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Keswick Photographic Society continues to hold meetings via Zoom. Although it would not seem possible to give a practical demonstration via this medium on Wednesday 30^th Carmen Norman, one of the Society’s members, did just that.

 

The topic for the evening was still life photography and, had we been able to hold a normal meeting, we would have taken our cameras with us and under Carmen’s expert tuition we would have attempted to produce our own images.  Although not quite the same as trying this out for ourselves, Carmen kept us amused by demonstrating from her own studio how to photograph a strawberry as she dropped it in to a glass of water. Her set up was very simple. She used a light tent with a black background with a couple of desk lamps as the light source and the glass of water was placed on a mirror to provide a reflection. As Carmen dropped the strawberry, she took several shots in quick succession using the motor drive on her camera. This ensured that she captured the strawberry in mid air as well as the splash as it entered the water.

 

She then demonstrated how she processed the images by first selecting two that she liked and then combining them using Photoshop software.  This enabled her to include the strawberry as it fell through the air, as well as the splash when it entered the water, in one image. She repeated the demonstration several times using different shaped glasses and lighting.

As well as the practical demonstration Carmen showed us a number of other still life images that she had taken using the same light source and tent. These included images showing flour being sprinkled over a cake, which had proved to be rather messy,

 

and another of a light bulb with sparklers in the background.  She encouraged members to have a go themselves at home, to experiment and above all to have fun.

 

The evening was very informative and entertaining and we look forward to seeing members’ own still life images inspired by Carmen’s talk at a future meeting.

Carmen runs landscape photography courses, workshops and photo walks in the Lake District and is an accomplished photographer. More information about Carmen, her work and the courses she runs can be found on her website carmennorman.co.uk.

On Wednesday 23^rd September Keswick Photographic Society’s members enjoyed a presentation given by one of their own members, Dr Keith Snell. The title of the talk was “But is it Art?”. Keith began by explaining that while in America photography was treated as an art in Britain this was not generally the case.  He therefore set out to persuade the audience that some genres of photography are indeed art.

Keith began by examining the differences between art and photography. He said that photographers generally just capture reality and detail while an artist starts with a blank sheet. However, Keith argued that there is a more artistic side to photography. Concentrating on how artistic effects can be achieved in the camera he looked first at how photography can be used to present objects in a graphical way. He used a number of his own images to illustrate this point looking at patterns and abstracts in both the natural and manmade world.

 

Next Keith described how he creates moods such as isolation, independence, infinity and hope in his landscape photographs.

His next subject was figurative art. While photographs are often just a likeness Keith demonstrated that moods such as contemplation, wistfulness, preoccupation, dejection and distraction could be portrayed if the photographer carefully chose appropriate lighting and poses for their models.

After a short interval Keith looked at the development of impressionism in photography initially by using multiple images.

 

He then looked at the use of intentional camera movement.

 

To illustrate the effect of these techniques, Keith showed examples of his own work, as well as that of others, including impressionist images of trees and water that he had taken both locally and abroad.

 

This was an entertaining, inspirational and informative evening illustrated by a selection of Keith’s sublime images that would not have looked out of place in any art gallery. By the end of the evening there seemed no doubt that some photographs, including the many examples shown by Keith, could be categorised as art.