HPS Outing to Gansbaai …. by Paddy Howes

HPS OUTING: ‘SUNRISE, SUNSET, SEA, SAND AND SUNBURN’ 20-22 Mar’09 Walker Bay Nature Reserve, sunrise at Danger Point, then on to the lighthouse, Kleinbaai to see the shark-cage-diving boats, Franskraal for sunrise, Gansbaai harbour, De Kelders for sunset. It was just one of the most productive photographic weekends – our first for HPS’09. Having just acquired my first ‘Notebook’ ever the day before, it was a huge learning curve listening to Irmel and Paulette praat computer talk! I’m not wired up yet so can’t talk to Steve and share the images. We met on Friday morning; Irmel chose to drive her new 4×4 so we could go into Walker Bay/De Plaat Coastal Reserve, which we did on Saturday afternoon. What a beautiful spot – no wonder JJ loves it. Irmel soon received her Honours, Colours and Certificate in 4×4 driving for ‘Rocks and Sand’ – Well Done! We parked at the top (above the beach), and slid down the sand cliff to the sea. A perfect day, hot and windy – which added a new feeling of drama to breaking waves, backlit, with curls of spray in long lines making for the shore. Huge brown rocks and white limestone slabs line the edge. We happily did ‘our thing’ for hours. As I was packing up to leave, Murphy was with me again – I had run out of Velvia (yes – film!). My eye caught two frantic females on the top of the cliff gesticulating madly for me to turn around. I had to go behind a big rock I was on, grabbed the D300 and went to investigate the fuss. What a stunning sight – a beautiful black bride in a white dress with train, with a long flowing white veil blowing in the wind; a smart-suited groom was beside her; the wedding photographer and assistant some distance away (a filmshoot or for real, I don’t know). I managed about 4 shots and was just getting into the scene when I was shouted at and told to F… off, and an angry man advanced towards me (- not at all friendly!!). So I hot-footed it back around the rock , collected my gear and casually walked away, not turning back. Irmel’s driving skills got us back up the hill and to De Kelders for sunset on the rocks… The limestone caves are closed at the moment, their entrance being on the shoreline. Lady Anne Barnard would come from Cape Town to bathe in their healing mineral waters – so we couldn’t follow in her wet footsteps! But we were given a stunning orange pink light on the sea and rocks and in the near dark we discovered our best shots – some as long as 10 – 15 seconds – nice stuff. Having been told by our landlady about the ‘Fish Lady’, we needed feeding after a long, hard day, and so we raced back to Gansbaai, arriving just as she was closing her shop – but she let us in and we ended the day enjoying delicious fish and chips on our verandah overlooking the harbour. AVs and photos followed. Friday evening and late Sunday morning we made pictures in the harbour – fishing boats, reflections, people getting crayfish etc. We had a few left-over chips to throw to the sea gulls but they were either very wild or very stupid, unlike the gulls in Cape Town, and our ‘birds in flight’ pictures stayed in our minds. In the morning at Danger Point we had watched fascinated as they collected shells off the rocks, then flew above the tar road and dropped them and ate the contents – they repeated it over and over again. The lighthouse is beautifully kept and we saw the area out to sea where the ‘Birkenhead’ had gone down in a storm – all women and children were saved – it’s a pretty lonely spot. Not knowing that part of the coast at all, we did a bit of investigating – first went to Kleinbaai to see the shark-cage-diving boats – a lot of activity getting ready to go out to sea – cleaning and preparing, getting the chum on board to feed the great whites. There are 7 boats, and lines of excited tourists arrive in their orange life jackets. The lady Nature Conservation officer kept a beady eye on the proceedings, plus her mad Jack Russel called ‘Coffee’. We didn’t buy the original shark tooth to hang round our necks at R300.00 – maybe next time! There were lots of macho-looking types to chat up – if that’s what blows your hair back! We ended up collecting stunning shells after a fantastic sunrise, talking Photoshop. Our accommodation was excellent (all new) at ‘Piet se Huise’. My traveling companions were great to be with, and I thank them for a great weekend. Each day we were up at 5.00am and bedded at 11pm, filling every minute with enjoyable activity. The next HPS weekend is to be held in the cold, dry Karoo winter – in Matjiesfontein – I won’t miss it!

Where can I get free audio for my AVs?

In his post Free Loops for Windows Jake Ludington listed some sources of loops and samples that can be used in making your own music. These sources might also offer sounds and music clips you can use in putting together your audio-visual presentations. Here’s what Jake said.

KVR Audio emerged many years ago as an excellent source of drumkits, samples, loops, sound banks and other tools for creating your own music. Many of the downloads are free and free of any complicated rights for commercial use.

Freesound Project is a collaborative collection of sounds and loops released under a variety of Creative Commons licenses. You have to check each track to see whether they are available for commercial use or not, but all tracks are available for non-commercial use.

BeatSuite (obsolete link removed) offers a bunch of free royalty free tracks. The BeatSuite offerings come with a couple of caveats. The tracks are free for non-commercial use. The tracks tend to be lower quality than pay versions of the same loops. Registration is required in order to access free tracks.

Meanrabbit offers a bunch of great sounds you can loop or use to build loops. Many of the sounds included are part of the urban landscape, from trains to telephones, but there are also some fairly unique sounds available too.

