I'll Be Presenting on the Canon Stand at the Photography Show

I’m really honoured to have been asked to do a presentation for Canon at the Photography Show (NEC, 17th to 20th September). I’ll be talking about my underwater work - I’m on at noon on Saturday and 3pm on Sunday. Apparently they have never used an amateur photographer before for these slots.

They have also asked me to do a Facebook Live presentation as part of their Wildlife Week. My talk will be hosted by Carmarthen Cameras at 7pm, Friday 20th August.

I’ve only ever used Canon equipment and to be honest the fact that they have recognised my work, and value it highly enough to want to be associated with it, makes me very proud. Happy days.

Simon Wright - Talks for Charity

I’ve never made any secret of the fact that the inspiration for many of my images comes from the work of others. If I see work I like I set out to emulate it - I don’t consider it to be copying them, rather that they have inspired me. I invariably find my version turns out very different anyway.

One such photographer was Simon Wright and his work was the inspiration for my Water Dancer project.

Simon is trying to raise money for a charity that provides mental health support for frontline health worker and one avenue he is pursuing is to do Zoom photo lectures to photography clubs and donate his fee (£75) to the charity.

His work has been widely featured in the national press & I know for sure his lecture will be both enlightening and informative and I have no hesitation in recommending him to you. You can contact him directly here.

Zooming Straight into a Club Meeting Room

My recent presentation to Masham PC was a first for me. I presented via Zoom from my home and the lecture was watched live by socially distanced members in their club room.

It was very simple to set up; the host’s laptop was connected to the room’s projector and he then logged into Zoom using the building’s WiFi broadband - everything went very well. Even if WiFi broadband had not been available it would still have been possible by using 4G internet on a mobile phone. It’s very easy to connect a laptop to a phone by bluetooth so you can use the phone’s internet signal.

This offers real possibilities post Covid. We can have the social interaction that face-to-face club meetings afford, but still use speakers from anywhere in the country, or indeed, anywhere in the world, time zones permitting.

Maybe there will be a few lasting benefits that arise out of this awful pandemic. Let’s hope so.

Masham members watching my Zoom presentation

Pre-Recorded Lectures

All of my lectures can be purchased on a USB stick - this offers camera clubs a great stand-by in case of technical problems or a no-show by a lecturer.

The file format is MP4 video, so it needs no specialist software to run it. Just plug it into your laptop, either Mac or PC, and away you go.

More details here.

Underwater Photography 3 - Sharks, Sea Lions, Caverns & Whales

My third underwater talk will not be available until April ‘21 but I’ve released details now because I know camera clubs like to make bookings well in advance.

Although 90% of the talk is complete I’m delaying launch to allow me to include material from a trip I have planned to the Dominican Republic to photograph humpback whales (Feb ‘21). Covid may yet cause it to be postponed - but I’m really hopeful it will go ahead.

If you’d like an idea of the content take a look at the video below.

Optimising Zoom to Run Video Clips

I use a lot of video in my lectures & this sometimes raises concern for the host club because they’ve had poor experiences with video in previous Zoom presentations. I’ve never had this problem & I think it’s because I have a couple of critical settings selected in Zoom.

The important thing is to make sure the person sharing the screen with the audience has ticked the 2 boxes on the share screen - highlighted in the first image below.

Make sure your Zoom meeting is set up so only one person can share their screen at a time - you’ll not be able to tick the box “Optimize Screen Sharing For Video Clip” otherwise.

If you’re hosting you can set this option yourself in your Zoom control panel, otherwise if you are the one doing the sharing, ask your host to make you the host (or co-host) & do it from your “Share Screen” - see second image below.

I’ve tried other remote delivery services (Go To Meeting, Teams, Skype) & I’ve found none of them to be as proficient at handling video (this includes AV slideshows set to music) as Zoom… but I’ve always had these settings selected. Hopefully this will help you if you’ve been having problems.

When you share your screen via Zoom make sure these 2 boxes are ticked

To be able to tick the boxes above you’ll need to make sure “One participant can share at a time” is selected