Our village photographic society consists predominantly of septuagenarian Nikon nuts who tend to assemble every month at the local garden centre for a gentle cup of tea and a fierce argument about filters and focal lengths and the limitations of Ilford's black and white film. So when they staged an exhibition of their work recently, it was just a little mind-boggling to see the quality of it. An 87 year old who I know very well was exhibiting a photo which had recently won him a gold for best picture from a south west England amateur - a very buzzy pic of the Clifton suspension bridge, for which he'd had to do some extremely complex things with a stopwatch and a zoom lens. (Don't ask, cos I wouldn't understand enough to explain it to you...)
Innocently, I asked the assembled wrinklies whether they ever Photoshopped their pictures - a topic that normally drives my nephew, a hardcore professional landscape photographer, to apoplexy - and they practically spilt their tea, they were laughing so much. It turned out that there wasn't a snapper in the room who didn't reckon to spend at least a couple of days digitally improving every picture before they exhibited it. Not enough waves on that lake? Wish the sky over the Eiffel Tower was yellowish instead of blue? Fat Auntie Ethel getting in the way of that cutie on the sun lounger? Adobe is your friend, it seems.
I am slightly sadder, but wiser.
Nice pictures, though.
BJ
