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           "Red" by Helen
 

Dear All,

New Items    (06.07.2010)

Jon has sent me some summer shots of a recent visit to Dyrham Park near Bath.  Jon says "I managed to get some close ups of the deer there by sitting still for about 30 minutes in the long grass until they came really close.  At one point they were only 10 feet away and judging by the way that they kept popping their heads up, they could here the ‘beep-beep’ as my camera got them into focus.  How I wish I had set it to silent beforehand!"   Please click on the link in Bold on the left to see these great shots. 

I was lucky enough to have two weeks in California recently and one treat was a visit to San Diego zoo; a superb zoo where you can get very close to the animals.  I also got to the famous Monterey Aquarium, an amazing venue.  No flash photography was allowed so the ISOs ranged from 1600 up to an astonishing 12800 ISO.  Amazing what a DSLR will accommodate now.   A third gallery just has a Miscellany from the trip including the extraordinary Hearst Castle built by the newspaper tycoon immortalised by Orson Welles in "Citizen Kane".  The links in Bold on the left will take you to a selection of my favourite images from the trip. 

You will have seen that both Lightroom 3 and Photoshop CS5 are now out.  Both have some significant improvements over their predecessors but the cost of upgrading both is not cheap.

Do send me the results of your own outings in this great summer weather when you have a chance.

Other News

Congratulations to Di Wilkins who was very successful in her LRPS panel assessment and is now entitled to put the magic "LRPS" after her name.  Her selection was retained by the RPS (as John's was earlier in the year) as an example of a good LRPS panel to guide other applicants.  Di has sent her panel of images through to me and it is now on the site.  Click on the link on the left.

Her selection of macro flower work is also on the site.  Please click the link on the left.

Jon has sent me some images from his recent trip to Yorkshire and Suffolk.   Click on the Winter Images link in Bold on the left to see these.  Jon says:

"Wombwell, which is a village just outside Barnsley, used to be a mining village before the cuts of yesteryear.  The place that I took the photos was actually the old railway track route that took the coal from the mines to the canal and mainline railway – all in all it’s quite an interesting part of our history.

We spent the New Year in a cottage in Suffolk on the banks of the River Deben that runs down from Woodbridge to Lowestoft.  It is a very quiet area famed for the birdlife on its mud flats.  If it has got one thing going for it – then it’s MUD.  Very messy stuff (although the birds love it of course), but when we went for a walk, there was an especially high tide and the footpath disappeared under water so we had to wade through up to our knees with our boots getting sucked down into the mud.  With another 2 miles to go in order to get dried off, you can imagine how cold our feet were as it was -2˚ at the time!!"

 Helen has kindly sent me some superb shots from her 2009 photoblog.  She is still managing to keep it going; a major achievement when she has such a busy life.  I really recommend her year's work.    John too has been hard at work and spent Hogmanay in Edinburgh.  His resulting images are great.  John says:

"For the five days linking the old year with the new festivities in the City of Edinburgh were dominated by the two central themes of light and fire.  These proved to be the perfect antidote to the shortened days of midwinter and weather at sub zero temperatures."

John also sent some great shots of a hairdresser's model day which he and Karen organised and which Sue was at too.   Click on the links on the left to see their separate galleries.   John says:

"I organised a photo shoot at a disused Factory in Exeter which the owner has, for the past 12 months, allowed a group of very talented wall artists to ‘decorate’.  I worked in collaboration with a local hairdressing saloon, which provided four models, plus 3 other photographers and Karen who kindly helped me with the organising and acted as a back up on the actual day of the shoot.  In total there were 12 people involved in the shoot and we all had a thoroughly enjoyable day."

Do keep sending me images.  We have plenty of web space just dying to be filled up.

Joen Wolfram has sent some sensational images from her recent workshop led by Rod Barbee in Mount Rainier National Park.  Very helpfully she also provided some background information about what she describes as "an ice cream cone in the sky":

"Mount Rainier is the premier mountain of several in the Cascade Mountain Range.   It is over 14,000 feet in height.   The Cascade Mountain Range runs southward from British Columbia to Washington and Oregon.    It divides our state into two large regions: Western Washington is very green, filled with waterways, forests, and beautiful scenery.    Its climate is very similar to England’s.   We have many of the same trees, bushes, and plants, although there are some differences.    Eastern Washington is arid.    It used to be mostly desert until several dams were built on the mighty Columbia River. The eastern side gets little rainfall and is mainly a region with huge farms and ranches.

To get from one side of the state to the other, we must travel on one of a handful of mountain passes.   In the winter, only three mountain passes stay open, so all east-west  travel is limited.    There are times in the winter when all passes are closed, due to snowstorms, avalanches, weather and road conditions.   So this mountain range has its good and bad points.   Its best points are the beautiful scenery and parklands it gives us.   The area is extraordinary."

Please click on the link on the left to see Joen's wonderful images.

If you have not tried a "Photobook" or are dissatisfied with a service you have tried, I can recommend Blurb (www.blurb.com), which I found via the Royal Photographic Society journal. 

It is very good to meet up and I suggest we should continue to do so where possible.  Geography is always going to be an issue but Gloucestershire and Wiltshire do seem to be reasonably accessible for most of us.  Alida is kindly thinking about venues for group days out.  If you have any ideas or suggestions, please let her or me know.

There is a good series of tutorials about the new features of Lightroom 3 at www.adobe.com/designcenter/photoshoplightroom and from Matt Kloskowski at www.lightroomkillertips.com   Scott Kelby's LR3 book will also be out shortly.   Thanks also to Joen for recommending Scott Kelby's excellent "7 Point System for Adobe Photoshop".

There continue to be good free tutorials on Photoshop and Lightroom etc which can be downloaded via iTunes and on the various Adobe websites.  In iTunes, just search under Podcasts for the software (eg Photoshop) in which you are interested.  Most tutorials only last about 10 - 15 Minutes and are good.   Does anyone else have suggestions for online stuff?

As always, don't be shy!  If you have something you're proud of, please do e-mail it to me and the group can see it.  Comments on what you have photographed are also very welcome.

Richard

06.07.2010