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Issue 44 : July 2015

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Possibly due to the hard subject and shorter than normal time frame, we received an abnormally low number of entries for this months photo comp. So I’ve decided to

take the opportunity to realign the due date for the competitions. The competitions entries will now be due on the 15th of the month. So you’ve got an extra week to get a photo with the theme of ‘The colour red’ to us. And from now on, you will have six weeks notice to come up with the winning entry for the monthly competition.

One of the things you learn from entering lots of photo competitions is that they are always a bit of a lottery. Most often it comes down to one persons opinion, and being human, their opinion is subjective. Both my wife and I have had the experience of winning big international photo competitions and then having the very same photos that won internationally, go nowhere in a local camera club competition. With photo competitions you just never know.

On a completely different subject: do you fancy yourself as a bit of a bard? Maybe you enjoy writing and feel you can explain things in a clear and concise manner. Or maybe you specialise in an unusual type of photography and, as a result, can offer something unique. If any of the above applies to you and you’d be interested in writing an article for the magazine, then drop me an email and let’s discuss it.

Allan CoxResident JudgeNZ Photographer

ABOUT Whether you’re an enthusiastic weekend snapper or a

beginner who wants to learn more, NZ Photographer is the fun e-magazine for all Kiwi camera owners – and it’s free!

EDITOR Allan Cox, allan@nzphotographer.co.nz

GROUP EDITOR Richard Liew

ART DIRECTOR Jodi Olsson

ADVERTISING ENQUIRIES Phone Jennifer Liew on 09 522 7257 or

email jenniferl@espiremedia.com

WEBSITE www.nzphotographer.co.nz

NZ Photographer is an Espire Media publication

Allan Cox

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Next Month's Competition: Abstract

GET SHOOTING AND WIN!Next month’s competition theme is ‘the colour red’. The final date for entries is 15th July. The following

month’s competition theme is ‘Black and White’ and that is due on 15th Aug. Black and white images can vary from dark, gritty and brooding through to light and ethereal, but what ever their look, done well they

will be timeless and classic. Show us you best and be in to win $$$$ and prestige.

A wee tip. I feel a lot of B&W photos fail because they are not so much black and white as just grey. A guideline I learnt way back in the days of darkroom printing is that some part of your photo should be pure black and some part should be pure white. As I said, a guideline; and as such can be broken, however not a bad place to start.

• The winning image on the cover of the next issue

• A high quality print of your image and cover to immortalise your achievement for your grandchildren, courtesy of PCL Imaging

• $50 cash

• And of course, bragging rights and the envy of your fellow NZ Photographer fans!

Check out next month’s theme and enter at www.nzphotographer.co.nz! ✸WIN!

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Jill Ferry

INSPIRING ARTIST

This months inspiring artist is Jill Ferry. She describes the style of her photos as ‘painterly’ and I believe this is a very apt term, as her photos are

reminiscent of the grand master painters: Monet and Turner. Her technique involves layering a photo of a textured surface on to another photo in Photoshop and then changing the blending mode and opacity of the top layer. Full tutorials here: http://flypapertextures.com/category/tutorials/

My overly simplistic description of her technique may beguile you into believing it’s simple, but as the saying goes, the devil is in the detail. Which particular texture, blending mode and level of opacity do you chose? And onto which photo do you apply it? It’s one thing to slap a texture on to a photo, but it’s quite a different thing to do so in a way that creates the elegantly beautiful results that Jill produces.

NZP: What inspired you to be a photographer? I’m not sure I was inspired to be a photographer as such; I’ve just always taken photos. I got my first camera when I was about 10, a Kodak Instamatic. At high school, although I didn’t take art as a subject, I joined the photography club and discovered the magic of developing and printing film. The other main inspiration was joining Flickr – the old Flickr was so much better than it is now.

NZP: How did you first get into textures? About eight years ago when textures weren’t mainstream, I came across a Flickr photo that was textured. I loved the effect, and this inspired me to try my hand at texturing myself. To start with it was very trial and error as I didn’t know much about layers and layer masks, and at that stage there was hardly anyone else using textures, so there were no tutorials.

Eventually, I started making my own textures, then became part of a group that launched the large ‘Textures for Layers’ group on Flickr. Then in 2009, with my Flickr friend Paul Grand, launched Flypaper Textures. We now sell our textures to people from all around the world.

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NZP: What kind of look do you try to create? This varies with the subject, but I use textures to add depth and more importantly atmosphere to a photo.

NZP: Is there anything you look for in a photo, that flags it as a good possibility for your textured treatment? I find simple photos best for texturing, also photos that are softened by mist or fog. Photos where the textures can be seen but not dominate. People often think that textures can be used to cover up faults in photos, and although they can do that, it’s always better to start with a good photo.

