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2015 Issue 6July

Viewfinder is the official Publication of the Christchurch Photographic SocietyPO Box 1789 Christchurch Mail Centre Christchurch 8140President: Bruce Jensen president@cpsnz.com Please submit articles for publication by the 22nd of the month to Belinda Carter viewfinder@cpsnz.com

If you are interested in finding out more about CPS, you are welcome to attend our weekly meetings held on Wednesday nights at 8 pm at the Riccarton Community Church 44 Eliza-beth Street, Riccarton.

Our website www.cpsnz.com contains a complete list of Offic-ers, programme details, field trips, competitions and previous issues of Viewfinder available to download in PDF format.

All aboard for a field trip

It’s not easy chasing trains in a car and taking photos in the middle of the day but a dozen or so CPS photographers were up to the challenge, cop-ing with high contrast. A midwinter dash to pho-tograph the A428 steam train, travelling from Glenmark (Waipara) to Waikari via Weka Pass may have softer light with the 2pm - 3.45pm trip. For a $30 return ticket, travel on the train instead. The train stops mid-journey, disgorges passengers, backs up and steams towards photog-raphers. Frog Rock may be pho-togenic, with its famous

Photojournalism was the main topic in June, with two tutorials and a field trip to Weka Pass. Frank Green started the ball rolling on June 3 with a brief history lesson, saying that the first ex-amples of photo journalism were probably five-second long exposures taken during the Crimean War ( early 1850s). Later examples include the Depression-era, dustbowl photos of Dorothea Lange, blurry World War II D Day landing im-ages, and some frequently reprinted Vietnam War images that helped sway the American public against US presence there. It’s a category that has some overlapping with street photography, travel, social documentary and sports photography. To take a good PJ image, suitable for newspapers or for competitions, the photographer needs to be selective and to tell a story, hinting at what hap-pens next. Being able to anticipate what happens next and to find the decisive moment is a handy skill to have, especially for sports photographers.Two weeks later Robbie Barratt, who is making a name for herself with edgy street photography, talked about influence on her photography, in particular Henri Cartier-Bresson. Famous for his photos of 1950s street urchins, Cartier-Bresson said photographers should look at paintings by grand masters. Photos need to tell a story, she said. Other use-ful "tools" to bear in mind when taking PJ shots (or other photos) were shapes, geometry, vertical lines, diagonal lines, curves, shadows, symmetry, colour contrasts, rule of thirds, broken reptitions, framing using doorways and so on. Robbie fa-vours a small camera, like Fuji X20, because it is easy to use for street photography and travel.

limestone outcrops and the tiny railway “sta-tion” but it’s not easy to clamber up the bank to get close to the train without attracting the ire of the train driver (as one bearded photographer did). There are other easy access spots, particularly beyond Frog Rock where the road and tracks are side by side. If you tire of trains: power lines leading over hills, abandoned barns and vineyards offer other opportuntities. The train runs monthly on Sundays, with suffi-cient time at Waikari for a quick lunch. if catching the 11.30am to Waikari.

Photojournalism

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Club news and views

to explore a particular area. At-tendance at The School is a chance to spend a weekend away, devoted entirely to photography, and to enjoy great camaraderie with fellow photographersA highlight of the Winter School is always the guest tutors who pro-vide inspiration, motivation and new approaches to photography.This year’s School will be held at Flock Hill, July 31 – August 2. Ap-plications have closed, so if you haven’t signed up, look out for next year’s event!

President’s Column

Bruce Jensen

Laurie Thomas Winter School of PhotographyThe Laurie Thomas legacy to CPS is used by the Club for two major events. My May column highlight-ed the Laurie Thomas New Zealand Landscape Salon. This month, we look at the Laurie Thomas Winter School of Photography.The Laurie Thomas Winter School is run annually for CPS members, and some of the expenses of running this event are covered by his legacy. The Winter School is held at vari-ous locations throughout the South Island, and provides an opportunity

Bear essentialsKath Varcoe and Elizabeth Burtt from the Nature Photographic Society visited and gave a slide show talk on June 17 about photographing mainly bears, north of the Artic circle in Canada, Alaska, Norway and Russia. For the most part they went on expeditions organised by companies such as Heritage Expeditions but one of the trips was customised for them. These trips are measured in weeks rather than days, and come with large price tags. Nevertheless it was an interesting insight into northern hemisphere fauna.

