YOUR NEXT 2 THEMES

APRIL 2016

MAY

The Deer

WWW.CREATIVECAMERACLUB.CO.ZA

CREATIVECAMERA CLUB

FOCUS

All admissions should be mailed toimages@creativecameraclub.co.za byNOONWEDNESDAY June 1 for judging on June 6

APRIL Black and White

All admissions should be mailed toimages@creativecameraclub.co.za byNOONTHURSDAY 28 April for judging on May 9

Get Ready for this Sunday!Shoot at Groot Constantia Wine Farm

Paul Nuttall

Although we will have 2 models to shoot, the theme is the Wine Farm.This means that landscapes, macro and anything else found on the farmwill be acceptable to submit for the monthly competition.

We will meet at 8.30 am 17 April in the car park of the Wine Tasting rooms which is on the righthand side as you drive through the main gate. Check out the large barrel.

I envisage 2 set ups for the models. The first being in amongst the vines, there are somespectacular orangey brown autumnal colours amongst the green vines. The second in and out-side the tasting rooms.

Models for Sunday

Movie Titles

Meet by the barrel

Ruwita

Sara from Spain

TOP IMAGES Here are the top scoring images from the last meeting.

OPEN WINNER

Fire Fly by Nicky Elliot – 24 pointsOPEN WINNERSouthern Yellowbilled Hornbill by AngusRule – 24 points

CREATIVE WINNERA Sextuplet Of Cranes24 Points .Paul Nuttall

PRINT WINNERMonopod by Michele Kinross –26 points

SHOOT WINNERBette David Eyes23 PointsJason Purcell

OPEN WINNERThe Catch by Michele Kinross –24 points

Black and White Photography

Claude Felbert

1. Try to envisage your subject in B & W. Some say it helps to look at the scene through your almost closed eyes.

2. Composition: Your normal composition guidelines apply whether the image is B&W or colour. Compositions that havea high graphic component often work well but other images require a wide range of tonality and contrast to makegood B & W images.

3. Look for Texture, Detail and Pattern. Any of these features can become important enhancements to your imagesespecially when they show a range of tones and shadows.

4. Flat lighting does not usually work. Side lighting will show shadows that enhance features like texture and detail.

5. Find subjects that when converted to B & W will show many different tones of grey.

6. Ensure that your image has close to a real, natural black and a white in it.

7. B & W can create drama and mood but beware images that require colour for mood.

8. Don’t ignore dull cloudy days as images can show a wide range of tones in this form of light.

9. If you are photographing a reflective subject try a polarizer.

10. Don’t expect to get a good B & W image from a bad photo. You may be able to improve the picture but it will not bea good photograph.

11. Don’t ignore night photos as they often make good B & W pictures.

12. Your images need to tell a story or have a powerful message or show something unusual as well as be technicallygood to get a top score.

Black and White photographs are easy to take or make, but to do sowell is another matter altogether. Your options are many – mostcameras have the ability to take an image in black and white – theRAW data is still in colour but the camera converts this to B&W. (Thisis not an option I recommend)Most Editing Software has a method of converting to B&W. There arePlug-ins like the free Nik Collection that can be used. (See Anthony’svan Zyl’s review in this issue of Focus) You can also take the worstoption and just desaturate an image, but don’t do this - it leaves yourimages dull and flat.Here is a list of tips with brief explanations as space does not allowfor more.

Excellent use of shadow andlight while preserving a senseof mystery.

A great story telling image with good use of lighting andpost processing.

Post Processing images from Colour to Black and White:

1. Make full use of your post processing software – in other words first process the image as a colour image. Ideallyshoot in RAW, which gives you far more detail, subtle colour and tone variations to play with. Then considerenhancing some colours and areas of your image to assist tone and contrast when you convert to B & W. This alsomeans paying attention to the shadows.

2. Photoshop and Lightroom have excelled tools for conversion to B & W. Add the free Nik Silver Effects Pro to the mixand you are spoiled for choice. There are something like 36 options offered by Nik without touching a slider to seewhat you like best. Most of them are B & W but a few are tints that can’t be called B & W.

3. While I can’t give direction on how to process to B & W in a short article be sure to experiment with the software’ssliders to get the best results. With Lightroom it just takes a double click on the colour slider to return it to its originalposition but with Photoshop you need to note the original position so you can go back.

A powerful image that hasmany components. Mystery,mood, texture, detail, shape,perspective, shadows and ex-cellent use of light.

WAUSSAUK Intercontinental Competition 2016

Anthony van Zyl

The Creative Camera Club was invited to participate with three other photographic clubs again this year. Entries were invited frommembers from December 2015 with a closing date of 29 February 2016. We say a big thank you to the seventeen CCC photographerswho submitted 57 images for consideration. Of these, 25 images were selected and entered into the competition to represent ourclub.

