A big thank you to George Smith and John Napier who were kind enough to show us a selection of the photographs they enjoy taking. A good selection of landscape, wildlife and flowers, amongst other things, were displayed and John even put together a great AV of Musselburgh in snow.

The club has a copy of the AV software John recommended, Pro Show Gold, so please ask if you are interested in taking a look and having a go at making your own AV.

We plan to have more nights like this next session so if you would like the opportunity to share your shots with other members then please leave a comment below this post or speak to one of the committee members. It would be great to get everyone on board even if it’s just for a 10 minute talk.

There is another chance to receive constructive feedback from some of the more experienced members this Thursday so please bring along one image (mounted or unmounted).

Please also bring along a couple of prints you’d like to be considered for the summer library exhibition and hand them to John Knox or Charlie Briggs. We will then choose the most appropriate ones that hopefully will be varied and fit the space available. They can be A4 and mounted on black card with a title and your club number on the back.

See you all Thursday.

We had nearly fifty people attending our joint meeting with the Musselburgh Art Club last night which proved to be fascinating experience.
Dell with his tremendous knowledge of both photography and artistic skill discussed the thirty paintings and prints images.
Both seemed to have the same characteristics and elements that make up an image that ‘speaks’ to the viewer.
Positioning, colour combination, originality and avoiding elements in the image that distracts from the main subject were all relevant in creating a quality product.

Thanks to Malcolm Roberts who put in a good article and picture relating to MCC in this week’s East Lothian Courier, page 16.

Library Exhibition – From May to   September we will be holding our annual display which will tour seven libraries in East Lothian.
This year I would like to see that it contains a print image from each member of the club (subject to available space).
Thus showing the general public the full range of work and experience achieved by members, so that they can relate to them and hopefully be interested in coming along to the club next season.
We need up to two prints from every member mounted, if possible on black mounts as the lighter ones do tend to get a bit ‘grubby’ by the time they have done the rounds.We will then choose the most appropriate ones that hopefully will be varied and fit the space available.

You can use any prints that you have – if you want to improve on them based on comments and guidance made so much the better. If you are reprinting, try to keep to A4 size, suitable mounted, as they will take up less room and allow more prints being shown.

Please bring in your prints over the next few weeks and give them to John Knox or Charlie Briggs, but please aim to have them with us by 29th March, remembering that 22nd of March we are away at Beeslack. Please put a title on the back with your club number.
So please give us your full co operation  so that we can really make a good show of our efforts made during the year.

On the 22nd March we are visiting Beeslack Camera Club at Penicuik, so there will not be a meeting at Fisherrow – I have put a list on the notice board, please put your name on it if you are planning to go to Beeslack so that we can organise  transport ( car sharing)
Meet at Fisherrow car park 6.45pm

Next week – we have John Napier and George Smith who will give us a presentation on ‘Pictures that they enjoy taking’.

I shall be away for the next three meetings, so Joe Fowler will be ‘Master of Ceremonies’.

I will be back again for the meeting on the 29th March and am looking forward to seeing ‘a large pile of prints’.

Regards

Clive

What an excellent evening we had last night with our inter-club competition against Haddington, who brought along a good number of members to see how Charlie Summers would judge the ten prints and ten projected images per club.

The standard of the entries were very high and the majority of the images were awarded 17 points, ending in only 6 points between the clubs in respect of the print images.
However Musselburgh edged ahead with the projected images and ‘won the evening’.

Owing to the high standard  it is now nice to hear about what a judge likes about the images rather than a multitude of obvious areas which need improving.
Charlie did manage to give pointers where some could be improved but I think that he found the task some what challenging.So our thanks go to him for all the work he put in and hope that he will agree to come again sometime in the future.

Next week we have ‘An evening with the Musselburgh Art Club’  this is not a competition but Del will comment on the art work and how our images reflect art.
Following my e mail of yesterday, please bring along one of your images that can be selected for this exercise. As this is not a competition it does not matter if
you have used it in other comps. or want to use it next year, the more ‘arty’ the image the better.

We are waiting to hear how many are coming from the Art Club, so we might use the room 32 next week, so if you find no lights on in our usual room keep going up the corridor.

Clive

It was good to announce last night that we came first at the 12 way inter-club competition held last Sunday at the Mining Museum.
Joe Fowler received the cup for the best image in the competition.
Haddington CC came second and Beeslack CC was third.
This being our forth consecutive win, so well done to all those that had their images entered.

Del announced that out of the 400 ‘ large ‘clubs in the UK our entry for the ‘Photographic Alliance of Great Britain’,got us in 37th place which is also a great achievement.We will try to get a higher position next year,so let Del have some of you best images
by a CD so that we can start to get a new quality set of images together.

Last night we had the opportunity to see the work of two of our judges, Brenda & Michael Thomson who took us around the world with their images, they went on to explain
some points to look for when setting up a shot and to try to get something different, the record shot is worth taking but usually on its own does not make a competition image.
It was interesting to hear how that they have their images judged and how they have to then work on the images to improve them to competition standard. Brenda admitted that
one of her better images only got a score of 14 at a recent Haddington in club comp. so we all suffer from time to time.

Next week we are to have a competition against Haddington CC, so come along a give us your support and see if we can put them into second place again.

Clive

Mark Davey from Calumet returned again to give us guidance and ideas on how to take photos relating to ‘Movement & Action’.
The great benefit of his talk related to the example of his images, giving the settings used which was very useful to see the correct way of ‘getting that wow image’.

He suggested that using manual settings was the best approach, work out where the subject ‘might be’ and manually focus and  set appropriate speed, aperture  and iso that you will get the correct exposure. Pan the camera to get the sense of movement and using a wide aperture (low F number) to throw the background out of focus.

He touched on ‘infill flash’ which help to freeze the image –  very useful on many occasions.
I am hoping that Mark will return next season to talk to us on how to use ‘flash’ to best advantage.

Remember the 12 way competition at the Mining Museum (just outside Dalkeith) this Sunday, you do not have to stay all day, just pop in during the day and see what it is all about.
See my e mail of earlier this week or look on web site under’ Chairman’s  Comments’.

On the subject of the web site, please make every effort to ‘sign up’ to it, if you need help see Rob, Ross or Dougie next week and they will help you sign up.
I wish to have everyone on board by the end of Feb., then I can circulate comments via the site and not have to duplicate the work by using two mediums.

NEXT WEEK – We have Michael and Brenda Thomson, who judged our Colour Print and Portrait comps. they are presenting their own work,
so it will be interesting to see their efforts – you can ‘mentally’ give them marks!

Clive

Next Sunday there is the annual event at the Scottish Mining Museum (Dalkeith) of the 12 way inter-club competition.

It is a good day out and starts from 9.30 am and finishes by 4pm.

Anyone can go, so bring the family, you can bring a packed lunch or there is a good canteen with reasonably priced food and drinks.

This year the competition is being judged by Neil Scott, our judge of last week. Each club enters 5 prints and 5 Digital Images There is a prize for the winning club and the best individual Image

So come along and support the MCC, who have won this event for the past three years.

For directions etc log onto http://www.scottishminingmuseum.com

Clive