Innholdsfortegnelse for 30-May-2020 i Amateur Photographer

The lockdown was starting to ease at the time of going to press, but a lot of readers will still have time on their hands. So why not make a new website or sort out your existing one? It’s never been easier to make a professional-looking site to showcase your photos and maybe sell some, as James Paterson explains on page 12. You can also join in the online activities organised by camera clubs and national societies, such as the RPS. As our special news report shows, social distancing has not dented their energy and enthusiasm. Finally, we know a lot of people have been struggling psychologically with this uniquely difficult year, so we look at how photography can help with mental health on page 40. AP is always here…

FOR THE latest of our chats with major retailers to see how they are coping with the pandemic, we meet Adrian Deary, marketing and communications manager of London Camera Exchange (LCE). ‘We've had to adapt quickly, but everyone pulled together and now we are doing OK,' Adrian explains. ‘The big challenge was how to keep customers interested in LCE with the stores closed. Although we furloughed most of the sales staff, we retained one person per branch to handle phone calls and sort out deliveries. We felt it was important customers could speak to somebody locally. The customers have been great: our online sales have increased dramatically and we've been getting stunning Google reviews, etc.' From close-up to telephoto Bestsellers during the lockdown include, predictably, macro lenses, mics for video…

‘Photographers should rediscover a capacity for less rigid shapes’ I was pondering this subject at a London exhibition of Theo Simpson's pictures from the Jerwood Photoworks Awards earlier this year. They're impressively elemental works combining abstract photography and distinctive materials. For me, one stood out because it was so irregularly shaped. A rhomboid photograph of a slice of gold-tinted cloud jammed between two more parallelograms of steel sliding together at a rakish angle. It was defiantly proving that photography could be anything but square. Art has been rectangular for centuries, of course. Canvases are easy to build, stretch and frame if their corners are at right angles. Books and the cinema followed suit and photographic films were first produced in sheet form. Roll film then, naturally, placed the rectangles side…

James Paterson James is as skilled a photo editor as he is a photographer. His work has appeared in countless magazines and books, and in 2014 he was appointed editor of Practical Photoshop magazine. His subjects range from portraits to landscapes, architecture and underwater scenes. Visit www.patersonphotos.com. If you’ve always wanted to create a website then now might be the perfect time to do so. It’s an ideal task for those stuck at home and, with a host of beginner-friendly website builders to choose from, it’s easier than ever to come up with a shiny new online space to showcase your best photos. These days you can be up and running in a couple of hours without a line of code in sight. Simple drag-and-drop web templates make it easy…

Zay Yar Lin, 1st Creating a successful landscape isn't just a fluke. Precise planning is crucial. When shooting my winning image, I asked locals for information (best locations, how they work and when) before I arrived at the spot. It's also important to previsualise your image, forecast weather and try to find your own style. Follow your instinct to create a new point of view of different landscapes. Tony North, 2nd and 18th For me, composition is the most important element – finding a location and a viewpoint that creates strong, clear and interesting shapes. These shapes must be balanced, so the viewer shouldn't feel thrown out of the frame. Above all, there shouldn't be too much in the frame, with no details to distract from a clear overall structure.…

AP What are the biggest ways in which photography can help people with mental health issues, particularly those with depression and anxiety disorders? SC Photography makes us stop and observe for that period of time – being present in that current moment. The encouragement to focus on the here and now is facilitating mindfulness, which can be successful in stress and anxiety reduction. Photographs can also be a way of communicating. Sometimes it is difficult to verbalise or even find the words to represent how we feel. Traditional talking therapy may not be something someone with mental health issues feels able to engage with. Photographs can be a means of showing our internal world. Through exploration in a therapy session, photographs can be used to reflect on emotional wellbeing. AP…

● € 99 (aluminium) and € 169 (carbon fibre) ● sitpack.com PHOTOGRAPHY, particularly landscape, nature and travel genres, can be a physically demanding pursuit, especially if you are lugging around a relatively bulky camera body, lenses and a tripod. Hence the appeal of the Sitpack ZEN, which claims to be the world's most compact, and functional one-legged chair. ‘Made with either carbon or alu tubes, and a ballistic nylon seat, it's the toughest, most advanced and lightest portable seat on the market,' goes the promotional blurb. The chair isn't exactly an impulse buy, however, at € 99 (around £86) for the aluminium unit and an eye-watering € 169 (£147) for the carbon-fibre model. So how does it shape up for photographers keen to park on it for a while? First,…

‘The 29-year-old Russian bodybuilder is very able, holding the world arm lifting title’ The human body at its extreme has always fascinated science, society and photographers. From the tallest, shortest, biggest, fattest, fastest, hairiest and strongest. From the amphitheatre, carnival sideshow, circus and stage – the allure to prod, gawp and document remains insatiable. I first witnessed body building at the Wembley Conference Centre in 2004. Backstage at the British Body Building Grand Prix, I stood transfixed as Mr Olympia serial winner, Texan Ronnie Coleman inflated his bicep – it resembled a watermelon and had a circumference of over 2ft. His thighs were the size of frozen turkeys, his glistening body looked basted with a thick gravy. There are a lot of food analogies in body building. Past casualties It…

