Innholdsfortegnelse for 7/29/25 i Amateur Photographer

This issue we pay tribute to one of the world’s greatest photographers and humanitarians, who died in May. Sebastião Salgado’s powerful b&w images championed the world’s poor and were a huge influence on many, including me. Be awed by his legacy on page 66. Also this issue, Dennis Morris talks about his intimate early documentary photos of music legends including Bob Marley and Johnny Rotten, and Lee Malone discusses his approach to celebrity portraiture. Many of the greatest portraits of the 20th century were taken using one of the most successful cameras of all time: the Rolleiflex. John Wade tells the story. Finally, this is your last chance to buy tickets for our documentary festival on 9th August. See page 20 for details. Our cover portrait of Stephen Graham was…

CANON has announced firmware updates for its EOS R1 and EOS R5 Mark II mirrorless cameras. The updates are aimed mostly at pro users, particularly sports photographers and news agency shooters. Key changes for sports photographers include the ability for AI-driven autofocus to ‘intelligently’ lock onto subjects through nets, fences or other obstacles. Panning Assist has also been refined on the R1 to help with motorsports and other fast-moving subjects. Meanwhile, the number of shots taken using pre-capture can now be selected in the menu; up to 20 on the R1 and 15 on the R5 Mark II. Other general system and usability upgrades include the ability to assign a button to disable Wi-Fi for travel or secure environments and improved Servo AF when zooming. Details are at bit.ly/newcanonfw Canon…

Sony’s RX1R II caused quite the stir when it was released in November 2015 and it has built up a cult following since. I was actually one of those cult members last year when I joined the Sony camera club thinking its small pocketable size, high-resolution full-frame sensor and beautiful Zeiss Sonnar T* 35mm f/2 lens would answer my prayers for the perfect street photography daily driver. What soon became apparent, however, was that this really felt like a ten-year-old camera and its lack of modern tech was too much for me to get past. My ears pricked up, then, when I heard the shock news of the RX1R III. A stealth drop that seemingly came out of nowhere, ten years after the release of its predecessor. So you can…

It was perhaps destiny that a young, gifted and black photographer from Jamaica would spring to fame with his iconic images of reggae legend Bob Marley. Dennis Morris was born on the Caribbean island in 1960, but his family moved to the cooler climes of England when he was just a young boy. His love of photography was sparked at an early age when the English darkroom entrepreneur Donald Paterson set up a photographic club for choirboys at Morris’s local church in Hackney. Morris recalls, ‘At the age of nine, I first saw the magic of photography. One of the older boys was printing in the darkroom. He took the paper, put it into a dish, rocked the dish and this image appeared. I thought “Wow! Magic.” From that moment…

LETTER OF THE WEEK Sensor vs lens My father was a famous atomic physicist, the author of Techniques of Vacuum Ultraviolet Spectroscopy (1967). He would have understood Professor Newman’s articles. I don’t know anyone else who might. I include myself, even though I almost studied mathematics at university. Unexpectedly, I recently found myself interested in a piece he wrote about pixel limit and sensor sensitivity. ‘Unexpectedly’ for two reasons. First, I understood most of it. Second, I found it might also be of practical use! I recently bought an old Fujifilm GFX100 on which I use my far older Canon FD-mount 35mm T-S and 85mm f/1.2 lenses. But I wonder how much greater resolution is possible with extra ‘sharp’ modern GF lenses. Professor Newman answered an AP reader’s question: at…

The bombshell denouement of our last episode, on the development of the CIE RGB colour space, was the news that this colour space is physically impossible, requiring negative light to make it work. Seventeen research subjects had tried to match all the colours of the rainbow by mixing red, green and blue primaries in different proportions. Unfortunately they could not match the range of colours from greens to violets without subtracting the red primary (or equivalently, adding some red to the colour being matched). We learned that physical impossibility is not the problem that it might seem to be, because what we are talking about is a perceptual, not physical construct. Human perception does not need to follow physical rules and indeed it does not. Its behavior can, however be…

DAMIEN DEMOLDER Former AP editor Damien pays tribute to legendary photographer Sebastião Salgado PETER FENECH The former editor of Digital Photographer magazine interviews portrait expert Lee Malone STEVE FAIRCLOUGH AP regular Steve interviews Dennis Morris about his new retrospective exhibition and book JOHN WADE Our expert on vintage cameras and camera history is your guide to the Rolleiflex history and its success ANDY WESTLAKE Technical Editor Our chief camera and lens reviewer tests OM System’s 150-600mm F5.0-6.3 IS PETER DENCH Acting Features Ed Peter finds out more about a photographer’s year-long train station project…

