Amateur Photographer

a week in photography

The AP Awards is the biggest annual event in our calendar and the most important such event in the UK. Last week, to a packed audience in London, we revealed our pick of 2019’s best gear, so if you’re researching your next purchase this is the place to start. All the shortlisted products are exceptional, so do consider them all to determine which ones best suit your needs. Also in this issue we offer advice in putting together a portfolio. So many of us spend our time capturing single, unrelated images, but if you focus on creating a body of work that hangs together as a set you may find a sense of purpose that will bring you more pleasure, and boost your productivity to boot. Then you can enter…

this week in 1926

Pancake Day by Fox Photos THIS jolly photo shows women taking part in ancient Pancake Day customs at Olney in Buckinghamshire in 1926. Pancake Day – or Shrove Tuesday - takes place this week, and is celebrated in different ways across the world. In the UK, the Pancake Day race is a popular tradition, with this one at Olney being world-famous. The tradition is thought to date back to 1445 when a woman from the town heard the church bells tolling for Shrove Tuesday while she was making pancakes and ran to the church in her apron, still holding her frying pan. During the race, each contestant has a frying pan which contains a hot pancake which must be tossed three times. The winner is the person who arrives at the…

news round-up

Mouse-sive attack An image of a dispute between two mice on a London Tube station platform has won the Wildlife Photographer of the Year Lumix People’s Choice award for 2019. The picture, named ‘Station squabble’, was taken by Bristol-based photographer Sam Rowley. The image will be displayed in the Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition at London’s Natural History Museum until 31 May. New Canon photo cloud service Canon is launching a new cloud service for storing images and syncing them with mobile devices. The service, which replaces the recently closed irista.com, is called image.canon and offers 10GB of long-term storage and full social media connectivity; from the EOS R5 onwards, Canon cameras will also automatically upload images to the service via Wi-Fi. Full details at image.canon/st/en/. Versatile Vanguard VEO 2X tripod range Vanguard has…

big picture

British Army Photographer of the Year Award revealed CORPORAL Rebecca Brown, a 29-year-old from Yorkshire, has become the first female soldier to win the top title of British Army Photographer of the Year in the Army Film and Photographic Competition. This image is from the Professional Portfolio category, where she was also the runner-up. She also placed as runner-up for Best Online Image and in the Professional Sport and Adventure Training category. The image shows soldiers from the Royal Logistics Corps deployed on a ‘Fighting in Built Up Area' (FIBUA) training scenario and was taken in Lithuania. Rebecca is a former combat medical technician with 4 Armoured Medical Regiment and is based with the combat camera team at Army Headquarters in Andover. Visit army.mod.uk.…

sigma axes full-frame foveon camera for 2020

SIGMA has scrapped plans to release a full-frame camera with a Foveon sensor this year. The idea of a full-frame, L-mount model based on the Foveon chip was originally floated at Photokina 2018, with further details coming out at last year's CP+ show in Japan. ‘We have worked diligently on the development to meet our commitment,' said CEO Kazuto Yamaki. ‘As a result of careful and rigorous testing based on the latest development information, however, it has become clear that the launch of such a camera would be infeasible within this year. Still at this point, we cannot say for certain when the full-frame Foveon X3 sensor will be put into mass production... We have therefore decided that we should start over the project with a clean slate, putting the production…

international landscape poty winners revealed

RUSSIAN photographer Oleg Ershov has won first place in the International Landscape Photographer of the Year 2019 competition, with a set of four vertical images taken in the UK and Iceland. His portfolio beat more than 3,400 rival entries by 840 photographers from all over the world. ‘My interest for photography began in 2007 when I bought my first DSLR camera and signed up for a photo tour to the Southwest USA,' Ershov explained. ‘I was struck by the tremendous variety of landscapes, colours and textures found in nature. Since then, I spend all my free time improving my skills and knowledge in landscape photography. I usually spend six weeks a year on photo trips, sometimes in groups, often on my own.' The award for best single photograph went to French photographer…