Innholdsfortegnelse for 20-Dec-2014 i Amateur Photographer

IS IT Christmas already? It doesn’t seem like a year since the last one, but here we are with our bumper Christmas Special, and a cover shot by AP reader Pauline Hatcher who won our Shoot the Cover competition. This week we look back at the photographic highlights of 2014 as AP staff and leading UK picture editors choose their favourite images of the year. The diversity of the images chosen shows just how subjective photography is. This is underlined by our comparisons of the winners of this year’s major photographic competitions. There’s no consensus in the AP office as to which is our favourite, so it will be interesting to see which one you pick. Meanwhile, if you’re looking for something to do over the holidays, turn to our…

The job of a cover image is to stand out from the other covers on the shelf. Before submitting an image, look at your shortlist as thumbnails in an image browser, such as Adobe Bridge. Which images draw your attention and stand out from the rest? These are likely to be the ones that will make the best cover photos. It sounds obvious but magazines are mostly portrait format, so shoot in portrait orientation. Although it's possible to crop from a landscape-format image if the resolution is high enough, it's best to use all the available pixels where possible. Remember, we need around 3600 pixels on the vertical axis. Don't crop in too tightly, leave lots of space for cover lines. Busy images with lots of detail are generally unsuitable…

PENTAX made clear that its cameras must appeal to a younger audience, as more people take pictures on their phones. Not enough of them were taking the next step and buying a proper camera. The philosophy came to life in the newly styled 20-million-pixel K-S1 DSLR, which sported a row of flashing LED lights built into its handgrip. In a similar vein, Olympus bosses decided to aim its Pen-branded compact system cameras at young, fashion-conscious women who do not fear the lack of a viewfinder – hoping they will promote the brand through social media. Cue the Pen E-PL7, billed as a camera for fashion bloggers. The move followed Olympus’s success at selling CSCs to women in Japan.…

NIKON kicked off the year by downsizing its entry-level DSLR to reveal the 24.2-million-pixel D3300, but with no built-in Wi-Fi. The firm pledged to confront flagging CSC sales and conquer the ailing compact arena - launching nine Coolpix compacts at CES alone. Its star announcement at the Las Vegas show, however, was the professional full-frame D4S, promising improved AF. Nikon was keen to show AP how its D4 and D800 were delivering live news broadcasts at new TV station London Live, by granting us a behind-the-scenes tour. All this as Nikon revamped the D800 to reveal the D810, claimed to deliver the highest image quality in Nikon history. The firm's final full-frame DSLR of the year was the D750, sitting above the D610, with a tilt screen. This time the…

IN 2014 it was more likely that a new camera would have some form of Wi-Fi connectivity than not, while a selection would also support a data connection for uploading directly and independently. As a result, sharing your images on social media is easier than ever before, and here are four of the best cameras for doing so. iPadAir2 • From £400 Although iPad photographers might be derided in some circles, there's no denying the serious imaging power of the new iPad Air 2. The model features an 8-million-pixel 'iSight' camera that is capable of 1080p HD video, while full exposure control gives photographers more power than ever before. Panasonic Lumix DMC-CMl • £800 Dubbed a 'communication camera' by Panasonic, the CM1 was announced in September of this year. It…

A few weeks ago, customers of the Bristol branch of London Camera Exchange were invited along to a free portrait workshop, held in the shop's studio by leading portrait photographer Michael Wayne Plant. All of the latest Sony cameras were available to try, including the new Sony Alpha 7 II, and Michael started the session by explaining the different settings and features of each of the models in the range. With the cameras and studio lighting set up, it was time to photograph the model. For many photographers this can be a little daunting, but Michael explained how to make sure that both subject and photographer are relaxed. We then learned how to correctly pose a subject to create a flattering image, before taking some images. Michael was on hand…

LETTER OF THE WEEK Developing interest I read with interest Andrew Sanderson's article on film processing (AP1 November). Things have changed little since I was shown how to develop a film in the early 1960s! Then, we had Paterson tanks in our school photo club's darkroom (a corner of the science lab), but they were the early ones with transparent plastic spirals, and it was practically impossible to load a full length of 36-exposure film without it snagging. However, the teachers who ran the club were very patient, and eventually we either mastered the tanks or gave up and reverted to see-saw dish development. Thank goodness that someone at Paterson eventually came up with nylon spirals! I was much impressed by the idea put forward by Andrew in his article…

