Innholdsfortegnelse for 11-Jan-2014 i Amateur Photographer

WHEN we take pictures, we do so generally unaware of the significance that they may one day be imbued with. I was reminded of this when reading Ian Berry’s fascinating reminiscences of shooting in South Africa over a career spanning more than 50 years, particularly that day in 1961 when he photographed a young and then unknown Nelson Mandela (see pages 35-38). Mandela was not the subject that Berry had gone to photograph, but he rattled off a shot or two anyway and then thought nothing of it. Little did he know that Mandela would go on to become one of the most famous people of our time. I wonder whether I too have photographed someone who will one day become an icon. If so, I will most probably have…

NIKON has forced camera maker Sakar to stop making or selling the Polaroid iM1836 after Nikon accused the firm of copying the design from the Nikon 1. In October, Nikon sued US firm Sakar International for patent infringement and launched legal action to stop it manufacturing and selling the Polaroid iM1836, an interchangeable-lens camera. Sakar has since agreed to a preliminary injunction designed to stop it selling and advertising the camera, according to a statement issued by Nikon. ‘As part of the injunction, Sakar will no longer manufacture, import, advertise, promote, offer for sale, sell or ship the Polaroid iM1836 digital camera in its present configuration,’ stated Nikon. Sakar, which is based in New Jersey, had yet to respond to a request for comment at the time of writing. Last…

HUNDREDS of ‘lost’ images taken by Hollywood actor and keen photographer Dennis Hopper will go on show in London later this year. The exhibition, called Dennis Hopper: The Lost Album, to be shown at the Royal Academy of Arts in the summer, is set to feature portraits of artists and actors, including Andy Warhol and Paul Newman. The collection of more than 400 photographs also includes records of historic social and political events, such as Martin Luther King’s march from Selma to Montgomery in 1965 (above). The archive was reportedly discovered in cardboard boxes at Hopper’s home, following his death in 2010 at the age of 74. Dennis Hopper: The Lost Album will run at the Royal Academy of Arts from 26 June-25 August. Hopper, who used a Nikon SLR,…

● THE GRACE OF THE CAT by Tamsin Pickeral and Astrid Harrisson, £25 You probably already know if this is your sort of book. If you are a cat person, then you’ll absolutely love it. Astrid Harrisson’s photography is a peerless example of how to shoot pets, conveying the personality of cats in vivid colourful detail. The size of the book makes it excellent coffee-table fodder, and Tamsin Pickeral’s exhaustive explanations of the different breeds are enjoyable to flick through. ● PUPPIES 2014 CALENDAR $8.99 (£5.48) For those of you turned off by the above review, we’ve got you covered – 365 days of nothing but puppies. Honestly, what more do you need? There’s a magnet that lets you attach the little day calendar to a metal surface or an…

THIS image was shot back in 1992 and it’s one that I’m particularly fond of. As many of you have probably seen by now, I own boxes and boxes of unusual objects in my studio. It’s stuff that I’ve collected over the years and have kept with still-life imagery in mind. I had intended to photograph all the items in small groups a few years ago. In fact, some of these objects you’ll find in my previous photos. This particular image was taken on one of those days when I felt like trying something a little different. I spread out all the objects and noticed that a few of them had letters and numbers on them. I thought I’d try spelling out my name, but then realised I didn’t have…

Michel Hersen USA Michel’s images have appeared in AP’s Reader Spotlight pages many times, but we’re always delighted to welcome him back when he delivers another superb set of images from his ongoing projects on America’s National Parks. His composition and eye for colour are exceptional, so sit back and enjoy. To see more of Michel’s images, visit his website at www.photographybymichel.net. Peacham Pond 1 The trees on the edge of the frame provide a perfect border in this shot, taken from Owl’s Head Mountain in Vermont Nikon D7100, 18-200mm, 1/20sec at f/20, ISO 200, tripod, polariser Path to Diana’s Bath 2 Michel has captured the vivid colours of this forest in Bartlett, New Hampshire Nikon D7100, 18-200mm, 1sec at f/18, ISO 200, tripod, polariser Sunset on Quahog Bay 3…

