This members’ evening was the brainchild of David Seddon andit was he who supplied the 3 photographs which provided the sow’s ear to silk purse challenges of the evening. So thank you for all that David – pity you couldn’t be there to witness the mayhem which ensued.
First up was a Dungeness shot taken though a hole in a typically dilapidated shed, revealing an equally distressed piece of machinery but with another opening in the far wall with a rather wishy-washy sky in view. Most of us took this up as an artistic challenge, some using colour to bring out strong rust colours in the machinery, others using monochrome to bring out textures in the grain of the weathered shed boarding. All of these were successful to some degree but it was Audrey who really put the photograph in its place by introducing the face of a donkey peering through the far window – a most effective way of dealing with lack of detail in the sky and providing a good laugh too.
Next up was a landscape of the huge power station at Pontefract which most of us will have passed when driving north. Janet and I had a similar idea attacking this with split-toning in Lightroom , both obviously inspired by mind-altering soft drinks. Janet took her cue from Sunny Delight whereas mine was more on the Ribena spectrum – both were garish but Janet’s was superior because she had taken some time to remove some power cables and a pylon – maybe should get out more? Jane provided the light relief with a clip-art genie appearing from the smoking chimney giving the impression of an advertisement for a well-known brand of Turkish Delight.
Norman excelled with this photograph by using Photoshop to turn it into a poster in the style of those for the Soviet 7 year plan for tractor production in Magnitogorsk. Norman’s slogan involved the Northern Powerhouse (remember that?) – a clever twist in a clever interpretation.
After all this excitement the coffee break had never been more welcome.
Afterwards we had a classic landscape of the Duoro valley in Portugal with which to do our worst – but not a shot which would have troubled the local tourist board seeking the embodiment of this beautiful area. There seemed less scope for detailed changes with this than the others although Norman again rose to the challenge by finding a decent composition from about 2% of the area of the photograph – it cropped down surprisingly well.
John Gauvin produced a quite convincing watercolour interpretation of this using the Photoshop filter. The foreground and the distant hills turned out well but the sky (where proper watercolour usually excels) was not so clever. Good, but I don’t think Winsor and Newton has anything to fear from Adobe Software.
So an enjoyable evening with some surprising and amusing photographs and more importantly much lively banter. The only downside was that few of us could remember in detail how we’d achieved our miracles, the method lost in the excitement of sliding the controls.
I was, though, left asking the classic, rhetorical question – “Is it art?”.