Masters do you study them?

 Last weekend I was in the beautiful Queenstown area, deep in the South Island of New Zealand, running a photography workshop for the QCC. We had a great turn out and one of the members daughters came along to model for us on the Saturday morning. Weather was clear but cold, good winter conditions.
One of the subjects I covered was the masters and who I have been influenced by and why.
I showed them a small "you tube" video of Joe Mc Nally at work, the amount of time and effort that goes into the smallest detail to make sure that the image is right. They all enjoyed it. We also talked about other masters, I gave them my list of masters who have up to now influenced me in many ways, do you have a list, do you look at other photographers work, do you get inspiration.
Write down why they influence and inspire you, what is it about their style of photography, their approach to a subject matter, their presentation of their images, their workflow.

 We can all learn from other artists not just photographers, for me I have gained a lot of influence and joy from the work of Hieronymus Bosch an artist slightly different from the normal during his artistic career. Salvador Dali has also been inspirational, especially in the shape and feel of my many clocks that float around my Storytellers Imagination series. 
The wonders of the internet allow us a look at many different masters in many different styles of art. Use it.

Better to burn out than to fade away!

 Today I was informed of the passing of a friend, a young lady who I had a lot to do with. It has shocked/ upset me, a huge loss to one and all.
It got me thinking, as death often does about your own life and what you have done with it or not.
Make the most of the time you have, as we do not know how much time we have, do we.

LIVE LIFE,TAKE PICTURES AND MOST OF ALL HAVE FUN.

Workshops, why should I do them?

Recently I went on a winter workshop research trip into the heart of Central Otago, South Island, New Zealand. We had various weather from glorious sunshine to driving freezing rain and floods. I also experienced a dead truck, that needs a heart replacement, but that is another story.
We went out in all weathers and enjoyed the many faces of the Maniototo valley. At one point we explored up a greasy, gravel road, looking to see what we could find, we found an old school house. So being curious photographers we went inside, we looked, photographed and enjoyed the old memorabilia of days gone bye. As I was about to leave I noticed a pile of books in a corner, I decided to have a look, something drew me to them. As I looked through the pile, I noticed a photography book by a Japanese photographer, the image on the front had me intrigued. I picked the book up and had a look through, the style of photography impressed me, I decided to photograph the book to have a record of it, placing the book on the ground, in the beam of light, the whole scene made sense to me, the eyes of the man on the cover, the shadows, the lone leaf below the book. We often come across things for a reason, was this one of these times.

Workshops why would you do them and what can I expect to gain from the expense and experience. That has a lot do with you and your expectations. Is it some part of photography that you either want to learn or advance your understanding of. You will find hundreds of different options to choose from, workshops in NZ or Overseas, all subjects will be covered. A few questions to ask before you sign up.

What do I get for my dollar?
How much teaching time is there?
Are there limitations to Instructors availability?
How many on the course?
Can you give an Idea to the daily plan?
Do we do computer processing?
Do we get a handout form the course to take home?
Ask for recent references/testimonials or the contact details of someone who has recently done the workshop, to check if this is the course you wan to  spend your hard earned dollars on!



Always remember when attending a workshop, YOU need to ask the questions YOU want the answers too. If you do not come forward YOU will get missed. It is better to stand up and appear a little stupid and ask a question, then sit down a little more intelligent, than sitting there looking Intelligent, but remaining a little stupid..Workshops are a great place of knowledge, experience and a place to make new friendships. They are often an intense place to learn, as a lot of information and learning is squeezed into a short space of time, YOU want to come away with a new understanding of photography, using your camera, post processing, new techniques and more, much more.  
I run around 15 workshops a year and love sharing my knowledge and experience with a wide range of photographers. My students return to my workshops many times, as my teaching style is a little different from everyone else.

www.scottfowlerworkshops.com

Photography Clubs

 So why should I join a club.
It is a great place to meet like minded photographers and hopefully meet more experienced ones, who are happy to help you advance your skill level. 
Most clubs have some sort of competitions each month, or several times a  month depending on the size of the club/society. One thing I feel is often overlooked is the problem of Analysis paralysis that happens for new members entering competitions. We enter with encouragement from others, we go to the judging and no one explains  what is going to happen, what the judge might say about my image. They might hate it, rubbish the content and even suggest that it is someone else art work, the first image, was judged this way, because the judge had never seen anything like it before, it must be a picture of someone else work, I was gutted, it is the virgin Mary in the roll cage at Mc Murdo station. I tried again with the second image and got honours, I was happy. The third image was not accepted as the judge believed the image was pixelated, he was not aware of grain in B&W. All these years later and many many Non Acceptances later,  I just laugh about it. If i was not of the nature I am, I would have left the club in 2008 after the first competition and never entered another competition.

