Turning a hobby into a self-published book, North Augustan Bob Pyle took his camera to showcase the landscape of the Augusta area.
Pyle found his way to landscape photography in the 1970s. He decided to focus on his hobby and spent 13 years collecting images to share in his new book Georgialina Images, which features nature landmarks in North Augusta, Augusta and Aiken.
“I kind of like having the idea of something to publish with your name on it, it’s kind of neat,” Pyle said.
Pyle photographed a variety of locations including Aiken’s Hopelands Gardens, Brick Pond Park in North Augusta and the Augusta River Canal in Georgia. Small paragraphs detail the history and impacts of the properties.
Pyle worked on the project for 18 months and published over 100 images from the region. He wanted to share some of the beauty with his loved ones.
“I think this will have mainly regional and local appeal,” he said. “What I am really trying to do is get the book out there and let people see it and enjoy it.”
The book can be purchased for $32 at four locations throughout the region: North Augusta Arts and Heritage Center, The Morris Museum of Art, Sacred Heart Cultural Center and Augusta Canal.
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Samantha Winn covers the cities of North Augusta and Augusta, with a focus on community oriented business and events. Follow her on Twitter: @samanthamwinn and on Facebook and Instagram: @swinnnews.
BUDDING photographers in west Belfast have displayed their work for the first time in public for a new exhibition.
In recent weeks, a course for beginners was taught at Springhill Community House with award-winning Irish News photographer Mal McCann.
Those taking part were able to increase their knowledge of photography using mobile phones to capture landscapes such as Black Mountain, Titanic Quarter and the Bog Meadows.
The results are now on display at Conway Mill Theatre, with more than 20 framed photographs lining the walls of the once derelict mill which has been revitalised as a hub for arts, crafts, education, social enterprise and cultural expression.
Springhill Community House coordinator Ciaran Cahill said: “The exhibition was the first time our photographers, as well as their family and friends, saw their masterpieces on display, and they were literally lost for words.
“This project wasn’t just about learning new photography skills, it was about bringing people together, sharing experiences and exploring the beauty of nature that we have around us.”
Established in 1972 by Dr Desmond Wilson, the People’s School at Springhill Community House has been dedicated to empowering the local community through education. Many of those attending over the years have had a negative experience within school settings which discouraged them from returning to education. Through offering classes and training in a relaxed setting, the project puts participants at ease and acts as a stepping stone to other service providers.
As well as gaining formal qualifications, those taking part also build their self-esteem and enhance their quality of life.
The photography course will run again in the new year, with those interested asked to call Springhill Community House on 028 90326722.
KINGSTON, N.Y. (NEWS10) — The Center for Photography at Woodstock (CPW) will be the recipient of a $1.5 million Restore NY grant that will enable it to begin rehabilitation of its future home. Its new hub, according to a press release, will be the historic Van Slyke & Horton cigar factory.
CPW is a community-based and artist-oriented organization dedicated to illuminating contemporary culture and society through photography, a spokesperson for the center said in a written statement. In late 2021, after 45 years in Woodstock, the nonprofit moved to a small gallery in Kingston.
In its larger city, CPW has begun expanding its exhibitions, programming, workshops, and digital lab services. But this new vision entails occupying more space, hence its bid to purchase the cigar factory.
Constructed in 1907, the four-story, red-brick Van Slyke & Horton building is a 40,000-square-foot industrial space in Kingston’s Midtown Arts District. It has open-floor plans, 12-foot ceilings, and windows on all four sides, with unobstructed views of the Catskills.
In its Kingston home, CPW aims to build a new model for photography and visual art organization that is an anti-museum, anti-gentrification space. CPW will do this by meeting the needs of emerging artistic voices, and by effecting social change through innovative public events, engaging online media, stimulating courses and workshops, and provocative exhibitions and publications, according to the release.
Once renovated, the space at 25 Dederick Street will be used for exhibition galleries, a digital media lab, classrooms, community meeting rooms, staff offices, a film screening theater, and a state-of-the-art collection storage vault.
“The intended uses will create a significant cultural hub in an economically distressed area targeted for revitalization in the City’s Arts and Culture Master Plan,” said Anna Van Lenten, a spokesperson for the center. “The building is located close to Kingston City Hall and the Kingston High School, and one block away from the Empire State Trail and the newly redesigned Broadway-Grand Street intersection, a key part of the City of Kingston’s recent business corridor improvements.”
Tinian’s skies are an astronomy lovers’ dream. With the island’s absence of light pollution, the night sky lights up with constellations and glimpses of majestic beauty.