FUJIFILM has announced that its Fujikina global photography festival will take place in London this year, over two long weekends: September 18-21, and 25-28. Launched in 2017, Fujikina has already taken place in such cultural hot spots as Tokyo, New York, Berlin, Stockholm, Prague and Milan, but this is a first for the UK capital. Highlights of this year’s London Fujikina include masterclasses and workshops, led by top pros such as Tigz Rice and David Shoukry, along with photowalks, seminars and talks, ‘meet the expert’ sessions, panel discussions, a free Fujifilm camera ‘check and clean’ and more. There will also be a special exhibition called A World in Colour, organised in partnership with Magnum Photos (this year, Magnum began digitising more than 650,000 colour slides from its archives using Fujifilm’s…

26 July 1967 This week in 1967 the magazine sported a bold, confident, new ‘AP’ logo on the cover, and contained 96 pages of ads, and 32 pages of editorial, of which six were about cine and film-making, which was a big part of AP’s content for decades. The title page ran a picture of actor Leslie Phillips on the set of the film Maroc 7 in which he played a fashion photographer. The caption tells us ‘he had to learn photography from scratch and he now says “I’m the keenest amateur photographer in the business!”’ The lead feature was on ‘Photographing a Bathing Beauty Contest on Holiday’, and included a cameo by Morecambe and Wise. Not wishing to miss out on the bathing beauty action, columnist Victor Blackman featured…

Ajamu X doesn’t take portraits. He constructs them – layer by deliberate layer, each image a carefully crafted act of resistance, elegance and joy. His latest exhibition – Fierce: Bristol, which is running at the Martin Parr Foundation until 21 September, adds ten new portraits to his decade-long series documenting the Black LGBTQ+ experience. And it’s fierce in the truest sense of the word: bold, beautiful and unflinchingly present. Since 2013, Ajamu’s Fierce archive has countered the absence of celebratory images of Black queer lives. The Bristol chapter introduces artists, psychotherapists, writers, community organisers and activists – figures such as Travis Alabanza and Edson Burton – framed with a reverence that makes you sit up and look properly. Each portrait, made in a makeshift studio at the Foundation, is digital,…

Ian McClure Only take my Ricoh GR III on holiday now, it does the job well for me and has no impact on baggage allowance. Maverick Moments Photography (Faith Fileccia) @MaverickPhotos_ Recently took my Nikon ZF & 28-400mm f/4-8 lens to do street photography in Toronto. I love the extremely wide range for street, it worked out wonderfully. Carole Dowd For the first time ever, only my iPhone 15 with a waterproof case for the sea. We went to Majorca and I actually took more photos than normal. Dave Brown After much debate, my phone and a Olympus Tough compact. Left my Fujis at home and had fun making memories with my family in the water park. Jenny Simpson Photography Went to some of the state and national parks in…

Humans are a visually biased species; we react strongly to visual stimuli, compared to those detected by our other senses. Furthermore, of all the many thousands of images we see every day, it is those of other people we connect with the deepest. Consequently, portrait photographers have their work cut out for them. A successful portrait must convey the subject’s personality quickly and clearly to engage the viewer at an emotional level. The image must make the audience care about the featured character, despite never having met them in person, and as is the case with many celebrity portraits, being unlikely ever to do so. Lee Malone understands this challenge better than most. For almost two decades, he has worked in the visual arts, first as a graphic designer and…

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 the 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…

WIN! The AP Pic of the Week winner will receive a beautifully framed print of their winning image worth up to £100. If you Love it, Frame it! ThisPicture.com is an experienced, high-quality framing company with a unique, easy-to-use website. Build single or multi-image frames with a few clicks of your mouse and select from a wide range of frames, window mounts and glazing options. Each frame comes with a three-year guarantee and FREE P&P within the UK. Visit thispicture.co.uk Morning Stretches by Tracy Akehurst Canon EOS R5 with RF 100-500mm and 1.4x extender, 1/500sec at f/11, ISO 3200, 700mm ‘This photo was taken in El Rompido in Spain, just as the sun was coming up. It was really quiet apart from the bird song. This zitting cisticola caught my…

‘Are you sure that’s me?’ ‘Yes. And it’s been selected for the Summer Exhibition at the Royal Academy, London.’ ‘In an exhibition, eh? Is it for sale?’ ‘Yes.’ Jean may have looked at the picture, but at first, she did not recognise or see herself. This has nothing to do with her age or deteriorating health that Maria Falconer, her niece, reflects so candidly in her sensitive multi-media work entitled How Old Am I? Most people don’t. We see what we want to when we look at a photograph. The word see in this context is not about looking; it is the component in photographic appreciation that removes the camera from being purely a recording device. This picture is one small part of Maria’s ambitious work made over three years…