I do not know if clubs do this, would it not be a good idea to have a support type person to sit with a newbie and help them understand the judging to help reduce the Analysis paralysis that often happens. All judges as with clubs are not created equal, lets support new competitors to make the experience educational not a death sentence. I strongly believe competitions are a healthy thing to do in a club as well as Internationally, if for nothing else but the catalogues.

RAW Vzs JPEG part 2

 You get the highest quality files when shooting in RAW.
This is one of the biggest benefits. When you shoot in RAW you record all of the data from the sensor.







This gives the highest quality files. And when it comes to your awesome images, you want high quality.
Look at it this way: all cameras technically shoot RAW. Yes, they   do.
The difference when you shoot in JPEG format is that the camera does it’s own processing to convert the RAW information into a JPEG. When shoot in RAW, when you get to the post processing stage you have more data for the software Algorithms to use and improve any noise and sharpening issues a lot easier than a JPEG image.

It is still your choice, it all is. The camera brand you use, the lenses, the computer system, the software, the printer, the paper, the list goes on and on.
Yesterday I had a few comments about various things, one that rang a bell for me was the club comment.
I totally agree with the author that talked about club gear snobs, they are there. You just have to see past them. From my own experiences I have been in a club about 10 years ago that was full of little groups with an experienced photographer with a little group of followers/devotees, lapping up every word they spoke, you had to be invited to join these groups, no thank you. These in a club are worse than gear snobs in my opinion. Once again choices you make, you can change them, it is your choice. Clubs are a wonderful place to meet like minded photographers and learn, We do have to remember that not all clubs are created equal!

Photography is meant to be fun, YES FUN, if it is not, why are you doing it, find another hobby.

RAW Vs JPEG, my choice.

 This is a subject that has been around from the dawn of digital and you will get all the so called experts who will tell you that their way is the best way. What a load of FERTILISER.

You the photographer/artist /shutter presser needs to make that decision for yourself. It really pees me off, when I hear the so called experienced photographer telling new photographers, You have to shoot JPEG. You do not and before you decide, get all the information.

So in the last two posts I talked about Histograms, it is a good thing to understand these, as they help in the production of a well captured image with lots of data to use in post processing. Now we need to address the next issue, FORMAT.  Lets look at the science of the facts, not me making up stuff.

JPEG records 256 levels of brightness, and RAW records between 4,096 to 16,384 levels!
For me it is a no contest, I have more information/data to use to play with my files. That is my choice however I will fully support someone who decides to shoot JPEG, that is your choice.  It might take a few minutes more to process a RAW image compared to a JPEG image, they will take up more room on the computer, external hard drives are more affordable these days.
I am a control freak and if I shoot JPEG the camera makes a whole bunch of adjustments to my image that I have no control over and cannot change, so does the camera know more than me, more than likely. Why would I want it to make the artistic decisions that will affect my image, no thank you, my choice.
On my workshops I often get students who shoot JPEG they very quickly see what the RAW shooters are able to do with there images and most change, change slowly most cameras will give you a JPEG/RAW option, use it.
Make the choices to suit you, not someone else. 

Histograms, part two

The first thing to consider is that there is no such thing as the perfect or Ideal  histogram, the histogram exists to give us the photographer some very valuable data. The data can then be used by the photographer to create the mood and impact that they want. On my workshops I often get photographers with similar brands of camera and the histogram is very different, it can be daunting getting your head around it, however it is worth the time and effort. The more you understand the dynamics of your histogram on your camera the more you can understand the file that will be available to play with in your software.

The Luminosity Histogram is the result of a lot of complex calculations that the cameras computer will do for you. The general purpose is to approximate how the human eye will perceive the image. The light meter built into your camera measures Reflectance-  the amount of light reflected by the subject/object in the image. In the above image you see the histogram all over on the right side -the bright side, this could be my choice for this style of image.

The image below is basically the complete opposite of the top image.