Thanks to everyone that came last week to our photography tutorial! For everyone that didn’t make it we will be holding another one this coming Friday (29th) at lunch time (1pm) in meeting room 3 in the Union. To register for the tutorial please signup after the break.

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We are fortunate enough to have a well stocked, fully functional, all rounded darkroom here at Imperial. The darkroom contains all the chemicals, and equipment needed for processing b/w film and prints as well as colour and slide film developing/scanning. For our digital camera users we have a colour calibrated 24 inch monitor and computer with Photoshop CS2 for image editing.

If you would like to use any of these facilities you can purchase a darkroom card which will grant you access to the darkroom located in the West wing basement of Beit quad. It is in here where you will be learning colour developing, slide film printing, cross processing, alternative processes, lith printing, b/w printing and spend whole weekends forgetting what time it is! But lets not get ahead of ourselves, first we need to learn the basics before we can start using the darkroom so you will be required to take a brief orientation in which you will find out where everything goes and how to develop a roll of b/w film. If you have some b/w film laying around please bring it in, as we can use this to demonstrate the process (free developing!) If you are interested in getting a darkroom card please go online and buy the darkroom membership (£10). You can sign up to an induction by using the form on our website. We will run orientations every day over the next week between 1 and 1.45 and will meet in the darkroom (map).

Please note, you will have to become a member of photosoc first (you can find that on the union site too) which is an additional £5 but hey, free chemicals (unlimited) and discounted film prices equals unlimited the opportunity to learn new skills and actually put them into use for free! Wow now there’s a good deal!

Hope to see you there,

Sam – Darkroom Manager

Hello and welcome to another year of Photosoc. It was great to see so many new and familiar faces at Freshers’ Fair and we hope to see you again at some of our events this year. More on that in a minute, first in case any of you didn’t get a chance to talk to anyone at our stall here is a little introduction to Photosoc and what we do:

Founded in 1905, we are the only photographic society in Imperial and one of the biggest in London. We cater to all types of photographers, from complete beginners to the more advanced of you, and as well as holding regular photo walks around London (and further afield) we organise workshops and tutorials on different aspects of photography. Having a fully functioning darkroom means that we have some avid film users who are more than willing to pass on their craft as well as experiment with the weird and wonderful world of film photography.

So please do join us on the many events we have lined up for you all this year and we do hope you will enjoy it as much as we will!

The Boston Big Picture has a wonderful photo series of pictures from the recent volcano eruption in Iceland. There are also interviews with one of the photographers after the break.

Lightning streaks across the sky as lava flows from a volcano in Eyjafjallajokul April 17, 2010. (REUTERS/Lucas Jackson)

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I’m sure most of you will be following the election campaign at the moment since its pretty hard to get away from! Anyway I thought I would fill you in on what the three main parties are promising in regard to photographers rights. Here is what they say in no particular order:
(taken from Amateur Photographer)
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I’m sure most of you will have heard of Adobe Photoshop, since it is the standard for all photo editing tools (we have a legal copy of CS3 in the darkroom), and I’m sure some of you will be aware that a new version of Photoshop has recently been announced: CS5.

The new version brings lots of very cool new features to the already jam packed Photoshop line, including greater HDR support, an improved camera raw, lens correction, refined edge selection and the jaw dropping content aware fill. If you haven’t already seen this video then its a must:
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I’ve just added a new section to the website: Useful Stuff

In there you will find a page of useful websites from around the intertubes and a page with a Google map of some useful places in London.

I hope that you find these useful and, as always, if there are any websites or places in London that you think would be a great addition then contact us.

New black & white films for Polaroid cameras go on sale this week in John Lewis stores and The Photographers Gallery.

The film is made by the Dutch firm: Impossible BV which bought an old Polaroid factory and, through a deal with Ilford, has started producing black and white Polaroid film which is compatible with Polaroid SX-70 and 600 series.

There are two types of films being sold: PX600 and PX100 Silver Shade films with ISO’s of 600 and 100 respectively and are being sold through the Impossible website at €18 per pack with 8 sheets in each pack. The Photographers Gallery is selling the PX100 film at £19.99 from Saturday.

The company has also confirmed that the first two colour films (ISO 100 and 600) will go on sale this summer.
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Thank you to everyone who came to our AGM yesterday and a big thank you to all of you who stood for a position next year. Unfortunately we can only have a finite number of people otherwise I would want you all on it! Anyway here is your new committee:

• Chair: Charles Poon
• Vice Chair: Slobodan Radosavljevic
• Treasurer: Camelia Tang
• Secretary: Jonathan Kim
• Darkroom Manager: Sam Whitcombe
• Event coordinator: Tristan Brown

Congratulations to all of you but I must stress that although you may not be on the committee it doesn’t mean that you don’t have a say on how the society is run. Please do still get involved so that we can make the society even better!

So we have reached the end of another term here at Imperial and with it the end of official Photosoc events. Unfortunately, with exams looming, none of the committee will have any time to lead any trips. However if any of you would like to organise anything yourself, or are planning on taking a trip somewhere and would like some company, then do email in and we can send it out to the mailing list.

Also this will have to be the last regular newsletter of this academic year. I hope you have enjoyed them and that you have enjoyed this year with Photosoc. Good luck with exams, if you have them, and I hope to see you all in the new year if not sooner!

Jonathan Kim
Photosoc Chair 2009-10