What an amazing meeting we had last night with the four way inter-club competition, against Haddington, Stirling and Edinburgh.
We had a good turnout of our own members and four guests from Stirling, three from Haddington but sadly only the judge came from Edinburgh, although he did say that he was not involved with the group that put in the images for competitions.

Sandy Cleland, FRPS, APIAF, was an excellent judge who said that he was very impressed with the standard of the work submitted.

The results were:-

!st   Musselburgh   268 points
2nd Stirling            253 points
3rd  Edinburgh       245 points
4th  Haddington     238 points

Afterwards we had a superb banquet, a member of Stirling CC actually took a picture of it to take back as they are hosting next years comp.
Many thanks to Liz and her team  for organising it.

Next week we have the last meeting at Fisherrow this calendar year, where Ross will put on a fun evening, so please make an effort to come along.
The following Thursday will be our Christmas Dinner to round off our first half of this season.

Abstract is the set subject and I am expecting that everyone will put in at least one image (max 3) to be handed in at our first meeting in 2012 on Thursday 5th Jan.
So please get working on it before Christmas gets in the way.

On Monday 12th Dec. we are visiting Kirkcaldy CC, we have 12 members on the list to go, owing to traffic and road works we will need to leave Fisherrow at 6pm.

Clive

Andy Bennetts gave us his insight into ‘Capturing Sport’ with an illustrated talk about the many ways that he uses to get real action images.
A long lens, high speed (1000 -1200) and an open aperture (2.8) – this freezes the action and puts the background out of focus. Using manual focus and estimating where the main subject
will be when you press the button or use tracking focus if your camera has this. Motor drive and taking dozens of shots and you just might capture that special picture.

We had a committee meeting last Tuesday and it was decided:-

1. That the presentation of Trophies will now be held on the same night as the AGM on 12th April, followed by a party. This will free up the first meeting in Sept 12 to be more interesting for existing and new members.

2. I mentioned last week about our set subject ‘Abstract’ – Anita will be doing the judging and will pick the first three places plus three runner ups, the images will be commented on by her, but points will not be awarded and this comp will not count towards  the ‘Photographer of the Year’ award.

This will leave it open to put in up to three images and give the scope to have some real fun.

I would like for everyone and I mean everyone to have a go and put at least one image in and make them as quirky, funny or what ever you like.

So think about it, use your imagination and let us have them on 5th Jan.

Next week we have the four way club comp against Haddington, Stirling and Edinburgh, we have booked the large room (room 32) at the Fisherrow Centre, so please will everyone make a real effort to come along and give your support to the club.

We will be having a party afterwards.

Joe is holding at Workshop at Southfields this Sat 10-12noon –

‘Camera Controls’ and ‘Good & Bad Portraits’ If you are interested e mail him on  fingalfowler@aol.com

I repeat -‘Please make a real effort to come along next week’.

Clive

A warm welcome to out latest member, John Fraser who joined us last night.

I  announced the sad news last night that Bill Brown’s wife died last week – we send our condolences to Bill – the funeral will take place at 2 pm on  Monday at Seafield Crematorium.

Last night we were able to see the winning entries in the Photographic Alliance of GB for 2009, we will see the 2010 version at a later date.
It was a two parter, the first one had many stunning images, all of which had the consistence element that what was needed to be in focus was and the background
was out of focus (good depth of field) with no intruding and distracting elements to take the eye off of the main subject.

The second set of images were, although good, were not up to the same standard and I am sure that we can easily compete, so please look through your images, no matter how old
and if you have some that we could use, e mail them to Dell, asap, so that he can make a selection that we can put into next years competition and get MCC firmly on the map.

Yesterday I spent an interesting time with a preview of the Portrait Gallery, which re opens to the public on 1st Dec.The improvements are very impressive and they now have a dedicated
gallery for Photography (the only one in Scotland), they also have three further small exhibition of photographs, so it is certainly worth a visit.

Future Club Competitions

The set subject ‘Abstract‘ – you can broaden out the literal meaning and include living things, but the images need to be different of quirky, so use you imagination and see what you can come up with.
But will everyone please have a go and submit up to three imaged by the meeting on 5th Jan. Anita will be the judge, so I am sure she will be ‘generous’ with her comments.

The monochrome Print submissions are required by the meeting on 19th Jan. any type of image, but monotone (no colour). You can use Photoshop to convert – if any member needs some training, this can be catered for between 7-7.30 on  club nights – see John Napier or myself to arrange. One of the exhibitions at the Portrait Gallery details Thomas Anna’s mono /sepia images of the slums of Glasgow, taken during 1868-71 – these might give you some inspiration.

Next week – we have an illustrated talk by the sports photographer, Andy Bennetts, on ‘Capturing Sport’. This should be very worthwhile and we no doubt be able to pick up many tips on the insight to this demanding subject.

Lets have a good turnout next week.

Clive

Last night Brenda Thomson gave her opinion of our entries, we may not agree with a number of her comments and points awarded, but that’s the way a judge see it, she did say that over all there was a high standard of entries and that she is not one for giving high marks unless an image is outstanding.