Since 2020, astrophotographer Joshua Brazzle has refined the art of capturing photos of space.
Joshua Brazzle is shown with his wife, Mary Hocog-Brazzle, and their daughter, Ke’alohi Lani Brazzle.
Courtesy of Joshua Brazzle
Brazzle had been interested in astronomy since childhood, but he took his passion to the next level after stumbling upon YouTube videos about astrophotography, which morphed into his lockdown hobby when the pandemic prompted the community to stick closer to home.
To create his photographs, Brazzle uses an Orion 8-inch Newtonian reflector telescope, and sky view pro-mount using a DSLR camera.
The mount “tracks the rotation of Earth once you switch it on,” Brazzle explained.
Using the DSLR camera, which is screwed on to the telescope’s eyepiece, Brazzle takes numerous photos.
“So what you’re doing is pretty much taking faint light, that’s millions of light years away, and then you have to take so many exposures,” he said.
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“There’s a setting on the DSLR, usually you can take that first photo up to one second or longer, as long as you want it. The longer you take the photo, the more light you’re sucking in. For example, if you take 15 seconds of 300 photos, whatever object you’re taking a photo of, a galaxy or a nebula, or a star cluster, and then you go to your computer and edit it. It becomes clearer in detail because all of those photos are pushed into one,” he said.
He usually takes the photos from his house in Carolina Heights, but occasionally will bring his astrophotography set-up to another location for a better vantage point, or when the occasion of a lunar eclipse calls for it.
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Of the many stunning photographs that Brazzle’s produced, his personal favorite targets to capture are the Orion Nebula and Andromeda Galaxy.
“If it’s a really dark area, like where I live, you can actually see it (the Orion Nebula) with the naked eye,” Brazzle shared.
For budding astrophotographers, Brazzle recommends using what you have — he started out using his cell phone.
“There’s certain apps and … phones are now developed to where you can do long exposures through it. For example, the iPhone, I think iPhone 11 to 14, if it’s lowlight, it’ll have a delay on it and it’ll say three second, ten second pause. It’s a similar process to long exposure, it’s sucking in more light. You just need a simple tripod and an iPhone,” he said.
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He urges everyone to take time to do some stargazing in a dark place. To fully appreciate the wonders of our island skies, Brazzle recommends downloading an app like Stellarium, an astronomy app which helps users to identify and search for certain targets.
Brazzle hopes to begin selling his photographs by 2023, and stargazers can keep up with his work by following him on Instagram at @tinianfitastrodad.
Jammu, Dec 16 (UNI) With a motive to promote the Gharana Wetland—situated close to Indo-Pak International Border, the Jammu Tourism on Friday hosted bird watching and photography competition at the site in Suchetgarh area here.
A group of over 100 participants was flagged off by Joint Director Tourism, Jammu
Sunaina Sharma the events organised by the Directorate of Tourism, Jammu under the active guidance of Sarmad Hafeez, Secretary, Tourism Department, J&K.
Sunaina Sharma while flagging off the group said that that the motive of organizing Bird Watching and photography Competition was to promote Gharana wetland, which is home to more than 150 species of bird like bar-headed geese, gadwalls, common teals etc and is also an eco tourism paradise among potential travel markets.
Abdul Jabbar, Deputy Director Tourism (Publicity and Adventure) and Neha Mahajan, Deputy Director Tourism (Planning) from TRC, Jammu were also present on the occasion.
Sunaina Sharma further said that many more promotional events are in the pipeline especially in border destinations like the Nowshera Folk Festival, Frozen Fiesta in Poonch, Winter Carnival Sanasar and Patnitop etc in the coming days.
During the visit Guldev Raj, Head M/S Himalayan Avian and various experts from Wildlife Department and other institutions explained the participants regarding the time of arrival/departure of the migratory birds, Food habits, suitable climatic conditions and their role in maintaining the ecological balance.
The participants in the Bird Watching and Photography Competition were Wildlife experts, Researchers of wildlife, Photographers, bloggers/vloggers and other stakeholders of Travel Trade.
Abdul Jabbar, DDT Jammu, informed all the participants that there is a dire need to conserve the migratory birds’ habitats in the interest of biodiversity. While we enjoy the pleasant sight of various species of migratory bird from Central Asia, the event shall also encourage tourism activities in the region, said Dheeraj, a participant.
Later in the evening a musical evening was held at Octroi Post, Suchetgarh.
The chief Guest of the function was Vivek Srivastav, Commandant,165 BN, BSF, Octroi Post Suchetgarh.
The vibrant performances of the musical bonanza included local dance forms like jagarna, Geetru etc.
