your part.

On the 27th of this month you will have another opportunity to view some spectacular photography, this time less creative but nonetheless stimulating and challenging. Doug and Ruth Arcus's programme will thrill you, of that I have no doubt. So don't miss out - this will be one out of the ordinary.

Now to change the subject.

The fifth Tuesday last month was another very successful evening field trip. We assembled on the Polytech overbridge and took pictures of cars up and down the street below. Some wandered off to look round the Polytech and I understand some interesting images may have been recorded.

Then, in spite of some confusion of when, we assembled at McCafe on Greenwood Street for a cappuccino, or whatever people's particular liking was, and sat round and discussed photography, cameras and told lies about how wonderful the pics we had taken were. This is the essence of the camaraderie of the Waikato Photographic Society. The friendships we make and deepen as we have a good time together are the most important part of being a member of WPS.

Some of you could not make it for a number of reasons. I hope the above comments give you incentive to be part of future activities of this sort.

Keep those shutters going!!!

John

May

The first Saturday in May is, to me, one of the highlights of the year. "This is it" - opening of the duck hunting season. This was particularly so this year because for the past two years I have been unable to hold a gun to my shoulder because of the damage to the shoulder tendons. But you would likely know that, eh!

After two lots of surgery and oceans of physiotherapy, I am back in action. To make it even more poignant, two years ago I lost the pond I had shot over for more than twenty-five years. Some homework, and I now have a new shooting possie. My grandkids helped me to construct a maimai and today (as I write this) the 6th May, I was out on my pond and waiting excitedly for action. Actually I have been like I was as a teenager waiting to go hunting, unable to sleep, awake several times looking at the alarm clock.

Then to top it all off I was in Wellington on Friday and when I got on the aircraft to come home (final preparations for duck shooting still to be done) disaster! The aircraft developed a fault and we all had to disembark and get rebooked - for me to Auckland and then a bus back to Hamilton. I arrived home at 11.00 p.m.

I was up at 4.40 this morning, beating the alarm by twenty minutes and was duly on my pond at 6.30 a.m., all the decoys out and waiting with mounting excitement till it was light enough to see properly.

Then it happened - I had not fired a gun for two years to the day. - but sure enough a duck was unwise enough to move into my cone of fire, and I was on my feet and without a thought fired and killed him with the first shot! Two years, yet all the instincts I had developed with a lifetime of hunting including eight years as a professional hunter paid off. Instincts took over and I was back on my usual form.

Well, the moral of this story is if you have made the practise a discipline and have driven it into your subconscious with practise, practise, practise, you will never forget it. Like riding a bicycle eh!

Now the same applies to your photography. As you start out either as a beginner or with a new camera for you older timers, it is the practise of the craft that makes you competent. You therefore need to practise your photography seriously until it becomes second nature. Do this and you will never regret it. Of course, this is far easier now we have digital cameras as we are not wasting film as we try out different techniques and develop our own way of doing things.

The two recent field trips reinforced this to me tonight, as I was editing the images from the Maungatautari field trip last weekend. I had reverted to what I knew in the days of film, "that the very best forest interior photographs are taken in natural light with no flash, nor any sunlight, just dull overcast light". Well the techniques came back as I tried out my newest camera acquisition and found that even though it is a digital it can take images over a long period like a minute or more, using a tripod of course. Wonderful, lovely glowing colours and great detail in the surroundings. Look out for some in the competitions shortly.

I found the disciplines I had developed over 30 odd years of taking pictures of nature were just as applicable today as they had been when I was in the heyday of bush photography with my medium format cameras.

So, like picking up my gun for the first time in two years and shooting well, so I did with my camera last weekend.

My challenge to you is to go and do it too. Develop your own style and stick with it till you master it. Try new things and experiment till you get it right. Let's see some creative photography come out of good technical discipline in the coming months.

Keep those shutters clicking.

John

April

Janet and I recently tramped the Heaphy Track - one of the trips we wanted to do while we still have the energy.

While I was editing the images from this trip I was reminded where photography has come from over the past one hundred years plus.

Early cameras were heavy and cumbersome. I have seen one that was mounted on a block dray and that one I could not have carried on the Heaphy Track. Coming to even more recent times though, the size and weight of cameras was probably responsible for many a bad back. Ansel Adams, that doyen of Landscape photography, used a large ten by eight inch plate camera in his early days. And so did Edward Weston. I hate to think of the weight they would have carried and even more importantly how long it would have taken to set up, focus and expose each image.

