PUBLIC BLOG — NDPS | Norwich & District Photographic Society

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.

Photo-talkMaurice YoungFebruary 4, 2022street photography, travel photography, india

52 Sunrises in 52 weeks

The Society’s Landscape Group has met regularly over te past year whenever covid restrictions have allowed. What many of us did not realise was that amongst our midst Graeme Taplin a stalwart of the group was also working on his own photo-project.

Here is Graeme’s story

At the beginning of 2021, I embarked on a personal project to film and photograph 52 sunrises for the calendar year. It was simply shooting a sunrise each week and I imagined that couldn't be too tough. I was wrong on that score....it's hard work! Early alarm calls, lots of coffee, cold mornings with numb fingers working the camera and drone. And occasionally awful weather - the weather Apps aren't always right!

On the 31st of December 2021, I completed the 52nd sunrise on a New Year’s Eve shoot at Southwold pier on the Suffolk coast. Thanks to the guys from Norwich & District Photographic Society (NDPS), who were there on many shoots; Justin Minns for getting me onto sunrise shoots in the first place, back in 2016. Special thanks my wife Jane.... for putting up with all those early morning escapes!

A Landscape Photography project by Graeme Taplin Equipment used in all my filming projects: Drones and Gimbals: DJI Inspire 2 pro X5S drone and Olympus lenses; DJI Phantom 4 Pro plus; DJI Mavic 2 Pro; Polar Pro ND filters. DJI Ronin-S and the DJI OSMO with X5 camera DSLR Camera: Canon 5D Mk1V VIDEO Camera: Panasonic GH5 Lenses: Canon 16-35mm f/2 lens, 24-70mm f/4 lens, 70-200mm f/4 lens, Sigma 150-600mm contemporary lens. Panasonic LUMIX 12-35mm f/2.8 Vario lens. Metabones speed booster

Landscape GroupMaurice YoungJanuary 26, 2022sunrise, photo-project, 52 weeks

Special Presentation by James Rushforth

Exploring the Italian Dolomites and Iceland
18th January 2022
This Season Norwich & District Photographic Society has joined forces with Old Coulsdon Camera Club in South London to jointly present outstanding photo-talks by inspirational photographers from around the world. This evening more than 60 people 'Zoomed in' for a breath-taking tour of The Dolomite mountains of Northern Italy and also Iceland.

James Rushforth is a full time professional photographer, he began 12 years ago with his first camera, and he has managed to find a niche in the landscape market; climbing, ski mountaineering and mountain guide books. And what exciting pictures he showed us, even those pictures he took with his first camera were great. He explained that his technique improved over time, not just composition but in post processing also.

There were names to conjure with peppered throughout this presentation, the Tre Cima, Marmolada and the via ferrate, grades one to five! These are all big excursions in the world of climbing but James went on to discuss winter ice climbing on ice falls, the difficulties of good camera work in the winter and ski mountaineering or ski climbing! These were all photographs to set your heart racing, views of ski routes down very, very narrow couloirs and his final 'silly sport' - slacklining. Four hundred meters in the air and walking on a piece of one inch wide webbing. He said it looks terrifying but in fact it's not! Well each to his own, I'll leave it to James.

But it wasn't all mountains in the Dolomites, he had lovely pictures of a dragonfly, a lady's slipper orchid and some enchanting night photography including a shot of the galactic core over the Tre Cima.

After the break we went to Iceland where James ran wild photography courses and produced another book, this time Iceland. He had pictures of sailing ships with icebergs and pictures of his own live-in Fiat long wheelbase van. Not all easy living when the weather confined you to the back of the van for several days!

Nevertheless, he displayed lots of landscape pictures of Iceland plus several pictures of arctic foxes, reindeer, and arctic terns. Not only that he found an abandoned herring factory which proved very photogenic.

He talked of the 'lunar' landscape, geothermal vents and the northern lights and brought his presentation to an end by describing his drone photography and showing us his complete kit and equipment.

An excellent photographer and some quite amazing images. We are indebted to both James and Old Coulsdon for hosting a riveting evening.

Cambridge Camera Club Digital Inter-Club Competition

Last Saturday afternoon after the judge, David Lowe ARPS , DPAGB from Smethwick had delivered his critique for the images entered by the twenty-five competing EAF Clubs taking part in this year’s competition Norwich & District Photographic Society tied on 90 points with Ampthill & District Camera Club and Shillington & District Camera Club.

Unfortunately, David chose the reserve image from Ampthill, so they were declared the winners with NDPS, and Shillington declared ‘equal second’.

Near but so far. Nevertheless, this was outstanding achievement and confirms the recent successes by NDPS in other inter-club competitions and the continuing growth of talent and commitment to improvement amongst the Society’s members..

Competition, Cambidge Inter-ClubMaurice YoungJanuary 17, 2022photo-competition, people, scenes, nature, monochrome

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.

Photo-talkMaurice YoungJanuary 12, 2022venice, travel, railways, long exposure, monochrome, street photography, architecture

Starting with a Blank Canvas by Polina Plotnikova

Yesterday evening, 4th January, Polina Plotnikova opened the 2022 season at NDPS with a presentation of her work featuring creative flower portraiture and still life photographed in both a studio and her home. She studied fine art in a Moscow university and her photography was then only a hobby, but this grew into a profession and obsession.

Polina gave us several examples of old masters who had inspired her, European artists of the 17th to the 19th Century, but her inspiration extended to include the Impressionists; Van Gogh; Claude Monet and Bobbie Burgers.

She said that her approach to studio flower photography was to treat the exercise as a portrait photograph. Her pictures were not flower arrangements but individual flowers or very small groups of blooms. She explained that many of her photographs were focus stacked and taken using a variety of lenses including those from Lensbaby.

Her lighting diagram was two lights, a camera on a tripod plus a tethered laptop. She said that she preferred to spend time with her camera rather than Photoshop, always capturing exactly what she saw on the back of the camera without the need for lengthy work on the computer after the shoot.

The second part of her presentation was called 'Still Life'. Again, she explained that in the studio she, the photographer, was in control of everything so that no one could be blamed for mistakes, this compares with outside shoots where the light varies, there can be rain and there can be people to walk into the shot.

Polina showed herself to be very exact in her compositions citing an example of a two year wait to find a particular prop! Plus, the invaluable piece of advice for anyone who wants to try this type of photography - 'don't get rid of your old ironing board'!

Thank you Polina for an absorbing presentation and a collection of outstanding photographs as well as a brilliant start to the New Year.

Special Presentation, ZoomMaurice YoungJanuary 5, 2022fine art, flower portraiture, still life, old masters

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