Why I’m blocking Pinterest from my websites

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There’s been a lot of comment on the internet about pinterest and its rapid growth recently, both positive and negative. I have to admit that I hadn’t paid much attention to it in the past but given the interest I decided to take a look at it.

Pinterest’s approach is simple – it’s a visual analogue of the mainly text-based social media sites dominant today. Users are invited to select content from other websites and pin this to themed collections and share with friends and others through the Pinterest website. Sounds simple and innocuous but has sparked controversy over the copyright implications of what they are doing.

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shutha.org – training resources for digital photographers

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A change from normal service – this post isn’t about me or images, just a recommendation to look at another site!
Earlier this week I was sent a link to an online training resource covering Adobe Photoshop Lightroom that I wasn’t aware of. Having looked at the site I found much more than just a few simple Lightroom videos, rather a collection of videos covering several areas of digital photography, some from people whose names I recognised, some not. The aims of the site are much more comprehensive:

Shutha (pronounced: shoota) is a free online resource aimed at enabling those in the Majority World who are producing professional photography and multimedia content to:

  • understand photography markets and sell to them
  • conduct themselves professionally
  • deliver a professional product
  • build a long-term archive of their work that brings increasing returns over time

In short, Shutha empowers photo entrepreneurs in the Majority World!

I’ve had a quick look at some of the lightroom workflow videos, and would recommend it to anyone new to lightroom, or struggling to make best use of it. Don’t just stop there though, there’s a lot of other useful stuff on the site!

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Holmes Chapel Camera Club’s first entry into a national competition

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Monochrome photograph of part of an old steam engine.

old time engineering

We entered the Photographic Alliance of Great Britan‘s annual print competition for member clubs for the first time this year, in the small clubs class (well, we are a small village camera club after all!). We are delighted to have placed equal 16th out of 91 entries (and the highest placed from our region – Lancashire and Cheshire).

One of my monochrome images was amongst those selected for the entry by our club competition secretary, Anthony Holloway – Old Time Engineering, shown here.

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first competition entry of the year

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Well, it seems appropriate having just posted on my last competition entry of 2011 to follow-up with my first competition entry of 2012, even if it’s a very different sort of competition!

sepia toned photograph of old barn near Hodge Close in the English Lake District

Barn Detail

I am entering this print into this month’s round of the United Photographic Postfolios group which I belong to. It’s a photograph taken during a visit to the Lake District in the Autumn of 2011, and shows a detail from an old barn by the side of a road near Hodge Close. As far as I could tell it was built using the same techniques as the dry stone walls common in the area – just stones roughly cut to size and held in place simply by gravity and will-power! Any paint that may have been applied to the wooden window frame has long since disappeared.

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Entry for the last exhibition of the year – Port Talbot

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Yesterday I finally got together my last competition of the year – for the inaugural Port Talbot Camera Club International Salon for digital Photography. Entries close today (31st December 2011) so my entry was pretty much last minute – an end to a year of very erratic entries to competition.

There were three classes available – monochrome, colour, and people. It will be no surprise to anyone who knows me that I didn’t enter the people class, but I did enter four images for both the monochrome and colour classes some old favourites, and some new.

Monochrome Images

monochrome photograph of steps up from the beach at Silloth

Silloth Steps

photograph - Two trees remain standing amidst the devastation at Iron Keld

Devastation #2

photograph - old and new shops side by side in a Cumbrian town centre

Ancient and Modern

 

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monochrome photography

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I was asked this summer if I would give a talk on monochrome photography to my local camera club and agreed to do so. I gave the talk last Thursday … this is a slightly extended version of the content.

Background

I’ve been involved in photography for over twenty years, mostly monochrome photography, and used to have my own darkroom, as the darkroom was very much a part of getting the images I actually wanted. When I moved to Cheshire from Berkshire in 1999 I was unsure of whether I wanted to build another darkroom, and started experimenting with digital printing in 2000. This early start has played a part in the somewhat unusual collection of software that I use.  I’ll mention the various software packages I use at the end of this article, but this is principally about general issues in monochrome digital photography, not specific software.

monochrome photograph - steps up the beach

Silloth Steps

I’m primarily a landscape, floral, and ‘fine art’ photographer, not a people, portrait, action, or documentary photographer, so my views and approach definitely won’t cover everything! (I did shoot one wedding for a friend … while the bride and groom were happy with the results, I am definitely not open to requests from anyone else!)

Setting up

There are three basic tools involved in photography – camera (including lenses) for image capture, monitor (and computer) for processing, and printer for output.
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