How to improve your photography
Jim Hartje ARPS EFIAP APAGB DPAGB BPE5 has visited Keyworth Camera Club quite a few times over the years as both a judge or speaker, and on March 31st we welcomed him back, via Zoom, to give us a presentation called How to Improve Your Photography.
Jim began by saying you really need to understand what makes a good photograph and how to set your camera’s controls to capture that perfectly exposed image. Once you’ve learnt this, then you should start breaking the rules to give a more creative look to your photographs that will make them stand out from the crowd.
Jim showed us some of his images taken back in the days of film when he liked to experiment with slide sandwiches, using Lith film and grain screens, as well as projecting images through glass to add textures and softness. These kinds of effects he can now do digitally.
Three items of Adobe software, Elements, Lightroom and Photoshop, were explored during the talk. Jim backing his patter up with many inspirational images showing the effects that could be done within the various programmes – his pictures covered infra-red, composites and making photographs appear to be paintings and much more. Many of Jim’s images fell into the fantasy/surreal genre.
Jim’s main tip for creating images is to know what it is you’re trying to achieve before starting.
Thank-you Jim for providing us with a fascinating evening that showed us how easy it can be to turn an ordinary photograph into something much more eye-catching. We’re sure some of our members will be trying some of your techniques very soon.
