seascapes — PUBLIC BLOG — NDPS | Norwich & District Photographic Society

Discovering the Essex Coast

Leaving Norfolk very early yesterday morning (Sunday) no one expected the near perfect conditions that greeted the Landscape Group members who made the long journey down to Thorpe Bay on the Thames Estuary. We were able to enjoy nearly two hours out on the sand flats before the tide started to come in quickly photographing the many fishing boats on their moorings before a welcome breakfast in a local café and the chance to warm up...!.

Later we moved on to Shoeburyness and then Lion Creek before heading back mid-afternoon to Norfolk. Hopefully, everyone will have captured a few great images...?

This coming weekend it is the turn of the Nature & Wildlife Group who will be nearer to home out on the North Norfolk Coast photographing this season’s new population of seal pups.

Many NDPS members choose to join one or more of the specialist Groups which concentrate more closely on particular areas of photography and imaging. Visit our website www.ndps.info/overview-of-groups to learn more about our five Special Interest Groups that all meet about once a month.

Autumn Season opens with outstanding new talk by Ruth Grindrod

Opening Presentation for the new Autumn season = Scotland - Looking Beyond and Within

Norfolk base landscape, the inspirational Ruth Grindrod opened the new season of NDPS photo-talks with a bang! Ruth had prepared a new presentation and we were the first camera club to receive it. A real privilege and a real feast for the eyes.of the 56 members and guests who where there in our new home at the City Academy Norwich.

Ruth began, and indeed ended, with a rousing short audio visual presentation which introduced her photography, her thought processes and her technical tips. This was a 'no bullet point' start to an evening of Scotland north, south, east and west!

As usual with Ruth she began with a brief list of her kit - the cameras she uses, her filters and tripod. She followed this with her first piece of advice, advice which she has found invaluable over her photographic journey - get it right in the camera!

She said that printing your picture is by far the best idea and to help get the printing to your satisfaction you should print sample sheets on ordinary photo paper and then consider the best paper, the most suitable paper, for each particular image.

Ruth showed a series of breath-taking photos to illustrate composition. Offsetting an image by using a pebble - she didn't place it! It was there naturally! She showed the horizon in the centre of a picture, normally against the rules of composition but . . . Rules can be broken.

Special PresentationMaurice YoungSeptember 11, 2022scotland, landscape, coastal, seascapes, initimate, grand vistas

Looking upon the landscape with new perspectives - Nic Stover

Yesterday evening Nic Stover a professional landscape photographer and tour leader gave another inspirational presentation to NDPS who were joined on this occasion by friends from Sheffield Photographic Society.

Nic had been to Norwich before, so this was his second visit by Zoom and he took the opportunity to make a different sort of presentation. Besides numerous examples of his work this time we also got to delve into logistics and planning – an opportunity to look behind the scenes and understand how Nic pulls his successful tours together

In the first part of his talk Nic explained what he called ‘five styles’ of landscape photography and in the second half he talked about planning and logistics. Talking about actually taking photographs he insisted that we should learn to be 'confident and consistent'.

Expounding on creativity in photography Nic spoke of the Wallace Model, preparation, incubation, illumination and verification. Each heading illustrated with beautiful photographs and accompanied with clear examples and explanations. After this he moved on to what he called intimate landscapes; plants, abstracts, night. The plant example was taken on an iPhone from a captured RAW image, beautiful.

After a short break Nic move on to tools for planning to be sure he could get it right in camera. His list of aids to planning was comprehensive - everything from Magic Seaweed to webcams, Google Maps, Gaia GPS, old photography books, campervan rentals and old fashioned spreadsheets to keep everything in check!

A capture clip harness and a handheld strap, a ‘aircraft compliant’ Lowepro back-pack, L brackets and a second camera with a lens attached were also in his must haves for photo shoots.

An exciting evening full of breath taking photography and packed with endless practical advice. Our thanks to Nic - over 60 people from Norwich and Sheffield enjoyed this excellent presentation.

Rachael Talibart - 'Tides & Tempests'

Last evening's (24th November) presentation by one of the best photographers working in the United Kingdom today was a run-away success. 58 members of the Society turned on their computers to hear this presentation - this may be a record attendance for our online meetings during the current crisis.

Guest, Iñaki Hernández-Lasa, FRPS - FIPF - AFIAP, was quick to email his thanks to NDPS for inviting him to this presentation

'Thanks so much for inviting me to tonight's presentation and for your very kind words at the beginning Maurice, you are very kind. A fantastic talk tonight which is really tempting me to shoot more of this seascape malarkey..! LOL'

There were lots of words of thanks in the 'chat' box and one member even emailed the In Focus Team to show his appreciation.

Rachel's presentation covered a multitude of topics as well as sharing lots and lots of amazing photographs. She told how she returned often to the same location and found different shots each time. How she made use of her tripod and how she used it in the sea in positions 'close to catastrophe'. She talked about the difference between big stoppers, little stoppers and graduated filters and polarising filters. She talked about post processing and how she used only Lightroom and delved into some of the processes

She explained that all photographers should 'find their own voice' - not always a quick and easy thing to do but it will happen eventually. She urged us to 'do silly things' to help the learning process and she wanted her pictures to invoke a feeling of 'Curiosity and Wonder'.

This presentation certainly elicited both curiosity and wonder as we soaked up the fantastic images, considered the meaning of Fine Art and wondered if we should change from the Rule of Thirds to The Golden Ratio . .

Thank you Rachael.

Special PresentationMaurice YoungNovember 25, 2020seascapes, photo-talk, filters

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