NZP: So often your photos have a beautiful colour pallet. How do you choose your colours? A tricky question, I think my colour palette is more instinctive than by choice. When I started texturing I tended to do darker, rich photos; nowadays they tend to be softer and brighter. In my studio shots, I tend to use pale blue or green backgrounds. I find they go with most things, and the resulting photos are good to texture.

NZP: When someone looks at your photography, what do you want them to take away from your photos? Once again it all depends on the photo, on some I want to convey a story; on some, flowers, for instance, I want to show the beauty that attracted me to the subject in the first place. With my landscapes, usually I want to show a sense of isolation.

NZP: Do you have a personal philosophy with regards to photography? I create and take my photos to please me, if everyone else likes them too, then that is a bonus.

NZP: What is ‘quality’ in an image? What makes an image good for you? Much of the time I don’t know why I like an image, but I tend to gravitate to narrative and evocative images that tell a story. It’s often the photo that on the surface is perhaps the most unpromising of the shoot that I choose to work with. I guess this is because it’s ‘different’ and I want to avoid the contrived look.

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Gail Orgias

Spotted on an early morning walk where the light made interesting converging and directional lines to form an abstract pattern on the footpath. Fuji EX-1, 35mm, 1/200 @ f5/6

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NZP: Mystery: is it important? Yes, at the moment I’m mainly creating photos with book covers in mind so adding some mystery or atmosphere is what I strive for. Textures are good for the atmosphere as they add depth and for the mystery component it’s all with the choice of elements, what’s there and more importantly what isn’t.

NZP: Are there things that help you to be more creative? I love to experiment and try out new techniques both in the taking of photos and in my processing. I follow tutorials, read books and magazines and suchlike. Also, a couple of years ago I did a 365 challenge on Flickr, where you try and take a photo a day over the course of a year. This was great fun and really encouraged me to ‘see’. I also participate in challenges in Flickr groups, which is wonderful for getting me out of a creative rut.

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”“I love to experiment and try

out new techniques both in the taking of photos and

in my processing. I follow tutorials, read books and magazines and suchlike.

NZP: What are your three tips for others who want to become better photographers? If something doesn’t work (especially with using textures but I guess it’s the same with anything) don’t be afraid to start afresh. This tip probably appears on every list of this type but learn how to use your camera, learn how to use it in manual if you need to for example. Don’t be afraid to experiment.

NZP: Who do you admire and why. I have always loved the work of Graham Sydney. I am originally from Central Otago and his paintings capture the beauty and essence of the area perfectly.

NZP: Finally, where can we see more of your amazing work? https://www.flickr.com/photos/borealnz/ http://flypapertextures.com

Thanks Jill for sharing some of your wonderful work and your ideas. ■

NZP: What is it that you love about photography? I am someone who would love to have been a painter. Photography and my use of textures allow me to paint with my camera.

NZP: What has photography done for you? I think at last I’ve found something that I’m good at, and the fact that I’m able to make money doing it is an added bonus.

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Macro Number SixBy Allan Cox www.nzphotoworkshops.com

In last month’s article I introduced flash. Hopefully, you took my advice and gave flash a go. I talked briefly about off-camera flash, and how if your flash can’t be

set up to fire remotely (off camera) then you can purchase a flash trigger that will enable it to do so. Flash triggers range from the basic models that just fire the flash, and cost as little as $25, right through to some pretty fancy versions. The huge advantage of firing flash off the camera is that you can now create a range of different types of light: like backlight and sidelight etc.

In all forms of photography, and macro is no exception, the quality of the light is often a key ingredient of a great photograph. If you have a look at the two photos of mushroom gills, you will see one has been lit with diffused front light (the sort of light you would get with diffused on-camera flash). With the second one, I took

the flash off the camera and put it directly behind the mushroom. The light is coming through the mushroom to backlight the gills. Nothing has changed apart from the light, yet the two photos are completely different.

One of the issues with flash and for that matter any kind of artificial light, is that it can look . . . well . . . artificial. This may work in some situations, but more often than not just looks wrong. So, as a rule, I’d advise when working with flash, to endeavour to mimic the qualities of natural light (it’s for this reason that I’m not a great fan of ring flash).

But what are the qualities of light that we are trying to mimic? Broadly speaking, these qualities can be defined with three questions. Where is the light coming from in relation to the subject being lit? How big does the light appear to be, to the subject being lit? And what is the colour of the light? Let’s look at these questions individually.

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Where does the light come from? This one is pretty easy. Sidelight comes from the side, backlight comes from behind the subject (and towards the camera). Sidelight is great for showing texture and the three dimensional nature of a subject as it throws shadows, but it can mute the colours in our subject somewhat. Even front light is better for colours.