Paul Furborough hosted a Lightroom tutorial at his Ilam home in mid June. It turned into a four-hour long, comprehensive overview of a useful piece of Adobe software and some related plugins. A large flat screen TV relayed what was on his computer screen. Paul suggested googling videos by Scott Kelby and Adobe digital imaging evangelist Julianne Kost. From some brief notes:• We have all heard of the rule of thirds for cre-

ating grids to align objects in a photo. Light-room has that plus some other organising shapes like the golden mean (spiral shape) and a series of intersecting triangles.

• Lens correction built into Lightroom can fix distortions created by particular lenses or cre-ate deliberately distorted images.

• Use Flickr to find out what to photograph in a particular area you are heading to. Chances are someone has already checked it out and posted an image or three.

• Lightroom has some slider-based tools to bring out details in highlights and shadows and others for reducing noise or sharpening images in post-processing.

• Use HDR to bring out the detail in high con-trast images. Involves merging photos taken with different exposures.

• Focus stacking - take multiple photos of the same object and merge in Lightroom for greater depth of field. Useful for macros.

• Remove stray photographers and other bits with an enhanced spot removal tool.

• Create webphoto galleries quickly, and or template-based books of photos.

• Plugins: Photomatix is useful for HDR and OnOne Suite (Perfect Photo) is good for skin tones. Sometimes they do things better than Lightroom. These also work as separate ap-plications.

A trio of photographersErik Norder, Keith Sycamore and Renier Figuara-cion talked about their photography on June 10. Erik Norder, reputed to have a large collection of lenses, talked about birds, abstracts and shoot-ing in colour and converting to black and white. Keith Sycamore got into a bit of banter with San-dra Hobbs over her mentoring style. Philippines-born Renier Figuracion talked about collecting old lenses and entering and finally winning a street photography competition in the Philippines. Just get out there and shoot was his motto.

Out of the dark and into Lightroom

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Club notices and news

This month

Help wantedUp aheadThis club runs on volunteers.

Don’t leave the organisation up to other people.

July focuses on landscape With the landscape salon in July it is timely for a focus on landscape photography during tutorial sessions. The first session on July 1, run by long-time member Phil Schroeder, covers useful equip-ment, composing images on site, lighting and how to simplify complex subject material. There is a followup session on July 15.Paul Daly rescheduledPaul Daly's postponed talk will be given on July 8. Some of our members know him as a tutor on the photography course at Hagley College.

Laurie Thomas Landscape SalonThe salon is being held on July 15 with members of other clubs invited to attend, so a supper is also on the menu. An AV of the winning images will be played and trophies/medals presented to winners if they are present. The New Zealand landscape competition, commemorating a former member, attracts (digital-only) entries from all over New Zealand. The salon was judged by West Coast-based photographers Elizabeth Passuello, John Reid and Peter Robertson.

Laurie Thomas Winter SchoolThe Laurie Thomas Winter School is being held up at Flock Hill near Porters Pass from July 31 - Au-gust 2. Enrolments have closed. Those going can expect dramatic landscapes eg: Castle Hill, snow (maybe), photo tips, good speakers, good food and good company.

Matting photographic printsFewer people are entering prints into competi-tion, partly because of the cost and not knowing how to mount photos so the CPS committee hopes by showing people how to matte their own pho-tographs, more might do so. A session has been scheduled for July 29.

Feedback on setsSets of photographs are required when apply-ing for PSNZ honours. Ian Walls has organised someone from outside the club to give feedback on those who submitted sets of print images in June. The feedback session has been scheduled for July 29.

Monthly digital challengeThe topic for July is Black and White, so there are bound to be a few monochromatic images among those entries. Enter online through the website before the clock says August.

Committee vacanciesTwo more committee members (ongoing) for 2015. Note, the committee will be scouting around in the next couple of months for willing hands to join the committee for 2016, or take up other roles in the organisation.

How to get involvedThe person in the job at the moment won't stay there forever and may be still doing it because they can't find someone to take over. The best person to ask is probably secretary, Nelson Boustead as he can tell you who to approach. There is always work to be done - suppers, competition secretaries and so on.

