In the Herald - Focus on Working Together

Date Published 
Thu 9 Mar 2023

Each year at Irvine Camera Club we hold a collaboration challenge where our members are paired up to work together on each other’s photography.  Each person takes a photograph and hands it to their partner to post-process.

There is still a belief by some photographers that a “real” photograph comes straight out of the camera with no editing in Photoshop or other such creative manipulation applications.  This is a complete fallacy of course. Modern cameras and smart phones now offer almost limitless ways of adjusting and filtering our images before they are downloaded, or even posted straight to social media.  More than that, throughout the history of photography the dark room has been an integral part of the art and craft.  

The important thing, as with any artistic endeavour, is to have an idea of what you are trying to create and why.  I don’t have space to show you all the before & after shots but what I have done is to pick some of my favourite collaborations.  It was an interesting challenge for our members to grapple with photographs they hadn’t taken.  In each case the partner brought something quite unique to their interpretation of the photograph.  What this illustrated to everyone is that the original image from your camera is always just a starting point for your creative expression.  I hope you enjoy the selection of work I have chosen this week.

If you would like to know more about our thriving camera club please visit our website at www.irvinecc.co.uk.  Next week, on March 14th, we have renowned photographer Nick Hanson giving us a keynote talk on his Journey to Skye.  There are still a few tickets available, so if you fancy going grab them before they’re gone!