We’re truly in the thick of winter now, and if you want to get out shooting you need to wrap up warm. Jon Stapley looks at six of the best outdoor jackets for photographers Páramo Waterproof ARWP Aspira Andy Rouse Smock £310 www.paramo.co.uk/en-gb/aspirafund Like the Stealth Gear jacket (below right), we featured the Aspira Smock from Páramo in our Christmas gift guide, and we were so impressed with its performance that we felt it deserved a place in this round-up. The Páramo waterproof smock has its blessing from wildlife photographer Andy Rouse, and is an excellent premium choice for braving rough conditions. It’s by no means the thickest or most insulated jacket on test, but the Nikwax Analogy Waterproof fabric will keep you dry. The smock is comfortable and easy…

BLACKPOOL GIRLS MYSTERY Q David Clark’s Icons of Photography feature (AP 26 October), concerning the legendary Bert Hardy’s iconic ‘Blackpool Girls’ photograph, leaves me bemused. I’ve always believed, as the story says, that it was taken with a box Brownie, but the contact sheet betrays the fact that a square format was used. Was there ever a ‘12-on’ box Brownie? Bill Ward A You raise an interesting point, Bill, and one to which I cannot provide a definite explanation, despite much ferreting through my books and Googling for previous discussions on the issue of the precise type of camera used. The straightforward answer to your question about a ‘12-on’ box Brownie is ‘yes’, provided you accept the point that there never was a Kodak camera named ‘box Brownie’. There were…

ONE OF the most valued properties of a camera is its colour rendition. Photographers will prize the colour rendition of one particular brand or model over another. When discussing these matters, phrases such as ‘wonderful skin tones’ and ‘beautiful greens’ abound. But what is ‘colour’? Many people assume that colour is an absolute thing. At school, we are taught about Isaac Newton’s experiments with prisms, splitting white light into a spectrum running from red to violet. What tends to be taken away from these lessons is that colour is a matter of wavelength. HUMAN COLOUR VISION The language of the Himba people of northern Namibia in Africa recognises five different colours: serandu, which most Asians and Europeans would say covers reds and purples; dumbu, which covers reds, greens and yellows;…

FOR THE first time, interchangeable-lens cameras are set to make up more than half the value of digital cameras shipped in any one year, according to an industry report. And further growth is expected as smartphone users pursue photography as a serious hobby and splash out on camera kit. Although overall global demand for digital cameras was predicted to have fallen by 24% by the end of 2013, the interchangeable-lens camera segment will continue to grow, according to the Worldwide Digital Camera Market report by Futuresource Consulting. Arun Gill, a market analyst at the firm, said: ‘Interchangeablelens cameras will account for one in every four digital cameras shipped [in 2013]. ‘That’s up from less than one in five in 2012 and – of greater significance – for the very first…

THE ROYAL PHOTOGRAPHIC SOCIETY The society’s Creative Group stages its annual exhibition until 31 January at the Woodbridge Library, New Street, Woodbridge, Suffolk IP12 1DT. Admission is free. Tel: 01394 446 510 for details. DARKROOM DEMAND ‘LARGEST IN FIVE YEARS’ DEMAND for darkroom processing and printing products is the largest it has been in five years, according to a UK supplier. A spokesman for the Imaging Warehouse, which supplies darkroom chemicals and paper, told AP: ‘It’s part of the whole vintage movement.’ The company, which is based in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, says darkroom printing is not confined to people who use film, but also appeals to those capturing images digitally. Managing director Robin Whetton said: ‘They can shoot digitally, then convert [the image] into a negative and print it in the…

‘BEING a Sony Alpha Centre of Excellence makes a big difference to us, and to our customers,’ says Luke. ‘Our staff look forward to the regular visits from the Sony team, when we are given hands-on demonstrations of the latest Sony cameras and new technologies such as Near Field Communication [NFC]. It’s all very well reading about how things work, but you understand more when you are actually shown it and you get the chance to try it yourself. We can then pass that understanding on to our customers to give them the best service.’ The level of customer service at Castle Cameras clearly pays off, with regular customers coming in to buy Sony cameras on the day they are launched. ‘At the moment, the Sony Cyber-shot DSC-RX100 II and…

LETTER OF THE WEEK Wins a great shockproof, waterproof and dustproof 5-Proof Technology 16GB Samsung SDHC Plus memory card offering up to 48MB/sec transfer speed. www.samsung.com/memorycard GIVE THEM A BREAK! Following the recent correspondence criticising photography judges, come on, it’s time to give them a break – it’s not an easy job, and they do it for nothing. So why am I speaking up for them? Well, in ten years I have never yet heard a judge say anything was ‘wrong’ with an image. What they do is to criticise what they see as errors, and make suggestions for improvement. The other thing that should be recognised is that predominantly judges are looking for ‘pictorial’ work, which is a quite specific genre and dominates club photography. Look at it this…

