Articles
This is Bradford Photographic Society website's teaching and activities section, where you can find advice and stories from members.
Along with reports of our meetings.
We hope to eventually have a good collection of interesting and entertaining articles on different aspects of photography.
Landscape to Studio and a few bits between II
- Details
- Written by Tom Heggie
- Category: Report of Bradford Photographic Society Meetings
On Thursday 23rd Richard Spurdens visited the club to deliver his talk 'Landscape to Studio and a few bits between II'.
Richard's talk was illustrated with projected images, reinforced by an impressive display of prints. Before the tea break he gave us a sample of his impressive images of a wide variety of subjects from Northern Lights and landscapes in Iceland through a huge selection of sports - canoeing, skiing, tennis, kite surfing, Tough Guy, cycling and more - to Morris Dancing! These came with plenty of advice on locations an technique.
Last Round of the Interclub Colour Group Competition 2015
- Details
- Written by TomH
- Category: Competition Reports
A good number of members attended in the afternoon to prepare the hall for the evening’s extravaganza. We needed the 2 hours spent trying to sort out the sound system and running through a mock competition to iron out any problems we may encounter on the night.
The evening went well with a good attendance of visitors from the participating clubs. The heavy gang of Paul and Stephen managed to extract lots of cash for the raffle from the visitors with the attraction of a digital microscope as the star prize.
Read more: Last Round of the Interclub Colour Group Competition 2015
Third Print Competition Evening
- Details
- Written by TomH
- Category: Competition Reports
Our third and last print trophy evening of the year was held on Thursday 16th April. The judge for the evening was Bill Johnson ARPS, DPAGB, APAGB.
First came the JW Murray Trophy for the best Monochrome Pictorial Print. This was won by Michael Myers with his 'Grey Squirrel' while Don Crabtree's 'Winter Afternoon' and Tom Heggie's 'Storm Brewing over Canary Wharf' shared second place.
Treasure Hunt
- Details
- Written by TomH
- Category: Report of Bradford Photographic Society Meetings
Gold - Kyle Smith
On Thursday 9th we had a Photographic Treasure Hunt. Although the turn-out was relatively small, those who took part agreed that it was a lot of fun and an unusual challenge. Teams were given until 9pm to hand over five images entitled:
1. Gold
2. Perspective
3. Old Blue Eyes
4. Bright
5. Food for Thought
Annual General Meeting
- Details
- Written by TomH
- Category: Report of Bradford Photographic Society Meetings
The 2nd April saw the 154th Annual General Meeting of the Bradford Photographic Society. An impressive 22 members attended, sacrificing the opportunity to see the 7-way political leaders debate live on television!
The meeting proceeded in accordance with the agenda, taking the pre-circulated minutes of the 153rd meeting as read and approving them. Reports were delivered by the Hon Treasurer, Kath Bonson, the Print Secretary, Tom Heggie, (detail to follow by email), the Digital Image Secretary, Steve Swiszczoski, the Acting Webmaster, Peter Sykes, the Interclub Representative, Graeme Mitchell, and the YPU Representative, Geoff Richards. This was followed by the Presidents report by Tom Heggie who thanked the committee for their hard work during the year which has resulted in a lot being achieved with separate mention for Brain Packer who, although not a Council member, agreed to be co-opted to help with the archive.
Pudsey Battle
- Details
- Written by TomH
- Category: Competition Reports
'Dawn at LLandudno Pier' by Michael Myers scored 20 for BPS
Our battle with Pudsey Camera Club on 26 March was much anticipated and did not disappoint. The visitors turned up in strength - both in terms of images and people. They were nice and early too, arriving before we had any chairs set out! Christine Hodgson BA Hons, ARPS, CPAGB , our judge, had apparently, judged the last battle we had with Pudsey some years ago! She did a great job deciding scores in short order, not having seen the images in advance.
Personal Prints with a Bigger Difference
- Details
- Written by TomH
- Category: Report of Bradford Photographic Society Meetings
Members were entertained by Howard Tate, Immediate Past President of the YPU, on large prints on 19 March.
Large being A1 and special Panoramic shots with over a 100 images taken - well beyond the 400x500 YPU standard size!
Howard, a judge himself, seemed to have little time for the opinions of other judges and made it clear that the images he took, were to please himself, and to promote his own individual styles, and often broke the rules of composition.