Free Music Archive Puts Thousands of Royalty-Free Songs Up for Grabs

Lifehacker – Free Music Archive Puts Thousands of Royalty-Free Songs Up for Grabs – Music

Need a worry-free background track for a multimedia project, or just some new tunes to work into your daily mix? The Free Music Archive, a project of indie freeform station WFMU, has downloads and streams galore.

Lightroom Top 10 Gotcha’s

Lightroom Top 10 Gotcha’s | Lightroom Queen Blog

If you’re just starting out with Lightroom, there are a few CRUCIAL bits of information which will save you hours of headaches and untangling. They’re the kind of thing that just make you say “I’d wish I’d known that before….” These are my top ten gotchas, direct from the forums.

2009 Photoshop Workshops

photoshop-workshops-2009.jpg

DANCE OF LIGHT PHOTOGRAPHY

Eric & Nicole Palmer present in STELLENBOSCH

BEGINNERS PHOTOSHOP DAY on the 9 May 2009

ADVANCED PHOTOSHOP DAY on the 13 June 2009

Time: 8h30 to 17h30
Cost: R 650 per person
Venue: Jonkershoek Nature Reserve

For details and bookings:
contact Nicole directly on 082 5105 694
or e-mail : nicolep@adept.co.za

Handy Tweaks To Make GIMP Replace Photoshop

Handy Tweaks To Make GIMP Replace Photoshop | How-To | Smashing Magazine

GIMP is the favorite graphics editing program of many designers and graphic artists. It is free and compatible with Windows, Mac and Linux (the two big reasons for its popularity). It has a wide array of features, as well as plug-ins, filters and brushes. Documentation is primarily available in online communities, as well as through extensive add-ons.

GIMP was never designed to replace Photoshop, yet with every release, it comes a little closer to being able to do so. It can be used to author graphics, create logos and edit photos, as well as make short animations (using GAP). Despite these features, the open-source app is a foreign world for many users switching from Photoshop. Familiar tools are missing, menus are laid out differently and tasks must be accomplished in unknown ways.

In this article, we list eight tweaks to make GIMP a more serious Photoshop replacement option. Version 2.6 was used to test the following tweaks, but past versions of the app should work as well.

Fleet Street Press Photographer Lingo

One of our members, Peter Smith, is an ex Fleet Street press photographer and photo editor. Reading the comments on the article we linked to here prompted him to send in this information on some of the language they used. He says.

I dug out a cutting penned by one of our reporters on the special language, (not all of it printable) that was used by Fleet Street photographers. And yes it was true of the time when Fleet Street had a lot of amazing characters.

Remember every story there would be at least a dozen photographers on the assignment.

This is what was penned, (well some of the usable bits).

This translation is for the benefit of those who, in the course of their business, have the misfortune to be involved in conversation with Fleet Street Press Photographers.

And here is the lingo.

  • Nokkit on de ‘ed and legit — Please pull out of the assignment.
  • Elbow dis one — As above.
  • Onya toes — Also as above.
  • F4 — A photographic term relating to exposure
  • F off! — A photographic term relating to over exposure.
  • Flash — A flashgun or, or the light their from
  • Flash B…..! — A rich person exhibiting poor taste
  • Free Undrid — A long lens
  • Dubbla — A device to multiply an image by two
  • Dubble Bubble — A device to multiply an income, (expenses), by two
  • Stick — A colloquial term for a monopod, (As in Nikon onna stick).
  • Winnder — An elevated position
  • Tenner Ferra Winnder — Payment for above
  • Snatch pic — Photograph taken of unsuspecting person, (I snatched ‘im dinneye);
  • Eez bin secret squirrel — He had not been forthcoming in the pooling of information.
  • Blunt — A member of the writing press corps.
  • Ping — Electronic method of sending photographic image for reproduction. (long before Digital cameras)
  • Pinger — A machine to facilitate above; sometimes known as “Pockit Rockit”. Needs to be yelled at and whistled down to function correctly). See also- “You pinged anyfink today”? “Where you pingin from den” and “Dis pinger’s @*/ u/s”.
  • Relating to picture quality:
    • Smudge — Poor quality
    • A bit smudgy — Poor but usable
    • Pin — In good focus
    • A bleedin bellringer mate — excellent quality of definition
  • Picher(s) — A photograph never pronounced with a T.
  • Toys — Camera equipment.
  • Dog — Telephone (as in dog & bone)
  • Only a bleedin girl — Any female photographers. (Sorry ladies)
  • You wot, you wot, you wot? — I beg your pardon.
  • Bish Bash Bosh — Description of three photographs taken in rapid succession.
  • Donk — Signifies the accomplishment of a mission to take a photograph- (as in “I got ‘im donk”).

Questions & Answers

Our next meeting on 8 April is an evaluation evening and as we have no speaker for after tea; we have decided to make it a question and answer evening.

We would like you to submit any questions you want answered in comments on this post, be they how to do something in Photoshop or how to do something in your camera. I will then research those questions and come up with answers I can provide at the meeting, with demonstrations where appropriate. As I will need some time for research, get your questions in earlier rather than later or you might find your question not being answered.

It will be a good idea to bring a pen and some paper to take notes, whether you asked a question or not. We’ll all be able to learn something from the discussion around the questions and answers.

Photo by Travelin’ Librarian