Andrew Sydenham gives two AP readers a workshop on how to use daylight to their advantage when shooting still-life set-ups, even in the winter. Debbi Allen reports WHEN organising an AP Masterclass for the winter months, indoor events tend to be a bit safer. The British weather, however, being as it is, actually gives us a gloriously bright and sunny day for our Masterclass. We’re hosting our event in one of the upper rooms of the AP offce in London, with fantastic views across to St Paul’s Cathedral. We’re not here to shoot the landmarks, though, or to point our camera at the cloudless skies outside. We’re focusing indoors with a workshop on how to set up and shoot still-life photos, with nothing but natural daylight. ‘It’s the kind of…

IN 1952, when I was 17, I left my family home in Lancashire and went to live in Johannesburg, South Africa. I went there for two reasons: frst, I felt like getting away, and second, I didn’t want to get dragged into my father’s business. In those days you could get supported fares to several countries, including Canada, South Africa and Australia. I chose South Africa because I thought I would be seeing lions on the streets of Johannesburg. However, I needed to have somebody to back me for the frst year. I wanted to be a journalist and was a keen amateur photographer, and fortunately my family knew a South African professional photographer, Roger Madden. Although he was mostly doing industrial photography, going to work for him turned out…

Nikon Df It’s got retro style but bang up-to-date technology. We test the new 16.2-millionpixel Nikon Df DSLR. AP 18 January Sony Alpha 7 We put Sony’s Alpha 7 fullframe compact system camera, with 24.3-millionpixel sensor and optical low-pass filter, through its paces. AP 18 January Fujifilm X-E2 It has the same sensor as the X100S, but the Fujifilm X-E2 has 60 improvements over its X-E1 predecessor. We find out how it performs. AP 25 January Google Nik Analog Efex Pro We test a filter plug-in that simulates the look and feel of traditional cameras. AP 1 February TESTBENCH: SIX OF THE BEST Six of the best studio backgrounds are put through their paces in our two-page test. AP 25 January…

Royalty-free images are usually bought for a one-off payment, after which the person buying the image can use it in as many ways as they choose. There are certain ‘standard’ restrictions (you can’t sell the image on, for example), and there may be other clauses as well, such as the maximum number of times an individual or company can use the image, but beyond that no other payment needs to be made to use the image again. However, unlike a rights-managed image, there is no exclusivity with a royalty-free image, so anyone is free to buy it and use it. Because of their non-exclusive status, royalty-free images tend to be significantly cheaper than rights-managed pictures – no one wants to license an image for an advertising campaign and find that…

FOR REASONS I have never been able to fathom, the State University of New York (SUNY) habitually addresses me as Dr Roger Hicks. I am not talking about junk mail here, but about reasonably rigorous academic correspondence. Once, they co-opted me for a peer review of the manuscript of a book about Tibet. After a single unsuccessful attempt to correct their error, I decided to leave it. It’s rather nice to bask in the (modest) glory of being addressed as ‘Doctor’. Why, though, should anyone attach quite so much importance to such qualifications, especially photographers? There’s an old saying in photography that you’re as good as your last job. This is an exaggeration, in that it takes more than just one bad job to destroy a reputation. Once you’re reasonably…

AP continued its quest to provide a service to its readers this week in 1947 when it published a cry for help from a reader who had lost a precious film. ‘I took a 36-exposure roll of Agfacolor to be processed,’ wrote JL Miles from Sutton, Surrey. ‘Unfortunately, the processors accidentally posted it off to the wrong address… and nothing has been heard of it since. I wonder if one of your readers has received a roll of Agfacolor by mistake and, if so, if he would return it to me, as it was my first attempt at colour photography and represents my sole record of my first holiday for six years.’ In other news, a list of stolen gear in that issue included a Rolleiflex New Standard, and –…

