The May 23 Technical Series meeting reinforced how fortunate we are to have Dennis Rainville as a member of the BCA Photo Group, and also as the leader of the Tech Series and a veteran presenter. His topic for the evening was ‘The Art of Digital Photography’.
Dennis set the stage for the talk by telling us about his own history – an early predilection toward art combined with a career in technology. His photography enables him to combine these to good effect. Knowing that many people are resistant to post-processing of almost any kind, Dennis pointed to a well-known quote from Ansel Adams – ‘You don’t take a photograph, you make it.’ The camera and the brain are two different things and the camera can rarely record what the eye/brain can perceive. Processing can bridge the gap.
With that introduction, Dennis touched on a series of techniques that he has employed, sometimes singly and sometimes in combination. This was not a thorough how-to, but rather a richly illustrated demonstration of the art of the possible, and from that the possibility of art. His before and after slides showed how the application of each technique changed an image for the better. Below is a list of the techniques he discussed, along with the main tools he uses for each:
- HDR - Lightroom
- Focus Stacking - Helicon Focus
- Panoramas - Lightroom and Photoshop
- Black & White Conversion - Nik Silver Efex Pro
- Textured Florals - Frenchkisstextures.com
- Long Exposure - Lightroom
- Architectural Photography - Lightroom and Photoshop
- Timelapse - Lightroom and LRTimelapse
- LEBWFAAP - Lightroom and Photoshop
Dennis told us that he has generally set a yearly goal for himself to learn and master a new technique, methodically adding to his artistic toolkit. The last item in the list above is a combination of several of the techniques that went before – Long Exposure Black & White Fine Art Architectural Photography.
Dennis’s work is varied and beautiful and you can see a selection on his web site, drfineart.net.