Newsheet. Sue. President's Thoughts URGENT REMINDER THE EXHIBITION IS LOOMING FOR DETAILS SEE PAGE 3. Contributions from Members.

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1 LOUGHTON CAMERA CLUB LOUGHTON CAMERA CLUB CAMERA CLUB LOUGHTON President's Thoughts Newsheet As I sit down to write these few words welcoming members to our Summer 2014 Newsheet I can smile to myself as I listen to the rain hammering against the window, that we got it right again when organising our Summer Outing. Actually, our General Secretary Ian Ryall, got it right! Thanks for the arrangements Ian. Ten members visited Dungeness on the southern Kent coast, where so many moody images of derelict boats, fishermens huts and bits and pieces of winding gear etc. originated. On Sunday, 3rd August, this eerie venue seemed far away as we basked in bright sunshine, with a gentle breeze to keep us cool. The image shows us outside the Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch Railway Station following our lunchtime meeting, when we discussed our morning adventures and planned for later in the day. Hopefully some of the images taken on this outing will find themselves in forthcoming Club Competitions and the Exhibition (entries required sooner than you think!). Sue August 2014 In this issue: President's Piece 1 Article by Tom Peck 2 Origins of Photoshop 3 Exhibition details 3 Lopping Hall Open Day 4 Loughton Art Trail 4 RPS Exhibition 5 Congratulations! 5 URGENT REMINDER THE EXHIBITION IS LOOMING FOR DETAILS SEE PAGE 3 In most editions of the Loughton Camera Club Newsheet you will have found a plea for items for future editions. Well, two of our members have come up with just the job! John McCall has provided an fascinating article on, The Origins of Photoshop see page 3. Tom Peck is currently writing pieces for Black + White Photography Magazine and has offered some of these for inclusion in future Newsheets. The first appears on Contributions from Members 1 page 2. This is a very thoughtful crit. on a successful monochrome image by Jane Goodhall ARPS who visited our club last year. Thanks John and Tom. But we would still like more from the members so please forward your tips, comments and suggestions etc to us at: sueandmike@waitrose.com

2 This article was written by Thomas Peck first published in Black + White Photography magazine Most pictures are absorbed quickly. Photography s very ubiquity leads to instantaneous meaning, and very often to immediate forgetting. So how refreshing to come across a picture that does not reveal itself quickly and stays longer in the mind. Moving Rock, Death Valley by Jane Goodall ARPS. What do we see here? A black and white image, portrait format, of Death Valley. In the foreground is the cracked earth that we associate with the desert. In the background are dark hills and a moody sky certainly not the classical weather we might link to the desert. In the middle distance is a rock, slightly off-centre to the upper left hand quadrant of the image. Behind the rock snakes a track. The rock has clearly moved, and its movement has imprinted on the cracked landscape. The track is curved for some reason the rock has changed direction. There is no evidence of other tracks. The rock has not been moved by other animate things clearly the rock has moved by itself, of its own will. What is going on here? How does a rock move, and why? What feeling does this image create in the viewer? A feeling of perplexity. The rock s tracks are odd, a mystery. The skill of the photographer is to emphasise that feeling. How has that been achieved? The composition has clearly added to the strangeness of the image. The use of a wide angle lens has placed the rock and its track in the upper half of the image, where the rock itself is relatively small. However, the foreground is huge. The lens has also created a slight distortion at the bottom of the image the cracks look like they are falling down out of the image. All this in the dynamic portrait format, as opposed to a more relaxed landscape format, suggests that the rock is continuing on its journey it has an expanse of image to move into. The feeling is that it is still moving, right now, down through the image. The wide angle lens has also allowed the photographer to show the overall scale of the desert those mountains are clearly a long way away. This landscape is vast, and empty. Here again are echoes of mystery there is no-one here, who might for some reason want to move the rock The photographer has chosen to show this image in black and white. Colour might well have distracted attention away from the rock and its track. The added competition of colour and its inferences have therefore been done away with. This is further emphasized by the photographer s choice of relatively flat dull lighting in which to make this image. Sharp angular light might have pulled the viewer s eye away. These are the conscious decisions made by the photographer to place the viewer s attention quite single-mindedly on the key action in the image. So we are presented with an image that describes a visually unsettling and inexplicable conundrum. An image to remain long in the mind: a valley of death where the rocks are alive, and are moving Black + White Photography Magazine 2