Albert Watson (55s) £22.95, Phaidon Press, 2007 This hardback book features more than 100 pages of Watson's images over his career and provides a good introduction to both the commercial and personal work he has accomplished. Strip Search £110, Chronicle, 2010 Strip Search took five years to make and is Watson's personal portrait of Las Vegas, USA. A mixture of bold and careful landscapes and striking portraits of the people who live and work in Sin City, used examples can be found for just under £40. Cyclops £85, Bullfinch, 1994 As well as his famous subjects, this book also covers images such as Canadian rodeo cowboys, convicts in a Louisiana prison and a stone circle in Scotland. Used editions are available from around £40. Our version Not wanting to use…

Anyone with a passing /^L interest in classic rock, soul, jazz or country .music will know Jim Marshall's work, even if the name isn't that familiar in the UK. No, it's not Jim Marshall as in Marshall Guitar Amps, although our Jim certainly stood in front of plenty over the years. We're talking about the photographer Jim Marshall, a curmudgeonly but big-hearted j genius with a coke habit who took î so many iconic images in the 1960s I and '70s that there is barely room to i list them all here. Hendrix setting j his guitar alight at the Monterey Festival, California, in '67; Johnny î Cash flipping the bird during his î gig at San Quentin State Prison in 1 California; The Beatles' American tours; the cover of…

It can be rather challenging to work with, but the warm glow of candlelight can produce soft, atmospheric, low-key portraits. With the shorter days, potentially plenty of candles dotted around the house over the festive period and a host of willing subjects, Christmas is the perfect time to try this technique. Here’s what you need to consider. 1 Lighting As with any light source, the positioning of your candles will affect how your subject is illuminated. A single candle, or two or three grouped tightly together and close to your subject, will produce stronger shadows than if they are spread out and further away from your sitter. While you might just want to have a single candle in the shot, there’s no harm in having a few more out of…

Whether you’ve slaved over a hot stove yourself and produced an appetising treat or you’ve let the shops take the strain, you’ll find yourself with an abundance of tasty food on offer over this festive period. Everything from mince pies to a celebratory glass of champagne or even Christmas dinner itself can make a fantastic photographic subject. Here’s how you can end up with images that could grace the pages of a cookbook or glossy Sunday magazine, rather than those unappealing and faded shots that accompany the dodgy menu at your local kebab shop. 1 Shoot in daylight You don’t need a lot of space – a nice bright window will be fine. Use a reflector, black or white card or even tin foil to bounce light into shadows, or…

If you fancy yourself as a bit of a Photoshop whizz, then why not take the Photoshop Challenge? All you have to do is download our start image from www.amateurphotographer.co.uk, search for ‘Photoshop Challenge’ and then let your creativity run wild, transforming this shot into something much more unusual. The only rules are that you don’t breach anyone’s copyright, so if you want to combine the start image with any other shot, it has to be yours or you have permission to use it, while there are a host of affordable stock libraries out there as well. Otherwise, you can do what you like – cut it out, transform it, use multiple layers, change the colours… it really is up to you. Once you’ve finished, upload it to our Photoshop…

LAST year we talked about curved sensors, and this year we finally saw them for real. Or at least, Sony presented two prototype sensors, one full frame and one compact-camera-sized, at an academic conference (namely the Symposium on VLSI Technology in June). Sony also released a sample image made using the smaller of these sensors, demonstrating that they do work. But what we haven’t yet seen is an actual camera. Why curved sensors? Well, potentially they allow the use of simpler (and therefore smaller and cheaper) lenses, while giving better imaging performance in the corners of the frame. This is because simple lenses exhibit curvature of field, whereby the corners of the image are brought into focus at a slightly different distance to the centre. Usually this is corrected optically…

RogerHicks considers… Cactus and Flowers, Hidalgo, Mexico(2014) by Jerome Sessini It may seem odd to compare photographs to textiles, but the more you think about it, the easier the comparisons come. Some textiles are rough, homespun, straightforward and to the point; some are delicate silks, light and airy; some are cross-stitch embroideries, carefully constructed; some (like this one) are rich brocades. But what prompts this unusual parallel? The colours, for a start – those brilliant splashes of orange against the dark cactus, and the bright blue sky. Part of the purpose of a brocade is to look expensive, to impress people, to show that only the best is good enough. Think of the robes of a prelate of the Catholic church, or the surround to a Tibetan thangka (religious painting).…

