Alan Lewis

Alan Lewis

Alan Lewis

Our judge for the evening (one of the finest in my humble opinion  ) actually used the word "atmosphere" twice during his critique and Slam Junk certainly ooses atmosphere and mood. Personally, I don't think judges generally give enough consideration to the atmosphere, mood and any other metaphysical attributes of images. Too often they get bogged down in sharpness, focus, cropping and the dreaded mounting. Mood, metaphor and the metaphysical aspects, which show you more than you can see in the image, often get completely ignored or are mentioned as an afterthought. I would take the reverse stand and consider the 3M's (mood, metaphor and the metaphysical) first and then ask if the photographic techniques of focus, composition, sharpness etc are sufficiently well performed. I believe we need to "see the whole picture" first and then analyse the details, not vice versa.

I was of course delighted to have been awarded Print of the Year considering the illustrious company I was in (my fellow NPS members of high standing  ) but I have to say that it's taken me some time to win this particular award; 26 years in fact  so it was high time I actually managed to produce a half decent print that a judge would also like. It seems that by the laws of probability even a blind squirrel bumps into a nut sometimes.

The winner of the PI of the year was a new member entering the competition for the first time. This reminded me that I also won The Dennis Wood trophy on my first attempt in 1986. The judge was Eric Danielson, another fine example of the human species. I just hope that history stops repeating itself at this point Dave Merchant because if not then 2038 could be your big year!

You don't have to enter a print that's won a monthly comp. Now we have a different judge, possibly with a different view of things. If you believe in your work that's all that counts and somewhere, sometime you'll find a judge that agrees with you, even a blind squirrel bumps into a nut every now and then! Even if you don't the important thing is that you enjoy producing your kind of photographs.
We're not professionals so we don't have to satisfy the whims of a client, we are free to do whatever we like and that's fantastic; we can be expressive without the necessity to be impressive.

Alan Lewis

So, I decided to investigate further and opened the image in Photoshop CS3 - it looked the same as it did in Windows Viewer.

Then I opened the image file in Elements 9 - whow there - hold the front page! The colours were completely different and my liver complaint miraculously cured. Not being one that normally believes in miracles (ex science teacher etc, etc) I took my investigation a step further and transfered the original file to my iMac (also Spyder 3 Calibrated) where I opened it in CS5 and Elements 9 again. Damn and blast my liver was playing up once more and I now also had a headache, no really I did.

Now if you want a headache too pick an image and open it in different programmes. I hope you will see what I have seen and that this colour shifting is not just local to me.

PS. Sorry if this ruins your weekend.

I think my internet speed is better but I still have the same problems at weekends. I now believe thatthe problem is at their end, but getting them to admit it is very difficult.

Alan V Lewis

Alan V Lewis

Years later when almost all were producing colour images, the appearance of the odd monochrome image was regarded as having some novelty value and visual impact.

In 1927 "The Jazz Singer" became the first commercial "Talkie" and ever since then talkies have been the norm. A few days ago the Oscar for best film was won by a "Silent movie" with much critical acclaim.

Now in photography, digital is the norm and we almost expect that the vast majority of images will have been digitally manipulated to some extent. An analogue film image is a rare beast and it now has novelty value.

Last week a well know judge on the WPF circuit expressed his view that maybe it was time to split competitions into "digitally manipulated" images and "straight" images.

It may be that heavily photoshopped images have now become passé and there is a yearning among some for something different and novel. Could going back to a previous technology, such as film photography and wet chemistry, be considered novel?

Perhaps photography is like fashion where the old becomes the new and vice versa in cyclical rhythm. I hope "flares" don't make a comeback because I don't flare in the same place any more.

Where will photography go next?

Yesterday I attended the AoC Comp along with 6 other NPS members and we all had a very enjoyable few hours.

How did we do? I think that our success in getting into the final round for the main trophy was well deserved; but as was said by a member of a very small club present; "I expect a club as big as Neath PS to do well compared to us."

As for the final result and our 5th place overall; I felt it was a fair reflection of our photography and was probably the best we could have done with the raw material we had to hand and in yesterday's photographic environment.

What about the photographs on show? Pretty standard and predictable club photography. Don't get me wrong, there were plenty of excellent photographs showing great technical expertise. But to me, there weren't many excitingly different images. The judges rewarded natural history subjects with consistently high scores. Slightly more adventurous images showing some creativity and indeed humour, generally did less well although there were a few exceptions.

I believe that judges generally "play safe" and stick to what they know and maybe fear to step outside their comfort zones; and I can't really blame them for that.

However, there is a phenomenon in behavioural science called "reinforcement" (positive and negative)and maybe when members of camera clubs see what kinds of images score high and which do not, then consciously or sub-consciously their photographic behaviour gets moulded or at least influenced. After all that's the whole point of reinforcement.

In selection meetings we've often heard " There's no point selecting "glamour pics" because they never do that well in competitions." Maybe the same can be said of other genres of photography too? Any thoughts?

Fashions and trends. Every Kite has its day and maybe the day of the Red Kite is over; this year we only saw one on show but we were exposed to a veritable aviary of other plumed critters.
I wonder which much photographed species will be the next to exit the photocomp stage?

Another comment made yesterday was about photography's demographic. It doesn't seem to be attracting the younger element, maybe they were still recovering from a heavy Saturday night? Or is there another reason?

Off to lunch now. Bye.