TONY McDONOUGH: EXPERIENCES AS A DOCUMENTARY PHOTOGRAPHY

With over 30 years experience as a photojournalist, winner of the West Australian Press Photographer of the Year Award a record 4 times and a Walkley Award finalist, Tony is well known throughout major news organizations and magazines with successful assignments for Fairfax’s the AGE, SMH, Australian Financial Review, the Australian, the Australian Magazine, New York Times Magazine, Fortune Magazine, Wall Street Journal (NY Edition) TIME . . . the list goes on. In this presentation Tony will include some of his earliest digital work for newspapers and magazines using the first editorial digital camera in WA (and really Australia) in 1997. Examples of his work can be found on his website: https://www.rawimage.com.au/

Photojournalism/Social Documentary

Photojournalism implies story-telling photographs such as are seen in the news media and periodicals, which may include documentary, contemporary life, illustrative, sport news or human interest.

Social Documentary is concerned with the portrayal and interpretation of society encompassing both human and non-human subject matter. It can include public space, graffiti, socio economic conditions etc which can be depicted without necessarily including human subjects. Social documentary images do portray a story but possibly not as overtly as photojournalistic stories.

In the interest of credibility, contrived situations or photographic manipulations which alter the truth are not acceptable. The story telling value of the photograph shall be weighed more than the pictorial quality.

TALKING TO A BRICK WALL

Mark Brierley is a Commercial photographer based in Western Australia whose images of urban landscapes have won multiple awards throughout Australia. He was recently named the AIPP West Australian Epson Professional Photographer of the Year 2019 as well as the AIPP West Australian Epson Commercial Photographer of the Year. He will look into the Art of Architecture and how you can apply your vision to four walls and a roof. He will be explaining how he works with an Architect and what they expect from him as a photographer. He will then be looking at camera techniques as well as post processing, and sharing a few secrets about his work.

DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHY & PHOTOSHOP – A Journey of Discovery

Jean Wilson is an artist and photographer.  After she took up photography in 2011 she quickly moved into image manipulation as it appealed to her artistic side.  In her presentation she will tell us about her journey of discovery into the world of Photoshop. 

She will talk about the history of image manipulation and show a few examples of image manipulation pre-Photoshop as well as touch on the ‘ethics’ of image manipulation.  After showing us her type of photography and discussing how she gets her ideas and inspiration she will talk about and then demonstrate how to make a composite image.

Six of the Best

Some of our most successful photographers, Greg Bell, Chris Hawkins, Frans Hugo, Theresa Pitter, Nola Sumner and Susan Vearncombe, will each show us six of their favourite images.  These may not be the images that have been most successful in competitions and exhibitions but the images that appeal most to our photographers. They will tell us about each of the images and why they like them.

Architectural Composite

A photograph made by combining several distinct images, exploring architectural subjects.

LIGHT, COLOUR and PATTERNS 

Steve Fraser

Let’s take a look at the impact of light, colour and patterns on landscape photography and how scenes can be transformed from the mundane to the spectacular. Steve Fraser will discuss how these three elements can shape your landscape images and look at both the artistic and technical approach to capturing special moments and achieving great results.

Steve has not spoken at the club for a few years but has always been a favourite. His work has featured in books, leading magazines, and exhibitions all over the world. He has been a TEDx speaker in San Francisco, and the keynote speaker at International Photo week. 

Photography as Art

The purpose of this award is to encourage photographers to lift their thinking beyond traditional photographic criteria such as sharpness towards the qualities that characterise Great Art. This is easy to say but hard to define. Ideally the image should capture something eternal, beautiful, noteworthy, striking or unusual. It would be a rare image that achieved all of these!

People looking for examples should look to the all-time great art works for inspiration. Clearly these paintings will include but not be restricted to: portraits (such as Rembrandt, Leonardo), landscapes (such as Constable, van Gogh), abstracts (such as Rothko, Kandinsky), human form (such as Ruben, Rodin), and expressionism (such as Munch, Monet).

Any amount or method of photo manipulation is acceptable, however the original image must have been taken by a camera or some other photographic process (e.g. a scanner).

The aim should be to produce an image that one would not be surprised to find hanging in the Perth Art Gallery.