Innholdsfortegnelse for 01/02/2022 i Amateur Photographer

We’re very happy to be returning to a perennially popular theme this issue – how photography can help people to flourish psychologically and creatively, despite the many challenges of life. It’s an area that we’ve been interested in for a long time, and there is a lot to say. On page 14, for instance, Tracy Calder reveals how photography can help us to become more mindful and aware; as well as helping the creative process, it can bring lots of wider benefits, too. Later, I share some more uplifting stories of how photographers are using our favourite art to deal with a range of mental and physical health issues. The stories are inspiring and humbling alike. Other highlights of this packed issue include in-depth tests of two new lenses –…

NIKON has announced the Nikkor Z 400mm f/2.8 TC VR S telephoto lens, with a built-in 1.4x teleconverter that extends the focal length reach to 560mm (when shooting at f/4). The lens uses a new ‘Silky Swift Voice Coil Motor (VCM)’ focusing system with optical ABS encoder, said to give ‘faster and quieter autofocus, with improved subject acquisition and tracking’. It’s the first Z lens to feature Nikon’s new Meso Amorphous Coat, which offers the highest anti-reflection performance in Nikkor lens history. In-lens vibration reduction is said to give up to 5.5 stops of image stabilisation. The lens will be available from spring 2022, priced at £13,499/€15,499 (ROI).…

PHOTOGRAPHER Göran Strand was covering a recent Biathlon World Cup event in Germany, with the Nikon Z 9 mirrorless camera, and managed to capture a bullet in motion leaving a rifle. The Nikon Z 9 can shoot 11MP JPEG stills at 120fps, whilst the bullet from a Biathlon rifle has a speed of 350m/s (approx. 1,235km/h or 767mph). Strand explained, ‘Since the Z 9 can go all the way down to 1/32,000sec I thought it might work.’ He photographed Swedish athlete Hanna Öberg and told AP, ‘I got a bullet on my second try, but that was after some “spray and pray” to see if it should work. Since the bullet is moving so fast, and you have such a narrow field of view, you don’t get it every time.…

7 February 1962 JUDGING from the AP archive three of the biggest obsessions of amateur photographers back in the sixties were children, animals, and ladies taking their clothes off, and this issue from 60 years ago ticked every box. The challenge, as always, was trying to come up with new and original ways to illustrate these same topics and sometimes this meant thinking outside the box. Or the matchbox, in the case of Rayment Kirby’s 5-page lead feature this week, in which a nude model cavorts with a bunch of giant matchsticks in a series of surreal pictures. Or perhaps the matchsticks are normal size and it’s a very tiny woman? Who knows! It’s unclear whether any drugs were consumed in the making of this feature (well, it was the…

‘For me, the main benefit of having a mindful approach to photography is its meditative qualities – I’m literally meditating when I get “in the zone” and as a sufferer of PTSD I find that hugely relaxing and a great way to reduce my anxiety levels. To adopt a mindful approach, I think you’ve got know your kit inside out so that using it isn’t a hindrance to your artistic flow. A good example of what I mean is rooted in my karate training. Our sensei (teacher) used to make us repeat our kata (detailed patterns of movement) again and again so that their form would be so rooted in our memory that we didn’t need to think about what came next. If we apply the same approach to photography,…

‘I’d been going through a hard time with anxiety and depression when on top of that, I contracted Covid,’ says Emily-May Stephenson. ‘I thought it’d be like a bad cold, it’d make me ill for a bit and then it would disappear again as quickly as it appeared in the first place. Unfortunately, it did not. After Covid itself went away, I was left with Long Covid, which I found worse than the virus.’ As an otherwise physically healthy young person, it was horrible for Emily-May to suddenly go from being so active to hardly being able to get out of the house. ‘My mental health suffered even more and I was so fed up, but fortunately, photography has always been a part of my life. My first camera was…

Union Square, San Francisco in miniature I created this photograph of Union Square in San Francisco by merging four separate captures to create a single panorama image. The photo was taken from a hotel room on one of the upper floors of the Sir Francis Drake hotel. As you might have guessed, it is named after the legendary explorer of course. Who, it should be pointed out, never actually stopped at San Francisco, and sailed straight past. Be that as it may, the hotel had preserved a lot of its original art deco style and the hotel room view was fabulous, especially around dusk looking south towards the San Bruno Mountains in the distance. This photograph is also a good one with which to demonstrate what I like to think…

Cameras Cameras come in three types: DSLRs with optical viewfinders, mirrorless models with electronic viewing, and compact cameras with non-interchangeable lenses Handgrip DSLRs traditionally have relatively large handgrips, while many mirrorless models have much smaller grips to keep size down. However, some can accept accessory grips to improve handling with larger lenses. Lens mount Each camera brand uses its own lens mount, and mirrorless cameras use different lenses to DSLRs even from the same brand. However, mirrorless models can often use DSLR lenses via a mount adapter. Controls Entry-level cameras tend to have simple, easy-to-understand controls, while more expensive models add lots of buttons and dials to give quick access to settings. Viewfinder The biggest difference between DSLRs and mirrorless cameras is that the latter use electronic, rather than optical…

