February 2013 Meeting Announcement

Posted on February 6, 2013 by admin

In spite of the weather, the meeting is still on and it should be a great evening! The next meeting for Photographers East will be held next Monday, February 11th, starting at 7pm in the Community Room of Bridgehampton National Bank, Snake Hollow Road in Bridgehampton.

Award winning photographer Nina Bataller will be presenting an overview of her recent work. She will be sharing images from several segments of her portfolio.
Travel photos are a mainstay of her work. She will include selections from the US, Bolivia, Burma (Myanmar), Egypt and Indonesia.
There will also be a presentation of her painterly abstracts, and a brief but in depth look at some of her favorite east end subjects.
“As a photographer, I relate more to sculptors than I do to painters. I’m always looking to see into a scene, to carve away the extraneous and find the core of the photo that lies within. I find that anywhere you go, you can find beauty and joy in all things, you just have to look carefully for it.”

If you’d like to get a taste of her work before the presentation, check out her website at www.NinaBataller.com
And if you want more information she can be reached at:
Nina Bataller
East Hampton Picture Framing
PO Box 560 – 374 Montauk Highway Wainscott, NY 11975
631 537-0012

We look forward to seeing you at the meeting!

January 2013 Meeting Announcement

Posted on January 7, 2013 by admin

The next meeting for Photographers East will be held on the Monday, January 14, starting at 7 p.m. in the Community Room of the Bridgehampton National Bank, on Snake Hollow Road, in Bridgehampton.

Alan Weinschel will present images and talk about travel and photography.

Alan plans on challenging us to “Think big and think small”. What does it feel like to be there when you travel? Can you capture the feeling in addition to the visual composition? Alan will also touch on post processing to bring the very best out of what you capture.
He has just added some new images from the Galapagos to his mix.

December Meeting Notes

Posted on January 5, 2013 by admin

Biddle Worthington gave a wonderful lecture on polarizer filters at our Dec. 10th meeting. He was kind enough to share his outline notes from it below:

Outline of Polarizer Filter Lecture
Polarizer filters cut out the polarized light, which can come from many sources, but only two are of concern to the photographer:

1. Light from the blue sky is highly polarized. The process of sunlight causing the open sky to be blue in color is intimately related to the polarizing process. The blue light is not polarized; the balance of the light from the open sky is polarized. Cutting out the polarized light increases the relative intensity of the blue light and causes the sky to appear much bluer.

Light loss will amount to about 1 ½ stops.
Filter must be rotated to proper angle to achieve maximum effect
Effect is maximized when camera is pointed at an angle exactly 90 degrees to the direction of the sun.
Great care must be exercised when using wide angle lenses. The angle to the sun can vary greatly over the width of the image causing the bluing effect to vary and appear unnatural.
The polarizing filter will usually increase the contrast in the sky particularly when clouds are visible.

2. Reflections from shiny surfaces (foliage, wood, leather, paint, sides of buildings, water surfaces, etc.) are highly polarized. Perfect reflectors such as mirrors and polished metal do not polarize their reflections.

Reflections from shiny surfaces are polarized even when the sky is overcast and there is no blue sky, however the polarizing effect is much greater when there is blue sky.
Outdoor scenes will usually have the contrast reduced and the tonal balance altered or improved by a polarizing filter. This effect is caused by minimizing reflections from shiny surfaces.
Rotating the filter to point where the sky is bluest will usually cause the reflections to be minimized. It is trickier when there is no visible blue sky.
Reflections from the surface of a body of water can be minimized to the point where it is possible to see or photograph objects beneath the surface of the water.
Reflections off of windows or any glass barrier can be minimized so that it is practical to photograph objects behind glass.

Other important points:

Only use circular polarizing (CPL) filters with cameras that focus and/or meter through the lens.
Filters that are coated are highly desirable.
After screwing the filter on the lens; one should rotate the filter in the same direction used to screw it on. Rotating it in the off direction may result in the filter accidently falling off the lens.
Thin filter frames are desirable to avoid vignetting.