Natural history focus in AugustAugust focuses on natural history, which can cover birds, fungi, caterpillars, spiders, trees and so on. Natural history photographic competitions have their own set of rules and they tend to be stricter than other areas of photography and restrict the amount of modification or manipulation of images to resizing, cropping and selective lightening. The rules were relaxed a little earlier this year to bring them into line with PSNZ rules. Find out more at August 5 and 19 tutorials. There's also a fieldtrip associated with this on August 8.

Mid winter dinnerThe date is set for August 12, the menu is Thai and the venue is, we have heard, a restaurant some-where in Hornby. It has been a couple of years since CPS held the last mid winter dinner. Totally social event, no tutorials, no competitions and no photobombing.

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Field trips and photowalks

October 16-18 Friday evening - Sunday after-noon trip to Oamaru and Mo-eraki. Plenty of opportunities to explore Steampunk, white lime-stone buildings and Victoriana in Oamaru, the Moeraki boulders and of course the sealife of the coastline, especially the pen-guins. Expressions of interest are now invited so James Gibson can start looking for suitable ac-commodation. (Updated details provided on CPS facebook page). If you can't make that weekend, Oamaru throws a party a month later, celebrating its Victorian heritage and residents dress up in elaborate costumes. The best time to catch the penguins is at twilight as they come ashore. Oamaru is also the hometown of Janet Frame and her family home is open for viewing.

July 3-5Contact: andrews.diana@xtra.co.nz or 021 288 6877Annual mid-winter field trip to mid-Canterbury lakes in the mountains: Lake Heron, Maori Lakes, Lake Emily, Lake Camp and Lake Clearwater. Take pho-tos of sunrises and sunsets and maybe catch some icicles. There's bunkroom accommodation for 10 at Castle Ridge station and other places at the lakes. BYO food, camera gear and warm clothing. Friday to Sunday or just come for the day. Two hours drive from Christchurch. Some driving on gravel, but nothing a standard car can't handle. Come for a fun, photographic week-end.

Frostie Freezies

Weekend in Oamaru

This year we have had some fantastic trips away around the South Island, and it's now time to start planning events for the coming year. I would love to re-ceive feedback from people who have come and also those who didn't- it'll help us tailor the field trips to cater for as many mem-bers as we can.I think it would be great to see people organising impromptu local day trips using the events section of our Facebook page - it's a great way to invite others along to all sorts of events and can really help get the mes-sage out at short notice, and it's worked very successfully for all sorts of sports events, lightroom tutorials and sunset expeditions.This year we have set a general structure for the longer (week-end or longer) field trips. Gener-ally these have used this struc-ture:

• Shared transport costs• Group accommodation using

the vast array of kiwi baches spread around the country for approx. 8+ people per house

• Friday evening pot-luck din-ner, which seems to last all weekend ;)

• Sunset and sunrise locations (and motivation)

• Either a specific goal for the trip or a selection of interest-

ing venues to explore during the day/night

• Sunday mid-morning final coffee and gradual drift home

This structure keeps the costs to a minimum (the only up-front cost payable by members is to secure the accommodation) and hopefully ensures a social and flexible experience.Now please give us some feed-back:What did people like / dislike about the trips? Accommoda-tion? Costs? Venues? Dates? Number of trips? Too hectic? Not hectic enough? Too distant locations? Not remote enough locations?What would you like for the coming year - Locations? Tutorial style trips or more informal?Would anyone be prepared to offer their skills as an informal tutor/trip leader for weekend workshop trips? What themes would people be keen on for aweekend workshop?What else have I missed?Finally, I would like to thank all the participants and organisers for helping make the trips into great experiences over this last year - here's to more to come!Remember: No feedback means I get to pick venues again mwaha-hahaha <evil grin>James Gibson, field trip co-ordinator

Next year's field tripsNot slumming it: West Coast bach, Carter's Beach, Easter 2015 field trip $30pp per night. Photo: Belinda Carter

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Brief Snapshots

Other clubs and eventsSouthern Regional Salon openEntries to the Southern Regional Salon are now open and remain so until August 18. The com-petition, for individuals and for clubs, is being organised to co-incide with the Southern Regional Convention in Gore in early October. Print and Digital Categories are Open, Nature, Photojour-nalism and Portrait. To encourage more print entries, the names of all entrants who enter one or more of the print categories will go into a draw to win a book printing voucher from Momento. Go to www.southlandphotographicsociety.com/southern-regional-salon and follow directions to the online entry form. Please email Stephanie at rsforrester46@gmail.com if you have any queries or phone on 03 217 3447.

