Gordon Rae kindly agreed to judge our human portrait print competition at short notice and had travelled to Musselburgh from South West Scotland. Gordon is an award-winning wildlife photographer whose work can seen on his web site:

https://www.gordonraephotography.co.uk

Gordon said he was impressed with the quality of the entries and had judged and scored them to a high standard, so he hoped nobody (especially beginners) would be disappointed with their score. Gordon had identified one winning portrait, plus some second and third placed runners up.

23 prints had been entered by 9 members. The subjects included sports competitors, street artists, musicians, wise men, soldiers, and pictures of other club members. John West had entered a unique, double-exposed, self-portrait called “Doppelganger” which was popular during the tea break. Gordon commented on the composition of the portraits and suggested some crops that would tighten up the subject in the frame. He explained that the “rule of thirds” guideline that is useful for landscape photography is not so important for portraits. Male subjects can be shown looking straight into the camera but female subjects often look better with their head turned at an angle. In some of the portraits there were dark shadows on the face that could have been prevented by using softer lighting (or by balancing the light with a reflector). He also warned photographers to watch out for colour casts in their prints and make sure that the skin colour looks natural. Watch out also for places where the subject could merge with the background (for example a dark coat shown against a dark background of a similar colour) and make sure there is a distinct boundary. The highest scores went to the prints that Gordon judged had captured a moment, showed a great expression, had a good balance of tones and had good backgrounds. The top scorers were (in reverse order):

• 4th place (46 points)
  • John West
• 3rd place (51 points)
  • Jennifer Davidson
  • Joe Fowler
  • Carol Edmond
• 2nd place (53 points)
  • Derek Muller
• 1st place (54 points)
  • George Todd

The top images were:

• Kalon (George Todd) – 20 points (and the overall winning print)
• 96 Years Young (Carol Edmond) – 19 points (and overall 2nd equal print)
• Beguiling (Derek Muller) – 19 points (and overall 2nd equal print)
• Katrine (John West) – 18 points (and overall 3rd equal print)
• He Gets The Joke (Derek Muller) – 18 points  (and overall 3rd equal print)
• I Love my Purple hat  (Jennifer Davidson) – 18 points
• Downhill Racer (Joe Fowler) – 18 points

Well done to George for winning the competition and achieving best print with a fabulous portrait of a tattooed boxer, and well done also to Derek, Jennifer, Joe and Carol. Thank you to everyone who entered and thank you to Gordon Rae for judging the competition for us at short notice.

We had some spare time after the competition, so Gordon gave us a short presentation entitled “Birds of Iceland”, which showed the wildlife photographs he had collected on a tour of Iceland (see Gordon’s Iceland gallery for a couple of examples). Gordon explained that he most often used a Nikon 200-400mm lens with a 1.4X teleconverter. Most of his photos are taken at f/5.6, but at low angles he finds f/10 a better choice because the water appears more out of focus at those angles. We enjoyed the talk so much we booked Gordon to give us a full-length talk next year. Watch out for next year’s programme.

• On Thursday, 15th February we will be joined by Beeslack Penicuik Camera Club for our annual audio visual night. We will be meeting in the larger room in the far corner, G6, not our usual room, G3.
• If you would like to enter the “contrasting textures” set subject competition, please send your three JPEG files to George Todd this weekend.

See you this Thursday for some AV entertainment.