How ‘big’ does the light appear to be? It’s how big it appears to be, not how big it actually is that is important. How big it appears to be, is determined by how big it actually is and the distance between it and the subject. The sun is actually very large, but because it is so far away, it appears quite small. A standard portable flash at about six metres has an apparent size equivalent to the sun.

The larger the apparent size of the light source, the less shadow you will get. This kind of light (large apparent size) is often called diffused light. It’s what we see on a cloudy day. On a cloudy day, our light source is the whole white sky from horizon to horizon. This kind of light, without shadow, is best for showing colour at it richest.

And finally, what colour is our light? When we talk of light colour, we often talk about its temperature. We talk of cool light, and warm light. The light from the sun, as it is setting, is warm; it has a reddish colour to it. The light in the shadows on a sunny day is cool light. It is light that has been bounced down from the blue sky and has a bluish colour to it.

As well as our predominant light, sometimes called the key light, we can have a secondary light – often called fill light. Fill light can be light from our key light bounced back by some kind of reflector, or it can be a new light source, maybe a second flash. We need to consider the qualities of all of our light sources.

When working with flash, because we can control all of the above qualities, we can make flash look like any kind of natural light that we like. For example, if we wanted our light to mimic the beautiful light we get just before sunset we would position our flash low to the ground and at about six metres from our subject. We would also warm up the light a little with a coloured gel (a small bit of yellow cellophane) in front of our flash.

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But what happens if we can’t move the flash six metres away, or, as more often is the case, we want to mimic a cloudy day and our flash would have to be touching our subject before its apparent size was that of a white sky. The answer is to use flash modifiers. For a ‘cloudy day look’, instead of firing the flash straight at the subject, we can fire it into a reflective umbrella.

We have now increased its apparent size quite a lot without having to move it ridiculously close. The same effect can be achieved by firing the flash at something that is translucent; something that lets the light through but diffuses it. Ultimately this is what cloud is doing. The sunlight hits the top of the cloud and is diffused as it moves through.

To save having to move our flash six metres away to mimic the sun, we can use something that attaches to the front of our flash called ‘grid spots’. With grid spots the light from the flash is forced through small tubes and the apparent size of our light source becomes that of the diameter of the small tubes.

It’s not necessary to understand how they work, just that they do (if you would like to DIY grid spots then black drinking straws work a treat. Google ‘grid spots’ and look at the images). With grid spots attached to your flash you can now mimic sunlight with your flash only centimetres away instead of metres.

One of the most powerful ways to modify light, whether it be flash light or natural light, is to bounce light with a reflector into an area that needs a little more light. One of the best reflectors I know of for macro can be made from an old drink carton.

Next time you buy a drink in a cardboard carton, instead of throwing the carton out when you’ve finishing the drink, wash it out and cut the top and bottom off. You will have a pre-folded piece of stiff card with one side being a lovely silvered surface. It will take up no room in your camera bag, costs nothing, is just about indestructible, and does a great job bouncing light around. (See above). ■

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Critiquing Your PhotographsBy Allan Cox www.nzphotoworkshops.com

WE SOMETIMES GET A PHOTO, ENTERED INTO OUR MONTHLY COMPETITION THAT IS VERY GOOD, EXCEPT FOR ONE SMALL THING. BY CRITIQUING THAT PHOTOGRAPH AND SHOWING A ‘BEFORE’ AND ‘AFTER’, IT CAN BECOME A VALUABLE LEARNING TOOL FOR EVERYONE. ARJAY COSENERO HAS VERY KINDLY ALLOWED US TO CRITIQUE A PHOTO THAT HE ENTERED INTO LAST MONTH’S WATER COMPETITION.

Pirua-Falls_Un-cropped

Pirua-FallsCropped

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This photograph works in so many ways but is spoilt by the white sky at the top of the waterfall. Cropping it out, I believe, makes all the difference.

Our eye is drawn to brightness, contrast, and vivid colours. If we have any of these on the edge of the frame, our eye will be drawn there, and then from there, out of the photograph. So white sky (not the same as stormy grey clouds), being the brightest part of the photograph, is often deadly to a photograph. A good habit to get into when composing a photograph, is to run your eye around the edge of the frame, looking for things that are particularly bright, contrasty, or colourful, and if possible, crop it out of the photograph. I hope you will agree that the cropped photo is a better photograph.

