This week was a photography fun night where we captured Film Noir shots in our club room, with the aid of some venetian blinds and a collection of 1950s props. We were joined by models Jakub Wiatrowski and Ela Turnbull, who played a Super Sleuth Detective and his secretary. This YouTube video provided some inspiration:

Derek Muller set up two scenes for us to shoot: a 1950s office desk with a telephone, desk lamp, cigarette case and other items that a detective might have lying around; and the window blind scene used in the YouTube video, complete with a white wall to capture sinister shadows. Derek had brought a collection of spotlights to light the scenes, with homemade snoots to narrow the beam and increase the drama. The room needed to be dark to give the images a low key look, but a high ISO setting helped reduce camera shake and give the images the kind of grainy look that matched the Film Noir genre. We all spent a very enjoyable evening capturing some high contrast, low key, black and white images. Thank you very much to Derek for the huge preparation work he put in to make this evening a great success.

On Thursday, 29th October, George Robertson will visit the club to give a talk on wildlife photography called “Take a Walk on the Wild Side”. George has already given us some spectacular talks on mountain photography (“Into the Throne Room of the Mountain Gods“, “The Snows of Kilimanjaro” and “Exploring Kathmandu and the Khumbu Valley“), so this is talk could be one of the highlights of the year.