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WE’VE HAD A VERY GOOD CCC .

WE’VE HAD A VERY GOOD CCC YEAR!

• The past year, which has raced by so quickly, has been a very good one for us in CCC - in my experience, the best in recent years.

• In March, we moved into a new venue – the False Bay Underwater Club, which meets our needs very adequately. The FBUC setting has enabled a far more socially interactive, communicative, welcoming atmosphere, especially for our many newcomers.

• Later in the year, we bought a new projector, which has improved the quality of our projected images immensely. Our competition judges (and our members!) at the monthly meetings now have a much more accurate view of our work and can thus make better assessments of our images.

• In March, we won the international WAUSSAUK interclub competition, beating photographic clubs from Western Australia, the USA and the UK. Chris Kinross and Michele Nel jointly won the award for the best image of the competition. Our strength lay in our wild life images.

• We have had a series of workshops and well attended shoots throughout the year. The highlight was our weekend trip to Paternoster, where 16 members enjoyed good light and scenes for a variety of image making opportunities, good food and convivial company.

• This newsletter, Focus, has appeared regularly every month this year and has been warmly received.

• The educational presentations by guest speakers in our monthly meetings from June until December gave us unusual, instructive perspectives on creative image making.

• In June, we entered the PSSA Inter-Club competition for the first time and acquitted ourselves fairly well.

• Less successful were our entries to the Western Cape Interclub Photographic Competition in November, though the points gap between us and many other clubs leading us was small. We’ll do far better in 2018!

• Our year-end Body of Work Exhibition and party was a great success. Congratulations to Anthony van Zyl on his winning portfolio and to runners up Paul Nuttall and Michele Hendry, all highly rated by judge Peter Brandt.

• Jane Bursey was our Club Photographer of the Year for achieving the highest total points in 2017, and Chris Kinross was our Best Photographer of the Year. One of Chris’s images was voted by members as the Best Photograph of the Year.

• Our successful year is in large measure due to the wise, consultative and firm leadership of Chris Kinross as CCC Chairperson, who inspired a very active and dedicated Committee, which worked together very well.

• My best wishes to all members for a Happy Festive Season and a New Year filled with many great image making opportunities!

Douglas Young Vice Chairperson and outgoing Editor of Focus

Focus Monthly newsletter

Creative Camera Club, Wynberg, Cape Town

The Creative Camera Club is a small interactive community of seriously enthusiastic, committed photographers meeting monthly to share their work and have it independently judged to raise their image making standards. They aim to develop their interests, visions, imaginations and camera skills to levels of creative excellence that make their photographs outstanding and memorable. Editor: Douglas Young -- dougyoung@worldonline.co.za (from January 2018 Chris Wiid)

December 2017

September 2017

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ANTHONY VAN ZYL WINS OUR BODY OF WORK PRINT COMPETITION Our annual November Body of Work print competition and year-end party marked a successful end to our CCC year. It was ably organized by Jane Bursey, Michele Hendry and a small team of CCC members, who all improvised and transformed the unusual FBUC layout into an attractive display area. Somehow they created enough spaces to display the 16 portfolios of members ’ A3 prints, given that most portfolios contained 6 prints. About 45+ people, including the judge and a two-person band, enjoyed good food and drink as well as entertaining music. Peter Brandt, from the Fish Hoek Photographic Society, judged the prints with his usual rigour and insight. Congratulations go to Anthony van Zyl – his six wonderful prints of long exposure images titled “Traces of Night Light” was justifiably adjudged the best portfolio on show. Paul Nuttall’s set of portraits of war veterans was placed second and Michele Hendry’s sepia wild life images came third.

Winner: Anthony van Zyl’s Second: Paul Nuttall’s “Our Heroes” Third: Michele Hendry’s “My Africa” “Traces of Night Light”

Chris Kinross opening the event and welcoming Judge Peter Brandt

Listening to the Judge Elizabeth Cook’s “Let’s Face it” attracted much attention

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WINNING IMAGES DECEMBER 2017

Creative: Christmas Rush: Shoot: Vintage Car: Gerrit Opperman: 25 Open: Little Miss: Sandra Cattich: 27 Michele Nel: 23

CCC PHOTOGRAPHERS WHO ACHIEVED THE TOP SCORES IN 2017

• CONGRATULATIONS GO TO JANE BURSEY, WHO GAINED THE TOP OVERALL SCORE TO BECOME CCC CLUB PHOTOGRAPHER OF THE YEAR. SHE RECEIVED THE PAUL NUTTALL TROPHY.