The whole ambience was festive and patriotic as both the Jawans as well as visiting tourists danced to the beats of bollywood songs.
Also present in the occasion were Sheena Sahni, Assistant Director, Tourism Jammu, Pradeep Sharma, Assistant Commandant, BSF, Suchetgarh Octroi Post besides other stakeholders of the Tourism Department and prominent citizens of the area
If you’re ready for a spectacular peep into the universe, you may want to put Hanle in Ladakh on your list. The cluster of six hamlets—Bhok, Shado, Punguk, Khuldo, Naga & Tibetan Refugee habitations within the Changthang Wildlife Sanctuary, has just been formally notified as the Hanle Dark Sky Reserve. Effectively, an expanse of 1,073km situated around the Indian Astronomical Observatory is now a sanctuary for darkness, where light is managed so that scientists and astronomy enthusiasts can access the night sky in its purest possible form.
The orion rising over Hanle, Ladakh. Photo: Sabit Tisekar/Shot on OPPO
To weed out light pollution at India’s first Dark Sky Reserve, there will be several restrictions on use of light including placing curtains on windows and doors, restricting the use of artificial illumination indoors and on vehicles. For a place to qualify as a dark sky reserve, it has to be accessible for all or most part of the year–and it has to be accessible to the general public.
Why Hanle?
Much before it became a Dark Sky Reserve, Hanle was picked by the Indian Institute of Astrophysics to set up an observatory. “There were various reasons why Hanle was chosen for an astronomical institute. The best reason is that it is very dry and very cold,” says Dorje Angchuk, engineer in-charge of the Indian Astronomical Observatory at Hanle. “If there is any moisture, most of the light gets absorbed by the atmosphere, and very little light from the stars reaches us. Due to the dry atmosphere [at Hanle], the lights coming from far away sources are not attenuated,” says the scientist who has been in Hanle for 25 years.
Indian Astronomical Observatory at Hanle, Ladakh. Photo: Sabit Tisekar/Shot on OPPO
Storing telescopes, mounts, tripods and cameras inside their home, the couple takes out all the heavy equipment to their backyard to try and capture an element in our universe not seen by the naked eye. This method of photography is called astrophotography — it goes beyond landscape photography to use a combination of lenses, computers and telescopes to capture a moment in deep space.
“You can go out in the summer and set up a tripod and a camera and a wide angle lens and do a long exposure … and get to see the stars in the Milky Way in the core and some beautiful details of the sky,” Marcus explained. “I would say the biggest difference between that and deep space astrophotography is with deep space astrophotography, you’re looking way closer in on a target.”
To do that, Marcus and Miles must understand and keep track of what is happening in the sky above and when. Then given those parameters, they pick a target or two for the night, set up their equipment to get it polar aligned and then take long-exposure pictures for as long as possible — often lasting throughout the whole night.
The idea is to capture a series of long-exposure images, which invite more light into the lens, to gather as much visual data as possible. Marcus and Miles’ equipment keeps them on the target throughout the night as the subject moves across the sky. The series of photos, which will be later layered on top of each other, add more detail to the image.
As one might imagine, this hobby isn’t best served by partial commitment.
“If you meet anybody in the astro[photography] community, they’re going to talk about the time that they spent on this,” said Marcus with a smile.
On top of the time it takes to capture the images overnight, it takes about an hour to set up the equipment and a little bit less than that to take it down. While a lot of technology helps Marcus and Miles, they still must constantly check on the equipment throughout the night.
“We got up to the observatory property last Friday night at about 7:00 and we left the next morning at 7:30. So, we were there for 12 and a half hours,” said Marcus.
Marcus and Miles often take the deep space photos from just their backyard, but they also have connected with a person who has an observatory near Florissant, about 11 miles west of Pikes Peak. There they have access to power to operate their equipment, and it’s under a dark sky protected area and at high elevation. These conditions give Marcus and Miles an even better chance of capturing the beauty of the stars above.
“When I go to a dark sky and I look up and I see these things, these stars, these brighter stars, it’s like I reaffirm that they’re still there as am I. Me and the universe, we’re on the same terms,” said Marcus.
When Marcus returns to inside her home, she then has the immense task of stacking the images and pulling out the beauty from them. A single image can look like a smattering of stars, but as she is able to put several images together, nebulas, galaxies and other targets really start to take shape.
The photo taken in April of 2008 shows the Yumtso Lake, also known as Lake Manasarovar in Tibet autonomous region. [Photo by Wang Chen/cpanet.org.cn]
A group of photos taken by photographer Wang Chen portray tranquil sceneries, and bring people to feel the beauty of nature from the bottom of the hearts.
