Bay Area Photo Club

I'm sure all of you know who Vincent Laforet is.  However, in case you don't, he is a photographer (formerly in New York, now California) who has created quite a few iconic images in the domestic photojournalism genre.  He is well-known for his aerial photography.  Laforet is also on the leading edge of photographic technology.  You may remember some time ago (two years?) when I posted a story about Vincent creating a short film with the Canon 5D Mk II -- a camera which was still under wraps and not available to anyone but a select few Canon employees at the time.  It is widely believed to be the first serious, artistic movie to be filmed with a DSLR.

Mr. Laforet has been very active in the DSLR video community since Reverie came out.  He has not, however, abandoned still photography.  A Gizmodo reporter recently got to fly with Laforet on a paying shoot and wrote a nice story about it, which you can read here:

http://gizmodo.com/5580517/a-helicopter-ride-with-the-king-of-dslr-video

Few of us will be lucky enough to ever shoot from a helicopter, much less ride along with a famous photographer.  However, we can live vicariously through the pen of Matt Buchanan and perhaps pick up some inspiration to create unique, compelling images.

Cheers,
Kyle
 

Our guest speaker on June 22nd was noted wildlife and nature photographer Andy Biggs.  We had 57 people hear him speak that night; the largest attendance for any club meeting that I can recall.  For my part, I thought he did an awesome job with his presentation.  From comments I have received from others, I would have to say it was definitely one of the highlight programs of the year.

He took us through a year in the life of Andy Biggs while on safari in Africa, using Lightroom 3 for his presentation.  We were walked through his mindset for taking a photo, how he positions himself for the shot, what kind of light he preferred and why. 

He also took us through his Lightroom workflow, leading us into his thought process for choosing the photos he wanted to process in Lightroom.  Like many of us, he too takes bad shots that never see the light of day.  The difference here was he actually showed us some of his bad shots and why he considered them bad.  Those are things that make an impact on how I personally photograph.  It shows I can make mistakes and take bad photos (no big surprise here), but at the same time I learn from that. 

I want to thank Andy for making time in his busy schedule to speak and share his knowledge with the club and visitors that night.  From the minute he stepped into the building and, until he left, he was a class act.

Doug Haass

President BAPC

You've used the close focus and macro modes on your camera, right?  You take the occasional flower or bug photo, usually part if not most of your subject is out of focus.  That may be what you are trying to do, create a an area of selective focus to place emphasis on a particular feature of the photo.

Well, this guy takes macro to another level.  His name is Charles Krebs.  He has some phenomenal photos with incredible detail, obtained through the use of a microscope and the camera adapted to it.  It's called photomicrography.  He also uses a program called Helicon Focus.  We had one of our own members, Mark Westerman, demo this software during one of our programs last year. 

This video is provided by king5.com news based in Seattle, Washington as part of their Evening Magazine lineup.

Bruce Dale spent 30 years shooting for National Geographic.  This 8 minute video, provided by Bruce, shows how he met the challenges of capturing many of his well known photos. 

30 Years of BAD Pictures from Bruce Dale on Vimeo.