Southern Regional ConventionAs we shiver in the winter temperatures, now's a good time to look forward the spring flowers and warmer weather in early October. The Gore Camera Club is hosting the Southern Regional at the Heartland Hotel from October 2-4. They've rounded up the speakers (Scott Fowler, Roger

Wandless and Kevin Tyree) and hooked some good deals on accommodation (from high school hostel to upmarket motels). Field trips have been arranged to the ice rink, Hokonui pioneer village and an aviation museum. Good excuse to stay a day or too longer - the Catlins are nearby. The fee to attend: $195 per person, payable online. Check out the website gosouthernregional.weebly.com for the main details and their facebook page for any updates.

Creative Focus competitionPukekohe-Franklin Camera Club is running its Creative Focus competition again this year. There are four sections: create focus, beautiful blur, colour harmony and mirror image. The competi-tion closes on August 9. For more information visit www.pfcc.co.nz.

Canon online placementsNewell Grenfell's Face in the Crowd and Clive Col-lins' Fantail with Fly were among those picked out in Round 3 of the Canon online competition, a year-long contest organised by PSNZ. Round 4 is due on August 24.

Manual controlA course aimed at those who want to know more about the manual controls on their DSLR (or compacts) is being offered on Monday nights by commercial and documentary photographer Giora Dan from July 27. Involves 6 evening sessions and a 4 hour field trip at a date to be decided. Enrol through Risingholme in Opawa but the course is being held at Riccarton High School. The course will be repeated in October for those who prefer to go out in warmer evening weather.

D'Light in the Botanic GardensThe Botanic Gardens will be illuminated during the early evenings for a week from July 8, offer-ing opportunities for some night photography. Begin at Rolleston Avenue next to the museum or Armagh Street car park footbridge. Parking off Ric-carton Avenue only while the Armagh St Bridge is repaired. Entry is by gold coin donation with proceeds going to the Botanic Gardens Children's Garden development. 8 - 12 July, 5.30 - 8.30pm.

New Zealand GeographicThe 2015 New Zealand Geographic Photographer of the Year, which closes on July 15, also includes a timelapse category for multiple images. So charge

your intervalometer and win public notoriety and industry backslaps. ArachnophotographyI don’t know whether there is such a thing, but the macro photographs of some of New Zealand’s many spider species is gracing the walls of an upstairs room in Canterbury Museum till next Waitangi Day. Apparently, there are 2000 different species, with 700 still to be named and 93 per cent of them are unique to New Zealand. The exhibi-tion co-incides with the publication of a book A Photographic Guide to Spiders of New Zealand. The text is by curator Cor Vink, and those close ups (in the book and on the walls) were provided by Bryce McQuillan. Not for the squeamish or arachno-phobes as these images are many times the size of the tiny beasties.

Maja Moritz running workshopsMaja is running her small (four people or fewer) courses on Thursday evenings (theory) and Satur-day afternoons (practical) in June and July, cover-ing the basics (exposure, aperture, shutter speed etc). A workshop on photo creativity is planned for September. For more information visit majamoritz.photoshelter.com

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Open Projected Image #4Judge: Alex Browning

Accepted

Ron Willems Yellow Commands

Nataliia Krupka Tauranga bay sunset

Alan Moore Motukiekie Rocks

Les Armon Tayne at his best

Stephen Laird Golden stream to sunset under the bridge

Andrew Thomson Kea

Gavin James Easy boy

Clive Collins Crab Breakfast

Steven Carpinter Seagull

Carolyn Elcock Punting on the Avon

Patti Madsen Stream Design

Anita Kirkpatrick Out to pasture

Helen McLeod Southern Blues

Sandra Hobbs Fishing boat 63237

Carolyn Jenson Young Man

Nola Sumner Gallery shadows

Christopher Lagria Boatsheds at sunset

Sebastian Krebs Milky Way above Castle Hill

Paul Willyams Flow

HonoursLan Zhang An aerial view of Temple

of Queen HatchepsuJames Gibson MotukiekieTsumuki TaniguchiBest in show

Ben Birkenhake

James Gibson's Mo-tukiekie, top, Lan

Zhang's Aerial view of the Temple of

Queen Hatchespsu and Tsumuki Tanigu-chi's portrait of Ben

Birkenhake

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Open projected image #5Judge: Errol Kelly

