STEVEN FAIRBROTHER'S FULL MONTY 3

Steven has a strong sense of design and he began by showing some of the things he does for work, often assisted greatly by AI. It was fascinating to see how he had managed to create scenes in which to place products entirely on his computer. He teased us by saying he was offering a prize for the first person to spot the image in the presentation which had been created with the help of AI.

Steven uses Nikon and works with his D850 and Z8, using different lenses and he explained that he revisits favourite places and likes to get numerous shots while he is there. He began with a series of shots taken at Derwent Water that showed the range he goes for. He had an image of the lake with Cat Bells in the background. He had taken this at various focal lengths to show some of the smaller views within the full scene as well as the wider view. It was a good demonstration of how there are many options for a shot within a view.

Another series of landscape shots were taken during a storm at St Abbs harbour. The waves were enormous and well captured. There was also an interesting panorama taken from a slightly elevated position showing a scene where the waves were crashing on the shore and rocks while only just inland people were going about their daily lives parking a car and delivering post.

It was quite a change of scene to go indoors at the Derby velodrome. Steven explained his approach to getting action shots and then why he had deliberately shot from behind parts of the structure to give a blurred frame.

After this introduction to his own style, Steven showed some of his work photos, which included corporate portraits and then some shots of material to promote posters created to publicise a student offer on the Nottingham tram. Steven had a chance here to demonstrate his creative side, finding good locations and even substituting the relevant poster for something entirely different in one situation.

The first half of the talk closed with brief mentions of weddings and street photography and a longer look at stereography, with suitable viewers available to try in the break.

Steven restarted with a look at people in the landscape. He used characters to demonstrate scale to very good effect and also showed some interesting silhouettes in the mist. The delicacy of these shots was immediately contracted by the Victorian solidity of Clay Mills Pumping Station where he had made very good use of the effort involved in taking his lighting set up with him.

Lighting became something of a theme. Steven showed shots of his kit in position and explained the types of lights he uses. He also described building the lighting so that he could see how each light worked. He began by lighting the background then worked into the main subject and spots of detail. It was fascinating to see how three different lights could transform a scene.

Trains made an appearance, artfully lit in Barrowhill Roundhouse and then with artificially applied motion blur on various lines. Steven explained how he uses Photoshop to cut out the train, blur the scene and then replace the train.