A print competition was held last night with the categories of "Monochrome", and "Open". The judge for the evening was Jorj Malinowski who critiqued the prints in his usual competent, laconic, and humorous style. In the Monochrome section, Dave Turner was placed first with his stunning "Down to Platform 8" taken from the top of the stairs on the London Underground. For the Open section Paul Gray was rightfully awarded first place for his beautiful capture of Gannets taken from a boat off Bempton cliffs. The competition page has been updated with the full results, and the top 3 placed images in each section.

Photography is one of those hobbies where you’re constantly learning whether it’s the details of your camera, or photographic techniques. Incorrect camera settings – How many times have you been on a photo shoot and found that the photos didn’t look great when viewing them on a computer screen? Recently on a photo shoot with a model in a low light situation, I left the ISO at 160, when I should have used an ISO of 400, even though I opened the aperture to f/1.8, the shutter speed was still too low at 1/42, as a result the image appears soft, and more by accident than design the photo does have a certain aesthetic and is usable. Later in the shoot I did notice my mistake and I’ve managed to create some rather lovely images of the young lady. After reviewing my images, I’ve adjusted my camera settings to use Auto ISO with a range of 160 – 3200, and a minimum shutter speed of 1/60 which should overcome any further mistakes. Blown Highlights – This is a common mistake, and one that’s frequently brought up by judges. Photographs of birds with white plumage such as swans, and gannets in bright light can often result in blown highlights which are unrecoverable in post processing. For my portraiture work bright window lighting, open sunlight, or indoor LED lighting can result in blown highlights on the face. With the camera in Aperture Priority mode, the exposure compensation dial is your saviour, I have selected the “Live View Highlights Alert”, otherwise known as the “Blinkies” on my camera. With the correct settings on your camera turning the exposure compensation to a negative value can preserve the highlights as this image of a swan on the boating lake at Cleethorpes illustrates. Dynamic Range – Modern digital cameras have a tremendous range of dynamic range, and a lot of detail can be teased out of the shadows even from a jpg image. However, when shooting a subject against a bright sky often photographers will lose detail in the sky, even where the sky is overcast. To overcome this, use the exposure compensation dial to retain detail in the sky, your subject will appear dark, but lifting the shadows on the subject will recover all the details. This image of the steam locomotive Cranford at Ludborough straight from camera is shot at -2 EV, the sky detail is retained, the detail on the locomotive and train can easily be recovered in post processing. Composition – Possibly I should have listed this at the top of this post, as it’s one of the most important aspects of photography, together with mastering light. Creating a photographic image that tells a story, that impacts the viewer is the key to a successful photograph, and begins even before you have a camera in your hands, ask the questions: What is it you’ve seen? What’s the intent? Can the subject be viewed from another angle? Where is the light falling? For this image of St. Hybalds Church, I wanted to take this photo because of the sunlight falling on the church, and the wispy clouds in the sky. The path from the bottom left of the image leads into the photo, I allowed sufficient room at the top of the church to correct the verticals and converted the image to monochrome as I like the sky details. Cropping slightly into the image removed any distractions at either side of the church. Enjoy your hobby, and keep learning.

The LPA Battles Competition Final for 2024 was held at Nettleham Village Hall near Lincoln on Sunday, 13th October 2023. Heather Burns ( Guild of Photographers, Triple Master Craftsman, Judge, Panel Member ), judged 90 images, from 6 finalist clubs, with over half of the images scoring 17 points or more. Louth tied 4th with Axholme on 277 points, but there's no shame in our positioning in the final, because we were only 12 points behind Cleethorpes in first place on 289 points, therefore I think that we've performed very well as a club. As a group of photographers we are up there with the best in the LPA, what I believe would improve our performance in the 2025 Battles would be to pay more attention to details in our prints. As an example my portrait entry of Pearly Katey, shown here, is a good monochrome portrait of the model taken in a studio. However the large negative space to the right of the model, and the mottled backdrop reduced the score to 18 points. Other criticisms of the submitted prints from all clubs were "too tight" in the frame, and in a similar vein a subject was too close or even under the edge of the frame. Bright areas in backgrounds of the image, or a dark subject on a bright background also had points deducted, an example of this was a monochrome portrait which had a bright white button in the bottom right hand corner, very easily cloned out. The other criticism which is so easy to fix is converging verticals, one club entry was of window cleaners on the the side of an office block, and it was a well seen impactful image, but I think it might have scored more points if the window frames had been edited as verticals. With such a high standard of photography from all the clubs, it's the "impact" of the image that scores highly, and the smallest detail errors that get points deducted.