Snowy Tree by Lol Cain Nikon D300, 17-55mm, 1/60sec at f/9, ISO 1000 THIS distinctly festive image was submitted to the Amateur Photographer website gallery by Lol Cain. The photograph was uploaded as part of our Christmas cover competition, in which readers were asked to submit an image suitable for the cover of the Christmas issue. We had a great response, and the eventual winner was Pauline Hatcher. If you would like to see some of the other images that were submitted, see pages 4 and 5. Lol’s image may not have made it onto the cover, but it’s still a great shot. It was taken in 2010 during a heavy snowfall. Seizing a golden opportunity, Lol dashed outside and illuminated the tree with off-camera flash. The result is an…

January ● Kodak’s paper maker was on a mission to double the number of images people print… by targeting smartphone users. ● A revival of darkrooms seemed evident when a Birmingham school appealed for kit, for its second darkroom in three years. February ● Olympus unveiled the OM-D E-M10 to take on DSLRs. It boasted the design and focusing of the E-M5, but in a smaller body with built-in Wi-Fi. ● Panasonic aimed high-end with the Lumix DMC-GH4, carrying a 2.4-million-dot EVF and 4K video. March ● Nikon’s new full-frame flagship, the D4S, promised a ‘formidable fusion of speed and accuracy’. ● There was trouble in store when angry customers filed a 37-page class-action lawsuit in the US over unwanted ‘dust’ spots in Nikon D600 photos. April ● Nikon won…

20% of people in the UK fail to back up their images 27,000sq m of space at Leica’s new HQ at Wetzlar, Germany 40% of imaging sales online (source: GfK) 130 websites that photo enthusiast Graham Stephen accused of breaching his copyright 51% fewer camera shops in Britain than two years ago 100 years since Oskar Barnack developed the Ur-Leica 34 Jessops stores now open under Peter Jones 130 years since AP was first published in 1884 250,000 Number of images in RPS Collection 100 million Canon EF lenses produced…

LEICA leaped onto the CSC bandwagon with its new touchscreen-equipped T, declaring it would be as big as its legendary M. It had clearly spotted a big opportunity amid the picture-taking explosion heralded by smartphones. Sony Japan revealed plans to take on Canon and Nikon and shake off what it said was a general perception that CSCs are 'inferior' to DSLRs. Speaking just weeks after its 12-million-pixel full-frame Alpha 7S had gone on sale, Sony said its Alpha 7 series had helped boost the image of CSCs among professionals. The Alpha 7S's features included a silent shooting function, plus a sensitivity of ISO 50-409,600 - rivalling the D4S. Also marching into the CSC vs DSLR war zone was the Fujifilm X-T1. Fujifilm claimed that the 'ultra-fast' EVF was 'almost indistinguishable…

MANY people who use Facebook to share and promote their photography will remember 2014 as the year when this got significantly harder to do. The brains behind the world's most populated social network are constantly tweaking what its users see from other users, and many of these changes have had an impact on photographers' pages. Here are a few tips for how to beat the system and get your images seen on Facebook. Share lots, but pay attention to quality An individual's Facebook news feed (what they see from others when they log in) used to be more or less a chronological representation of what their friends were posting, but this is no longer the case. Now, a complex series of algorithms determines what appears there. So even if someone…

Looking through the images submitted to the various photography competitions that take place throughout the year is so much more that just viewing a bunch of nice pictures. A careful analysis will show just how democratic the field of photography is. Images taken by professional photographers can fit comfortably side by side with those taken by so-called amateurs. This year saw some stunning entries from the Royal Photographic Society, Landscape Photographer of the Year, World Press Photo Awards, Wildlife Photographer of the Year, British Wildlife Photography Awards, Taylor Wessing, EISA, Sony World Photography Awards and International Garden Photographer of the Year. Of the images here, we want to know your favourite. To have your say, visit www.amateurphotographer.co.uk/champion.…