I have some idea how bad this must have been as I have owned two Linhoff view cameras - the first a Standard Press camera in 4 x 5 inches and with a 120 roll film back. The second a Linhoff Rail camera, again in 4 x 5 inches with a 120 roll film back and three lenses. To take a single photograph with either of these two would take up to half an hour by the time the camera was set up, I dived under the black cloth and focussed the brutes through the ground glass, then fitted the necessary film holder, calculated the exposures and took the pics! Wow, did I really do all that?

When Leica brought out the first 35 mm cameras, the press were quick to pick up on them. Well, many were. A few diehard press photographers stuck with the old 4 x 5 inch press cameras for quite a while. Sound familiar, does it?

Well, I went through a succession of cameras, including my present Bronica SQA, a 6 x 6 centimetre format the images from which many of you will have seen. I even lugged one of these cameras around the central Island mountains including to the top of Ngaruhoe - once! However I did also acquire a brace of Olympus OM cameras horse trading from a second-hand OM1 to an OM 4 - wonderful cameras. Then I discovered the delightful Olympus MJU film cameras and bought one, then another, and used them both extensively. I even found that I could sell images from these for the same money I got for the 6 x 6 images.

Well, all this came back to me like a rocket when I realised we were off to the Heaphy Track. My current camera is a hefty Olympus E10 digital. 4 megapixels. Far too heavy to carry 82 kilometres. Yes, the Heaphy Track is that long, and not flat either!

So, after shopping around I bought another MJU, a 4 megapixel digital model. I did have some criteria like an optical view finder and light weight. Well, I carried it in a pouch on my belt. As a result I took more pics than I have ever taken on a trip like this. What's more, the quality I have obtained from the camera leaves nothing to grizzle about. The resolution is the same as the E10 and the images are just great. I was even able to fill the frame with a close up of a South Island Robin. You can see every feather on the little birds.

Then I read the editorial in the latest PC Photography magazine. The editor was relating the fact that Nikon were discontinuing all but one film camera model, and Konika and Minolta have already dropped all film cameras. Like it or not you will in the near future have to embrace the digital revolution. How long this will take is debateable. However the emergence of purpose designed SLR digitals means the future of all film cameras will become more and more precarious. Couple this with the giant strides that have been made with digital print quality and U.V. resistance, and you will realise that our changing photographic world is undergoing a revolution as exciting and as disturbing as the industrial revolution. Perhaps we will not see people out of work because of this, but we will continue to see amazing changes in the technology. Of that I am certain.

So open your arms and embrace it. Digital imaging is here for the foreseeable future.

Oh, by the way, the MJU 410 also makes film clips!! Another change coming!

Keep the shutters going. Good pictures can still be made.

John

March 2006

What on earth is a portrait anyway?

Last meeting we had a slide programme on Portraiture which I found very interesting. It was based on the old traditional portrait of a model, male or female, in a controlled setting. The principles were, of course, right on. "Light is the key to a good portrait".

The question I want to pose is, is this the only criteria for a portrait or is their some more universal criteria which could liberate your attitude to the subject? I want to suggest there is and that the narrow tradition we saw last week is just the tip of the iceberg. (Remember 80% or more of an iceberg is underwater and not seen).

In doing this, I do not for a moment want to put down the amazing portraiture of many famous photographers such as Edward Steichen, Richard Avedon, Bert Stern, Philippe Halsman, Bill Brant, Arnold Newman, Duane Michals, and of course Yousof Karsh, perhaps the greatest of the traditional portrait photographers. In fact, as I study the work of these great photographers of the past, they certainly did not stick with the traditional style. I wonder just what work they and others of their time would have produced if they had at their disposal the technology we have available to us today. Auto focus, studio lights, fast film etc., etc.

So what, taking my more liberal viewpoint, would a portrait include?

Firstly there is, of course, the traditional images as we saw last meeting. Don't overlook them. But what about looking at any image in any situation that shows a human subject with a reasonable amount of clarity?

Included in this are images like that one of Roger Taylor's of the coal miner (or whatever) that Roger did so well with in international Competition. Why not go into the workplace, or take your camera to work with you and see what you can get. I think of an image I have of a shepherd assisting a ewe to give birth to her lamb. A wonderful portrait. Then one someone took of me in my younger days (with my camera) holding triplet lambs I had just delivered. Sure it's a portrait.