Good Morning All I spotted this on the North York’s railway, well what else would you call it? Last week at the club Grahame Dunkin gave us an excellent talk on Wales, which in the end covered four years of trips to take photographs. There is a full report on our website blog. Today (Sunday) it is the LPA Battle finals at Nettleham village hall, we have made the finals which is a good club achievement and the event starts at 12.30 and finishes at about 4.30. It would be good if a few members attend and brilliant if a lot of members attend. This week, Wednesday 16th October, at the club we are holding the monthly print competition, withe the categories of "Monochrome" and "Open" judged by Jorj Malinowski. Harry will be pleased if any more members sent some images for the LPA club PDI competition. Does any member object to their monthly and yearly PDI competition entries being used for this competition which Harry might have already? Please let me know if you do. Harry will also take your entries for PDI of the year, all the rules and categories are on our website, you may enter up to six PDI’s in the six subjects with a maximum of three per subject as you may want to enter more in one subject than other subjects. Regards Graham

Grahame Dunkin was our speaker with his fascinating presentation on “Wales – 3 Years in the Making”. Based on the isle of Anglesey, Holy Island, his photos of North, and South Stacks were impressive, as were the bird photos of the Choughs, members of the crow family that frequent this area. I was really taken by Grahame’s photo of Thomas Telford’s Menai Suspension bridge, the photo shot from a different viewpoint really showed off the architecture, the suspension chains, and the towers. Built in 1826, the bridge was obviously designed for horsedrawn traffic, and the carriageway is very narrow compared to modern bridges, nonetheless it is an amazing structure. Grahame visited Porthmadog, the terminus of the Ffestiniog railway, and the port from which the slate from the quarries was shipped all around the world, many 19th century houses all over the world are roofed with Welsh slate, the narrow gauge railways were employed to carry the slate down from the quarries. Of particular note on the Ffestiniog narrow gauge railway are the Fairlie double ended steam locomotives, these locomotives have a double fire box in the centre of the cab, with the driver standing on one side of the firebox, and the fireman on the other side, there is a boiler and smoke stack at either end of the engine, the locomotive can be driven in either direction obviating the need for turntables, however, the main advantage of this strange configuration is the driven bogies at either end of the engine, ensuring that the power of the locomotive is evenly distributed, heavier loads can be drawn with less possibility of wheel slippage. In Llanberis, in the heart of Snowdonia, lies Llyn Padarn, a natural lake created in the valley by glacial debris acting as a dam. The Dinorwig (Dinorwic) slate quarry beside Llyn Padarn, has over the years almost removed half a mountain while extracting the slate, and now lies abandoned, Grahame had taken many interesting photos of the crumbling buildings, the barracks housing the male workers, the winding houses, and the foreman’s house standing in isolation. Within this mountain a huge cavern has been carved out for the hydro electric pumped storage power station which uses surplus power to pump water up to a reservoir high in the mountain, and when electric power demand increases the gravity fed water from the high reservoir can spin the turbine generators up within minutes. Thank you Grahame for an extremely interesting presentation.

I've had a free weekend (a real rarity of late), so Pam and I decided to visit one of our favourite features near Barton upon Humber. After calling in at the Nature Reserve at 'Far Ings', we went to 'The Ropery Cafe, Studios and Exhibition Space' Building at the Northern side of Barton upon Humber. It had been a while since we had visited (my last time encountering an approaching Thunderstorm over the Humber Bridge), so I was keen to see if there were any changes. The tide was out, exposing the mudflats and, as we travelled within the Boatyard complex, there was ample opportunity for some images. Despite being very cold on the exposed areas of the South Bank, it was extremely bright in the Autumnal light looking North, so harsh shadows were evident, and contrast levels were high. Looking at the scene I envisaged some Black and White imagery, knowing the powerful Serif Affinity Program has great tools to support B&W management. With a rich blue sky and minimal cloud, I retrieved an old circular polariser filter and used it to just overlap and cover the top RH corner of the scene over the lens, as seen through the viewfinder. It is noticeable that the sunlight is coming from the left, but I quite like the transition from light to dark in the sky from left to right in image 1. A particular personal default setting in the Affinity B&W gave a good starting point and with just a tiny lift on the shadows, I think the picture was worth recording. Image 2 had no polariser usage, but again I used the Affinity function to produce a darker, perhaps sombre record. My current favour in B&W is leaning towards rich blacks and an overall darker, more defined shift - perhaps not to everyone's taste, but tonal management also gives detail capture within the RH side of the histogram.

