Amateur Photographer 28/12/2021

As we bid 2021 farewell, we’re sure that, photographically at least, 2022 will be a great year for all our readers. To make sure it happens for you, our main feature focuses on how to find your creative mojo (or get it back). It’s all too easy to get stale and lose confidence with your photography, but regular scribe and workshop leader Benedict Brain is bursting with ideas to turbocharge your creativity. We can’t wait to see the results, so keep sending in your best shots or share on our social media. Other highlights include the inside story about the album photography of the classic Stones platter, Sticky Fingers, and on the subject of old warhorses, a field test of the iconic Nikon F5. We also highlight a compelling photography…

Party People by Picture Post The actor and director Richard Attenborough and his wife, Sheila Sim, also an actor, ring in the new year in 1955. Attenborough starred in many notable films, including Brighton Rock, The Great Escape, Jurassic Park and Miracle on 34th Street. As a director, he won numerous awards, including Best Director and Best Picture for Gandhi in 1983. The couple were married for 69 years, from 1945 until Richard’s death in 2014. The Getty Images Hulton Archive is one of the world’s great cultural resources. Tracing its origins to the founding of the London Stereoscopic Company in 1854, today it houses over 80 million images spanning the birth of photography to the digital age. Explore it at www.gettyimages.com.…

AP picture of the week Harmony by Matt McCormick Nikon D850, Tamron 70-200mm f/2.8 G2 lens at 125mm, 1/4sec at f/11, ISO 64 Matt says, ‘I took this image when wandering along the shores of Loch Achray in the Trossachs on a misty morning. The composition grabbed my attention as I saw the similarity in the form of the grasses and the island in the distance and the balance it created. I used focus stacking to ensure sharpness throughout.’ Instagram and Twitter: @mattosanfoto. I Got My Eyes on You by James Allen Nikon D500, Nikon 200-500mm f/5.6 VR lens at 300mm, 1/2000sec at f/5.6, ISO 1500 James says, ‘I have a real passion and interest in photographing birds of prey and I particularly love owls. This photograph was taken on an organised Bird of Prey Photography…

DXO HAS released a range of updates, with the Nik Collection 4.3 now featuring 35 nature-inspired presets to enhance the character of landscape and travel shots. Other tweaks include interface improvements to PhotoLab 5.1 – GPS coordinates now display directly on Google Maps and the photo filter menu is revamped for more efficient navigation. In addition there is updated camera support in PhotoLab 5.1 and FilmPack 6.1 (shown above). ‘As well as the Canon EOS R3 and the Ricoh GR IIIx, DxO accommodates the entire range of Fujifilm cameras including the X-T30 II and three other X-Trans sensor cameras, as well as the GFX 50S,’ said the company. See shop.dxo.com.…

TWITTER banned publishing of images of others without their consent from 1 December, with the aim of providing extra protection to those photographed. ‘We will not allow the sharing of private media, such as images or videos of private individuals without their consent,’ the firm said. ‘Publishing people’s private info is also prohibited. This update will help curb the misuse of media to harass, intimidate, and reveal the identities of private individuals, which disproportionately impacts women, activists, dissidents, and minority communities.’ Twitter added that images/video showing people participating in public events, such as large-scale protests or sporting events, would generally not violate this policy. ‘This seems a pretty ham-fisted policy, that lacks any form of balance and forward thinking – unless Twitter really does mean that it won’t allow us to post…

THE ROYAL Photographic Society has announced the 57 photographers to feature in its 163rd International Photography Exhibition (IPE). The IPE is the world’s longest-running photography exhibition and the selected photographs were chosen anonymously from a worldwide open call in which over 8,000 images were entered by nearly 4,000 photographers from 114 countries. ‘The work pays particular attention to the personal impacts of the pandemic, capturing hardship, grief, resilience, and hope,’ said the RPS. The IPE 163 Award went to French-Polish photographer Tim Franco, for his work ‘Unperson – Portraits of North Korean Defectors’. Meanwhile, South Korean photographer KyeongJun Yang received the Under 30s Award for his series Men Don’t Cry. The 57 photographers will be exhibited at the RPS gallery in Bristol from 16 April to 3 July 2022.…