Photography News issue 17

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Round 4: Travel Travel broadens your mind and widens your horizons. It also gives you even more opportunities to exercise your shutter finger. For this round we want to see your club’s best travel shots

RIGHT A blurred shot can convey the frenetic pace of a place, as well as giving you a clue to its location; yes, this is a New York taxi. FAR RIGHT Don’t always go for the obvious. Barcelona is irrevocably linked with Gaudi, but you don’t have to photograph his more recognisable projects to get the essence of the city.

posed portraits. Street scenes are also very effective ways of telling the viewer that you have travelled but the trick, as with any view or scenic, is to work the light. Don’t just shoot when the sun is high in the sky but go for a twilight or even a night shot to give a more interesting and creative look to your images. Don’t be afraid to experiment either. A slow shutter speed can (conversely) convey a busy, city feel, while adding a filter can help make the most of shiny, modern buildings. Travel, as you must have gathered, is a massive subject and one very amenable to creative interpretation so don’t be afraid to push boundaries. Good luck and we look forward to seeing your club’s work soon. The closing date for entries for consideration in our Image of the Month is 6 April 2015. Remember you can continue entering up to the ultimate closing date of 5 May 2015.

Venice springs to mind, and, of course, the Empire State Building says New York. Regardless how obvious the subject may be though, we will keep an open mind. However, the problem with such locations is that they have been photographed to death so images of these iconic places need to be not just great, but exceptional to achieve a good score. So by all means consider and photograph the obvious but just make sure the images are top quality. If you prefer to steer clear of visual clichés, that is fair enough but don’t go too far the other way. In many ways, being too obscure can be just as bad as being too obvious here. So what subjects should you be looking for? Well, people make places so you might prefer to aim your lens at the local population and there is huge potential here, whether you shoot candid images or

So, what is travel? It might seem blatantly obvious but to some people travel is jetting to the other side of the world, while to others it is as simple as leaving the house and catching the bus to town. For simplicity’s sake and for the benefit of this theme, let’s agree that travel means any pictures taken on a bike, car, boat or jet’s journey from your house so images taken a few miles from home are eligible as are those from the other side of the world. But, and it is a big but, the pictures need to capture the spirit of the place. So, whether you have travelled to Birmingham, Bangor, Bolivia, Bogota or Belgium, we want to see images that encapsulate the essence of your chosen location. It is not as easy as you might think. Summing up a location in one image is a challenge, although there are plenty of exceptions to that rule. Shoot the Eiffel Tower and everyone thinks of Paris, a gondolier and Jeffrey Sinclair’s A Day at the Races has been chosen by PN ’s editor as his Image of the Month from the hundreds submitted for Round 2 weather. “I’m very slightly biased because I love brollies,” editor Will Cheung explained, “but regardless of that I love the atmosphere of Jeffrey’s beautifully executed image. “Actually, judging this month’s cache of entries was a real challenge. There were so many excellent pictures. Others I feel deserve a special mention include: Bad weather by Derek Collis of Halstead PS; Three trees by Cathy Roberts of Beckenham PS; London Eye raindrops by Dan Horton-Soar, Parkwood CC; and Dodging the waves by Martin Godfrey, East Shilton CC. “Well done and thanks to everyone who entered Round 2 and we look forward to your travel pictures for Round 4.”

IMAGEOFTHEMONTH Jeffrey Sinclair, HarlowPhotographic Society

I love the atmosphere of Jeffrey’s beautifully executed image

Issue 17 | Photography News