• CHRIS KINROSS MUST ALSO BE CONGRATULATED FOR RECEIVING THE CCC BEST PHOTOGRAPHER OF THE YEAR AWARD.

• AND CHRIS’S IMAGE “QUIVER TREE”, SHOWN BELOW, WAS VOTED BY CCC MEMBERS AT THE MEETING AS THE BEST IMAGE OF THE YEAR.

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MEMBERS' SCORES: 4 DECEMBER MEETING

Name Star Rating Title Category Mark Award

Michele Nel 3 Star Christmas Rush Creative 23 Gold

Chris Kinross 3 Star City Dweller Creative 20 Bronze

Gerrit Opperman 3 Star Killing The Hours Creative 19 Bronze

Theo Potgieter 2 Star Invisible Creative 19 Silver

Elizabeth Cook 2 Star Dancing In The City Creative 18 Bronze

Andre Diener 2 Star Deliveries Creative 17 Bronze

Douglas Young 3 Star Snapping Creative 17

Jane Bursey 3 Star Walkers Creative 17

Paul Nuttall 3 Star The Dancer And Audience Creative 17

Sandra Cattich 2 Star Queuing For Zeitz Creative 17 Bronze

Dirk Jonker 1 Star The Stand Off Creative 16 Bronze

Christal Schuttler 1 Star Vintage Creative 14 Bronze

Kenneth Dunbar-Curran 1 Star Recycling Creative 14 Bronze

Robert McCracken 1 Star A Rolls Creative 13

Sandra Cattich 2 Star Littl Miss Open 27 Merit

Paul Nuttall 3 Star Lest We Forget Open 25 Gold

Elizabeth Cook 2 Star Sisters Silhouette Open 24 Gold

Michele Nel 3 Star Explosion Of Colour Open 24 Gold

Chris Kinross 3 Star Golden Solitude Open 22 Silver

Kenneth Dunbar-Curran 1 Star It Is Mine Open 21 Gold

Andre Diener 2 Star Stormy Monday Open 20 Silver

Dirk Jonker 1 Star Drifting Over The Lake Open 19 Silver

Gerrit Opperman 3 Star Speed Please Open 19 Bronze

Jane Bursey 3 Star Early Morning In The Medina Open 19 Bronze

Robert McCracken 1 Star Lapwing Friend Open 17 Bronze

Theo Potgieter 2 Star A Forgotten Era Open 16 Bronze

Christal Schuttler 1 Star Royalty Open 15 Bronze

Douglas Young 3 Star Sunday Jaunt Open 15

Gerrit Opperman 3 Star Vintage Car shoot 25 Gold

Douglas Young 3 Star Rear Ends shoot 22 Silver

Andre Diener 2 Star A Day In The Life shoot 21 Silver

Elizabeth Cook 2 Star Reflections In A Hub Cap shoot 20 Silver

Jane Bursey 3 Star Ready To Roll shoot 18 Bronze

Christal Schuttler 1 Star Grand Oldie shoot 14 Bronze

Robert McCracken 1 Star Classic Lady shoot 14 Bronze

Kenneth Dunbar-Curran 1 Star I See You shoot 13

Sandra Cattich 2 Star Lady Bug shoot 13

Theo Potgieter 2 Star Funky Triumph shoot 12

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MEMBERS' P0SITIONS: JANUARY TO DECEMBER 2017

