Meeting Notes 6-21-09

The regular monthly CPG meeting was led by Richard Knight, President, with Vickie Monti, Secretary, Patrick Anderson, Scott and Eva Tarplee, Harold Reeves, Rick Lutz, Charlotte Azcuna, Gay Barron, Bobi Saal, Sandy Gamble, Clyde and Dana Dixon, Conrad Fonseca, Carolyn Strohm, Nancy Parks, Vicki Greene, Norma Yawn, Vickie Manners, Harold Dale, Steve Kendall, Jim Hyde, Dick Knight, Randall Hollis, and Lynda Kennedy in attendance. We welcomed new member, Scott Infante.

It was repported that paid membership is up to 47. Charlotte Azcuna updated the Big Photo Show and reported that entries may be dropped off from the 6-22 to 6-27 at the Glynn Art Association on Mallery Street, SSI.  She would prefer they be brought in by Friday though they will be accepted as late as Saturday, 5 PM. Flyers and post cards advertising TBPS were distributed to members to place throughout Glynn County. Carla Zell will coordinate the distribution. Anyone with a suggested location should contact her. An email with the flyer attached will be sent out by Richard to the entire membership. Members are encouraged to e-mail an invitation to the reception to friends. Also a lot of publicity has been arranged for TBPS from Atlanta to Jacksonville and Savannah as well in our local area.

Jim Hyde presented “Resizing Images using Photoshop” in spite of our media equipment malfunctioning. Jim presented a thorough explanation with a handout which is now a available on this site. Every effort will be made to ensure that the recent rash of media equipment failures is corrected. Members expressed support for continuing our efforts to present images digitally at meetings.

Here’s my Two Cents

Is photography art? You and I have no doubts about that, right? However, it has not always been so apparent, and even hotly contested in the past. Painters have long alleged that photography is merely a mechanical reproduction of a scene, devoid of artistic control. Photographic pioneers such as Steiglitz and Weston argued that controlling the point of view allowed for artistic aesthetic. The earliest recognized attempts at photographic art were known as pictorialism, in which the photographer attempted to impersonate a painterly affect by using low key (dark) lighting and soft focus techniques. This quickly brought on a reaction by the Group f/64, led by Ansel Adams and others, emphasizing that photography did not need to imitate another medium in order to be considered art.

If the various disciplines of art could agree on anything, it would probably be that significant form is what defines art. Over the years, the rules of photographic composition have evolved. Also of importance has been the gradual improvement of film, lenses, camera bodies, lighting, and dark room processing, which has given us a greater control over our medium.

Would you believe me, if I told you we are probably in the golden age of photography today? In case you haven't noticed, in the last 10 years there has been an explosion of interest and excitement surrounding digital photography. Witness the growth of our photography guild. Is this due just to new gadgetry or is something more fundamental going on here? A couple of factors are probably worth noting. Certainly images are the coin of the realm in the communication media today, especially with the 30 second sound bite. Of no little importance is that todays automated digital cameras allow even beginning photographers to take excellent images. But the most important factor, I believe, is that the artist within each of us is being unleashed by digital postprocessing, AKA, Photoshop or photoshop-like image processing programs. Control over our medium has now been taken to the nth degree and we are all beginning to sense and get excited about what this means for us as artists. Is photography art? You bet, and although I cannot draw a stick figure, I’m loving it!       Scott Tarplee

Photographic Definition of the Month

Noise reduction is a significant issue in digital photography. Like film grain, electronic noise degrades image sharpness and is apparent especially in the shadows. Factors increasing noise are prolonged exposures and using higher ISO settings. Camera manufacturer's go to great lengths to improve image sensors and camera circuitry to reduce noise. This may be one of the best reasons to upgrade to a new camera body with a full frame sensor. The other way to combat noise is to use proprietary software such as Noise Ninja or Dfine which are generally under $100.

Upcoming CPG Activities

Well by golly, TBPS is here! Can you believe it?  Of course, we’re not meeting with the show this month, so the June CPG Website Issue has got a little something extra: the inaugural Secret Photography Quiz No.1!  Yep, it’s so secrete that it’s hidden and you have to figure out where the door to the quiz is, before you can even think about the answer(s)! I’ll just say that the historical, philatelic, and photographic aspects of the conundrum are mind boggling. Our next meeting will be 8-20-09 with a presentation on Lightroom and homework is ‘children’.

Photoshop Corner

Shooting a room scene with a bright window can be tricky. As a realtor, I’m often called upon to shoot a room with a fairly bright window in part of the shot. If I let the camera react to the brightness of the window, that makes the objects in the room too dark.

If I let the camera react to the objects in the room, the window becomes too bright and you can’t get a sense of what’s behind the window. The solution: take two photos and put them together in Photoshop.

Important: you must do this on a tripod. First, focus the camera on the window and hold the shutter button halfway down. Move your camera to reframe the shot while still holding the button halfway down. Press the button the rest of the way to take the shot. Now, without moving the camera, take another shot. This one will focus on the rest of the room. You now have two photos in the camera, identically framed, but one uses the window for exposure reference, and the other uses the rest of the room for exposure reference.

If you’re familiar with working in layers in Photoshop (or similar programs) it’s not hard to extract the window from one shot and place it in position in the next shot. The result is a room scene where you can actually see what’s outside through the window.

                                                           Patrick Anderson

Photographic Tip of the Month

One of the most important tools in digital photography is the on camera histogram of the image you just recorded. By inspecting the histogram you can categorize your image and spot problems.

A histogram is a plot of the frequency of tones across the visible spectrum from pure black to white. In an 8-bit image there are 256 tones or shades of gray ranging from pure black to pure white in the visible spectrum. The height of the curve at any point tells you the number of times that tone or value has occurred in the image.

For a scene with average front-lit exposure, the histogram approximates a symmetrical bell-shaped curve .  A scene with predominantly dark values will have a histogram with a prominent shoulder or peak in the dark shades .  A scene with predominantly light values will have a histogram with a prominent peak in the light tones. High contrast images have peaks on both the dark and light sides, whereas a low contrast image is flatter.  A histogram that is abruptly cut off on the light side (called clipping) has "blown out" highlights with no detail and a histogram that is clipped on the dark side has "blocked up" shadows again with no detail . The picket fence histogram (containing gaps) is prone to posterization with poor tone and color transitions.

The thoughtful use of your histogram will improve your digital photography and, as a bonus, ensure correct exposure.