Engaged Princess by Stringer Princess Margaret (1930-2002) and the photographer Antony Armstrong-Jones (1930-2017) announce their engagement in February 1960. Armstrong-Jones, later the 1st Earl of Snowdon, had a prolific photography career, being one of Britain’s most high-profile photographers by the 1970s. He was best known for his portraits, many of which were featured in leading publications such as Vogue and Vanity Fair. Over 100 of his photographs are in the permanent collections of the National Portrait Gallery. Other career highlights include his image being used on the cover of Queen’s Greatest Hits album, and, our personal favourite, writing the introduction for AP’s 110th anniversary special in 1994. The Getty Images Hulton Archive is one of the world’s great cultural resources. Tracing its origins to the founding of the London Stereoscopic…

CANON has unveiled the hybrid EOS R5 C 8K cinema camera, which combines the filmmaking features of the company’s Cinema EOS camera range with the photographic possibilities of its mirrorless EOS R system. The R5 C is a larger-bodied, cine-optimised version of the existing R5, which promises 8K recording with no time limit due to the addition of an active cooling system. Its combination of a high-resolution, full-frame CMOS sensor and DIGIC X processor helps enable 8K capture and 45MP still photo capture at burst speeds of up to 20fps. The camera includes Canon’s Dual Pixel CMOS AF system and offers both Eye AF and EOS iTR AF X.…

Straight answer: just like many other things, a picture is worth what someone is prepared to pay for it. In September I visited the Photo London event at Somerset House, London, which showcases exhibitions by many picture galleries and publishers. I found my visit to be both interesting and thought-provoking. The galleries had for sale selected works of photographers they represent. Many prints were for sale at over £1,000, many at £4,000-10,000, some at over £20,000 and even £70,000 for one of David Bailey’s. Contrast those prices against what you are likely to get for photographs sold through a digital picture library these days. One of my few pictures in a stock library, and shown here, sold ten years ago for $73 and again two years ago for $25. The…

The word mindfulness can be a little off-putting to some. Ever since celebrities such as Ruby Wax, Oprah Winfrey and Madonna began extolling its virtues, there has been an explosion of books, apps, podcasts and television shows telling us how to eat, garden, paint, drink and even argue mindfully. But, ignoring the hype, what does mindfulness actually mean and what has it got to do with photography and creativity? Well, for starters, it can help to substitute the word mindfulness for any of the following: awareness, observation, consciousness or acknowledgement. Mindfulness is a way of being rather than a goal or something to be earned or obtained. In fact, if you strip it right back, all it really means is paying attention to the here and now without getting side-tracked…

‘Using photography to aid a mindful approach to living has enabled me to see without labels, to question, to notice and to slow down. Suddenly the detail is there. It brings everything into focus, not just the thing I’m looking at. I notice the warmth of the sun on my skin, the cry of a gull, people chatting in the distance, the contact of my feet to the ground, the light changing as the clouds move. It’s an act of tuning in, letting go and removing the constraints in order to see more and look less. ‘Human beings have taken huge leaps forward in the world of technology and yet we are essentially animals governed by evolutionary programming that stretches back to the dawn of life. When these drives and…

1 Merge the photographs To begin with I selected four photographs shot from the hotel window and chose Photo Merge > Panorama from the Lightroom Photo menu. I selected the Perspective projection method and checked the Fill Edges option. 2 Transform the panorama Having created a merged panorama DNG image, I went to the Transform panel and added the Guided Upright guides to correct the perspective. I also adjusted the manual sliders below to realign and horizontally compress the panorama image. 3 Crop the image To complete the panorama image editing I selected the Crop Overlay tool (R) and adjusted the crop handles to crop the image and exclude the outer, white transparent areas. 4 Adjust tone and colour In Step 1 the Auto Settings box was checked. Usually, this…

THE SIGMA 90mm F2.8 DG DN Contemporary gives us a genuinely useful lens with a compact size and weight that makes it a great choice for anyone who wants both a compact lens, as well as high image quality. Like the Sigma 24mm f/2.0, its build quality and design are very good. With this lens you’re buying into high build quality, thanks to its metal construction. You also get high-quality accessories, including the large metal hood and magnetic lens cap. Images are incredibly sharp, even when shooting wide-open at f/2.8. Whilst there is vignetting and distortion in uncorrected images, this is part of the design philosophy. It’s easily corrected in software and enables a more compact lens design. The main weakness of this lens is its close-up performance, with softer…