Name Star rating Entry Count Total Marks Average Mark Total Points

Jane Bursey 3 Star 35 744 21 80

Paul Nuttall 3 Star 32 709 22 72

Chris Kinross 3 Star 26 594 23 68

Anthony van Zyl 3 Star 27 594 22 58

Michele Nel 3 Star 21 480 23 58

Gerrit Opperman 3 Star 30 603 20 56

Douglas Young 3 Star 34 676 20 47

Theo Potgieter 2 Star 19 396 21 47

Andre Diener 2 Star 17 375 22 47

Elizabeth Cook 2 Star 24 468 20 44

Michele Hendry 3 Star 15 339 23 41

Sandra Cattich 2 Star 17 327 19 35

Lesley Morse 2 Star 14 296 21 33

Jenny Morkel 3 Star 13 286 22 33

Lennon Fletcher 3 Star 11 227 21 22

Kenneth Dunbar-Curran 1 Star 11 213 19 22

Claude Felbert 2 Star 9 185 21 21

Robert McCracken 1 Star 10 183 18 18

Marge Vermaak 1 Star 10 178 18 16

Suzanne Hayano 1 Star 6 129 22 16

Christal Schuttler 1 Star 8 145 18 15

Irvine Eidelman 1 Star 4 98 24 14

Chris Wiid 1 Star 6 122 20 13

Wendy Taylor 2 Star 7 133 19 12

Anthony Aldum 1 Star 4 84 21 10

Shaun Fautley 2 Star 5 100 20 9

Elaine Cleghorn 2 Star 4 84 21 9

Melissa Winkler 1 Star 2 50 25 8

Crighton Klassen 2 Star 4 76 19 7

Roger Trythall 2 Star 4 73 18 6

Alfonso Hartzenberg 1 Star 3 57 19 6

Carol van Blerck 2 Star 4 64 16 5

Shirley van der Hoek 2 Star 2 44 22 5

Amanda Meneses 1 Star 2 42 21 5

Andrew Mcfarlane 1 Star 2 41 20 5

Marianna Meyer 2 Star 3 50 17 3

Marian Boardman 2 Star 3 47 16 3

Dirk Jonker 1 Star 2 35 18 3

Charlie O’Donoghue 1 Star 1 24 24 3

Mujahid Ur Rehman 2 Star 1 23 23 3

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MESSAGE FROM THE OUTGOING CHAIRPERSON, CHRIS KINROSS

It has been a fabulous year! I was surrounded by a committee of enthusiastic, dedicated people who worked selflessly for the benefit of the Creative Camera Club. While we had lots of fun at our committee meetings, we took carefully considered decisions about driving our club and making it a better and better experience for all members. We sought and encouraged contributions from all members and the result was that towards the end of the year there was a palpable change at our monthly meetings. The feeling of relaxed enjoyment and participation was unmistakable and very rewarding. I must thank each of the committee members who I worked with for the wonderful fellowship that we had around the table. Quite a few of these dedicated members are on the 2018 committee and will be ably led by Paul Nuttall, ensuring continuity and guaranteeing our club continued excellence. There is a core of about 30+ active members, some of them quite new, who are going to take our club into the future under the guidance of the newly elected committee. Therefore, I sincerely thank you for allowing me to play a very welcome role in our club - the Creative Camera Club. I thoroughly enjoyed the journey and look forward to being part of the Creative family in 2018.

MESSAGE FROM INCOMING CHAIRPERSON, PAUL NUTTALL

Firstly, I would to sincerely thank all the members who nominated me for the position of Chairman and the many congratulatory wishes that followed.

It is a little premature to discuss the plans for 2018 in detail as the new committee will only meet in the New year for an exchange of ideas and discussion.

Some of the ideas that I will put to the committee will encompass, following the success of our Paternoster trip, organising more weekend getaways; increasing the educational opportunities for both experienced and raw, inexperienced members; more workshops and forging relationships with local and international photographic clubs and societies.

Bringing the members’ fine work to the public is also high on the agenda - after all, we all need to show off!

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Art and Creative Photography

Peter Brandt

(This is the text of Peter’s excellent talk given at our 4 December meeting)

Ever since the early days of photography, there has been a struggle to find an authentic voice for photography as art. A large part of the problem lay in photography being seen as so imitative. The first major movement, “Pictorialism”, sought to give photography the qualities seen more conventional art media: allegory, atmosphere, distortion, colour, brush strokes and other “painterly” dark room effects. The “Straight” photographers who succeeded them, and especially the “F64” group – including Anselm Adams, Edward Weston and Imogen Cunningham, amongst others – sought to bring art photography back to what was seen through the camera, with special weight given to fidelity and precision. In other words they sought to elevate that which made photography unique to the status of art. The underlying issues continue to the present day: literalism, obsession with technique, marriage to technological advancement, and so on, versus atmospheric, poetic, mixed media, and otherwise altered works. It is on this platform that we as club photographers seek to find our own creative niches – perhaps the key lies not in focusing on “art” output, but rather in simply focusing on attaining maximum creativity. Here are some of the elements you can focus on in order to up your creativity quotient: CONCEPTUALLY SPEAKING

• Previsualisation – try and see what you want the photo to include, or say, before making the shot

• The creative act:

• This means making photos, not taking photos

• don’t just respond to what’s in front of you and your camera – make decisions

• Make your intention clear (which relies on having clear intention)

• What is the story?

