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Camborne & Redruth Camera Club (CRCC)
Sunday 25th September 2011
Porth Nanven Image by Andy Davies LRPS
Last Thursday (22-09-11) at the Treleigh Church Hall, the Club held the first of its four special guest speaker evenings. Reg Poad Chairman welcomed members and guests from the Carnkie, Penryn and St Ives Camera Clubs and introduced professional photographer Lee Pengelly from Plymouth to talk about ‘Light in the Landscape’
Lee gave a brief résumé of how he became a professional photographer. It dates back to 1994/5 when he combined his love of walking in the countryside, in particular Dartmoor, with taking pictures on a medium format film camera. Following a college photographic course he soon realised that this was what he wanted to do for a living. During the next five years as well as developing his techniques he also built up a sufficient clientele to enable him to become a fulltime professional in 2000. For a while he photographed both with film and digital cameras but in 2003 he took the plunge and switched over completely to working with a high end Canon digital camera.
Lee showed for the first part of his talk a range of land and seascape pictures, some of which had been from his early film days. He said that digital had completely changed his outlook on photography and that he loved the immediacy of viewing his images rather than waiting to see his results after film processing. However his experience working in film where one had to be so careful to ensure the image had been correctly captured has been carried over to shooting in digital, resulting in little or no post processing on the computer. In difficult lighting conditions however he does resort to blending two or more images to cover the high dynamic range.
He elaborated on some of his techniques, particularly using long exposures which work so well in coastal and river scenes. He showed pictures of and described the technique of painting with light which can often change an ordinary subject into something special. He has had to learn patience waiting for the light to be just right and often it is only there for the brief moment but one has to be ready to capture this moment. He likes returning to the same site time and time again to capture it at different seasons of the year whilst always trying to improve on previous work. The right light at the right time of the year can completely transform a scene. He advocated that for good landscape photography it was up early to catch the dawn light and to bed late having caught the last glimmer of the sunset, particularly in summer. Always try to pre-visualise your picture and explore a location before taking any pictures. He likes to use a wide angle lens which when used with a strong foreground can often give the feeling of stepping into the picture. This is emphasised particularly when shooting a landscape in the portrait or vertical format.
After the interval Lee talked about equipment, including his camera, tripod and head, a polarising filter, a selection of soft and hard graduated neutral density filters, full neutral density filters of differing values, the latter enabling him to extend the exposure for his coastal and river scenes. He nearly always shot his images with the use of a tripod. Other valuable items were tide tables, mobile phone, suitable weather clothing and footwear. Local knowledge was of great benefit as his main area of work was in Cornwall and Devon. More recently he has been running on-site workshops and he has found these to be of benefit both to himself and his students. He found it interesting to watch how his students first went about tackling a project and for himself it gave him a chance to do some fun photography. The workshops now are not just locally based but these have now extended into other parts of the UK and Europe. In conclusion, Lee said that his work is not just confined to landscape photography but he also photographs weddings, food and architectural subjects. His work can be seen at www.silverscenephoto.co.uk The evening finished with a short question and answer session and the Club’s vice chairman Andy Davies LRPS gave a vote of thanks.
Following on from his recent exhibition successes in the Western Counties Exhibition, Reg Poad has now had acceptances for the Northern Counties and Malta Salons.
Last Sunday (25-09-11) the Club ran a field trip to the Crown Mines area of West Penwith. There was some good light at Botallack despite the occasional haze and mist. Andy Davies LRPS gave tuition on the use of neutral density filters as well as using manual settings on the camera. The group moved on to nearby Port Nanven with thoughts of photographing the sunset which however did not materialise but some good images were taken of the boulders and gullies until rain brought photography to a close.
On Saturday (01-10-11) there is a field trip to cover ZapKat racing at Fistral Beach, Newquay
Tonight (29-09-11) at Treleigh, there is a special general meeting to discuss the new Club Constitution and Competition Format. If time allows the Club’s president, Malcolm Jenkin LRPS AFIAP will run a Photographic Quiz and also talk about gaining a FIAP distinction.