Phil Hall and Andrew Sydenham look to recreate Albert Watson's surreal shot of Alfred Hitchcock Albert Watson was born in Edinburgh in 1942, and after studying at both the Duncan of Jordans tone College of Art and Design in Dundee and the Royal College of Art in London, he moved to Los Angeles in the USA with his wife in 1970. To begin with, Watson was shooting primarily as a hobby, but was introduced to an art director at Max Factor and after his first test session the company bought two shots. It was this break that saw Watson's distinctive style begin to attract the attention of numerous fashion magazines both in the USA and Europe. In 1973, Watson photographed his first celebrity - the English film director and producer…

AP STAFF CHOICES Oliver Atwell Senior features writer My image of the year comes from Guia Besana's series 'Under Pressure', a project that challenges our warped perspective of the 'ideal woman'. While the discourse of feminism has helped us to gradually structure a reclassification of just what we mean when we use the word female', our notion of femininity is still placed firmly within a series of lazily assembled types, ones still perpetuated by film and literature. Here we find one such trope: the bride. The trope of the bride is a fleeting one. It's a stopgap between two other ideals: the innocent virgin and the doting housewife. The bride's body is concealed within a ritualistic uniform. It's cocoon-like, further highlighting the idea that, through the archaic ritual of marriage,…

WORKING on The Haight Love, Rock and Revolution has been a labour of love for Amelia and the rest of the publication team, but a labour nonetheless. There was something like 180,000 images and 3,000 proof sheets to work through,' she explains. 'It was like a delightful historical dig and I felt like an archaeologist. I also got a real sense of just how good a photographer Jim was. He would circle a "hero" shot, but there would be five or six other really great ones from the same shoot too. He'd compose quickly in his viewfinder and just nail it.' The Haight: Love, Rock and Revolution is available now from Amazon, priced £35, and other booksellers, with a preface by Donovan and text by Joel Selvin. ISBN 978-1-60887-3-630.…

As winter draws in, your garden becomes an attractive feeding stop for birds, with numbers boosted by visitors from the Continent. It may even attract a few exotic guests, too, such as canary-like siskins and dainty redpolls. Winter thrushes arrive in autumn, and, as redwings migrate under the cover of darkness, listen out at night for their faint ‘seeeepseeeeep’ call. With all these new additions, you’ve more reason than ever to head out into the garden over the Christmas period and set yourself up for some doorstep photographic opportunities. Approach The bonus of photographing in your garden is that the sight of a human shouldn’t alarm the birdlife too much. In winter, birds will be hungry as food is sparse, so if you provide a reliable source they’ll keep coming…

There’s beauty in every season, and I love photographing gardens in the winter. Admittedly, the cold weather, combined with the fact that most of the flowers and foliage have gone, can be uninviting. However, unless you’re a fair-weather photographer, it’s well worth venturing out on winter days as the season offers many photographic opportunities. The soft, low-contrast light we get on overcast days may not be dramatic, but it gives good, accurate colour rendition. On clear, cold winter days we get crisp and relatively low-angled sunlight, which is great for backlighting subjects and emphasising texture. Also, as sunrise comes much later in the morning, you don’t have to get up at an unearthly hour for the early light. The vivid colours of summer are replaced by the more pastel shades…

For a number of years, we have used the final issue of the year to look into our crystal ball and predict how cameras and photography may evolve in the future. While we’re in the privileged position of being able to try out all the latest equipment and technology, and I would like to think that we get a good feel for what might happen next, our predictions are, by necessity, based on educated guesses, speculation and the occasional punt. If we did know anything for certain, the chances are that we couldn’t report on it, due to the very strict non-disclosure agreements we have to sign. Rather than go straight in with the new technology we have seen this year and how we think it will influence the coming…

Uncommon Places: The Complete Works by Stephen Shore, Thames & Hudson, £39.95 The legacy of Stephen Shore’s Uncommon Places cannot be overstated. While many cite William Eggleston as the pioneer of colour photography, Stephen Shore more than did his bit to take colour beyond the domain of advertising and fashion imagery. The subjects that formed the body of his work were no less influential: this updated edition features 15 previously unseen images and includes discussions with the artist, offering readers insight into what it means to produce – and update – such an enduring legacy. Fictions by Filip Dujardin, Hatje Cantz, £35 Architecture and fiction need not be strangers to one another, and Fictions, a project that Ghent-based photographer Filip Dujardin has been working on since 2007, proves this beautifully.…