Wang Chen, vice-chairman of China Photographers Association, has won the Golden Statue Award for China Photography for three times. He has published nearly 30 photography books, and among them, one of his environmental friendly-themed series about the earth has won the United States” Benny Award.
Treading water off a beach on Queensland’s Gold Coast, Calin Jones is waiting for the right moment.
A professional photographer, Jones would usually be snapping hundreds of photos a second as boardriders pass the lens of his digital camera.
Now, using an old film camera, he only has one chance.
“It’s so much more challenging,” he said.
“You’ve only got 36 shots on the roll, especially when you’re out in the water, so you’ve really got to make it last and watch for good moments, not just take a photo of everything that moves.”
Calin Jones says film photos remind him of his childhood.(Supplied: calinshootsfilm/Calin Jones)
Jones has been taking photos for 13 years. But two years ago, he swapped his digital camera for an old film rig.
“Digital cameras are so advanced; you can literally just hold the trigger and take 100 photos in a couple of seconds,” he said.
“It didn’t feel authentic. It just felt like cheating.
“It felt like I wasn’t a photographer. I was just using a camera and it was doing all the work for me.”
Calin Jones develops his own black and white film at home.(Supplied: calinshootsfilm/Calin Jones)
The challenge of film
The first photo from the moon was taken with a film camera.
Entitled Earthrise it was developed in 1968 by Kodak, the world’s largest film producer at the time.
Since then, digital cameras have stormed the market, taking away the perceived pain of winding, printing and waiting.
But for Jones, it was his return to film that “re-sparked” his passion for the art.
Jones says “little mishaps” while developing his own film are part of the reason he enjoys it.(Supplied: calinshootsfilm/Calin Jones)
“I was getting quite bored [with the digital camera]. I just found it too easy,” he said.
“With film … you really learn about how to capture those moments and watch what people are doing because you can’t just sit there and hold the trigger.
“It feels raw. It feels real.”
Blake Tate co-owns Lazarus Lab on the Gold Coast, one of the few businesses in the country that specialises in digitising film photos.
He said the lab gets orders from all over the world.
“In the [last three years] I’ve definitely seen a pretty big upward trajectory on all levels,” Mr Tate said.
“Big brands are demanding the film aesthetic, so it’s come back in on the higher-up commercial level, too.”
The team at Lazarus Lab specialise in digitising film.(Supplied: Lazarus Lab)
Film is a ‘culture’
Digitised film photos have flooded the social media feeds of hobby photographers, wedding photographers and even businesses in recent years.
Jones said it was the feeling of nostalgia some of his clients were drawn to. For others, it was an aesthetic.
Blake Tate says demand is high for digitised prints.(Supplied: Lazarus Lab)
For many who have their film developed with Mr Tate, it is about the process.
“It is a whole culture,” Mr Tate said.
“Back in the day, it’s all that there was, so it wasn’t considered this special thing.
“Nowadays, with the whole resurgence, it’s a niche thing that is cool and there’s a whole culture around it.”
The Lazarus Lab team mix the chemicals, develop and scan the images into digital photos.
Blake Tate says film rolls can be expensive, but it did not disuade hobbyists.(Supplied: Lazarus Lab)
Mr Tate said it can take up to half an hour to develop a roll of black and white by hand.
“It’s weird, but people love that it takes so long and that it’s way more difficult than digital. They love what’s involved and that’s what’s keeps it interesting,” he said.
“It’s something that’s hard to replicate authentically with digital gear, which is why it’s still popular.”
Jones has been developing his own film at home after taking an online tutorial.
“It’s actually been so good for my mental health, sitting there focusing on something … being hands-on, touching the film, feeling it,” he said.
“Doing it myself now, I think, ‘I did that. I did all of that’.
“The rawness and being able to slow down, that was a huge one for me.”
In with the old …
Kodak filed for bankruptcy in 2012 after 130 years in business. It had not embraced modern digital technologies.
Jones says the “rawness and being able to slow down” are his favourite parts of film photography.(Supplied: calinshootsfilm/Calin Jones)
But for Jones, it was the simplicity he loved.
“The technology [now] is too good; auto-focus is just next level,” he said.
“It just takes away what photography means to me.
“I think capturing moments [with film means] waiting for moments and really involving yourself in the surroundings and whatever you’re shooting.
“[You’re] being present there — not just holding a camera and holding down the button.”
Jones believes film will only grow in popularity.
“I am waiting for big [camera] brands … to bring a new film camera out,” he said.
“It’s been 20 years since they brought out a film camera. I think that’s what’s to come.”
