Monthly Archives: Feb 2025

27 February 2025 (Set Subject Round 2 – Distorted)

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Part two of our three-part set subject competition took place this week. Members were challenged to find some memorable images on the theme of “Distortion”. The competition was judged by Elaine Gilroy, the winner of last year’s competition. Elaine began by saying how she had enjoyed seeing all the different interpretations of this year’s theme, but had thought it a very difficult subject to judge, given that distorted images lend themselves to odd focus points and exposures, and that distortion means quite different things to different people. Elaine did, however, enjoy trying to work out how participants had achieved their results, was it done in-camera or was it photoshopped? 15 members had entered 45 images, covering a huge range of subjects. Some images showed distorted reality, often with the use of glass or semi-transparent liquids. Other images provided fine examples of using photoshop techniques to emphasise certain features in the images along with a wide-angle lens or two. John West’s triptych “RGB” was a striking, largely, monochrome image with the just a pop of red, green and blue to provide the evening’s only 20 point image. His Bristo Square “mini planet” image was also striking and scored 18. Malcolm Roberts’ distorted golf swing images backed up “Reflections” to take second place. One of our newer members, Jadeee Dalrymple submitted “Distorted Touch” scoring 19 and gaining a joint 4th place on the evening. It is great to see younger and newer club members producing such striking images. The top scorers were (in reverse order):

  • 5th place (50 points)
    • Derek Muller
    • Steven Beard
  • 4th place (51 points)
    • Jaydee Dalrymple
  • 3rd place (52 points)
    • Joe Fowler
    • Jennifer Davidson
  • 2nd place (53 points)
    • Malcolm Roberts
  • 1st place (54 points)
    • John West

The top images were:

  • RGB (John West) – 20 points
  • Reflections (Malcolm Roberts) – 19 points
  • Distorted Touch (Jaydee Dalrymple) – 19 points
  • Bristo Square (John West) – 18 points
  • Veins (Melanie Gallacher) – 18 points
  • Made in Scotland (Joe Fowler) – 18 points
  • The Joker (Carol Edmond) – 18 points
  • Glass Distortion (Jennifer Davidson) – 18 points
  • Harbour Flags (Jennifer Davidson) – 18 points
  • Prestonpans Promenade (Steven Beard) – 18 points
  • Truth Distorted (Jim Innes) – 18 points

As John West scored highest this evening, it would normally be his choice to judge the equivalent heat of next year’s challenge. As John’s plans involve moving South, the choice will pass on to Malcolm Roberts. After two competitions, the “league table” now looks like this:

Malcolm Roberts (53 + 53 = 106)
George Todd (57 + 48) = 105
Derek Muller (55 + 50 = 105)
John West (51 + 54= 105)
Jennifer Davidson (53 + 52 = 105)
Steven Beard (51 + 50 = 101)
Melanie Gallacher (51 + 49 = 100)
Karen Woodcock (51 + 49 = 100)
Carol Edmond (50 + 49 = 99)
Jim Innes (50 + 49 = 99)
Joe Fowler (— + 52 = ??)
Jaydee Dalrymple (— + 51 = ??)
Mike Clark (— + 49 = ??)

Malcolm Roberts is just at the top of the table with 106 points, but there are 4 challengers with 105. Don’t forget to send your 3 JPEG entries for the final part of this competition (on the theme of ”Cyclists”) to Derek Muller to collate. It looks like round 3 will an exciting decider.

This Thursday we will be hosting Mölnlycke Fotoclubb, who will be joining us from Gothenburg, Sweden for our annual interclub meeting, where we will view their images on the theme of “Time” and present a selection of MCC images. Perhaps next year we might agree on the theme and see what different interpretations arise? A Zoom link will be circulated soon.