We also liked… Self Portrait by Daniel Goody Fujifilm X-T1, 50mm, 1/200sec at f/7.1, ISO 200 Daniel is a keen street photographer from Essex and like many of us during lockdown has been frustrated at not being able to get out and photograph street scenes. He tells us, ‘Instead I've had to try and find interesting light around the house. After fixing the living-room blind I noticed the shapes of light it created in the room, giving me the idea for this self portrait. I set up a tripod and used the Fujifilm Camera Remote app to help compose.' Find more of his work on Instagram@dangoodyart. Chosen by Andy Westlake, Technical Editor Droplets by David Harvey Nikon D810, 70mm, 1/15sec at f/16, ISO 64 David says, ‘I took up photography…

The Flickr vs Instagram debate had been swirling in my mind shortly before AP issues 28 March and then 11 April, so thank you for the debate and tips. I can't, however, help but sit on the fence with regards to preference; both platforms have their pros and cons and should probably complement one another. Instagram has such a far-reaching audience (beyond those with a camera), which offers the opportunity to succeed as a recognised pro or amateur photographer, but my disappointment is sometimes the sight of an image at postage-stamp size, it just doesn't quite cut it. Flickr gives you that appreciable scale you envisaged at the time of clicking the shutter, particularly where landscapes are involved. Your audience, however, is limited to photography enthusiasts, and navigation around the…

Sony Alpha 9 1 The centrepiece of my bag is a pair of Sony A9s. An amazingly capable camera that continues to impress me. Average used price £2,500 Sony FE 70-200mm F2.8 GM OSS 2 The bread-and-butter lens for a motorsports photographer, this lens rarely leaves my camera. Average used price £1,800 Sony FE 400mm F2.8 GM OSS 3 The big lens – it allows me to work trackside and its fast aperture is a must for the low-light endurance races that I shoot. Average used price £9,200 Sony FE 50mm F1.4 ZA 4 My favourite lens for portraits and pit lane work. A real gem, maybe the sharpest lens I’ve ever owned. Average used price £1,150 Sony FE 24mm F1.4 GM 5 A fast wide lens – great for…

Judging APOY can be a difficult business. When you're scrolling through the best part of a thousand images per round, with the aim of shortlisting a mere 20, it takes a lot for something to leap out at you, but leap this image did – right off the screen. Normally, we would expect a simple composition with a single clear focal point to have that sort of impact, but this scene couldn't diverge more from such a style. It takes Robert Capa's quote, ‘If your photographs aren't good enough, you're not close enough,' and turns it on its head. I find myself wanting to know every single individual's story in this immaculately timed shot, and can't help thinking that if LS Lowry had ever visited Cornwall's Fistral Beach, this is…

Even if you don't suffer from anxiety, depression or suicidal thoughts, photography can be a means to greater peace of mind and more natural self-expression. Henri Cartier-Bresson, for example, was very influenced by Zen Buddhist philosophy, particularly the ‘one shot, one life' spirit expressed in Eugen Herrigel's Zen in the Art of Archery. A more recent book on Buddhist-inspired approaches to image making is The Practice of Contemplative Photography by Andy Karr and Michael Wood. It's full of exercises to help you see the world in more spontaneous and ‘mindful' ways, without worrying too much about prescribed techniques or specialist gear. AP features editor Tracy Calder also runs mindful photography courses in the New Forest – email tracymcalder@gmail.com.…

WITH the XC35mm F2, Fujifilm has created a nifty lens that'll be extremely popular with entry-level and amateur photographers who'd love to own a 50mm equivalent prime for less than half the price of the XF35mm F2 R WR. It's not built to the same robust, weather-sealed standard; it's plasticky and it lacks an aperture ring, but it does have advantages of its own in that it's lightweight and has a larger manual focus ring. Most importantly of all it inherits the same optics from the XF 35mm F2 R WR, resulting in images of identical quality and very impressive quality at that. For users of entry-level models like the X-A7 and X-T200, it allows images with a shallow depth of field to be captured at low cost. If you…

Chinatown by Christopher Slater Canon EOS 200D, 50mm, 1/250sec at f/2.2, ISO 500 Christopher has been capturing images around the Birmingham area for the last year and mostly likes to focus on street and urban images. As he explains, ‘This photo was taken in Birmingham's Chinatown. I was trying to be more patient with my photography. Normally I would snap a couple of shots and quickly move onto the next location, but that night I hung around waiting for that better shot.' See more of his images on Instagram and Twitter @slaterislost. Chosen by Nigel Atherton, Editor as our #appicoftheweek Win! Each week we choose our favourite picture on Facebook, Instagram, Flickr, Twitter or the reader gallery using #appicoftheweek. PermaJet proudly supports the online picture of the week winner, who…

Round One Points of View ZAY YAR LIN from Myanmar is the winner of Round One of APOY 2020. As category winner, he can choose products of up to £1,000 in value as his prize (based on Sigma's RRP), and if his choice of lens is above this price, he can choose to pay the difference. For APS-C camera users, a lens such as the 10-20mm F3.5 EX DC HSM (RRP £649) would be a great choice. For full-frame shooters, on the other hand, the 14-24mm F2.8 DG HSM | Art (RRP £1,129) is an excellent option. 1 Zay Yar Lin Myanmar 20pts DJI Mavic Pro 2, 28mm, 1/240sec at f/11, ISO 100 This image has shape and colour, but above all, it has simplicity - and that's something we…