Last year we decided to hold a competition asking readers to provide an image for the cover of the Christmas issue. After announcing it, we crossed our fingers and hoped that something usable would be forthcoming. After all, to be suitable for the cover an image needs to be more than just a good photo. It also needs to be simple and uncluttered, so that cover lines can be easily read, and with enough room at the top for the AP masthead. Most people only look at a cover for a second or two on the newsstand, so the cover image needs to immediately convey what it’s representing. For our needs, the photograph would have to convey the theme of Christmas without being too cheesy or obvious. Fortunately, we needn’t…

JUST when overzealous officialdom seems consigned to history, an incident jumps out that leads us to think again. Among the highlights, or rather ‘lowlights’ of 2014, was not a run-of-the-mill photographer versus overzealous security clash. In no less subtle a move, Facebook bosses controversially chose to remove AP reader Penny Halsall’s portrait of her four-year-old daughter Daisy from AP’s Facebook page, claiming it breached Facebook’s rules on nudity. AP had uploaded the black & white image to celebrate it winning honours in the APOY contest so, needless to say, we were forced to intervene. Facebook eventually relented, saying it had made a mistake, and Penny’s photo was reinstated. The U-turn by one of the world’s most powerful websites was a victory for common sense. Other 2014 rights shockers included… ●…

CLASSIC looks continue to have the camera audience in raptures. Before a quizzical Photokina crowd, Leica took the traditional feel to extremes by launching a special edition of the Leica M, a digital rangefinder, without an LCD screen. In its place was an ISO dial. As high-end compacts survived the unrelenting smartphone onslaught, Panasonic showcased its DMC-TZ60,with a 30x Leica zoom. Fujifilm's ￡479 X30 had an OLED EVF and a sensor without a low-pass filter - a move first introduced in high-end system cameras. Leica's APS-C-sized X was among the stars of Photokina, with its 23mm f/1.7 (35mm equivalent) Asphlens. Meanwhile, Fujifilm's XIOOT brought handling and operational refinements. The fixed-lens vanguard also included Sony's Cyber-shot DSC-RX100 III and the 4K Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX100. Then there was the DP Quattro, prompting…

0VER the past few years, social-media services such as Twitter and Facebook have planted themselves firmly in the national consciousness, thanks to a host of factors ranging from international political uprising through to scandalous celebrity selfies. In fact, it could be said that 2014 was the year of the widespread adoption of social media across traditional media platforms. Few news broadcasts go by without some form of input from eager tweeters, be it facile comments and observations, quotes direct from celebrities' mouths (or, to be more accurate, feeds), or more weighty photographic footage direct from the event in question. It's not solely the preserve of news outlets, however, as more photographers are turning to social media to increase their following, share their work and engage with a larger photographic community…

Has your opinion of smartphone cameras changed? At first, it seems that those who disdain smartphone photography have the largest share of the vote, but this isn't quite true. If you count the 'not quite there' respondents as optimists (given the line 'they will be fantastic'), those with positive things to say about smartphone cameras reach 50%! We've featured plenty of photographers doing great things with phones, from landscapes to reportage. Are you impressed or appalled at the idea of using 4K video for stills photography? We braced ourselves for a storm of outrage on this one, but were actually rather surprised by the results. While the general sentiment on the idea of using 4K video for still photographs was negative, about the same number said they were completely sold…

Nigel Atherton Editor This has been a mixed year for the photo industry. Manufacturers and retailers continue to struggle with falling sales, due to the economic climate and the fact that the pace of innovation is starting to plateau. Continuing debates about the ethics of photography in public places, the right to privacy and copyright protection in a digital world have been joined by new issues for lawyers to argue about, such as camera drones - 2014 was the year they went mainstream. But, on the other hand, we saw some amazing photography, some great new products and, of course, our biggest redevelopment of AP in over a decade - which has been a huge success, both critically and in terms of sales. (No mean feat, given that magazine sales…

