Innholdsfortegnelse for 28/12/2021 i Amateur Photographer

As we bid 2021 farewell, we’re sure that, photographically at least, 2022 will be a great year for all our readers. To make sure it happens for you, our main feature focuses on how to find your creative mojo (or get it back). It’s all too easy to get stale and lose confidence with your photography, but regular scribe and workshop leader Benedict Brain is bursting with ideas to turbocharge your creativity. We can’t wait to see the results, so keep sending in your best shots or share on our social media. Other highlights include the inside story about the album photography of the classic Stones platter, Sticky Fingers, and on the subject of old warhorses, a field test of the iconic Nikon F5. We also highlight a compelling photography…

AFTER a successful launch of the NEO 3 and AEOS 2, Rotolight is now opening up pre-orders for them, for £515 and £1,199 respectively. The new LED lights attracted more than $860,000 of funding on Kickstarter in 31 days. The Rotolight NEO 3 is the world’s brightest on-camera LED light, while the Rotolight AEOS 2 is the thinnest and lightest 1 x 1 panel ever made at under 1.4kg, according to the company. You can check out our First Look video at bit.ly/rotolightvideos.…

THE ROYAL Photographic Society has announced the 57 photographers to feature in its 163rd International Photography Exhibition (IPE). The IPE is the world’s longest-running photography exhibition and the selected photographs were chosen anonymously from a worldwide open call in which over 8,000 images were entered by nearly 4,000 photographers from 114 countries. ‘The work pays particular attention to the personal impacts of the pandemic, capturing hardship, grief, resilience, and hope,’ said the RPS. The IPE 163 Award went to French-Polish photographer Tim Franco, for his work ‘Unperson – Portraits of North Korean Defectors’. Meanwhile, South Korean photographer KyeongJun Yang received the Under 30s Award for his series Men Don’t Cry. The 57 photographers will be exhibited at the RPS gallery in Bristol from 16 April to 3 July 2022.…

31 December 1941 THIS week 80 years ago Britain was at war. Three weeks earlier Japan had bombed Pearl Harbor and the US has now entered the fray, bringing a sense of optimism, but also a new front in Asia. The difficulties this caused for photographers of the day resonates with some the challenges we face now, during our very different kind of war with an invisible enemy. How to Carry On In 1942 offered some advice on how to cope. ‘One of the most marked results of the continued progress of the war is that many commodities are in short supply, and photographic apparatus and materials are no exception,’ it began. ‘There are the increasing demands of the fighting services, the restriction of imports, and the shortage of skilled…

Like Bob Maslin (Inbox, 19 October), I accompany my digital photography (Canon EOS 5DS R) with medium format film colour transparencies. I love the large sharp images and I too, am amazed that no 6x6 slide mounts are currently marketed, especially given the reported resurgence of film photography and ready availability of professional reversal films. In recent months I have managed to source several hundred marvellous Gepe 6x6 Anti-Newton glass mounts – enough to compile an interesting show for my local photography clubs. I shoot 6x6 format using 30-year-old Hasselblad V-series cameras, projecting on twin Rollei 66 units using Bartok dissolve equipment. Several friends use 6x4.5 cameras and despite heroic efforts, have failed to source glass mounts at any price. So, no show for them except via scans! Despite the…

Jason Bell As if the innuendo of the album title was not enough, the Stones then doubled down on it by using Warhol’s idea of a close-up crotch shot with a working zipper, which really kicked it up a notch. And the folklore around having to partially unzip it to stop vinyl damage just added to the titillation of it all. Andy Cowles This has to be the most outrageous album sleeve ever. It’s the picture doing the heavy lifting here – rarely has a highlight been used to such good effect. Combined with the title and the zip, it’s one helluva promise, whichever side of the cardboard you’re on. Aubrey Powell A piece of erotic, androgynous pop art that entices the buyer to unzip the fly to see what’s…

1 Open Sky Replacement This shows the before version of the photo I was about to edit. I shot this on location in the late evening using portable flash heads. To start with I went to the Edit menu and chose Sky Replacement. 2 Select desired sky image This opened the Sky Replacement dialogue shown here. I clicked on the Sky image preview at the top, expanded the ‘Spectacular’ folder group and selected the desired sky image to add to the original image. 3 Make adjustments In this step I flipped the sky image and dragged the Fade Edge slider to the left to reduce the fading between the foreground and the sky boundary. I also adjusted the Sky Brightness to lighten the sky more. 4 Tweak colour temperature The…