Good morning All Last weekend while we were in Yorkshire I walked into the local church, there had been an harvest festival recently and there was a flower arrangement left near the front of the church. These types of photographs require quite a bit of thinking about to get good depth of field, retain the colour in the stained glass and reduce burn out due to bright light. I think I managed it after a few failed attempts and it is all one image. Last week at the club we held a local and open competition, Chris Birchmore judged the local mobile phone and compact subject and I judged the open. We both judged as we saw the images for the first time and scored as we critiqued the images. Quite a task especially as they are all our members images but I think we both did a pretty good job, there is a report on our blog with more information. This week, Wednesday 9th October, Grahame Dunkin from Dunholme is our speaker with his presentation "Wales Three Years in the Making". Graham is an excellent photographer so it should be a night you won’t want to miss. Dave Turner will be collecting prints for the following weeks print competition, so if you can email Dave your titles and bring your prints next Wednesday night please. Our Society is also going to enter the LPA club PDI competition, can you send a few of your very best PDI’s to Harry please for selection, we will also look at monthly competition winners as well. Regards Graham

Every year our Society commences a new project, last year our project subject was “churches”, the idea is that members produce one photo per month on the subject and show the project in a meeting at the beginning of each new year. This year our subject is “numbers” and it will be interesting to see how creative members can be with this project. The whole rationale behind the project thinking is to develop members skills by taking them out of their comfort zones, challenging, and motivating members by moving them away from their usual genres and styles of photography. My suggestion for next year’s project would be “Prime Time”, the idea being that a photographer chooses one particular focal length prime lens and creates one photo a month with this prime lens and see how creative the images can be. If you don’t have a prime lens why not think about getting one, there are currently many inexpensive Chinese manufacturers lenses in the marketplace, TT Artisans, 7 Artisans, Mieke, Samyang, and Viltrox are some of these companies producing manual focus, and auto focus lenses for many camera mounts. Additionally, there are M42 screw thread vintage manual focus lenses that can often be found for a few pounds, but you will need a M42 adapter for your camera. For my Fuji system, I own the 12mm f/2 Samyang (18mm equivalent) 27mm f/2.8 TT Artisans (40mm equivalent), the Sigma 30mm f/1.4 (45mm equivalent), and the TT Artisans 56mm f/1.8 (85mm equivalent) prime lenses. For a project such as this I would probably choose one of the extremes of my primes, as the 40 / 50mm full frame focal length would be too easy, so the 12mm, or the 56mm then, very tempted by the 56mm lens as I usually use this solely for my portraits. What prime lenses do you own? What focal length could you use for a project such as this? Next years project will be chosen at the committee meeting on the 27th November, and ideas for the next project would be welcome. Shown here are a set of images taken with my TT Artisans 27mm pancake lens.

Our “Local” PDI competition was held last night, these were images taken within a 25 mile radius of Louth, and members were further constrained by limiting the images to be taken only with a compact camera, or mobile phone. The resulting images showed the creative side of our member photographers, with some stunning images being produced and submitted into the competition, the judge for this category was Chris Birchmore who skillfully critiqued the images, provided feedback, and scored accordingly. After the break Graham Harrison stepped up to judge the “Open” category, always a difficult category to judge because of the variance in genres within the submitted images. The monochrome images submitted were of an extremely high standard, as can be seen from the deservedly first placed “Cromer Pier”, and the third placed “Behold and Angel”. I enjoyed the unique monochrome images “Foggy Day for Dip”, and landscape “Storm Approaching, Cairngorms”, of equal merit were the atmospheric colourful reflection images from Fountains Abbey. The first placed images from each category are shown here, Scrivelsby Church taken on an iPhone SE by Derek Smith, and Cromer Pier taken with a Nikon D810 by Dave Turner. The Louth website competition has been updated with the top three placements in each category, and full results. A big thank you to our judges Chris Birchmore, Graham Harrison, and to Dave Mann for provision of the refreshments.