The Bristol Festival of Nature is the UK's biggest celebration of the natural world and this weekend promises to be the biggest yet. Whatever the weather, come down to the harbour-side for talks, sideshows, animal encounters and more. We have a stall in the main tent so come along and ask questions about the club, photography or just to have a chat and stay out of the rain. Come back here to see pictures from both days as they happen, and if you have any pictures from the BFN yourself add them to flickr and tag them 'BFN08'. You can see pictures from the event on our special Bristol Festival of Nature 2008 page.

Patrick

Once again, NWBCC is excited to be a part of The Bristol Festival of Nature at the Harbourside on the 7-8 June. There is a fantastic programme of hands-on activities, talks, animal encounters, films, workshops and more. We will be on-hand to help with your photographic queries and to tell you all about the club. For more details on the festival see the Bristol Festival of Nature homepage.

Patrick

John recently hosted a practical session on tabletop photography at the club. I have never seen so many desk lamps, torches, strobes etc. gathered together in one place. A lot of the images have been posted to our flickr pool. You can see them here.

Patrick

National Geographic have a section on their site dedicated to photography. There are loads of tips for everything from people to landscape photography, as well as videos. Well worth a look, check it out at the National Geographic Gallery.

Patrick

If you have seen the 2007 exhibition at the Bristol Museum and think you have what it takes then you may be interested to know that entry opens in January for the 2008 WPOY.

Entry opens on 17 January 2008 and all images must be submitted by 24 March by post or 31 March online at www.nhm.ac.uk/wildphoto. Entrants stand to win an impressive £10,000 prize if they are given the coveted title of Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2008 or share of a £23,550 prize fund if successful in one of the categories.

Winning photographers will have their images showcased in an international exhibition that debuts at the Natural History Museum in October 2008 before touring venues across the world. Winning images are also featured in a special supplement to the November issue of BBC Wildlife Magazine and in a hardback commemorative portfolio by BBC Books.

The Wildlife Photographer of the Year Competition is the world’s greatest wildlife photography contest and an international leader in the artistic representation of the natural world. Every year, it showcases the very best photographic images of nature to a worldwide audience, giving people an insight into the beauty, drama and variety of the natural world. Now in its forty-fourth year, the 2008 competition is open to anyone with an appreciation of wildlife and a passion for fresh, innovative photography.

You can read more about the 2007 exhibition on our 2007 Shell Wildlife Photographer of the Year page. If you can't make the exhibition at the Museum see some of the 2007 entries here.

Patrick

Another comment from Johnc15 on an image from our Flickr pool. Remember, if you want to comment on any of our pictures on the pool drop me an email at the feedback address below. Meanwhile here is what John had to say about on of Peter's photos:

"Love the textures of the dilapidated old building, the flaking paint of the boat, but a little PhotoShop work would have really brought this out more. The sky needs some attention and the image could be warmed to better effect."

Patrick

We Have been asked to run a stall at the Bristol Museum "Exposed!" exhibition's "Green Market" on Sat/Sun 24th/25th November. We will be putting together an exhibition of our work for the event. This is an ideal opportunity for anyone to come along and meet some of the members and discuss the club, photography and how we can all help the environment.

So please come along to the Museum, see the other stalls and say hello.

Follow the link for more information about Exposed: Climate change in Britain's backyard.

Patrick

There is no denying that Photoshop is the leader in image editing software available on any platform, but what if you don't need all that power or simply don't want to spend several hundred pounds on a programme that you won't use very often. Well, believe it or not there are solutions available that won't cost you anything. Obviously they can't compete directly with Photoshop but each is a very capable programme. So here is a quick run down, in no particular order, of free software for photographers:

1. Picasa

Free photo sorting and cataloging application from Google. Create slideshows, perform basic photo manipulation and upload your photos to the web.

2. DIM

The Digital Image Mover is a great little application for getting the photos of your memory card. Rename the photos as they are copied, sort into directories and more.

3. GIMPShop

A version of GIMP that replicates the look of Photoshop.

4. Paint.NET

Paint.NET is free image and photo editing software for computers that run Windows.

This is a small example of the free software available for photographers. For a more comprehensive list visit Photo-Freeware.net.

I haven't tested all these applications so cannot vouch for their suitability for a particular purpose. Please be careful when installing any software.

If you would like to recommend any free software for photographers, then please add a comment.

Patrick

Ever wondered why your lenses cost so much? Well, there is an incredible amount of work that goes into them. A lot of it is manually done. You can see just what is involved here.

Patrick

This shot of a rose was added to the pool by Em_42. It's a very nice record shot but there are a couple of ways that it can be improved still further.

1. Use a larger aperture. From the exif I can see that this shot was taken at f5 @ 1/320. A larger aperture, f3.5 or even f2.8 would result in a narrower depth of field. This would blur a lot more of the background and render it less distracting causing the rose to stand out more.

2. Use a tripod. Up close the rose petals are a bit soft, I suspect this was taken handheld. When shooting in close you really need to use a solid base to prevent any camera movement. Especially important when using a larger aperture as the shutter speed will reduce.

3. Don't shoot in direct sunlight. Shots such as this are best taken on a dry overcast day. Use a reflector or even a piece of white A4 card to bounce light back in to the rose to fill in any shadows.

That's it for this week. If you agree or disagree, please leave a comment. If you would like to critique a photo from the NWBCC pool, then please email it to the a contact address below including a link or name of the particular photo.

Patrick