• The ‘story’ could be a narrative OR a formal exploration

• How clearly does that come across?

• Don’t confuse the quality of the subject for the quality of the image (e.g. sunsets, pretty girls, etc)

• Zoom bursts / radial multiples / HDR etc – try to use these to “tell the story”, not just as ends in themselves

• Look at art, not just at photography

Previsualise: my first response with the photo on the left was to get low and photograph this fellow’s misery. My next was to include the people walking past, at a slow enough exposure to blur them, and then finally I realised the image would be completed by including the nauseatingly “good life” image on the Coca Cola hoarding at the back. RHS: what is your story? Is it coming across to the audience, or is it lost in a fuzzy cloud of wishful thinking?

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PRACTICAL CONSIDERATIONS

• Get to know your camera well!

Only once you aren’t using all your brain juice on technical stuff will you be able to focus on the creative elements properly. • Get to know what lenses can do for you:

• Telephoto

• Wide

• Macro

• Normal

• Other

Use this knowledge to aid you in pre-visualising. P.S. Use your tripod: the discipline and precision will be invaluable.

COMPOSITION

• See THROUGH the camera, i.e. as a 2 dimensional image

• Towards this end, learn the elements of design:

• Shape vs form

• Geometric elements

• Line, lead-in line

• Rhythm, texture, pattern

• Tone, colour and contrast

Practice working with these elements: practice practice practice!

Exploring geometric interactions (LHS) and looking at line versus texture and pattern (RHS). TRY AND BE THE VIEWER

• Think of how the eye will track the image

• What will link up

• Are there implied lines and directions (gestalt)

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In the image on the left we have a powerful gaze connecting with the viewer – but would the composition not have been better served if the man had been looking at the actual subject, i.e. the python’s head? In the image on the right I sought to express the different sizes of the two dogs, and intentionally cut off the woman’s head and shoulders so she did not compete for attention. But her head is still present in the form of a shadow, and this allows a triangle of visual tracking between the three heads. DEVICES AT YOUR SERVICE

• Compose strong images:

• Filling the frame / cropping and framing appropriately

• Avoiding the obvious, e.g. central placement

• Defining the horizontal

• Vertical vs horizontal (incl vertical vs horizontal frame)

• Skewing the point of view

• Framing the subject with ‘windows’

• Silhouettes

• Breaking the rules

With the first two images I transformed a so-so portrait into an impactful image through aggressive cropping, while with the image on the right I realized my story-telling requirements would be best served if I dramatically changed my view-point and shot past the dog. EXPOSURE TRIANGLE STUFF

• Understanding your exposure options:

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• Shutter speed

• Aperture

• Effect on the Depth of Field

With the image on the left I found myself looking at a beautiful sunset … but with no tripod on hand! I decided to pan the shot in order to get an artistic blur. With the image on the right I specifically chose the appropriate shutter speed to blur myself out while keeping my wife, Jenny, relatively frozen. LIGHT

• Think of how you will work with available light and how best it will suit your subject / story:

• Dawn to dusk

• Overcast days

• Single-source vs multiple source

• Hard / soft light

BACKGROUND The background is also part of our image!

• Choose your background appropriately when setting up a photo

• Shift if necessary

• Change focal length as required

LHS: when the summer south-easter popped a ceiling board from my ceiling and I realised how hideous and mouldy the other side was, I realized I had the backdrop for a fake documentary shot of myself as a heroin addict.

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RHS: I started with the dead moth, and searched all over for a background that would elevate the shot from the banal: eventually I used some fine sand-paper with paint specks on it that suggested a starry sky, and the concept of the fallen Icarus was born. THE ROAD LESS FOLLOWED

• Don’t be afraid to experiment with new techniques: collage, masking, multiple exposures.

