Looking Forward, Looking Back
Derek Smith • 4 January 2022
Fleur
Photo By: Derek Smith
Ruby
Photo By: Derek Smith
Original Image of Underhill Farm
Photo By: Derek Smith
Edited Image of Underhill Farm
Photo By: Derek Smith
How has your photography progressed over the year just gone? When you look back over the images that you’ve taken over the past year, what have been your successes, and what have been your failures? I know that for many of us we haven’t been able to travel as extensively as we might have done because of Covid, and the associated lock downs. However, seen from the perspective of the photos submitted to the blogs, and from the competition entries, we’ve still been out with the camera, and taking photographs.
Personally, for me I’ve still been able to get out with models, and take a fair amount of portraits, and I’ve managed to take some images that I’ve been really pleased with. Looking back though, the portraits have been great, but I haven’t done much else, and that’s what I want to change in this coming year, I want to get out more into the countryside, and venture into landscape photography, that’s one of my challenges for this year.
From an image editing viewpoint, I have learnt so much over the past year, I use Luminar AI, with the templates, and filters, as well as Serif Affinity. Luminar AI is an absolute joy to use, and my workflow is much improved, usually returning from a two hour shoot with a model I will have 300+ images to edit, with Luminar I can select a template, either one that I’ve created, or one from the Luminar range of templates, I’ll select the best images, from the preview ribbon along the foot of the screen, apply the template, perhaps straighten, or crop, then save, with only about 50 images being used from the shoot, and I can do that in less time than the shoot itself.
So, from last year successes, some of my portraits have been amazing, I’ve chosen this one working with Fleur. Camera settings; this image of the older lady Ruby is a .jpg image straight from camera, I just dialled in the ISO 160, aperture f/2.8, and shutter speed 1/60s, and the exposure was perfect. Editing; I’m not up to a compositing images standard, but fairly adept now at using a gradient, or radial filter. One major success for me at the last competition was to have our judge, Brian Grommett hold back all 3 of my images in the “Open” category. Failures, well too many to mention, however a holiday visit to the Peak District trying to take some landscape images around Mam Tor was photographically disappointing, the light was difficult, you can see from the unedited version of the farm, the farm house itself isn’t sharp, the lighting was flat, and it didn’t work for me. However, I needed a “Building Within a Landscape”, and this image did fit the brief, so I worked heavily on the image, cropping to a 16:9 ratio, applying a radial filter to lighten the centre of the image, selectively sharpening the farmhouse, a little dodging / burning to further improve the image (I still didn’t like it!!) and was very surprised to have the image placed 2nd with 19 points, the edited image is attached.
What are your challenges for the coming year? What have you learned from your failures?
My first challenge this year, is to find some images for the next competition on the 26th January!!
Louth Photographic Society
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Roger Hance Memorial Lecture 16th October
Last night Lee Dixon from Cleethorpes Camera Club gave his first ever presentation to a camera club, which we were privileged to view. His presentation consisted of portraiture, creative, and his genre of choice; wildlife. Lee is an extremely talented photographer, with a highly creative portfolio, his portraits are quite atmospheric, unusual, and capture the essence of the model, and scene. For Lee’s creative work, he buys props from charity shops, often very cheaply, reusing those props in various scenes. For his composite work he will often take one of his photos of a room, and blend it with a subject in Photoshop using “blend” modes. For wildlife he visited Lake Kerkini in Greece to photograph the Pelicans, if the sky is a little on the bland side, Lee will often over expose the image resulting in a striking white background to the subject. On safari in Africa Lee showed us some amazing images of the wildlife, the close-up images of elephants, the wildebeest migration, and this stunning image of a cheetah. Lee was ably assisted by Mike Bennett. More of Lee’s work can be found on his website: https://leedixonphoto.co.uk/ Lee his kindly given permission for his images to be used in this post. Many thanks to Lee, and Mike for an amazing evening.
