Posts tagged wildlife and nature
Pole to Pole Through Africa - Renato Granieri

Last night's Special Presentation was jointly produced by Old Coulsden Camera Club and NDPS and was attended by a large number of the members from both societies.

Renato divided his presentation into two halves covering the poles, both North and South, before the break and then Papua New Guinea and Sierra Leone after the break. This meant a cold (-30 degree) first half and a hot equatorial climate for the second..!

But the Poles first - there were some great pictures of penguins, Antarctic birds, and landscapes. Renato's style of experimenting with exposure, high key and low key, shone through these images and produced admiration in the audience when he explained that it was done in-camera with very little postproduction work. It was while he was showing this series of pictures that he offered some excellent advice, 'When you are on a shoot ask yourself, "Why am I taking this picture?"'

The first part concluded with his Top Tips - Keep it Simple; Understand Your Subject; Look for new angles - Move Around; Maximise your time and keep going back..!

The final part was Putting a Story Together. His work for the Papua New Guinea Tourist Board to promote the country as a destination. Here he showed a series of portraits, even using a fish eye lens for a dance routine.

In Sierra Leone he worked in a chimpanzee sanctuary, illustrating this part with some great pictures including emergency rescues of chimps offered for sale in the street.

Again, he concluded with some Top Tips. Understand your camera; Be creative; Be different and get inspired.

An excellent evening with lots of technically good and heart-warming photos from around the world.

We look forward to Tuesday 18th May when the members of OCCC and NDPS will hold their first joint Members’ Evening which will gives us a much better opportunity to learn more about each other.

Read More
Living and Working as a Professional Photographer in Namibia by Scott Hurd

This week’s regular Tuesday meeting saw members and guests attended this Zoom presentation from a consummate professional photographer. Scott led us through his journey from England to Namibia and told us, by means of his wonderful photographs, how his work unfolds in that sub-Saharan, west coast country.

But Scott began his talk by outlining the origins of man in this area and throughout added more and more information, bit by bit, and brought us into the present day - so much so that he told us about the Namibian fight against Covid and how successful the country had been in containing the pandemic.

What a fantastic country - the Skeleton Coast, Fish River Canyon and the Benguela Current. It is no wonder that tourism makes up such a big part of Namibia's GDP.

Health and safety needed to be considered - he showed us a publicity shot of a floating bar, a beautiful bar in a tropical sunset. But the bridge to it had missing planks and the handrail was only really there for the high voltage cable! This is Africa. But Namibia is changing it has the best roads in Africa (and the worst drivers in Africa).

The scope of work Scott has undertaken is inspiring, we saw photos of children at school, fabulous weddings and, of course, the wildlife. Black and white rhinos, hippopotamus, desert elephants and pangolins. How can these animals be saved from poachers who sell their scales for medicine and their bodies for food. Scott's work in photographing all these endangered species certainly helps to raise awareness worldwide.

His assignments included being there when a gold mine was first discovered and recording every stage of the industrial development, photographing the front line anti-poaching squads and shooting the President.

Perhaps his oddest shoot was the Calendar Girls shoot for an all-female equivalent of the Women's Institute.

The evening was a cornucopia of plenty! Thanks Scott.

Read More