THE HIDDEN WORLD

• Discover / show the less obvious:

• Narrative elements

• Tones

• Textures

• Big surprise vs little surprise: impact can be subtle and insidious; find out what your photo needs

LHS: what at first appears to be someone clumsily holding a vegetable transforms (or at least this was my hope) into a narrative about the possibility of life emerging from unexpected places – in this case, the body of a middle-aged woman. RHS: an exploration of the interaction between the textures and patterns associated with two unrelated materials. ZEN AND THE ART OF PHOTOGRAPHY* * WITH APOLOGIES TO ROBERT M. PIRSIG

• Honesty

• Quality

CREATIVE EXERCISES The following exercises were largely culled from the Web, and combined and remixed for effect. EXERCISES from FREEMAN PATTERSON • Shoot 20 shots of what is immediately around you – change angle and view-point and EXPLORE

• Tackle material you dislike or find boring

“I love giving myself (and others) personal assignments such as rolling a hula hoop and then, wherever it falls over, standing inside the circle and making a minimum of 30 good compositions looking out – without repeating myself. After making about 15 photographs the

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going gets rough, and between compositions 16 and 20 I seem to be bashing my head against a wall, but then almost miraculously the scales seem to drop from my eyes and I sail off into new visual dimensions.

I also deliberately tackle material I dislike or find utterly boring, perhaps a dark green or black garbage or rubbish bag, a white plastic chair, or a messy plate after somebody has eaten a breakfast of bacon and eggs. I may not get any masterpieces from these exercises, but I certainly sharpen my visual acuity.”

- Freeman Patterson EXERCISES 2

• Find a new subject, e.g. photograph at night / street / portrait, etc

• Find themes and projects

• Find new light

• Use the “wrong” lens (for a specific challenge)

EXERCISES 3

• Crop someone else’s photos (forces you to objectively look at fundamentals of design)

• With 1 subject, shoot 10 photos (forces you to change your viewpoint)

• With 3 objects, shoot 10 photos (forces you to construct a scene out of nothing)

• Hula hoop photo walks (see Freeman Patterson, above)

• Weekly photo challenges

• Recreate other people’s photos

• Get to know a single focal length (e.g. 50mm) intimately (as in, 1000-shot intimately)

EXERCISES 4

• Two dozen – pick a spot and without moving your feet shoot 2 dozen photos

• Ten of one – take 10 unique and/or abstract photographs of 1 small subject (look at cropping, viewpoint, angle)

• 4 corners – tale one subject and place it (as it is in the photo) into each corner of the frame in 4 successive images

• Artificial restrictions – these may include:

• Create restrictions for a day or weekend of shooting. Limits may include:

• One prime lens

• One location

• B&W only

• 4-5 P.M. only

• Manual mode only

• Overexpose/Underexpose everything

• Spot meter only

• Photograph while sitting

• Only things above you

• Only things below you

• No people in the frame

• No structures in the frame

• Fill the frame

• Negative space in more than three quarters of the frame

• Shoot one “roll of film” only

• Shoot a dozen abstracts of a common object (you may change lenses)

• The portable subject (think of the “travelling gnome”)

A FINAL THOUGHT “We necessarily work in a far more constrained world than that of artists of other media; at the same time, the expectations are higher because there’s the understanding that we are replicating recognizable reality.”

- Ming Thein, commercial photographer, writer, photographic instructor, writing for Huffington Post

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Don’t miss this superb Exhibition of “Nature’s Best Photography in Africa” Now regarded as “the premier annual African nature focused photographic competition in the world”, this exhibition displays superb nature and wild life images, many of them by South African photographers.

Where: at the Iziko Museum of South Africa, Gardens, Cape Town; When: until 4 March 2018.

Here are some examples of the top section winning images:

Overall winner: Tentacle Tornado: Lion Kings Fighting: Zhengze Xu, China Kudu vs Hyena: Maureen Gibson, Jeffreys Bay Geo Cloete, Cape Town

The Strike: Peter Calder Australia African Humming Bird: Hendrik Louw Disappointment in the air: Pretoria Olli Teirile, Finland

. The Face in the Moon: Clash of the Beasts: My Copyright: Patrice Quillard, France Brendan Cremer, Cape Town Brendan Cremer, Cape Town

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CCC COMMITTEE 2018:

Chairperson: Paul Nuttall

Vice Chairperson: Douglas Young

Secretary: Gerrit Opperman

Treasurer and Membership: Jane Bursey

Newsletter: Chris Wiid

Image Master: Anthony van Zyl

Assistant Image Master: Paul Samuel

Fellowship: Michele Nel

Shoots, Creative topics and PRO: Suzanne Hayano

Judge Co-ordinator: Jane Bursey

Webmaster: Sandra Cattich

The Creative Camera Club is affiliated to

The Photographic Society of South Africa