December Meeting Announcement

Posted on December 7, 2012 by admin

The next meeting for Photographers East will be held on the Monday, December 10th, 2012, starting at the regular hour at 7PM in the Community Room of Bridgehampton National Bank in Bridgehampton, Snake Hollow Rd in Bridgehampton. This meeting will also serve as our Holiday Party, including party refreshments after the presentation.

Biddle Worthington has prepared a number of images, for our next meeting, which demonstrate the use of polarizing filters:

Today’s digital darkroom often allows us to “filter” our images in the computer after capture. The polarizing filter is a notable exception – no software can match the selective transmission of light a polarizing filter can yield during an image capture. Biddle’s demonstration will inspire us to kick it up a notch with polarizing filters.

Here’s a capture without the polarizing filter:

Here is the same shot, within seconds, with Biddle’s secret sauce:

After his talk we can Celebrate the Season at our last meeting this year. I’m looking forward to being with you and your (optional) guest next Monday night.

-Bridg

November Meeting Announcement

Posted on November 7, 2012 by admin

The next meeting for Photographers East will be held on the Monday, November 19th, 2012, starting at 8PM (one hour later than usual) in the Community Room of Bridgehampton National Bank in Bridgehampton, Snake Hollow Rd in Bridgehampton. (The bank will be closed on the 2nd Monday of November because of Veterans Day.)

Barbara Macklowe will present images from her new book, India in My Eyes. Barbara will have copies of her book available for purchase at the meeting.
From the forward of her book:

“India, its landscape, architectural splendors, people and customs have long been subjects of fascination for photographers. The exquisite images of the photographer Barbara Macklowe thrust us into a world few have seen or think of as India. Yet we can see and feel a familiarity with the people and places in her photographs. We experience both the differences and the sameness among us all.

The images in this book are a reflection of one photographer’s experience of this diverse land and her attempts to peer beneath the surface to reveal its human dimension. She has an uncanny ability to connect with her subjects. The result is a very personal visual journey, which, Macklowe believes, reveals the warmth, beauty and humanity of the Indian people. She says, “I think, see and dream in full colour. I can spend hours watching the light and its effects on natural subjects, which is never the same but always interesting, and sometimes even breathtaking; and those are the moments I hope to capture on film.” She reveals a land of beauty, hardship and joy that breathes with life and surges with energy.”

I encourage you to visit her website: http://www.barbaramacklowe.com/

October 2012 Meeting Notes

Posted on October 30, 2012 by admin

Members got an earful, as well as an eyeful, at our October meeting. The sounds of music playing, crowds cheering, and water splashing could all be heard in Bridg Hunt’s presentation. The combination of photos and field captured audio brought an added dimension to his slideshows. Below are links to some of the work he presented:

The “Launch of the Kid II”
This presentation contains the launching ceremony of the Kid II. You can watch, as well as hear, the ship being blessed, christened and launched. Launching marks the birth of a vessel and it is amusing to hear “Happy Birthday” being played (on bagpipes) during the ceremony.

Taylor’s Island Kettle Clambake 2008 – This presentation makes your mouth water as you watch and listen to the sounds of a clambake. Guests arrive at the island by boat and seaplane, on a beautiful summer day. Watch and listen as they enjoy live music, dine on lobster, corn on the cob, clams, mussels and more. “The bake is ready to be opened…so let’s eat.”

Taylor’s Island Kettle Clambake 2011 – Watch this time lapse photography closely in the beginning and you can see the moon setting in the morning sky (later in the evening you can see fireworks). Watch all of the day’s happenings as they unfold (captured by multiple cameras) and accompanied by a live music soundtrack from that day.

Ferry launch – Watch the launch of the Manhansett, a ferry built by Freeport Ship Building in Florida. The sounds and images from this day are very memorable, especially the explosive splash as the ferry is launched.

Manhasett-ferry-launch photo by Bridg Hunt

October Meeting Announcement

Posted on October 6, 2012 by admin

The next meeting for Photographers East will be held on the Monday, October 15th, 2012, starting at 7PM in the Community Room of Bridgehampton National Bank in Bridgehampton, Snake Hollow Rd in Bridgehampton. (The bank will be closed the 2nd Monday because of Columbus Day).

Bridg Hunt will be presenting his work since 2006. His photographs tell stories about his community.

