A wide range tonight. Recording available from the Members Only page
First Andy B talked us through the portrait challenge, picking "Crofter's Daughter" by Tony R in first place, though the popular vote went to "Catriona 2". I now know that if the subject of a portrait has a shovel, it's street photography. I actually would have picked Tony's "30 years a soldier", though I agree the title and the pic were a tad mismatched for competition, where it's not what we know that matters. It's what we tell the judge.
We had 5 (well 6) pics of notte-so-olde London town from Derek. Google says car reg systems changed in 1983 and 2001, so the one with the Vauxhall just predated the last change. Cities change fast. The disappearance of Throgmorton Street (Lane?) and the newspaper stand, shows how important "record shots" really are to social history. Interesting how the slow shutter speed and the "painterly" thing came up again in Sally's talk later.
No surprise that Richard W's 5 photos were of wildlife. I doubt even Richard has a trained Humpback Whale in his garden pond, but having your own garden fox is pretty special- and I definitely never saw an otter in a tree before. Fingers crossed for Richard's Technicolor Kingfisher in competition.
When Tony's son Mark gave us an ICM talk a couple of years ago, we saw one professional photographer's take on the idea- largely seascapes and estuarine images (from the Wirral?? I think) which did indeed look more like paintings than many paintings do. Tonight, Sally H gave us a wider selection of photographers and images, including some really nice ones of her own. The Joseph Kirkman landscapes were pretty special. I must look him up. The results speak for themselves. The method gets interesting and fun results , as Colin showed, whatever it is applied to. Done properly, it takes time, especially for land or seascapes, but cheating is possible! (Copy layers, shift , experiment with blend modes and try motion blur.) The problem is not to blur so much that all textural detail is lost. Have a go!
We will have Derek's "Freelensing" talk next session, as he is working next week. What is this work business?
I think it's great that we have so many members able and willing to participate so actively in our meetings- and able to discuss such different aspects of photography.