I MUST admit that this is a lens I’ve wanted to see for some time. While I admire the Olympus M.Zuiko f/1.2 Pro primes, to me f/1.4 represents a real sweet spot for Micro Four Thirds. It represents a usefully fast aperture without compromising on portability, which is the system’s main attraction, and the price is much more palatable too. Also, I’ll take a 40mm-equivalent lens over 35mm or 50mm any day of the week. I was always predisposed to like this lens; the question was only whether it lived up to expectations. Thankfully, in most respects it doesn’t disappoint. Perhaps the only real sticking point is the lack of a focus clutch mechanism, which feels more important on this type of fast prime than it did on the 12-45mm…

‘In Norilsk, snowdrifts can reach as high as the third floor of a building’ It’s an early December morning and a bit cold in my office (desk at the end of my bed). The temperature reads 7°C. I pull on a 100% polyester hand-wash-only Fila brand gilet. The sash windows are draughty and speckled with black mould. Condensation is running down them, pooling into a gloop which I mop up with Tesco toilet paper. I’m tempted to turn on the heating ahead of its programmed time of 4pm. Instead I leaf through Soviet Seasons by Arseniy Kotov (Fuel Design & Publishing 2021). During the winter of 2019, Kotov travelled extensively across Siberia. Siberia covers 57% of the whole of Russia but contains only 11% of its population. The 9,734,000 (give…

AP picture of the week Waiting by Paul Chapman Fujifilm X-T3, XF 27mm f/2.8 WR, 1/500sec at f/9, ISO 200 ‘Photography has been my main hobby since 2008 and has grown to become an important method of reflection and relaxation. I love nothing more than wandering around London seeing where my feet will take me’ Paul, a trainee GP based in London, tells us. ‘After a difficult time dealing with Covid-19 over the past 18 months my best friend and I took a trip to Prague for the weekend in early November. On this day we were walking up to Prague Castle and I was struck by the quality of the light down this side street. I knew there was a beautiful picture there and I wanted the table and…

Consider connection John Muir once stated, ‘When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.’ Use this as a starting point and take a picture that shows the interdependency of living things. Consider how a tree absorbs moisture and dissolved minerals from the soil, how the bark protects it from attack and how the trunk supports its limbs, for example. Enjoy imperfection Wabi sabi is an appreciation of anything that’s imperfect, incomplete or impermanent. It’s noticing a crack in a vase and ignoring traditional views of what is beautiful – if the vase leaks it’s admiring the shape created by the pool of water underneath it. Let go of traditional ideas of beauty or perfection and take a picture that…

As we’ve seen in Tracy Calder’s wide-ranging feature starting on page 14, there are a lot of practical tips and techniques that all photographers can use to become more mindful. But can photography still help if you are facing a full-blown mental health crisis, or having to deal with the psychological impact of a serious health condition, such as ME, Long Covid or chronic back pain? Judging by the case studies we’ve put together over the following pages, the answer is a resounding yes. Following a call-out on social media, a variety of photographers came forward with their stories, of all ages, backgrounds and skill levels. It’s not only rewarding to read their stories but also inspirational, and if anyone was still in doubt about the healing power of photography,…

It’s not ‘just’ anxiety, depression and other common mental health disorders that can present serious psychological challenges for the photographer – the fallout from physical ailments can take a heavy toll too. Angi Wallace, a successful close-up and macro specialist based in the North East, suffers from ME, more commonly known as chronic fatigue syndrome. ‘I’ve had ME for 15 years and it affects me in a range of ways causing very low energy, fatigue, brain fog, cognitive dysfunction and much more,’ Angi explains. ‘I had to give up a fantastic career as a specialist rheumatology nurse and hobbies such as cycling, mountain climbing and gardening. So I took up photography from home and was able to adapt.’ Angi describes photography as her silver lining in the dark cloud of…

In 2021, we launched the first Young APOY competition, which attracted more than 3,000 entries from 885 photographers from across the world. The standard was excellent, and the competition ended up being closely fought by two photographers – Muhammad Amdad Hossain from Bangladesh, and Lucy Monckton, from England. While Muhammad won two categories outright – Travel and Black & White – Lucy was shortlisted in all ten categories, which was quite the achievement. Astonishingly, the final result was that they tied in first place, sharing the £500 MPB voucher for overall winner between them. They each achieved 510 points – 160 points ahead of their third-placed rival. Here, we find out more about their photography and how they went about tackling the inaugural Young APOY. Muhammad Amdad Hossain, Bangladesh Muhammad…

Tell us a little about your photography background I started to take my photography hobby more seriously in the 1980s and equipped myself with a Canon AE1 SLR and a couple of lenses. This was soon superseded by Canon’s new EOS range, which meant a reinvestment in new kit. I concentrated on recording my hobby of steam railways and travelled all over the UK in search of ‘that master shot’, and set myself the goal of getting pictures published in the railway magazines. That was first achieved in 1994 and I continued capturing steam images into the 2000s and still do to the present day. I reached a point in 2006 when I wanted a change of career, because my business telecoms position was proving ever more stressful. I decided…