20 February 2025 (Joe Gilhooley: If I Can Do It, You Can Do It)

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The club was delighted to welcome Joe Gilhooley from Loanhead, Midlothian to talk about his work. Joe’s interest in digital photography began in 2010, when he wanted to record his daughter growing up. He purchased a Canon DSLR and took the camera on family trips. He developed a liking for landscape photography but fell into the usual trap of coming home with 400 scattergun images of the same scene. He now recommends pretending you have a roll of film and only capturing the small number of images you think are worth keeping. Joe has 3 Canon DSLR camera bodies, a Sony compact camera, and a selection of 9 lenses. He always uses a tripod for landscape photography and recommends using the camera in “mirror up” mode with a remote shutter release to prevent camera shake. Joe’s love of landscape photography won him the “Scots Magazine Photographer of the Year” award in 2017 and 2019. Joe joined the Royal Photographic Society in 2020 and achieved an LRPS qualification in 2021 and is working towards the ARPS qualification. You can see more of Joe’s work on his web site:

http://www.joegilhooley.co.uk/

Joe started by showing us the 10 images he had submitted to win his LRPS qualification, which included a night view of the Forth Bridges, a night view of Edinburgh from Calton Hill, star trails over the Belhaven Bridge and a clever still life which simulated colours being painted onto a bowl of fruit. Joe likes to take his landscape images during the blue hour: the hour just before sunrise or just after sunset when sky is still bright enough to give a blue background. Joe watches the weather forecast and will often drive to a location at short notice to arrive in time for the perfect conditions. Calm conditions at sunrise are ideal for capturing still reflections and morning mist. Joe took us on a journey across Scotland, showing us a wide variety of excellent images of castles, gardens, monuments, lochs, mountains and iconic viewpoints. His subjects included landscapes, cityscapes, wildlife, star trails and fireworks. In 2022, Joe successfully applied for a press contract to photograph the Edinburgh Military Tattoo, which gave him the opportunity to capture some beautiful images of the event. Joe had also offered his services to several football clubs, and had obtained a press pass to capture images of key moments during their games. Joe finished by showing us some of his sports photography images. Joe uses two camera bodies for his sports photography. One body has a 400mm lens attached, which he uses to capture distant action. The other has a 70-200mm lens, which he uses when the action gets closer. He uses fast (f2.8) lenses and a very high ISO to achieve the fast shutter speeds required for sports photography. A monopod helps to support the weight of his heavy 400mm lens.

It was a fascinating evening where Joe gave us hints about good places and times to take photographs and encouraged us not to be afraid to contact organisations like sports clubs and local newspapers who may need a local photographer.

  • We are having our “Sense of Speed” club photoshoot this Saturday, 22nd February at 10:30am in Lewisvale Park, Musselburgh, EH21 7AR. Bring your camera to practice photographing bicycles, dogs and people moving against a background. For best results bring a lens with a large maximum aperture, such as f2.8.

13 February 2025 (Camera Settings Evening)

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This week we had an evening devoted to a discussion on camera settings. Steven began the evening with a general presentation on camera settings. The notes from the presentation can be downloaded from the following page:

Introduction to Camera Settings

Steven was intending to demonstrate the effect of the different settings live, but unfortunately the HDMI link from his camera to the club projector didn’t work. 😦 But members experimented with different exposure modes by photographing light and dark objects against a black or white background. The ability to focus on an erratic object was testing using a chaotic pendulum, and the flash modes were compared by photographing a cat toy being waved around in the air. There wasn’t enough time to cover all the possibilities, but if you are interested in learning more about autofocus modes, here is on online tutorial:

https://www.naturettl.com/understanding-autofocus-points-and-modes/

Here are a couple of tutorials explaining what you can do with the “slow sync” flash modes that we tried during the evening:

https://www.iphotography.com/blog/slow-sync-flash-photography/

https://www.theschoolofphotography.com/tutorials/slow-sync-flash

Derek finished the evening by giving a demonstration on depth of field. A collection of little men were placed at different distances from a background, and members tried photographing them with different aperture settings.

  • Next week Joe Gilhooley will be giving us a talk entitled “If I Can Do It, You Can Do It“. You can find some of Joe’s work on his web site:

http://www.joegilhooley.co.uk/index.html

See you there.

06 February 2025 (Audio Visual Evening)

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This week members of Musselburgh Camera Club travelled to Beeslack Community High School to meet with members of Beeslack Penicuik Camera Club for our annual audio visual evening. Beeslack’s usual room was occupied by a Taekwondo class, so we started the evening in a small classroom.

