Hi {name},

Welcome to Lenscraft in Focus for August 2023.

I’m pleased to see the back of August. I don’t know what the weather has been like for you but here it’s been one of the wettest July’s on record.

This time last year I was out photographing the heather in the Peak District. This year I’ve only made a couple of local outings and I haven’t seen any heather yet. That means I’m sharing last year’s photo shot at the Salt Cellar on Derwent Edge in the Peak District.

This is an iconic location, but I never seem to be able to capture it in good light. This shot was possibly the nearest I came last year when there was a momentary burst of light. Not only that, but I really struggled to capture the colours accurately. I guess this is what’s so challenging and interesting about Landscape Photography. We never really know what we will achieve, and our results are largely out of our control.

With that thought, I’ll stop rambling and allow you to read this month’s newsletter. I hope you enjoy it.

Robin

Article Comments Are Back

A couple of years ago (October 2020 - gulp), I had to disable article commenting on Lenscraft following a surge in SPAM comments. Whilst my systems could prevent a good proportion, there were still lots to remove manually each day.

The good news is that I think that I’ve finally resolved the problem. I’ve been testing comments for a month and so far, there are no SPAM or performance issues.

If you scroll to the bottom of any article or tutorial, you will now find a section where you can add comments and ask questions. As always, I will try to answer as many as possible, and it allows everyone to share the answers and interact.

Thanks for your patience on this one.

New Lenscraft Content

Over the past month I’ve focused on publishing new tutorials and updating old ones. Here’s the list of what’s changed on Lenscraft.

Frequently Asked Questions

Recently, I’ve received a lot of emails asking the same questions about eBooks. A couple of examples are “do I need a Kindle to read your book” and “how do I get my book onto a Kindle”. To help people, I’ve now updated the Books page of Lenscraft to include answers to these, together with links to helpful resources.

I’ll add new questions and answers in the future.

From Around the Internet

Here are some of the interesting photography resources that I’ve found on the internet this month.

Monovisions

This is an interesting website for anyone with a passion for black and white photography. Whilst I enjoyed some of the interviews with photographers, it was the “B&W Masters” section that I found fascinating. Well worth visiting if you love black and white.

https://monovisions.com/

No Camera Bag

In last month’s newsletter, I shared a photo taken with an iPhone in a church in France. After the newsletter was published, quite a few people contacted me to say how much phone photography they do. Some even shared recommendations for phone apps and editing tools for which I’m grateful. But one reader shared a link to the “No Camera Bag” blog which I thought was ideal to share in this month’s newsletter.

This is a great website and resource for anyone interested in phone or light weight photography.

https://nocamerabag.com/

Photographers You May Not Know – Leonard Misonne

This month’s photographers you may not know is a little different. I’m featuring a photographer who is dead.

Leonard Misonne was a Belgium photographer who died in 1943. He is best known for his painterly techniques when capturing street scenes and landscapes. I don’t mind admitting that he is a new discovery for me, and I find his work fascinating.  I can see aspects and techniques that I would like to emulate in my own landscapes.

I can’t share his website for obvious reasons, but you can read about him and see some of his images on Wikipedia. You can also find him on the Monovisions website that I shared earlier. He is well worth researching.

Thank you to John Marsh for bringing him to my attention.

Next Book Project

With the recent publication of “Mastering Adobe Photoshop Luminosity Masks”, I’ve moved to my next book project. I’m now working on Essential Photoshop CC 3^rd Edition. Since I published the 2^nd edition in 2019, a lot has changed in Photoshop. Whilst nothing has affected the essential techniques described in the book, there are improvements to other tools that I want to cover.

I’m already well underway with the first draft of the 3^rd edition which expands the previous book. I expect this book to be considerably longer, but it’s still focussed on helping less experienced users and anyone struggling to learn Photoshop for photography.

I hope to have more to share in my next newsletter.

Until next month, enjoy your photography.

Robin

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