Good Morning All Last week at the club we held our monthly PDI competition, with the categories of "Objects in the Air" and "Open", there was a very high-quality entry in both competitions and judge Mike Bennett had quite a job on his hands scoring the entries. Well, done to Dave Turner for first place in the Objects in the Air and Tony Gaskins for first place in the Open. All the results are on our website. This week, Wednesday 30th September, our speaker will be Lee Dixon from Cleethorpes Camera Club showing us his natural history, Creative and many other photographs he has taken. It will be the first time Lee has shown his photographs at our club. If anyone else wants to enter PDI's in the 2027 N&EMPF Exhibition, the deadline is this Wednesday at midnight. Harry is still taking entries for the PDI competition, with the categories of "Local Straight from Camera" (unedited .jpg), and "Open", to be held on Wednesday 7th October. Regards Graham
At the meeting last night Mike Bennett judged our competition with the categories of “Objects in the Air”, and “Open”. The standard of entries was excellent, and it gave Mike a tough task of judging the images, Mike gave some very good critique of the images displayed, the feedback helps members to develop compositional skills. Dave Turner was awarded first place for his image of the “Tiger Club Display Team” in the “Objects in the Air” category. Tony Gaskins was awarded first place for his image of the “Spectacular Rustgill” in the “Open” category.
Good Morning All, Last week at the club we watched the N&EMPF PDI Exhibition for 2026, it was a very good evening viewing very high standard images from all over the East Midlands. Dave Turner and I did manage to get images accepted; there is a full report on our website. This week, Wednesday 23rd September, we will hold our monthly PDI competition, with the categories of "Objects in the Air" and "Open", please send entries to Harry by midnight tonight. Harry is also accepting images for the PDI competition, with the categories of "Local Straight out of the Camera (only resizing permitted)" and "Open". Regards Graham
Members were shown the 2026 N&EMPF PDI Exhibition video last night with all of the accepted PDI images in the first part, and after the break the awarded PDI images. There were some stunning images on view, and Louth was successful in having 3 PDI images accepted, Graham Harrison with his image of a Stonechat, and Dave Turner with his portrait of Paul Rudd, and his monochrome image of Kings Cross railway station "Going Down". Overall it was a good inspirational evening.
Good Morning All Last week at the club members had 15 minutes to show what they had done over the summer. It was a very interesting evening with eight members taking part. There were many locations on show and as usual some excellent photography. There is a full report on our blog. This week, Wednesday 16th September, we will be showing the N&EMPF exhibition, this is part one showing all the PDI's that were accepted. This is the highest standard of photography we as individuals take part in as a club. Members sent around 50 entries but only 3 were accepted. If you are inspired to enter the 2027 Exhibition after seeing the show, I send the clubs entries and I can give you more information. Closing date is the end of September. The Maximum size for N&EMPF is 1600 x 1200 3MB sRGB Harry is still taking entries for the monthly PDI competition, with the categories of "Objects in the Air" and "Open". Harry did ask about what can be accepted, and we couldn't really say as long as it's an object in the Air. The best way is to look up the definition of an object first. Harry is also accepting entries for the Local and Open competition in October. Robin is going to judge the Open competition, does anyone fancy judging the "Straight from the camera" category? Regards Graham
The Louth Photographic Society has returned after the summer break. It was an incredible return, with members providing us with some stunning images from over the summer break. A full, and varied smorgasbord of well executed photos, many of us visited Whitby, the North Yorkshire Moors Railway, and further north images from Staithes, and Sandbanks. Tony showed us his long exposure minimalist calming coastal scenes, from the Lincolnshire coast, and Whitby.. Chris brought us some beautiful photos taken of local churches, many of which many of us have never seen. Now I’ve never really seen the attraction of an expensive Leica camera, but when Mark showed his photos from his visit to the German Leica factory in Wetzlar, I now understand, camera bodies, and lenses milled from solid blocks of aluminium, hand polished, hand finished lens glass, and textured leather applied to the camera body, not a robot in sight, just craftsmen, and women making a superb photographic instrument. Sue brought us “pink” ladies driving tractors to raise money for cancer research. Last but definitely not least Richard showed his monochrome, and infrared images of trees, his compositions, and photographic eye bring these tree studies to life, we appreciate them even if some judges don’t understand. Many thanks to all of those members who contributed.
Good Morning All We spent last week on the Isle of Wight visiting many of the attractions. This week, Wednesday 9th September, we are back at the club with 15-minute PDI shows of what you did during the summer break, I have Derek Smith, Tony Gaskins, Harry Kerman, Chris Birchmore and Richard Hildred on the list, if I have missed you off, please let me know. I should be there but could be late as away playing golf. Harry is taking entries for the September PDI competition, with the categories of "Objects in the Air" and "Open". Harry will miss the October local competition but will sort the entries out for us, The competition categories will be "Local-Not Edited" and "Open". We judge this competition in house so could do with two volunteers to judge. The local competition is a .jpeg photograph taken and straight from the camera, no cropping, or post processing etc, like the old days taken no more than 25 miles from St James church. Regards Graham