Musselburgh started with an introduction to ICM photography in Butterdean Wood, created by Steven Beard, based on the club photoshoot from July 2024. Then, Beeslack’s presented a history of coal mining in Scotland, based on information and materials picked up from a club visit to the National Mining Museum, supplemented by club photographs and drone shots. There was a change of mood with the third presentation, when Derek Muller showed a video entitled “Birds Having Lunch” featuring some great shots of wild birds feeding. The change of mood continued when Beeslack showed another beautiful and calming creation by Brian Nicolson, featuring photographs of trees and woodland enhanced and blended with art filters from paint.NET. Musselburgh followed with a presentation compiled from photographs taken by club members on a photoshoot to the Balgone Sunflower Trail. This was followed by Beeslack’s presentation on the history of East Lothian, which used to be known as Haddingtonshire. The presentation took us on a journey through time, from the battles for dominance between the tribes of ancient Scotland and the construction of castles, to the witch trials and the impact of all this history on the modern landscape of East Lothian. Melanie Gallacher followed with a musical video in celebration of her daughter, and then Beeslack finished with an inspiring collection of long exposures of a fire dancer, set to Stravinsky’s The Firebird. And on that note we finished the evening and retired to Beeslack’s usual room for tea and biscuits. Thank you Beeslack for hosting us.

  • Next week (Thursday 13th) we have another flexible Members Evening. I propose that we have a session on camera skills. Please bring your camera (plus a macro lens and a flash if you have one). If you have any interesting small objects to photograph, bring those along as well. I’m especially interested in moving objects (such as a pendulum or a dancing robot), if you have any.
  • I am planning to demonstrate the settings on my Nikon camera. It would be good to have volunteers to cover Canon, Sony and Panasonic cameras as well.

See you next week.

30 January 2025 (Set Subject Round 1 – Buildings)

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Our last meeting in January was the first round of our 3-part set subject competition, on the theme of “Buildings”. Mike Clark had kindly volunteered to judge this competition. 

There were 42 entries from 14 members.  Mike described what he liked about each image and also gave some suggestions for improvement. He particularly liked images where the photographer had thought outside the box to post something unusual, such as Karen Woodcock’s unusual view of a building that made it look like a face looking down or Gavin Marshall’s “Witches Cottage” decorated for Halloween. Mike commented on the composition of each image. There were some compositions where there was a path that was cut off at the edge of the frame and it would have been be nice to have see more of that path. He also pointed out some distracting objects that were cut in half at the edge.  Mike recommended that we try to compose an image so there is a separation between the components. Could a different viewpoint have separated those overlapping chimneys or towers, for example? He also commented on some converging verticals and recommended that long buildings that dominate the horizon be photographed straight on, so they will look more natural on a straight horizon.  Overall, members had submitted some good quality and innovate images, and there were a lot of high marks. The top scorers were (in reverse order):

  • 5th place (50 points)
    • Carol Edmond
    • Jim Innes
  • 4th place (51 points)
    • Steven Beard
    • Gavin Marshall
    • John West
    • Karen Woodcock
    • Melanie Gallacher
  • 3rd place (53 points)
    • Malcolm Roberts
    • Jennifer Davidson
  • 2nd place (55 points)
    • Derek Muller
  • 1st place (57 points)
    • George Todd

The top images were:

  • Corbiere Lighthouse (George Todd) – 20 points
  • Dawn (Jennifer Davidson) – 20 points
  • V and A Dundee (Melanie Gallacher) – 20 points
  • Toronto (George Todd) – 19 points
  • Old to New, Boston (Derek Muller) – 19 points
  • Are you looking down on me? (Karen Woodcock) – 19 points
  • Natural History Museum 1 (Malcolm Roberts) – 18 points
  • Himeji Castle Member (Malcolm Roberts) – 18 points
  • Botanical Gardens (Steven Beard) – 18 points
  • Baltimore Lighthouse (Steven Beard) – 18 points
  • KotelInicheskaya (George Todd) – 18 points
  • Reflective Towers (John West) – 18 points
  • Hospice of Soutra (Carol Edmond) – 18 points
  • Jedburgh Abbey Sunny Day (Jim Innes) – 18 points
  • Small Buildings (Derek Muller) – 18 points
  • Taj Mahal Sunrise (Derek Muller) – 18 points
  • Clifftop Buildings (Jennifer Davidson) – 18 points

Well done to George Todd, who wins the right to judge next year’s competition. And well done to everyone who entered. This is just the first round out of 3, and the overall winner is the one who has the highest marks from their best two rounds. So the competition is still open, and there are a lot of members following closely behind the leading pack.