NUDE photos of Carla Bruni (right), the wife of former French president Nicolas Sarkozy, were used to spy on computers used by finance ministers and central bank officials, it is claimed. The email-based cyber attack involved victims clicking on a link to nude images of the former model, but – at the same time – let them fall prey to the hacker’s ‘espionagefocused malware’, via a Trojan Horse with an embedded virus. The attack is believed to be part of a wider, ongoing operation that originates in China, according to research published by US-based computer security firm FireEye. ‘In 2011, a campaign labelled “snake” by the attackers, started using the theme of nude photos of the French president’s wife, Carla Bruni, as a lure,’ states the FireEye report. The link…

Sergio Larrain: Vagabond Photographer Edited by Agnès Sire. Text by Gonzalo Leiva Quijada. Thames & Hudson, £65, hardback, 400 pages, ISBN 978-0-500-54428-0 MAGNUM Photos alumnus Sergio Larrain has enjoyed a seminal career, yet has never had a complete monograph dedicated solely to his work. This book rectifies that, and is very successful too. It includes works from many of Larrain’s projects, within and without Magnum, and although his inventive monochrome style is a constant thread, Larrain is adventurous enough that you never feel restless. One of his first series was a project on the street children of Santiago in Chile, and it is still arguably the most successful – a masterclass in close, intimate shooting that speaks of real connections being formed between photographer and subjects. Letters of Larrain’s and…

HOW TIMES change. One minute a friend reminded me he still has a copy of Amateur Photographer from 7 August 1946, and owned a Leica IIIF. The next, I’m reading about a new retro Nikon on the cover and learning inside that it’s Damien Demolder’s last issue as Editor (AP 30 November 2013) I remember him taking up the helm. The year was 2007, although prior to that I was reading his reviews when he was technical editor. In January he was writing about another Nikon, the D40. By April he was promising the magazine will be looking a little different. Clearly a man with vision. Departing Editor, Garry Coward-Williams, in one of his final editorials, was of the opinion that the year would see the end of bridge cameras…

‘JUST in case you can’t tell,’ says Rob Irving, as our chat draws to a close, ‘I like photography a lot.’ It’s easy to believe. Having begun what would blossom into a career with product photography in the 1990s, Rob now spends as much time as he can travelling the world, camera in hand. As well as commuting between London and his home in Denmark to teach photography, he’s also found time to visit Thailand, northern Africa, the Middle East, Burma, south-east Asia and plenty of places in Europe with the express purpose of taking great pictures. And the most valuable lesson he’s learned? That travel photography doesn’t need to be complicated. ‘I like to keep it simple,’ he says. ‘I’ve got a camera around my neck, a battery in…

I’M A DEVOTEE of the KISS approach to photography – Keep It Simple, Stupid! Cluttered compositions can be confusing. They lead to sensory overload, and lose our attention instead of holding it because we can’t quite make out what’s going on. Yet once you start stripping away unnecessary details and get back to the bare bones of the subject or scene, you’ll quickly realise how little is required to create a photographic masterpiece. When it comes to compositional decluttering, weather conditions can both help and hinder. On clear sunny days our senses are bombarded with colour and detail, with the world looking sharp and shiny, and visibility seeming to go on forever. Throw some mist or fog into the equation, though, and it’s a different story. Scenes are simplifed and…

Stoker Gareth Beynon Apple iPhone 5 (exposure unknown) IN THE Christmas issue of AP (AP 21-28 December 2013), we featured an example of ‘colour popping’ in Appraisal. For those of you who missed it, this is the process of colouring a small part of a black & white image (or preserving the colour in a specific area when you convert the rest of an image to monochrome). The aim is to create a focal point that grabs the viewer’s attention, and that’s certainly the case here. However, the contrast between the colour and the monochrome in Gareth’s shot is so intense that it doesn’t allow you to explore the picture – it just screams for attention. As a result, it is the technique that takes precedence, rather than the subject.…

FOR THOSE who would like a rugged and waterproof camera, there are two options: either spend your money on a waterproof compact that features a 1/2.3in sensor and compromise on image quality; or consider an expensive underwater housing for a camera you already own. While many manufacturers claim that their cameras are weather-resistant with a number of inherent weather seals to protect them from dust and moisture, these models are not designed to withstand being fully submerged underwater. Nikon has had the foresight to address the gap in the market for a waterproof compact system camera by blending the robust characteristics of its all-weather compact, the Coolpix AW110, with the core features of the Nikon 1 J3. The outcome of this is the Nikon 1 AW1 – the world’s first…