What about environmental images. A climber on a mountain, someone abseiling, a rock climber climbing an overhang or whatever. That is an environmental portrait. So is one of Robin Russell on the platform of a locomotive, pretending to be an "engine driver".

What about going to an old time dance and getting a pic of a couple doing a tango, or is that a bit modern?

Don't forget your family too. Families are either very co-operative, or really difficult to get photos of. Our second daughter's two daughters are as difficult as it is possible to photograph. They are plain camera shy. I have to get them at something like a wedding to get them to submit. Come to think of it, what better place to get portraits.

The programme last week seemed to concentrate on young models. Hey, us "olds" make great character portrait subjects. So what about getting grandma doing her crotchet, or granddad reading a newspaper or pottering in his workshop?

Looking again at the work of the old masters, I see that they were not averse to getting in so close we only see part of the subject's face, or a dark profile that only shows the outline, perhaps with a curl of smoke from a pipe or fag.

So go to it. Look at portraits on the internet or get a book from the library or our own WPS library for ideas and study them. Don't be scared to try something new. You never know - the judge might love that way out image you just managed to pull off.

Have a great time getting your pics.

John

February 2006

First of all, very warm greetings from Janet and me for the new year. May you all have wonderful photographic opportunities and use them to the very best.

While relaxing in the south I have been reflecting once again on the whole process of the judging of photographic competitions or of the critical appraisal of the photographic images we all see from time to time. Part of this comes about through my own concerns to see each of us improve our ability to produce really stunning photographs. But also my reflections have included the reactions of Club members to the judging and to the people who have commented on our images for good or not so good. I use the term "For good or not so good" deliberately, as while we may at times question the merits or otherwise of judges or commentators of our work, we need to keep in mind that the opinions expressed are solely those of the judge/assessor or commentator and do not necessarily reflect the "absolute value" as you see it in your eyes and in your mind.

The problem arises because when we submit our work to the critical appraisal of another person, they see it differently to what we do. As the late Irene Cooper once said to me, "when you take a photograph, John, you have an 'OUTSIDE SENSORY PERCEPTION' of that image". What she meant was that your emotions at the time you take that image effectively colour your feelings about that image. The observer, whether a judge or any other person, does not have that same 'outside sensory perception'.

I don't know about you, but whenever I look at an image, my emotions direct my feelings to the image to some extent. I effectively let my feelings dictate my response to the image, good or bad. Sure, there is a good bit of personal preference as I do this, dictated no doubt by the way my personal photographic style has developed over the years since my first rather amateurish attempts back when I was a teenager. It is also affected by the work of other photographers whose images I have had the privilege to see in exhibitions, in various parts of the world, in books and even more so in my opportunities to participate in judging panels in New Zealand as a PSNZ panel judge.

One thing I do know is that, apart from often outstanding single images which seem to have universal appeal, there is always a divergence of views between members of judging panel of the relative merits of individual images. For example: when judging images in a National Salon - each judge can award up to five points for each image. The combined total of the three or four judges' scores is the criteria for an image to be returned for possible selection as the top or winning image. At this point the various judges debate the relative merits of the images as they see them and come to a consensus as to the winning image, medals and honours, etc. While there is often a degree of unanimity over the top few images, below that there tends to be quite a lot of divergence and even horse trading to select the award images. I have seldom seen more than a small selection of images be awarded the same points by all judges on the panel.

So don't be surprised if your image is not assessed by the judge the way you think it should be. You have one person's individual assessment of the relative merits of your image. I would be surprised if all of us always agreed with the decisions of our judges. If the judge is really hard on what you think is a great image, don't be discouraged. Put it in another salon - National or Regional and you may well be pleasantly surprised. Many of our members have been.

However, don't let critical appraisal blind you to the potential of an image. Listen to what the judge/commentator is saying. Try to see the image through his or her eyes and see if there really is room for improvement. Discard it if you wish, but make sure it is not just sour grapes because the judge didn't see what your "outside sensory perception" made it into.

At the start of this year, your committee has the unenviable task of deciding who will be invited to judge our monthly competitions. You will be stuck with our decisions, like it or not. Just be aware that, as that particular judge is assessing and commentating on our work, so are each of you as you look over the images and decide which you like or don't like. The only difference is that the judge has to justify his/her decisions, you don't.

So give a thought to our judges as they comment on our images this year. They do have a difficult task and always try to do their best to help you improve your photography.

We look forward to seeing lots of entries in our competitions, so how about it?

Happy snapping

John