Posts in Photo-talk
Undiscovered Essex by Justin Minns
Undiscovered Essex by Justin Minns

Justin, a well-known photographer, long-time friend of NDPS and now a Society member, opened our 2023/24 season with a brand new presentation. Undiscovered Essex was based on his experiences gaining Licentiate and Fellow qualifications from the Royal Photographic Society.

Justin began with a short biography going back in time to when he began his career as a professional photographer. Interestingly he said that initially he wanted the qualifications only for him to be able to add letters after his name and thus gain not only kudos but an aura of professionalism which could, perhaps, further his career as a photographer. He described how ten years ago he put together his submission for a Licentiate qualification and how he achieved this through taking lots of advice. But now, with the qualification in the bag and the letters after his name, his view of the RPS qualifications changed. He found that the exercise had made him scrutinise his work more carefully. He saw that his photography was benefitting from his careful examination - there were added benefits to be had from those letters after his name!

Having achieved Licentiate he discovered that he could leapfrog the Associate level and go straight into Fellowship. And so he did. His Fellowship panel was entitled 'Undiscovered Essex'. The title of his presentation this evening.

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Special Presentation, Photo-talkMaurice Youngessex, lrps, arps, frps, landscape, distinctions
Namibia by Bob Johnson ARPS

On Tuesday evening Bob Johnson presented his Namibia talk at our regular venue, the City Academy. This was Bob's third visit to NDPS but his first in person. His two previous presentations, Kingdom of The Ice Bear and Carnivores of the Serengeti, were delivered via Zoom during the pandemic.

 How nice to have him in the room for the first time. He briefly mentioned that he had by now spent a year in Africa photographing wildlife, the landscape, and the people. He said that he now had a small fleet of drones as well as his usual cameras and lenses.

 This was a travelogue of the visit made my Bob and his wife Peggy. A journey through the driest country in sub-Sahara Africa, Namibia. The country is named after the Namib desert, and that name, Namib, means vast place. Bob hired a land cruiser and driver for his trip and travelled from South to North in the country visiting not only the inland sand dunes and bush but also the coast, the Atlantic Ocean. And all the time he photographed amazing wildlife - enormous, fearless pelicans, colonies of seals (you could smell them before you saw them), Cape Sparrows, Egrets and Flamingos! But Bob also managed to capture lots of elephant, giraffes and took photos of both black and white Rhinos.

 Not content with the wildlife he recorded the sand filled old diamond mines, the sand dunes in the light of dawn and some spectacular shots of people walking on the rims of the dunes and some lovely shots of local people from the villages with their lack of concern at not wearing much clothing and their rain dance.

  A wonderfully entertaining evening of wildlife, nature, and community photography. We are once again indebted to Bob Johnson for a wonderful evening.

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Photo-talkMaurice Youngnamibia, wildlife, african culture, sand dunes, coast
Lightroom Live with Joe Houghton
Lightroom Live with Joe Houghton

Our images, Joe’s processing…!

Last night the well known Joe Houghton was given a collection of NDPS images from our last competition, both the original RAW file and the finished jpeg file.

The object of the evening was for Joe to work on as many of the images as possible during the presentation and to finally compare his end product with the member's final jpeg.

He selected nine of the images offered and carefully worked on each one, explaining his thought processes and explaining the tools used as he went. His explanations were carefully considered, clearly explained and watching him use the full suite of tools in Lightroom was an enlightening experience.

I believe that he left no corner of the Lightroom Development panel untouched. His use of the masking tools and artificial intelligence was, perhaps, one of the most useful parts of his presentation. The resulting final images he produced were exceptional.

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Zoom, Photo-talkMaurice Younglightroom, masks, luminosity
A Bit of a Journey by Mark Gilligan
A Bit of a Journey by Mark Gilligan

Yesterday evening's presentation from an absolutely outstanding photographer kept over forty members enthralled for the whole evening.

Mark introduced himself and ran through his early life from his schooldays, when he was in the football team, to his retirement! He made no apologies for this journey which included several references to his father who he described as his inspiration. His dad was a photographer and Mark had never known a time in his life when there was not a camera around, and a good camera too because his dad allowed him to use the newspaper camera from work!

Mark explained how he rose to the heights of working for the Daily Mirror and, importantly, working in the Mirror dark room. From 1972 - 1975 he worked for an ad. agency and then he was recruited by the Home Office.

In this job he was responsible for training photographers and AV people when the Home Office was interested in the inner city riots - his images followed this route, Acquisition, Assess, Protection and Court! This led to film production and even more pictures of city centre riots, but he was always able to escape for short periods to the lake district for landscape photography.

1984 and Mark was involved in the miner's strike, flying pickets and Mr. Scargill. 1985 saw him photographing and recording the Heysel Stadium disaster and Bradford City disaster.

The Home Office needed a system to deal with English football hooligans at home and abroad and Mark helped in devising and putting this in place. This is now known as the National Crime Agency.

He covered the Tottenham Riots of 1989, the prison riots of 1990 and went on to make counter terrorism films.

This whistle-stop tour of disasters brought us to the break. When we resumed Mark shared how he makes a photo - assess, compose, expose and click! He said that he used Lightroom but doesn't take more than a couple of minutes in post processing. In addition to Lightroom he used Nik Collection Silver Effects.

He had an interesting way of dividing a day into sections. First, sunrise, then daytime (yes you can take pictures during the day!), Grim and finally Dusk. An interesting assessment of a photographic day but all the time he wove his fabulous landscapes of the Lake District and North Wales through his explanations.

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Special Presentation, Photo-talkMaurice Younglandscape, snowdonia, wast water, lake district
Photo-talk by NDPS member Des King
Photo-talk by NDPS member Des King

The People of Rajasthan
Tuesday 1st february

This evening the booked speaker had to call off and his presentation has been rearranged for March.

NDPS member Des King offered his services as a reserve speaker and gave us an excellent presentation on his trip to Rajasthan three years ago. He began with a map of India showing the geographical areas covered, starting from Delhi.

The first part was based on 'people' and accompanied by a brief commentary from Des and backed by Indian music which proved to be very evocative. India is a colourful country and Des certainly caught the mood with street sellers, the festival of Diwali and tiny hot air balloons. He went to a theatre to watch a special performance by actors who only moved their eyes!­­­

The Opium Festival looked interesting and, for sure, Des bought a pipe!

The sacred cows of the country which, of course, cannot be shooed away or pushed off, were ever present in his photos, in the street, in the markets and even on the railway lines! Des had also been to a Hari Krishna temple and listened to the Hare Krishna mantra being chanted by the congregation.

After 'people', Des concentrated on buildings - temples and palaces, the Jaipur Observatory and the Taj Mahal from afar. What a breath taking, whirlwind, tour of a colourful and fascinating country.

Thanks Des for standing in and giving us a great evenings entertainment.

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Photo-talkMaurice Youngstreet photography, travel photography, india
Benvenuti a Venezia
Benvenuti a Venezia

This evening a well-attended presentation by our own Dave and Joan Jordan kept us all focused on the jewel of the Adriatic sea, Venice, capital of the Veneto region Italy. Built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 bridges, one of the most romantic, most visited and most endangered cities in the world.

They have been fortunate enough to have visited Venice on three occasions and this evening we were taken on a photographic journey through their visits to this beautiful city and its immediate area.

The presentation began with an explanation of the geographical position of Venice and some of the things that prompted their interest in the city. An excellent piece of advice was to take the water taxi, hop on and hop off, to save your feet. Venice can be tiring if you only walk as a means of getting about.

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Photo-talkMaurice Youngvenice, travel, railways, long exposure, monochrome, street photography, architecture