3 The Origins of Photoshop by John McCall In February 2015 Photoshop will celebrate its 25th birthday. Its origins were, of course, well before 1990 and, although the opening flash screen currently displays 40 odd names, it was the brainchild of two brothers, Thomas and John Knoll. Their father had an interest in early home computers and was also a keen amateur photographer with his own darkroom. In the darkroom Thomas learned about contrast and colour correction whilst John became interested in their father s Apple Mac II. By 1987 John was employed by Lucasfilm in a special effects department called Industrial Light Magic (ILM) which had been created to provide material for the Star Wars films. In the meantime Thomas was working for a PhD in image processing at the University of Michigan. He had bought an Apple Mac Plus, with which to prepare his thesis, but found that its monochrome monitor was incapable of displaying decent greyscale images. He solved this problem by writing his own software. When they met in the holidays John, who had also been working on image processing at ILM, was impressed by the progress that Thomas had made and noticed the similarities with the image processing programs that were used at ILM. They decided to collaborate to develop their own program which they called Display. John bought a new Colour Macintosh II and Thomas developed Display to work in colour and to enable colour balance to be adjusted together with the useful ability to work in various file formats. The next development enabled parts of the image to be selected so that adjustments could be made selectively. Such procedures are performed by what have become known as plug-ins. In 1988 Display was renamed ImagePro and had developed sufficiently that John felt it had a chance of becoming a commercial success. At this time Thomas had still not completed his PhD, but John had investigated the competition and concluded that there was nothing currently available in the same class as ImagePro. So Thomas was persuaded. They started trying to find investors but were having problems with the name they kept finding names that they discovered were already in use. They eventually settled on PhotoShop and after a number of publishers had shown no interest they eventually showed it to the Art Director at Adobe, who had the foresight to persuade the company to accept it. The situation was similar to that of a number of best selling books, e.g. Gone with the Wind was rejected by 38 publishers, to their later regret, before being accepted by Macmillan. After much work PhotoShop 1.0 note the capital S, which was reduced to the lower case in later versions was introduced by Adobe in February The rest, as they say, is history LCC Annual Exhibition Our Annual Exhibition has reverted to its traditional time October/November. The event will be on show at the Library, Traps Hill, Loughton from Saturday 18th October until Friday 14th November. The most important date you need now is: LATEST DATE FOR ENTRIES IS WEDNESDAY, 17th SEPTEMBER Exhibition Secretary, Richard Poynter will be ing entry forms to you all soon. YOU HAVE FIVE WEEKS IN WHICH TO PREPARE YOUR IMAGES FOR THIS EVENT. 3

4 Loughton Camera Club presence at Lopping Hall Open Day On 13th September, 2014, Lopping Hall will be opening its doors to the public as part of Loughton Heritage Day. Members of your Committee have agreed that our Club should be represented at this event. In order to encourage members of the public to visit our stand we are going to offer them the opportunity to have their photographic portrait taken under studio conditions by one of our members, free of charge. We will be using professional lighting and background equipment and the club lap-top. If the sitter provides their own USB Memory Stick the image will be transferred to it immediately and they will be able to use this on their own electronic equipment or, if they wish, take it to any High Street outlet to have a print produced. If anyone isn t able to provide their own USB Stick we will supply one, with their image, at a nominal fee, or provide the image on a CD/DVD, again at a minimal charge. We also hope to have adequate space to be able to present a small exhibition of members prints for visitors to look at whilst waiting to have their portrait taken. Obviously setting up this presentation will take some effort and so we will be pleased to hear from any club members who would like to join us on the day, either to assist setting up the presentation, or simply acting as "welcomers" who could talk to visitors about the club and perhaps to encourage those who are interested to come along to a club evening and maybe join us. Please contact Sue/Mike Dobson, John/Thelma Banks or Ian Ryall to let us know if you can spare some time on the day we will need assistance any time from 9.00am to 4.00pm, but particularly early or late as this is when we will be putting up and taking down our presentation. Art Trails are becoming very popular these days and now we hear that there is to be one in Loughton from 6th to 14th September. This appears to be an opportunity for Artists across the district to showcase their work, with the possibility of offering it for sale if they so wish. The arrangements are quite complicated so we recommend that if you are interested you contact the organisers on: Website: Contact: loughtonarttrail@gmail.com or

5 RPS Exhibition On at the Berkley Gallery in the Greenwich Heritage Centre at Woolwich Arsenal is the 157th Royal Photographic Society International Print Exhibition. Mike and I went along a couple of days ago and were very impressed with the bright open exhibition space. However, all the images were framed under glass which resulted in considerable reflections which rather spoilt the viewing of the images. The exhibition is open 9.00am pm Tuesday to Saturday until 28th August. Worth a visit and entry is free. and finally... Congratulations to: Keith Lillywhite, Ian Ryall and Peter Warne, on their successes in the EAF Exhibition this year. We had two Highly Commended awards in the Colour Print Section one each from Ian Ryall and Keith Lillywhite. I Hate This Place by Ian Ryall Peter Warne had three acceptances Mono Print Atlantic Fury Colour Print The Kill from Lappet-faced Vulture Pdi Territorial Battle, Common Terns The ups and downs of a speedway rider by Keith Lillywhite Surprisingly only one of these images was accepted for display in the PAGB Exhibition and that was: Crashing Out - The Ups and Downs in the Life of a Speedway Rider by Keith Lillywhite. Enjoy the rest of the Summer we'll see you back at Lopping Hall on the 10th September Views expressed in this newsletter are not necessarily those of Loughton Camera Club or the editor 5