Some of you may be thinking: “But now you’ve cut the top of the waterfall off, surely that can’t be a good thing?” Not only do I believe cutting into the waterfall is OK, but I believe it is a good thing, as it leaves the photo ‘incomplete’ and adds mystery to the photograph. By not telling the whole story, by not

completing the picture, we are letting the viewers imagination do so, and nine times out of 10 their imagination will do a better job than we could have. If you cut the top of a waterfall off most people will imagine it as being taller than it was. We also do love a little bit of mystery. If I were to ask the question: “What is the most famous painting in the world?” most people would answer the Mona Lisa. If I were to ask “Why?” most people would answer because of that enigmatic smile – that’s mystery.

I believe good landscape photographs are 19 parts harmony and one part haunting. The 19 parts harmony is the balanced composition. The one part haunting is the little bit of mystery in the photograph. That little bit of mystery can be the difference between a good photograph and a great photograph.

Saying all of that, don’t go overboard on the mystery as you can have too much of a good thing. Lots of people find too much mystery disturbing. So all up, don’t be afraid to cut into a waterfall and do avoid bland white skies in your photos. ■

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By Jennifer Van Waard

There are many different programmes available to organise and backup your photographs, and choosing one should be based on your own requirements such

as cost and usability, and also on how much confidence you have with your computer.

These programmes are ‘best practice’ once you have mastered them, but until you have something in place, keeping your photographs in some sort of order now will pay dividends in the future when you fully utilise your software and import all of your folders with their images.

To start off, all you need to know is how to copy and rename files and folders in a file management system like Windows Explorer. A lot of the programmes that download your images from your camera to your computer save the photographs in groups based on the date they were taken.

So one simple thing you can do when you download your photos is to move or copy them all into a directory based on what you were taking photographs of.

For example, you could have one main directory called PHOTOGRAPHS. Then under that directory you could have directories named after the subjects you have taken images of that day.

PHOTOGRAPHS /

CHURCH FLOWERS PETS BIRTHDAY PARTY

When the time comes, and you are confidently using your image management system like Lightroom or Adobe Bridge, then the photographs that you have already organised, can easily be imported into the programme. Using one of these programmes is essential to foster a good workflow, which is the management of your images from the capture in your camera right through to the output stage – a printer or a screen. Tip: Never create the following folders:

MISCELLANEOUS SUNDRY CATCH-ALL GENERAL

It is far too easy just to put photographs straight into such categories. Take a few extra minutes when you download those images, and decide what word best describes them all, and then file the images under a directory that has a meaningful name.

Organising Your Photographs http://jvw.co.nz/

https://500px.com/milhouse

WHEN I STARTED DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHY IT QUICKLY BECAME APPARENT THAT IF I DIDN’T HAVE SOME SORT OF FILING SYSTEM IT WOULDN’T BE LONG BEFORE PHOTOGRAPHS WOULD START DISAPPEARING OFF INTO CYBERSPACE NEVER TO BE SEEN AGAIN. THE THOUGHT OF LOSING ONE OF MY BEST PHOTOGRAPHS, PROMPTED ME TO SET UP A PROCESS TO KEEP ALL MY IMAGES ORGANISED AND IN ONE PLACE, SO THAT REGULAR BACK-UPS BECAME AN EASY TASK.

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Backing up your images

Backing up your photographs is such an absolutely essential habit to get into because you just never know when an incident may occur that will cause you to lose some, or even all, of your photographs.

The thought of my computer hard drive completely failing, or even accidentally deleting one of my best photographs, prompted me to set up a schedule to backup all of my images, and it is one that I adhere to reasonably strictly. Over the years, I have heard so many stories of catastrophic things happening to computers. The sad result is heartbreak from losing photos that have tremendous sentimental value.

There are various forms of software out there to make the process of backing up your images easier and quicker, but learning the simple skill of copying your photographs onto an External Hard Disk Drive is a good way to start. With External Hard Disk Drives being reasonably inexpensive and large in capacity, there are no excuses.

Take some time to think about the following two questions when you setup your backup process:

Where will this External Hard Disk Drive be stored?

If your house, unfortunately, suffers a fire, will the backup disk of your images be sitting beside the computer with your original images, and be exposed to fire/water damage? You could perhaps think of storing the external drive with a relative or friend, at another location.

How many backup versions do I have?

If you can afford to, try and keep two or three different external hard drives and rotate them weekly or monthly, whenever you do your backups. This will ensure that if one of the External Hard Disk Drives does suffer a failure, then there will be at least one or two other external drives with your images.

This may appear to be an ‘over-the-top’ way to protect your images but, for me, if I lost photographs of my family or the images I have spent years creating, then I would be beyond devastated. Just think about that horrible gut-wrenching feeling you would have – if you lost even just one precious image – and let that inform your decision on whether or not to keep an external backup drive. ■

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You can look at a picture for a week and never think of it again. You can also look at a picture for a second and think of it all your life.

- Joan Miro

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