Price £680 body-only, £769 zoom kit Sensor 24.2MP CMOS, 23.5 x 15.6mm Output size 6000 x 4000 Focal length mag 1.5x Lens mount Sony E Shutter speeds 30-1/4000sec ISO 100-32,000; 50-51,200 (extended) Exposure modes PASM, B Metering Multi, Centre, Spot, Highlight Exposure comp ±5 in 0.3EV steps Continuous Up to 11fps Screen 3in, 921k-dot articulated LCD AF points 425 phase detection Video 4K 30p, Full HD up to 120p External mic 3.5mm stereo Memory card 1x UHS I SD Power NP-FW50 Battery life 440 shots Dimensions 115.2x64.2x44.2mm Weight 343g with battery and card…

I spent most of a decade hauling a Nikon F5 around the country to a variety of photo jobs, so a lot of words spring to mind when I think about describing it. The most obvious one must be ‘heavy’, but ‘reliable’, ‘robust’ and ‘uncompromising’ aren’t far behind. Launched in 1996, the Nikon F5 was one of the last pro cameras for film – perhaps the last from Nikon, as the later F6 with its fixed viewfinder and optional battery pack seemed to lack the same focus on the needs of the professional. The final iteration of any good camera range is based on the cumulative expertise gained across the whole development cycle, adding and refining features to achieve an increasingly elegant solution to the requirements of the user. By…

One day, when putting a plate down on his kitchen table, David Bate accidentally dropped it. But instead of simply tossing the broken pieces into the bin, he noticed the way the light was falling and he decided to photograph it. David is an artist, theorist and teacher based in London. He explained that normally we don’t photograph things that we break, but he was struck by the beauty of the scene and responded intuitively. He began his photographic life as a street photographer, where he learned to react instinctively. And that training and experience has remained a core part of his practice. But he is also interested in using photography as a vehicle for ideas, and as a way of expressing emotions that he finds impossible to articulate. You’ve…

Party People by Picture Post The actor and director Richard Attenborough and his wife, Sheila Sim, also an actor, ring in the new year in 1955. Attenborough starred in many notable films, including Brighton Rock, The Great Escape, Jurassic Park and Miracle on 34th Street. As a director, he won numerous awards, including Best Director and Best Picture for Gandhi in 1983. The couple were married for 69 years, from 1945 until Richard’s death in 2014. The Getty Images Hulton Archive is one of the world’s great cultural resources. Tracing its origins to the founding of the London Stereoscopic Company in 1854, today it houses over 80 million images spanning the birth of photography to the digital age. Explore it at www.gettyimages.com.…

DXO HAS released a range of updates, with the Nik Collection 4.3 now featuring 35 nature-inspired presets to enhance the character of landscape and travel shots. Other tweaks include interface improvements to PhotoLab 5.1 – GPS coordinates now display directly on Google Maps and the photo filter menu is revamped for more efficient navigation. In addition there is updated camera support in PhotoLab 5.1 and FilmPack 6.1 (shown above). ‘As well as the Canon EOS R3 and the Ricoh GR IIIx, DxO accommodates the entire range of Fujifilm cameras including the X-T30 II and three other X-Trans sensor cameras, as well as the GFX 50S,’ said the company. See shop.dxo.com.…

One of my camera club colleagues recently posted a discussion point on our Club Facebook page. He asked the question: what is the difference between a composite photograph and a fake? Now, this once more is really the age-old question about the use of Photoshop or other software to create an ‘ideal’ photograph. But the reason he raised the point was that he saw a photograph on a Facebook group which depicted a well-known and oft-photographed church by a river which appeared to be being struck by a bolt of lightning during a thunderstorm. His reaction was one of scepticism, because, as he put it, the lightning didn’t look right, and if it had hit the wooden church it would destroy it; so rather than an out-and-out critique of the…

No matter where you are in your photographic journey there is always room to improve, develop and grow. Experiencing new ideas, techniques and approaches to photography can invigorate your work. Sometimes the experiences can be fruitful creative rabbit holes that change the direction of your photography forever, and other times they don’t. The fact is, if you don’t try, you’ll never know. It’s good to break out of your comfort zone and try something new; whether you jump wholeheartedly in the deep end or you tentatively dip your toes in at the water’s edge, it doesn’t matter, what matters is giving it a go. I’ve been running photography workshops for many years now and in this feature I’ve compiled a bunch of techniques to try, challenges to have a go…

