Viva Lewes Issue #140 May 2018

PHOTO OF THE MONTH
PIPE PASSAGE PIPE
“I have always been fascinated by the down pipe
on the side of the Freemason’s building at the
entrance to Pipe Passage,” says John Hinitt, who
took this fine picture, “and thought I would try
and create an image which reflects its character.
Being a painter and decorator I should be offended
by its ill-maintained state but no, I realise
that’s what lends it its unique character. I guess
some of you guys (at Viva) pass this every day...
for me it always tells me where the entrance is to
your offices.” John is no stranger to our offices,
it must be said, as he’s popped in on several occasions
to pick up the £20 prize money for appearing
in this slot.
“I’ve tried to take pictures of it a few times over
the years, but it wasn’t until I decided to go in
deep for a close-up that I achieved an image
I liked. It’s rather an ugly image in a way, but
there’s a lot to it. When I looked at it long and
hard I realised that you could see faces in it, too.”
John is a big fan of performing a good deal of
‘post production’ to his photographs, and this is
a case in point. “I took the original on my Nikon
600 on a 70mm lens, which allowed me to capture
a lot of detail. I used to play with my images on
Adobe Lightroom, and then on Nik Collection,
but I’ve just upgraded to DxO, which has all sorts
of new functions, so in a way this picture was the
fruit of my experimentation on that.” We love
the semi-abstract nature of the result, and, having
compared a print-out of the image with the
original, can safely say that we will never look at
that down pipe in the same way again.
Please send your pictures, taken in and around
Lewes, to photos@vivamagazines.com, or tweet
@VivaLewes, with comments on why and where
you took them, and your phone number. We’ll
choose our favourite for this page, which wins the
photographer £20, to be picked up from our office
after publication. Unless previously arranged, we
reserve the right to use all pictures in future issues
of Viva magazines or online.
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