Albert Watson was 31 years old when he was asked to photograph Alfred Hitchcock, it made Watson's career and was originally intended to showcase Hitchcock's culinary skills in the Christmas 1973 issue of Harper's Bazaar. The final shot was supposed to shoot the director presenting a plate of roast goose under the headline 'Alfred Hitchcock cooks his own goose'. With simple lighting that Watson has said he'd do better now, it's the unusual and informal nature of the image that makes it so successful. Watson commented, 'I don't think the picture is particularly great, but it was important to me because it gave me the confidence to do other things.'…

PICTURE EDITORS' CHOICES Aline Smithson Editor of online magazine Lenscratch Rather than choosing an image that was taken this V year, I've decided to dig into the 2014 archives of Lenscratch and select one that appeared on my site this year. I've chosen Bill Yates' image from his series 'Sweetheart Roller Skating Rink', created in 1972-73. As I said, I featured the work on Lenscratch earlier this year, and after it appeared Bill was offered a museum show and gallery representation. Recently, I find myself drawn to older black & white work - it feels fresh again. Maybe that's because there is so much similarity to digital imagery or perhaps the past has become just as fascinating as the future. Bill shot this image when he was starting out as…

Isle of Skye Steve Gosling The Isle of Skye is a wonderfully picturesque island off the west coast of Scotland, and was voted the fourth best island in the world by National Geographic Traveler. It’s a place of extremes – from the craggy outline of the Cuillin that dominate the landscape to the imposing headlands that descend to peaceful bays and beaches. Its changing weather patterns can create wonderfully atmospheric lighting conditions for photography. In winter, the weather can be as dramatic as the landscape, with the possibility of cold and clear days as well as wind-blown stormy clouds filling the skies – it’s my favourite time to visit. Steve Gosling is running a winter workshop on Skye in 2015. Visit www.stevegoslingphotography.co.uk/workshops-peter-cox.htm TIP A good warm layering system topped with…

When snow and ice hit this country, it’s seldom for very long – in fact, often, if you blink you’ll miss it. The problem with finding a suitable picture for a Christmas card, or in fulfilling a client’s request for a wintry scene, is that you really need to think about the subject and shoot it long before the pictures are required – usually in the middle of summer, when the budget will hardly fly you off to an Alpine glacier. All is not lost, though, as fortunately there’s a simple solution in the Photoshop Channels and Layers palettes. To convert a summer picture to a winter scene and give it a chilly look is not a complicated procedure, but the secret to success lies in your choice of image.…

If you have a lens that’s capable of beautiful bokeh, you can use it to create some fun Christmas images. Using only a few items from a craft shop, you can make a shaped iris that allows you to achieve different-shaped bokeh when background light sources are out of focus. By creating a range of shapes, such as snowflakes or Christmas trees, you can introduce a Christmas theme to almost any subject. Here, we show you how to make the modifier and explain what kit is best. We also give some general tips on how to get the best results. For this technique, you’ll need a long-focal-length lens with a fast maximum aperture to achieve a good defocused background when shooting wide open. As well as your camera and lens,…

Sensor advancements and the long, slow demise of the DSLR One of the more telling stories of 2014 has been the progress in sensor technology. We’ve seen the medium-format market make a long-overdue switch to CMOS technology, with the Pentax 645Z offering the best overall image quality of any camera we’ve ever tested, courtesy of a new Sony chip. In a way, this simply echoes the shift that DSLRs made away from CCD sensors seven or eight years ago, but it re-establishes a clear image quality gap between the best full-frame cameras and medium format. This in turn gives high-end full-frame models something new to play catch-up with. This is how progress is driven. The other standout new chip is Samsung’s 28-million-pixel BSI CMOS in the NX1. First, it’s the…

Billy Currie Formatt-Hitech 16-stop Firecrest ND filter For me, the best piece of kit released this year, and one that I had to purchase for myself, was the Formatt-Hitech 16-stop Firecrest ND filter. Just to have the ability to expose for several minutes in bright sunshine while still using optimal camera settings makes it a definite winner. Couple this with the fact it has virtually no colour cast and you have a tool that no long-exposure photographer should be without. Christopher Bonanos Author of Instant: The Story of Polaroid The Impossible Project B&W Instant Film for SX-70 I’ve become quite fond of The Impossible Project’s black & white SX-70 film. It’s a much more mature product – more stable, easier to shoot – than its colour line, which is still…