1. Paignton Photographic Club from the UK – 1095 points

2. The Indian River Photo Club from the USA – 1081 points

3. Creative Camera Club – 1061 points

4. Albany Photographic Society from Western Australia (WA) – 1001 points

Six images from the Creative Camera Club were ranked in the top 25 of the competition with the picture, Passing the Baton, by ChrisKinross ranked joint second in the competition. Chris was honoured at the camera club meeting on 4 April 2016 with an official letterfrom the competition congratulating him on his achievement! In the top 25, the other clubs contributed 8 images from the UK, 7 imag-es from the US and 4 images from WA.

UKUSA

Chris Kinross ranked joint second inthe competition with this image- Passing the Baton

WA

Kolmanskop, a “ghost town” in the desolate, arid, Namib Desert, 11 kms from Luderitz in Namibia, is, according to one of its guides, one of the world’s top 10photographic sites. If you haven’t yet been there, it’s a unique, challenging photographic opportunity.

Developed around the discovery of diamonds there in 1908, it was eventually abandoned in 1954 after mining depleted diamond stocks in the 1930’s. The dia-mond mining head office moved to Oranjemund in 1926. Before its abandonment, Kolmanskop boasted a vibrant community using a hospital, ballroom, powerstation, school, skittle alley, casino, theatre and sports hall as well as the first X-ray station in the Southern Hemisphere. The railway line to Luderitz was the firstin Africa. (cf. Wikipedia)

These German occupation-designed and built mining structures, facilities and dwellings, bought in the 1926 by Consolidated Diamond Mines, later De Beers,are a fascinating array of decaying, wind-blown and sand over-run relics of the once luxurious facilities and life in the “sperrgebied”. The dry desert air has pre-served some of the silk covered walls and exquisitely painted wall freezes, although sadly spoiled by cracking plaster and masked by sand coverings.

Photographers abounded when we visited, all shooting images of these ghostly, decaying and deserted buildings – especially their sand-filled interiors. Theseindoor shots present exposure and contrast capture challenges, often needing a flash to offset the bright blue, unpolluted sky backdrops seen through the open,now mainly glassless windows and time-warped doors. For realism purists, the sand-laden floors should be swept smooth of tourist’s footprints. Take or hire arake if you want “clean” images that please judges! It’s best to shoot in early morning light. The gates close daily at 1pm.

An entry/photography permit (about R150) must bought at the security entrance or from the Luderitz Tourist Information Centre. Other than the remote chance offinding a loose diamond in the desert sand, Kolmanskop is one of the few reasons for visiting Luderitz, though on a trip to the nearby beach close to Diaz pointyou might well see a small, richly pink-winged flock of flamingos shrimp-fishing in the wave-softened sand.

CCC members should send their images and short articles on their travels or other interests, ideas and comments to the editor: dougyoung@worldonline.co.za

Photographing a Ghost Town

Douglas Young

THE NOW FREE GOOGLE NIKCOLLECTION SOFTWAREREVIEW by Anthony van Zyl

Most of us will probably have seen the recent announcement by Google (drawn to our attention recently on Facebook by CCC mem-ber Jackie Leverett) making their Nik Collection software freely available (www.google.com/nikcollection). This collection comprises anumber of plugins for Photoshop, Photoshop Elements, Lightroom or Aperture. There are seven plugins in the collection enhancingand simplifying editing. These are:

Analog Efex Pro – produce the feel of classic cameras, films and lensesColor Efex Pro – filters, colour correction, retouching and creative effects to your picturesSilver Efex Pro – producing black-and-white photographsViveza – adjusting colors and tonalities of photographsHDR Efex Pro – to produce better quality HDR photographsSharpener Pro – professional alorigthms for image sharpeningDefine – a noise reduction tool

I am in not an expert in using Google’s Nik Collection software, nor am I an expert in post processing. However, I was attracted tothese plugins after seeing the results others achieved with black-and-white conversions. One of my biggest disappointments in mov-ing from film to digital was the quality of the black-and-white images from my digital camera. There was no way that I could producethe same look and feel that I used to get and loved from my film camera, despite spending a lot of time in Adobe Photoshop Essen-tials (the processing software I own). I downloaded the Nik trial and when it expired, I could no longer live without it, despite it cost-ing around the same I paid for my Photoshop Elements! And now you can all download it for free.