AcceptedSandra Hobbs Before sunrise Kaikoura

Brian Milner Wharariki

Les Armon It is my race now

Helen McLeod Last rays from White Rock

Kelvin Aird The pon within

Clare Roberts Paddling in purple

Carolyn Elcock Countdown started

Kathrin Affield Godley River

Andrew Thomson Morning colour

Richard Cooper Early surf - Taylor's Mistake

Newell Grenfell Looking backSue Newport Thames boat shedKevin MacMillan Sunset swans

Clive Collins Just perching

Geoff Trotter Stonehenge for real surreal

Peter Curtis Torlesse Stream

Ron Willems She devil

Keith Sycamore Sawcut Gorge

Alan Moore Duck plant

Carolyn Jenson Fleeing the monastery

Heidi Anderson Light clearing fot

Anita Kirkpatrick Rally car racing

Trevor White Tongariro from Desert Road

Paul Willyams Night sky over Castle Hill

Annette Preen Flying into the dusk

Irene Ferguson On holiday

Honours

Alistair Phillips Bicycle made for two

Jo Curtis Ocean Beach

James Gibson Whispered memories

Michael Molloy ConcentrateNelson BousteadBest in Show

Bush Road

Nelson BousteadBush Road

Mike Molloy Concentrate

Alistair Phillips Bicycle made for

two.

Jo Curtis Ocean beacn

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Tips, tricks and gadgetsThis collection covers tips and tricks that photographers might find handy. It’s a grab-bag for items

on taking photos, using computer software, webpages with useful information, apps for smart-phones and any other clever devices that come out of Apple or Google. Contributions welcome.

New Lytro cameraThe first version looked like a rectangular cube or cylinder, if there is such a thing. The latest ver-sion, the Lytro Illium looks like a zoom lens with a small, sloping back attached. Pricey, at more than USD 1300. The camera lets you alter focus planes

after the image has been taken, create 3D images and more from a single ex-posure. For more informa-tion visit: www.lytro.com

Noise reduction v detail lossPetapixel .com had a good article on what causes noise, how to prevent it (use lower ISO, wider ap-erture, faster shutter speed) and what to do when you’ve got it. It says there are two types of noise, colour and luminance and it suggests dealing with colour first using the sliders in Lightroom's Develop module and adjusting the amount in the threshold. “Noise reduction is all about the bal-ance between noise and sharpness.” the article says and that balance depends on the individual photographer.

Light painting toyPixelstick is the latest toy for those who like light painting to try out at night. Although still in kick-starter phase (fundraising), it runs on AA batteries, and plays images off an SD card, enabling colour, even animations to be projected onto a scene, line by line. For more information check out: www.thepixelstick.com

Beware: tempting gadget siteSomeone get me a paper bag; I'm hyperventilatin'. Thegadgetflow.com website contains all sorts of gadgets relating to photography, including go pro and various smartphone options. There are drones everywhere, including the tiny skeye nano drone that lands on the palm of a hand, clip on lenses for smartphones, camera cases and sliders for those who have more than one camera and no time to change lenses, tripods, external media for storing petabytes worth of photos, external light meters, popup studios for smartphones and much more.And some camera brands you may not have heard of, like the Bonzart. It's a retro-looking, twin lens, digital camera that is tilt shift capable and available in the US for less than $200.Some of the fun ones...• go pro harness for your cat or dog• white plaster moulds of cameras or perhaps a

dozen decals instead as wall decoration• a stool in the shape of an oversize zoom lens• old film canisters used as magnets or alterna-

tively salt and pepper shakers• The cheekiest gadget has got to be the Polaroll

toilet paper holder, followed at a close second by the vintage camera pencil sharpener

Twelve new items are added daily and photogra-phy is not the only field where gadgets are aplenty. Lock up the credit card. You have been warned.

Monthly digital challenge: Abstract

Maxine Cooper's lightly twisted - but

beautiful was April's winner.