Bridg combines photos and field captured audio in slide shows, creates time lapse presentations, and experiments with photo manipulation and presentation on the web. You can play with one of his captures by clicking here. Come and see the rest on Monday.

September 2012 Meeting Notes

Posted on October 4, 2012 by admin

Who knew choreography and dance could be a new lens for framing photographs?! Katherine Liepe-Levison presented “All in the Framing (and the cropping…)” to Photographers East at this September’s meeting.

Calling on her career experience from the stage, she introduced the term ‘Proscenium’ (from proscenium arch, or the opening in the wall which stands between stage and auditorium in some theaters; the picture frame through which the audience sees the play.) How would a director or choreographer place and move actor(s) or dancer(s) through the proscenium? The same concepts and designs apply directly to composition within the frame in photography – thirds, diagonals, simple frames, multiple frames, and overlapped scenes.

Kathy spoke at the end of her presentation about another framing technique, hyper-cropping, using a small portion of a capture as the final image. To demonstrate, she presented various hyper-cropped treatments of the same original capture.

Thank you, Kathy, for allowing us to see photography through a directors lens!

You can see more at her website: Tour de Force Photography by Katherine Liepe-Levinson: Fine Art images from the edgy to the sublime.

September Meeting Annoucement

Posted on September 4, 2012 by admin

Mark your calendar! Monday, September 10th, Katherine Liepe-Levison will present her thoughts and images. Her topic will be “All in the Framing (and the cropping…)”

As usual, the meeting will be held at 7pm in the Community Room of the the Bridgehampton National Bank in Bridgehampton. Optionally, all members are invited to bring one or two of their own prints where they were very pleased by their framing of their subject to augment the discussion.

As photographers, paying more attention to framing devices can draw our viewers more deeply and intimately into our work.

Artists, educators, and philosophers including Bertolt Brecht, Herb Gardner, and Viktor Shklovsky have discussed the concept of “art” itself as a framing device. The frame can make ordinary objects in the world both strange and special by prolonging and intensifying our perceptual experiences.

Katherine’s presentation will review a few traditional framing techniques such as using multiple natural frames within a single shot and block printing or mosaic techniques that turn a single shot into multiple frames. The balance of the presentation then focuses on “hyper-framing and cropping” ideas that both reframe and transform the original shot through “extreme close up cropping” for some unusual effects. (The best results using “hyper-framing/cropping” are produced by high megapixel cameras 20mg and above).

Katherine Liepe-Levinson’s Tour de Force photographs and artwork have graced the covers of journals/Magazines, such as THE DRAMA REVIEW and ETC., and have been included in books on dance and education. Her clients have included museums, corporations, actors, pet-lovers, home magazines, proud parents, and special event organizers. Her Fine Art Land and Urbanscapes have been exhibited in New York City.

In addition to photography, Katherine Liepe-Levinson has performed as a professional dancer, actor, and writer on and off Broadway, as well as in film and television. She has a Phd in Theatre from New York City’s CUNY Graduate Center and has taught full-time in academic settings such as Colgate University and Hunter College. Her performing arts experience has given her a unique sense of timing and the ability to stage or to discover the most effective “scene” at hand. She is both a consummate director and a collaborator.

August 2012 Meeting Notes

Posted on August 25, 2012 by admin

Our August meeting was well attended, and we were in for a treat. Riki Reichman took us birding (captured mostly in Florida). She started her presentation with a well-organized, candid discussion with Photographers East about her personal path as a bird photographer. She spoke about what led her to this niche in photography, how she developed her craft, what gear she uses, and how she thinks about photographing birds. There was considerable interaction with the group and Riki obviously loves her craft.

Following her remarks, she presented a slide show of her images.

For the third portion of her presentation, after her slide show Riki gave the group a live demonstration of her image workflow in Photoshop for several of the images we had seen in the slideshow. She demonstrated a technique, selectively separating her birds from complex or distracting backgrounds, which she feels enhances the experience of her images.

Riki demonstrated various different methods she uses to isolate birds and branches, several ways to make refinements to the edge of the selection to improve the appearance of the edge of the birds for a more natural impression, non-destructive editing techniques, and different methods to create background blur.

Thank you Riki !! You can see more photos here: Riki Reichman Photography: Nature As Art