I have read a lot of discussions on the net for and against image manipulation. This month I heard it too!

What is it with photographers that it is so concerning about the image being manipulated? It seems like badge of honor to claim their image is not modified! A sense of being unique!

I am not sure if an image manipulated or not bothers me. I either like the image or not.

In a way it is like selling organic food and labeling it as organic, else no one would pay more for it! So to show the worth of you image you have to label it as not manipulated.

This is what I had to say to a friend who would not listen to popular music because everyone else was listening to it, hence it was boring, “In search of being unique, we end up being similar”.

It is how Harley Davidson sells a lot of bike. They sell an image of the bike rather than the bike. They sell this “image” to people who go in search of being different and unique not realizing that there are a lot looking for the same “image”.

It seems like photographer are struggling with the same idea of being unique. There is probably a distinction between manipulated and enhanced.

If I had to claim a “unique” style as a photographer, it would be that I don’t use Photoshop much because my Photoshop skills suck! Now that is unique or is it?

This month at the Canberra Photographic Society we had a competition night on the first week and a presentation by Scott Leggo on the second week.

Both sessions where very interesting night and credit to those who put in their time to organize these sessions.

The competition night had some amazing images. Ones I found the most interesting where:

• Series of images from India. (A group of members had travelled to Rajasthan, India)
• Series of images from Singapore during Thaipusam
• Series of portraits in large prints tightly cropped
• Series of portraits from the day Kevin Rudd said sorry to the aboriginals on behalf of the country
• Series of images of gravestones.

The judge finished his critique quite early and for the first time contestants where allowed to talk about their images. Probably not the best idea, as it gives the contestants a chance to disagree with the judge in their presence. It kind of becomes like the crowd judging the judge! There was a bit of discussion on the use of Photoshop to enhance images.

The competition was deservedly won by Russell who took the sorry day portraits.

The second week was a presentation by self taught landscape photographer Scott Leggo, showing us some of his work and his approach to landscape photography. A lot of his images where form North East Victoria. He almost went through his full workflow of how he prepares for an image to the final print. End of session was open to questions. I could sense it and turned out to be true, we ended up spending some time discussing Photoshop again

Scott’s message was that people buy images because they emotionally connect to the image. They want to feel the image. Another interesting idea I interpreted was that, the more people take their digital cameras around and click picture, the more they understand how valuable a professional’s work is.

Common theme to both weeks: Boring discussion about Photoshop and how images with emotion attached, win!

No, it is not a post about tips for wedding photography. It is about this weeks CPS (Canberra Photographic Society) presentation. There where two presentation and I forget the presenter’s names but I learned about the amount of work that goes into post production to produce the end result as a wedding album. Both presenters first showed the pictures they had clicked during the wedding. Although the pictures where good they where not something that caught my attention, but I was amazed how the pictures where used in the wedding album. Proves a point that wedding photography or for that matter any professional photographic result is not achieved by just clicking pictures, but the amount of work that goes into all the steps in the workflow from creating the image to the final output.

I went to The Canberra Photographic Society meeting tonight. It was very interesting, a lot of nice, like minded people but a lot more talented. It was the the competition night for members. Members could print picture they have taken and display them on an open and/or themed category. Some of the pictures where really too good to be taken by ameture photographers. There was judge invited to judge the photos and we all sat and listened to his comments.

Two of the guys I spoke to: Dave and Richard have Flickr sites. I told them I had one too but after getting back home and looking at their pics on Flickr, I am a bit embarrassed about the quality of my pictures

Anyway the purpose of me going there was to ask members there which would be the best place to click pictures of the 2008 National Autumn Balloon Spectular.

Before and during Earth Hour pictures of Canberra city does not look like it changed at all, except the parliament house has the lights turned off!
There where around 150-200 people gathered at Mt Ainslie to look down ANZAC Parade and Capital Hill to see the city with lights turned off. I with everyone else
was pretty disappointed that the city did not look any different Most business except restaurants may be had to have their lights on and the street lights where
obviously left on. We had the lights turned of at my brothers place.

Talking to my sister in law about Earth Hour and she mentioned how, Earth Hour is not a new concept in India. In India it is forced Earth Hour, sometimes with
notice but mostly without for couple of hours.
Could we do the same in Australia. Have a forced hour of black out every week during scheduled times? we could surely get used to it. I certainly did get used to
it when I was India!

Bought a Benro tripod and ball-head last night! It might reach me on Saturday, if not hopefully by Monday. I have been looking at buying a tripod for a while. Since I live in a country town, I don’t get to go to shops and feel the tripod before I buy one. I heard about Benro on numerous discussion forums. Most have positive reviews about the legs and few negative ones about the head. It seems they are copies of Gitzo. Not having had a ball head before, I won’t have much to complain.

I am looking to get a decent tripod and a ballhead. I have been doing some searching on the net. Carbon fiber tripods sound they way to go if I want to carry it around, but they all seem too costly. The Benro carbon tripod seems to be the cheapest ones. They are made in China and don’t seem to have too bad of a review. I think I need to ask my boss for more money. Justification?

• Tripod $300 or more
• Ballhead #300 or more
• New pc $2000 or more

I have reached a point with my photography where I have been clicking lots of pictures but not bothering to organise them. My pc running at a snail’s pace, so I don’t like even opening Photoshop also because I don’t know how to use Photoshop well enough. I borrowed few Photoshop books from the Albury library. The first one was not interesting at all and the other one was more of a Photoshop manual. After my soccer season is over, I am planning to go do a Photoshop workshop at TAFE.On 28th I set base at the monument hill from 6:30pm till around 10pm, clicking pictures of the lunar eclipse. I have been trying to merge all the pictures and show it as one single picture showing a series of pictures with the earth’s shadow slowly covering the moon. I have been unsuccessful so far L