On Friday 6th March 2020 the speaker at Bangor & North Down Camera Club was John Miskelly, who is one of our own club members. John is also a professional landscape photographer who recently received an FRPS (Fellowship of the Royal Photographic Society) for a panel of his colour landscape images. John’s talk was entitled ‘The F Word’ as it covered the development of his fantastic Fellowship panel, which he had on display for club members to get a close up look at the very best of landscape photography prints.
John started his talk by discussing his own photographic influences, these included many leading photographers such as Michael Kenna, but also some non-photographic influences such as his love of the minimalist beauty found in Japanese gardens. John went on to show examples of how his own images often use long exposures to create a personal expression of his view of the landscape. John explained how he produces his long exposure images. The exposures vary between 2-8 minutes, this sharply captures the still elements in the photograph such as piers and harbours, while blurring the moving elements such as the water and sky, giving an ethereal feel to his images.
John then described the process of applying for an RPS Fellowship. This involves producing a panel of 20 high quality images together with a short, written statement of intent (maximum 150 words). The images must be of the very highest quality, and in John’s case this process took almost three years to complete. Initially travelling to suitable locations, and then post processing and printing the images. Finally, the images must be grouped into a cohesive panel. This involves selecting the final 20 from a larger portfolio of images, and then presenting them as a panel which work together as a whole.
John showed the club members his Fellowship panel, some images were taken here in Northern Ireland, others taken in many other beautiful locations around the world including the Isle of Harris, Venice, Jersey, the Gironde estuary in France and as far away as New Zealand. John also explained using actual photographs, that the life of a landscape photographer is not always as glamourous as it sounds, as he is often found sleeping in a tent in difficult weather conditions to ensure he is on location at first light.
Our thanks to John for a fascinating and informative talk, and for bringing along his successful FRPS panel of landscape prints. Our congratulations again for achieving what is clearly a very well deserved accreditation. If you would like to see more of John’s work or find out about his landscape photography workshops, you can visit his website at www.johnmiskelly.co.uk
Next week is again a presentation by members of our own club who will present their latest Audio-Visual sequences. These are award winning examples of this genre of photography, where sequences of still images are set to music or supported by a spoken narrative.