How it Works

Once you’ve opened your software, the Nik plugin pops up on the work screen of this software. The Nik modules can be used to openthe photograph in a separate window where you can do your adjustments according to their sliders and options. Or you can just playaround with Nik’s set of presets to give you a good idea of how your picture could look. You can apply your changes to the image inyour software by accepting the entire picture, or by using a brush option to apply the change only to a selected part of the image. Orjust cancel if you want to try something else. In my Elements programme, each time I use one of the Nik modules, it creates a newlayer in the Photoshop file.I have not used the HDR module as this is not supported in my Photoshop Elements. However, I have used all the other modules, es-pecially the noise reduction tool (Define), black-and-white conversion (Silver Efex Pro) and Sharpener Pro (sharpening module for bothRAW files and final output files) extensively. In my opinion, these modules are able to tweak my images in a much better way than Icould achieve in Photoshop. Typically my post processing workflow will include using Viveza to make some final adjustments to col-ours or tones, Color Efex Pro (or Silver Efex Pro for B&W) to make big changes to the look and feel and then finish off with Define(noise reduction) and Sharpening (to crisp up the image). The automatic noise reduction module does the best job I have even seento reduce noise, analyzing and applying different noise reduction amounts to the different parts of the photograph.

I want to make special mention of the Silver Efex Pro module as a recommendation to use to process your black-and-white images forour next club meeting competition. This software has a number of options to change the picture, and you can customize your ownselection of effects that you want to apply. However, just running through the 38 preset options will give you over enough options tostart with for you to tweak your picture to get the black-and-white picture you were looking for. On top of this, it allows you to addtones (eg sepia of various tones), vignettes, image borders, etc, all which require some extra effort to put in using the native Pho-toshop.

And I could go on ad nauseum regarding the other modules. For instance, if you really like to get creative using filters, the AnalogEfex Pro allows you to adjust your image based on a type of camera (for example, toy camera, wet plate camera, vintage camera,multi-lens camera, etc). It’s a lot of fun to play with, to explore your creativity, and I really recommend this set of tools to anyonewho enjoys manipulating images on the computer.

There is a lot of information on this software on the internet including many tutorials on Youtube. If you have Photoshop, PhotoshopElements, Lightroom or Aperture, I urge you, at the very least, to take a look at what Google’s Nik Collection can do for you.

Chairman’s BlogCecil Walker

A warm autumn hello to all fellow CCC members once again.

The 2016 CCC Committee is delivering on all fronts, with exciting Shoot, Development and Creativeimages programmes, this newsletter packed with interesting articles, a judging system that is work-ing well and an image management programme that is top notch. Well done to all concerned - let’skeep it up!

Our venue for this year is starting to work for us, after a very rough (for me) first meeting, afterwhich the next two meetings went well. For the time being, the WBHS Bill Bowden Club is for free ofcosts to the CCC! I don’t know that we will enjoy this indefinitely, however, as it is a club that needsto make a small profit. I urge all who attend our CCC meetings to at least buy a cup of coffee, a beeror a glass of wine and maybe some snacks. By supporting this Wynberg Boys’ High School Old Boys’Club we stand a better chance of enjoying continued use of this venue at no cost to the CCC.

Our committee is working like a well-oiled machine thanks to Facebook and a love of photography.Following my initial Blog, I would like to introduce you to the rest of this committee:

Looking after the ‘purse strings’ and all our members’ details is Jane Forsdyke, who collects all ourmembers’ fees and other income, banks it and pays our bills. She also keeps our membership detailsup to date. She is also doing the ground work to align the CCC with all the legal requirements for ourclub.

Shaun Fautley has the challenge of finding the judges for our monthly meetings. Once he has foundand pinned them down for a specific meeting, he briefs them to make sure they know what we ex-pect. He has found very good judges so far this year, thank you, so keep it up!

Koji Nakashima needs no introduction to most of us. His role involves updating and reshaping theCCC webpage. We wish him well with this difficult and necessary job.

Mike Barci is responsible for our members’ ID tags, and later on, refreshments when we move backto the Wynberg Officers’ Mess.

Your club has two PRO’s: Karin Rai and Drienie Van Zyl, who will have lots on their plates later in theyear.

Riaz Ismail is our course administrator and, having served on the previous committee, he is responsi-ble for keeping the new committee on track. He is also our “how did we do it before” man.

Lastly our Vice Chairman is Ken Burton, our back-up man who is ready to stand in for anyone on thecommittee who can’t attend to or perform any of their functions.

Freshening up the ImagePaul Nuttall

Is it time to have a new look at our logo? Perhaps with a new committee and a fresh approach to our photography, this may bethe time to revamp our logo? You may have noticed that our website has had a make over and so below are some examples ofnew logos for everyone to comment on. You may have some ideas of your own? In which case please drop me a line atphotos@iafrica.com together with the number of your preferred logo shown below.

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And not forgetting a new catchphrase -

1. Imagination into Art2. Art in every Pixel3. Passion into Art