Next Monday, 8 January, Rachel Domleo will be hosting an introduction to Affinity Photo at the basic level for those wishing to know a little more about using this software. She will be covering an introduction to Affinity Photo’s five editing personas including the Develop Persona which is Affinity's equivalent to Photoshop’s camera RAW.
She will then look at the Photo Editing Persona in more detail running through as many of the tools and dropdown menus that time permits to help users to navigate the Affinity interface. If there is time, she will then look at some of the most commonly used tools including the selection brush and layer masks etc.
The whole evening will be devoted to Rachel’s demo and therefore I am not inviting any presentations from members for this Monday.
Last month five members showed a wide range of work at the DIG meeting to a sizable audience in the clubroom as well as on zoom.
Kevin James has a keen interest in photographing models in studio which he does so well. His prints are easily distinguished by their quality and flush mounting at the full size of the mount. They draw the attention of judges at competitions. At the other end of scale his ultra macro photography goes up to 4x magnification revealing details of insects hardly noticeable to the naked eye.
John Hudson presented some stunning images of stage performances in theatres in London taken alongside professionals. As he finds even more locations to fly his drones and perfects his camera techniques to use HDR and combining multiple images we had a look at his beautiful landscapes and familiar landmarks from a high viewpoint out of reach for most of us.
Image: John Hudson
Colin Dixon showed some beautiful examples of Italian renaissance and gothic architecture in public buildings. He gave a useful tip to add a reflection of the structure within a city - find a pool or puddle of water (or carry a bottle of water) and place the camera lens as close to the water as possible to take the reflection in camera. With a phone it is much easier to do, just by inverting the phone and lowering it to touch the water. He also showed images of ballerinas in his unique style of photographing them in public space against different backdrops.
Mike Martin took the opportunity to capture some sports images of cycle race. Those images not only showed the competitive spirit of the cyclists but also told the story of the obstacles they face and how the support of a backup team can influence the outcome in a way similar to motor racing. On a wet day the mud flying around builds up rapidly on the bikes as well as the cyclists themselves creating some striking images in colour and mono.
Robin Mudge stunned me with what can be achieved with a mobile phone with LIDAR to produce a 3D image of an object or even a whole street which can be viewed later from any direction – not to be confused with that which uses red and blue glasses to achieve the 3D effect. These are early days and resolution is low, a bit like the images from home computers of the early nineties but as the hardware and software catches up with the demand its potential is enormous. You can see an example of one of Robin’s 3D images as a video of one of his partial scans of the famous steps in Wells Cathedral by following the link below. The still image shown here is grabbed from the video - click on it to see the video version. This will take you to a BPS website page, where you will need to scroll to the bottom of the image on the page to click on the Start button.
