Hi {name},

Happy New Year and welcome to the Lenscraft in Focus newsletter for January 2023.

Like most New Year newsletters that I expect you will receive, let me start this one by asking if you have set your New Year Resolutions. Personally, I’ve tended to avoid doing this in the past, but this year I’m making an exception.

My resolution is to spend more time working with Affinity Photo more.

In the past, I’ve tended to turn to Photoshop because of the Luminosity Masking tools and other editing plug-ins. But now that Affinity Photo 2 is with us, I’m finding myself becoming excited by the possibilities.

The reason is that I seem to be getting better results with Affinity than Photoshop, and it’s all about the colour and light quality. For some reason, many of my landscapes look better when I work with Affinity Photo. They just appear much more natural.

It’s still early days but I’ve been experimenting by reworking some of my older images like this one.

Previously I couldn’t make the colours in this image look natural. But now with Affinity Photo 2, I’m achieving the colours that I want as well as keeping the image looking natural. I still have much more work to do in this area but I’m developing an Affinity Photo only workflow for editing landscapes. I’m also considering developing this into a course so if you have any thoughts do let me know.

Now, having returned recharged from a few days off over Christmas I have a lot to share in this month’s newsletter. I hope you enjoy it.

Robin

Don’t Forget to DO THIS

There’s one important task that many photographers forget to do each new year. I can speak from experience that it’s no fun finding out in March that you’ve been applying last years Copyright notice to your images. So, this is your reminder to change the Copyright notice in your photo software now.

If you use Lightroom and don’t know how to do this, here’s the article I published last year that explains everything

https://lenscraft.co.uk/photo-editing-tutorials/copyright-photos-lightroom/

New Lenscraft Content

Over the past month I’ve published new tutorials and updating old ones. Here’s the list of what you can find on Lenscraft.

From Around the Internet

A selection of interesting photography related resources from the internet.

Natural Landscape Photography Awards 2022

Have you seen the Natural Landscape Photography Awards for 2022? This is a competition run by Tim Parkin at the On Landscape website/magazine. Whilst many of the articles on the site require you to be a subscriber, I don’t think this one does; at least I was still able to read it when I was logged out.

https://www.onlandscape.co.uk/2022/12/natural-landscape-photography-awards-2022/

It shares some fantastic photography from some very talented photographers, but it’s also a great read.

Location Finding

Later this year I need to transit through Dubai on a long-haul trip. When situations like this arise and time allows, I like to take a few days to explore rather than spend a few hours waiting in an airport. Having seen some amazing photos of the city, I was keen to find a good hotel to base myself. That’s when my problem started.

If you’ve ever tried to find a hotel in Dubai, there are hundreds to choose from and they are spread over an extremely wide area. In short, there is too much choice, and it would be easy to end up in the wrong location. So instead of looking for a hotel on Booking.com I decided to research good photo locations. That’s when I came across a website called Photo Hound.

https://www.photohound.co

This is a great resource if you ever find yourself needing to research a distant location before travelling. I was able to use it to find some of the iconic views that I want to photograph. But more importantly, I know where to base myself (I think).

Photography Exhibitions

As I was writing this month’s newsletter, I’ve realised something about COVID and the ensuing lockdown. I’ve fallen out of the habit of visiting photography exhibitions. Prior to 2020 I would tend to visit 2 or 3 a year, but the last one I remember was Martin Parr “Return to Manchester” in 2019. Since then, I haven’t been to a photography exhibition, but I also don’t recall seeing any advertised other than in London.

The Magnum website does have this useful list of exhibitions

https://www.magnumphotos.com/shop/exhibitions-events/exhibitions/

Unfortunately, most of these are international locations. If anyone has a good source for researching exhibitions, do let me know, especially if you are happy for me to share it in the newsletter.

Photographers You May Not Know – Tristan Todd

Tristan Todd is a landscape photographer based in Vancouver, Canada. I first came across his work whilst browsing on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/tristan.todd/). He shares some nice shots there, but the portfolio on his website is better.

https://www.tristantodd.photography/gallery

I love many of the forest scenes there, but it’s his city shots that I find simply superb.

Back in the 90’s I travelled frequently to Vancouver, working over at Burnaby. Looking at some of these city scenes, instantly transported me back to those days. He’s really caught the spirit of the city.

Books & Course News

Latest book and course news.

Affinity Photo 2 Print Book

I’ll start with a big thank you to everybody who purchased my latest “Essential Affinity Photo 2” book.

When I sent out the email announcing its release, I received a large response asking if I will be doing a print version of the book and requesting that I announce when it’s ready. The good news is that the print edition is now available from Amazon (and only Amazon).

I’ve used a similar layout to my other recent print books as it’s received excellent feedback. Features include:

• The largest paperback size Amazon supports at 11” x 8.5”.
• The text is well spaced and uses an easy to read 11pt font.
• Large images, making the book easier to follow.

I’ve been able to hold the price at around the level of the previous (smaller) print book. You can find more details on your local amazon website – this link should take you to the book on that site.

And with that, I’ll wish you a Happy New Year again and I hope you have great success with your photography in 2023.

Robin Whalley

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