Congratulations again to our club’s Vice President and External Competition Secretary, Paul Morgan. We wrote recently that one of his photographs of a Dragonfly had featured on Alan Titchmarsh’s Sunday morning TV programme. It’s happened again when last week a macro photograph of a Bee was featured.
Last Thursday
Gaille Gray CPAGB AFIAP EFIAP is one of the finest Fine Art photographers around, always sharing and explaining her methods and techniques and always there to help other photographers improve their art. In addition to those Distinction letters after her name she is also the recipient of a string of Bronze, Silver, and Gold awards from the Guild of Photographers. Last week brought her first visit to Falkirk C.C., and we are sure it will not be her last.
Her Fine Art approach means giving a distinctive appearance to her images at every stage of the process. The photographer’s impression of, or emotional response to, the subject takes precedence. Creativity in design, composition and post processing are all used to construct an atmosphere, or aesthetic, which interpret the photographer’s sentiments of the subject. Therefore, Fine Art principles can be applied to any type of photography.
Those principles emerged in the earliest days of photography. Look at the mid nineteenth century portraits by Julia Margaret Cameron, the late nineteenth and early twentieth century work of Alfred Stieglitz, or in the present day the photographs by Margaret Soraya who spoke at our club a few years ago. See if you can spot the Fine Art practitioners in Falkirk C.C. as this season progresses.
During her lecture Gaille illustrated a Fine Art approach in a number of a areas: butterflies; dragonflies; landscapes including Blackhouses on the Isle of Lewis, Glencoe, and at the Kelpies. Photographing flowers is probably her greatest passion, where she sources wide and unusual varieties.
Her photographs are marked by particularly precise compositions and are very, very, very sharp. During the question & answer session at the end of the evening Gaille was asked if she used the technique of focus stacking. She does not, but uses intelligent control of the lens aperture, coupled to the correct shutter speed and a real familiarity with depth of field and hyperfocal distance. Gaille often makes use of soft focus too, and introduces textures which led to a piece of advice as she encourages everyone to experiment with such techniques.
Gaille’s expertise with post-processing is awe inspiring, and is only part of the process utilising what she has captured in-camera. She kindly offered to return to Falkirk to hold a workshop, it’s on our Syllabus Secretary’s list !
Tips
You will find guides to some of the techniques mentioned in this column under the Tips heading on the menu bar of our website. In relation to this week’s article there are guides on: Understanding Aperture / Depth of Field; Understanding Shutter Speed; Composition; Using Aperture / Depth of Field; Photoshop Tutorials; and Focus Stacking.