3rd Round Interclub
- Details
- Written by Peter Sykes Admin
- Category: Competition Reports
At the Interclub third round on Saturday 14 March BPS came joint 2nd on the night and placed 3rd overall after 3 rounds. The two images displayed both received 20's.
"Bradford at Night" by Kath Bonson and "Drawn Back to the Scene" by Steve Swiszowski.
Action Training Evening
- Details
- Written by TomH
- Category: Report of Bradford Photographic Society Meetings
What set out to be a training evening on Action and Sport Photography on 5 March, developed into something rather unique.
We started off with two short talks by Tom Heggie and Kath Bonson about the techniques for photographing 'planes, bikes and trains' and 'swimming and rowing' respectively. The intention to have a couple of boxers demonstrating shadow-boxing expanded somewhat as Nick Manners brought along no less than six members of PAT's gym to our meeting.
Critique Evening 19 February 2015
- Details
- Written by TomH
- Category: Report of Bradford Photographic Society Meetings
With a total of 45 images in the gallery in advance, we had a lot to talk about on this our second critique evening of the year. I was interesting to hear what the author was trying to achieve in each case and how he/she had gone about it. It was surprising how often opinions on how an image could be improved developed into a consensus - and there were the inevitable disagreements. One man's meat will always be another man's poison!
Third Digital Projected Image Competition Evening
- Details
- Written by TomH
- Category: Competition Reports
Thursday 12 February saw the third of our competition evenings for projected images. Howard Toll stepped in to do the judging at short notice, giving us an entertaining evening without the aid of his owls.
First up was the Percy Lund Rose Bowl for the best Novice All-Rounder. A very close contest, just won by Kyle Smith with his images 'Goit Stock Falls', 'The Old Sew', 'Steam Punk' and 'Gin and Tonic'. A close second, also scoring a total of 65 points was Tony Kilcoyne. Very bad luck, really! Indeed the lowest score in this competition was 63 - not far away!
Next to be judged was the VB Lloyd Trophy for photojournalism, action and sport. From a healthy, varied entry of forty images, 'Lunch Break, Haworth Wartime Weekend' won; a great candid shot by Graeme Mitchell.
Read more: Third Digital Projected Image Competition Evening
Focus Stacking in Photoshop
- Details
- Written by TomH
- Category: Tutorials
Following our 'Training Evening' on 5th Feb 2015, Stephen Goodfellow circulated some useful information about focus-stacking which desreves to be perserved for future reference - thanks Stephen!
Focus stacking is the combining of several images to create one photo with a greater depth of field. It is mainly used in macro photography where you have to deal with small depth of fields.
First you'll have to shot several photos using a tripod. In each image you'll put the focus point a bit further away on your subject. Make sure you've got some overlap in each image.
If you have Photoshop CS4 or a newer version you can stack your photos in Photoshop. Start by loading the photos into Photoshop and putting them together in one file. Each photo should have its own layer. The order you use is important; each new layer should be the next step in focus depth. If you mix them up stacking them won't work.
When you've got all the photos together in one file, select all layers. You can do this by clicking the top layer in the layer palette, hold down your shift key and click the bottom layer. All layers are marked blue now. Go into the edit menu and choose auto-align layers. In the window that opens, just select ok. The automatic mode should do the trick. This process aligns the layers so any movement in between the different shots is corrected.
Next step is combining the layers into one. Again, choose the edit menu, but this time select auto-blend layers. In the window that appears you choose the blend method Stack Images and also check the Seamless Tones and Colors. Press ok do let Photoshop work its magic.
In most cases the automated result will be good. If you find something to be off, you can correct it by editing the layer mask Photoshop created. You'll need to crop the edges out to get your final photo.
Here are five low-res images you can try it with:
and you should get something like this:
Because they are lo-res images the final result will look blocky when viewed at a high magnification, but the improved depth effect can still be seen if you compare the outcome with each individual image.
Since there are only 5 images to stack you may not achieve seamless depth of focus, as you might with 130 using specialised software, but you'll get the general idea and if you want to move on, the sky's your wallet.
Have fun,
Report of Bradford Photographic Society Meetings
The reports of the meetings held by Bradford Photographic Society
Exhibitions & talks
Reports of BPS Exhibitions and talks held by others
History of Bradford Photographic Society
Articles on the history of Bradford Photographic Society
Photo Shoots
Reports about Bradford Photographic Society photowalks and shoots
Tutorials
Articles on how to improve photographic techniques
General
Other articles about Bradford Photographic Society or photography in general
Competition Reports
Reports on the various competitions in which BPS is involved