In April 1971 the Rolling Stones released the studio album Sticky Fingers, with tracks such as Brown Sugar and Wild Horses becoming instant rock classics. But equally memorable was the controversial LP cover – it showed a denim jeans-clad crotch, with what appeared to be a semi-erect penis underneath, and had a working zipper embedded on the cover cardboard. The zipper could be pulled down to reveal another crotch wearing white underwear. The creation of the iconic album cover involved legendary pop art guru Andy Warhol and the design genius of art director Craig Braun and his company, the Sound Packaging Corporation. It was the first album on the new Rolling Stones Records label, founded after the band’s deal with Decca and London ended, which was run by former Chess…

On 23 July 2020, American activist and Democratic Party politician Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez addressed the House of Representatives, recounting an incident about a heated exchange with Republican Party politician Ted Yoho after which he reportedly called her a f***ing b*tch. Yoho had apologised on the House floor, but denied the slur. Alexandria later addressed this with impact: ‘Mr Yoho mentioned that he has a wife and two daughters. I am two years younger than Mr Yoho’s youngest daughter. I am someone’s daughter too. My father, thankfully, is not alive to see how Mr Yoho treated his daughter. My mother got to see Mr Yoho’s disrespect on the floor of this House towards me on television and I am here because I have to show my parents that I am their daughter…

AP: Tell us about your photography background DH: Photography for me started around 15 years ago, when at the time I was mostly shooting landscapes. When I began to buy better glass for my camera it allowed faster shooting, and my love of British birds and mammals meant I naturally found myself taking more images of these. I was brought up as a child on the very top of the Pennines, where my father was a Nature Conservancy warden so my love of nature was instilled in me from a very young age. Running wild on open pristine moorland amongst the red grouse, dippers and brown hares of the upper Tyne catchment was something I remember very fondly. At the age of 18 we moved as a family down to…

AP picture of the week Harmony by Matt McCormick Nikon D850, Tamron 70-200mm f/2.8 G2 lens at 125mm, 1/4sec at f/11, ISO 64 Matt says, ‘I took this image when wandering along the shores of Loch Achray in the Trossachs on a misty morning. The composition grabbed my attention as I saw the similarity in the form of the grasses and the island in the distance and the balance it created. I used focus stacking to ensure sharpness throughout.’ Instagram and Twitter: @mattosanfoto. I Got My Eyes on You by James Allen Nikon D500, Nikon 200-500mm f/5.6 VR lens at 300mm, 1/2000sec at f/5.6, ISO 1500 James says, ‘I have a real passion and interest in photographing birds of prey and I particularly love owls. This photograph was taken on…

Write to the Editor at ap.ed@kelsey.co.uk and include your full postal address. Please don’t send letters in the post as there is no one in the office to receive them. Replies are from the Editor unless otherwise stated Try auctions Regarding reader Bob Maslin’s appeal for 6x6 Gepe mounts. Tell him to find a local auction house that does house clearances, give them a sample mount and ask them to let him know if any turn up. I used to attend an auction in Edinburgh where boxes of transparencies, carefully mounted, turned up regularly and sold for peanuts or ended up in the skip. Gordon Wright Leica R lenses I have just read your article on the Leica R7 SLR. I have owned several of this type of camera over…

Musicians: Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Mick Taylor, Charlie Watts, Bill Wyman. Other musicians who played on the album were Ry Cooder, Jim Dickinson, Rocky Dijon, Nicky Hopkins, Bobby Keys, Jimmy Miller, Jack Nitzsche, Billy Preston, Jim Price and Ian Stewart Released: 9 April 1971 (Atco/Atlantic Records – US release), 23 April 1971 (EMI – UK release) Best chart performance: No. 1 in the US, UK, Australia, Canada, The Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden and West Germany Sales: Over 3,400,000 Fascinating fact: The cover in Spain showed fingers in a can of treacle. It was designed by John Pasche – who produced the ‘lips and tongue’ logo concept – and Phil Jude, who would later photograph the goat’s head for the inner sleeve of the Stones’ Goat’s Head Soup.…

BASED on price alone the ZV-E10 should prove a very popular camera and may even dethrone the Canon EOS M50 Mark II as the go-to camera for most YouTubers – which is clearly the market that Sony is aiming at. It also serves as a gateway to purchasing a high-end full-frame camera such as the Alpha 7 IV in the future, as well as any of the 60 Sony E-mount lenses, not to mention the numerous third-party options. For content creators there are few creative things that the ZV-E10 won’t allow you to do, and beneath its lightweight plastic exterior it packs quite a punch. For photographers it is the equivalent of a modern-day point and shoot when left with its rather average kit lens. But paired with a better…