Update on Yorkshire BIPP

Back in December, I floated the idea of BIPP activity local to South Yorkshire. Since then, I've been going to meetings in Selby most months. The drive can be a pain, expecially when it takes me 50 minutes to get to the M1 from my home on the other side of Sheffield. But it's been well worth it.

The meetings are advertised on the regional website, as well as via email. I've found them really helpful. Most of the presentations have been skills-oriented, which has suited me as I've still so much to learn. There's a very friendly and supportive atmosphere, with informal discussion and networking during breaks and continuing after the meeting's been formally closed. The committee, experienced and busy photographers, obviously put a lot of effort into putting on stimulating and productive meetings. And they must find the attendance levels and feedback they get very rewarding.

For example, there have been two presentations on off-camera flash for outdoor portraiture, one by Clare Louise using Speedlites and another by Steve Howdle, using Elinchrom Ranger Quadra kit. Taken together, these gave lots of practical guidance and inspiration.

Most recently, there was an excellent full-day workshop on Photoshop retouching of portraits by Dave Wall. He's a very engaging speaker, witty, friendly and informal, and explains things very clearly. His teaching methods are very sound, including frequent admonitions against writing things down whilst he's demonstrating them, with promises to repeat instructions specifically for the purpose of everyone writing notes on a process before he moves on to the next item. He covered a lot of ground and seemed to satisfy participants with varying levels of knowledge of Photoshop.

Most of us brought our laptops and Dave passed around pen drives with the images we were to work on. The committee had set us all up with trestle tables and power extensions to make us convenient workstations.

It was especially helpful to see how to make subtle changes to an image rather than "overcooking" them. I did find it ethically challenging, though, to be invited to make changes that the subject would not be aware of, but which would leave them feeling better about themselves (e.g., by having their width reduced by 5%). I couldn't help wondering whether this doesn't reinforce potentially damaging ideas that people need to be seen as thinner than they are in order to feel acceptable. Is it OK for us photographers to encourage our clients to subscribe to the potentially unhealthy "size zero" norm of thinness?

Dave took us through the process of whitening a white background by masking off the subject. I'd read this up before but had never seen such a clear, thorough and systematic demonstration. I have since found this a promising tool for unpainted background areas of my reproductions of watercolour paintings or botanical illustrations.

I made a point of spending much of the following day reviewing my notes and trying out the techniques Dave had presented. This went very well. I was able to reproduce nearly all that Dave had presented without difficulty, testimony to his first-rate skills as a teacher.

Altogether an excellent event, for which I'm very grateful to Dave and to the committee for organising it so well.

Although the Owl at Hambleton (near Selby) is a very suitable venue -- comfortable enough without being too plush or pricey, unpretentious but well-prepared meals at reasonable prices, and very convenient for the motorway network -- the committee are interested in reaching out to members based some way away, such as South Yorkshire. This might be by putting on additional, local meetings. I said I'd ask around for ideas re possible venues. Any ideas, fellow-members from South Yorkshire?

Richard Heeps @ Cupola

Returning to Sheffield after a break, I caught the last day of the show of photographs by Richard Heeps at the Cupola Gallery. Some of the pictures are reproduced in his book Man's Ruin. Although this is a fine book, inevitably the images made much more impact as big original prints on the wall. As well, their trademark bright colours were so much more subtle in the chemical prints.

Richard's work is inspirational to the photographer. There's life and attitude in the people, the images are timelessly engaging, and their compositions very satisfying. Of course, the pictures are superb in terms of technique. But this mastery is almost understated, serving rather than driving the vision, never showy, even when that's exactly what the subjects are! I came away buzzing with visual ideas, and with two of Richard's books under my arm; Man's Ruin and his project on a Scunthorpe mill, Rolled Out.

In my own work, I thought I'd more-or-less resolved the film vs. digital debate in favour of the practical convenience of digital. But Richard's adherence to film is a bit of a challenge to that. In my first steps toward shooting hot metal in a Sheffield foundry a couple of years ago, I shot similar images on both colour negative film and digital. The film images certainly captured a wider range of tones.