Looking Forward, Looking Back
Derek Smith • 4 January 2022
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

Our speaker last night was our very own member Tony Gaskins, who gave an excellent presentation "Coast 3" with some stunning visual images. Tony specialises in capturing long exposure coastal scenes, he related how beginning several years ago with a long exposure view of Whitby Pier he got the "bug" for long exposure photography. Much of his photography takes place along the Lincolnshire, and Yorkshire east coast, often arising in the early hours to catch a sunrise. Weather conditions dictate a lot of how the final image looks, and the long exposure style often creates a sense of calmness, and serenity, with pastel coloured skies, and milky seas. When the weather turns wild, the long exposure image presents a very dramatic scene with foreboding clouds. He recently travelled to Lewis & Harris island in the Outer Hebrides and took many images there, sometimes at sunny white sand beaches, and at other times moody bleak images as the weather closed in. Tony's technique requires a lot of patience, often spending hours at a location, with the camera mounted on a study tripod, and the ND filters on the camera permitting an exposure time of several minutes. Many thanks Tony for a very informative talk, well presented, and with some beautiful imagery.

Good Morning All Last week at the club we held a Local Nature and Open PDI competition, members Dave Turner and Steve Chapman kindly offered to judge the competition, thank you to you both, it was a good night and the entries were of a high standard giving you both quite a task. The results are on our website, but the two winners on the night were, Local Nature Tony Gaskins and Open Harry Kerman. This week, Wednesday 8th April, Tony Gaskins, one of our members is showing us Coast 3, a PDI presentation. Tony is an excellent photographer and spends many hours photographing our coastline. Aprils Print competition, Circles and Open is fast approaching, you can send your titles to Dave Turner when your ready and bring your prints in the week before the competition. Regards Graham

It was no April fools, when we held our PDI (Projected Digital Image) competition last night. The images submitted into this competition were off the highest quality. Dave Turner judged the Open category, which I think is always one of the hardest categories to judge, pitting landscapes, against nature, and still life, but Dave did a magnificent job, offering well founded critique of the images submitted. After the break, Steve Chapman judged the Local Nature category, (nature images taken within a 25 mile radius of St. James' church, Louth) Steve "held back" 10 out of the 18 submitted images, and gave those 10 images very careful consideration until he finally arrived at the 3 highest placed images. Steve commented that the submitted images were indeed of high quality, and he took his time to evaluate the submitted images and offered useful critique on each one. The competition made for a very interesting evening, and all members deserve praise for the quality of the submitted images. The website Competition page has been updated with the full results, and the top three images from each category. On this post is 1st placed Sedge Warbler, Cleethorpes by Tony Gaskins, in the Local Nature category, and 1st placed Hudson Bay Wolf, (Lincoln Zoo) by Harry Kerman, in the Open category.

Good Morning, All, Last week at the club member Chris Birchmore gave a presentation on MPP cameras which included some of Chris's collection of cameras and prints taken. There is a report on the evening on our blog page. Thank you Chris for an interesting evening. This week, Wednesday 1st April, we are holding a local and open PDI competition the local subject being nature, please if you haven't already, send your entries to Harry before midnight tonight. Members Steve Chapman and Dave Turner have volunteered to judge. Also on the Wednesday 1st April our Louth Photographic Society 70th anniversary exhibition will be open to view at the Louth Museum. Regards Graham

Chris Birchmore gave an informative, and interesting talk and demonstration of his medium format film cameras. at the beginning of the evening Chris gave a potted history of the origins of the MPP cameras he was showing us. The cameras take a 5 x 4" film stock, and looking at the cameras it seems incredible that photographers in the recent past could take excellent photographs with these. The MPP cameras were often used by the British Armed Forcies during the Second World War, and throughout the 1950s, and 60s, and some of these medium format were still being manufactured in the 1970s. The prints that Chris showed taken with these cameras were of excellent quality, with an amazing depth of field. Many thanks Chris for a fascinating evening.

Good Morning All Last week at the club we held a committee meeting, which was very productive, we made the final arrangements for the exhibition, charity night, and studio evening as well as other items on the agenda. We are holding an Exhibition opening night at Louth Museum on Friday 17th April celebrating 70 years of Louth Photographic Society. There will be a small buffet and cold drinks available, if any member would like to donate a bottle of wine to the occasion please hand it to Harry at one of our club nights. This week, Wednesday 25th March, member Chris Birchmore will be giving us a presentation. The following week is a local competition, with the categoriess of "Local Nature" (up to 25 miles radius from St James church) and "Open" (unlimited mileage) please send your entries to Harry before midnight, Sunday 29th March. Members Steve Chapman will judge the Nature category, and Dave Turner the Open category. Regards Graham

Good Morning All Last week at the club we held our monthly PDI competition judged by Martyn Wrigg, the standard of entries was very high and well done to Tony Gaskins for a first in the Architectural Detail and Derek Smith for his first place in the Open. All the results are on our website under competitions. This week, Wednesday 18th March we will be holding a Committee meeting, just committee members for this one. The following week Chris Birchmore is the speaker for the night. Harry is now accepting entries for the PDI local competition, with the categories of "Local Nature" and "Open". We judge this competition in house so if you would like to judge one of the subjects please let me know. Regards Graham

A PDI (Projected Digital Image) competition was held last night with the categories of "Architectural Detail", and "Open". Martyn Wrigg was our judge for the evening, and he competently judged the submitted images, although he diid surprise with some of his choices of placing, but that's a judges perogative. Martyn complemented members on the quality of the images presented, which had made some of his decisions difficult. First placed was "It's a Fixer Upper" in the Architectural Detail section, and "Dervish Musician" in the Open section. Congratulations to Robin Begley, who as one of our newest members submitted some impressive images, achieving a 3rd place in "Architectural Details", and 2nd in the "Open" category. All the results are now posted to our website Competition page.

Good Morning All Last week at the club member Steve Chapman gave us an insight into his life and especially his time at Ilam Park in Derbyshire photographing for the National Trust. Steve showed us many photographs he had taken of the people involved with the trust and the Peak District. The second half was dedicated to Steve's own work, some superb aircraft photography as well as many other subjects. There is a report on the evening on our blog page. This week, Wednesday 11th March we are holding a PDI competition, with the categories of "Architectural Detail " and "Open" to be judged by Martyn Wrigg of Barton. The following week is a committee meeting for the committee members only on that evening. For newer members we have two committee meetings a year. Regards Graham