However, Dougie came out on top, so congratulations to him.

The top six positions re as follows:-

1.  Dougie
2. Charlie and Anita
3. Jennifer and Del
4. Rob
5. Scott
6. Joe

The real winners were everyone who put in images, a print is the end product of what we do and it is essential that everyone try to participate in showing their work on these occasions, you might not agree with the comments, although often there is a little amount of truth in some of the comments, especially as I raised before and I still fall foul of them:-

Better  cropping, burnt out highlights, distracting elements in the background and some images too large for the mount, but still nothing wrong with ‘Black’!

Next week we have a projected display of the best images for 2010 from the Photographic Alliance of Great Britain (we can 17th in the whole of GB last year,so we might have an image included)

This is the organisation that Del would like us to enter again  for this years comp.

So if you have not yet done so, please seek out up to three of your best images and e mail them to Del asap.

If you have not yet committed yourself to the Christmas Dinner, then please join us.

See you all next week.

Clive

Welcome to two new members – Steven Beard and Gavin Marshall who joined us this week.

I hope that they and all members who came along enjoyed the talk by Liz Cole.
She is a professional photographer, who now specialises in plant photography from all over the world and this is where she took us last night.
Highlighting different aspects of getting the best images of plants in natural places and conditions. It means getting down to ground level, climbing rocky areas, putting up with the rain and wind, all without treading on other species that are in the area.

Most of her photography is taken using a tripod and reflectors, which gives stability and time to think about the shot (position, focus, depth of field and anything that can be moved from the shooting area) and for the wind to momentary to drop. The reflectors lights areas where detail would be lost if not used. So go out into your garden or local area and have a go.

Dougie has just sent me an e mail where there are some special offers on reflectors from 7dayshop

http://www.7dayshop.com/catalog/default.php?filterwords=7dayshop%205%20in%201%20collapsible%20disc&filterwordsalldb=1&filterwordsdescs=1&page=1&sort=3a&r=20111101

Next week we are having the judging of the Portrait Comp. – the judge is Brenda Thomson, who is the wife of Michael who judged our Colour Print Comp in Sept. So lets hear what she thinks of our efforts.

Joe Fowler is continuing his Saturday workshops at Southfields – this Saturday 5th Nov  – 10am to noon – he is covering portraits. So e-mail him if you want to go along.

We now have a good group of members who have put their names down for the Christmas Dinner on Thursday 15th Dec. So if you still haven’t committed yourself then put your name on the list and join in the fun.

See you next week

Clive

We only had fourteen entries for last nights ‘Appraisal Evening’ – which was an opportunity missed by many members to have guidance given on some of their work.
However Del and Joe were able to constructively comment on the images, giving many useful pointers which we could all benefit from. So bring up your image on your computer
and make the changes and see how they look, if you don’t like it, don’t save it!

Next week we have Liz Cole, who is a very experienced professional photographer, who has covered all aspects of photography but now specialises in  plant
photography, she is under contract to a garden and plant photography agency and her work is published in books, magazines, newspapers and calenders
throughout the UK and Europe. She runs photography workshops at the Royal Botanical Garden Edinburgh and gives talks to various clubs and societies.
Flowers might not be your favoured subject, but I am confident that there will be many aspects of her talk that will certainly be of benefit to all.

Christmas Dinner, we now have a ‘growing list’ – so please put your name on asap, so that we can make a final booking. If you cannot come to the next couple of meetings
please send me an  e mail and I can add it. Cost of meal is £19.95, with a £10 deposit to Liz Sowler.

Del wants us to enter the ‘Photographic Alliance of Great Britain’ competition again this year – last year we came 15th out of the whole of the UK, which was an excellent result.
But we need to have entries to submit – please therefore look through your images and send one, two or three to Del via e mail ( delvinstonehill@mac.com ) – he will come back to you
if he wants to use an image so that he can get a higher resolution for submission.

Hope to see you all next week.

Clive

I now have the results from Thursday’s ‘Projected Image Comp.’ and I detail a quote from Del

‘ I think that the members work was pretty good, with a wide range of subject matter, and members followed instructions better than last year, although there were a lot of members who put in a mix of JPegs and Tiffs.’ We did ask for jpegs.

So Del thought that there was a good standard although we did have some ‘odd’ comments from the judge, but certainly some of the skies could have been improved by using a polarizer filter. I have one but have not really got on with it, so I will try to have another go with it and see if it does improve skies etc. Del have also commented in the past the  it is important to look at ‘levels’ on each image and adjust it if necessary by looking at the histogram.

Help to do this can be available in the pre meeting workshop 7-7.30pm on a club night by John Napier and Photoshop Elements – if you want to take advantage of this e mail me or speak to John. Also, as I have mentioned before if there are any other subjects that could be fitted into this time slot, then let me know.

Next week Jennifer & Rob will take the stage and show and talk about pictures that they have taken and circumstances involving the taking – sounds very interesting and should be entertaining.

Please also bring along up to three Human Portrait print images, please refer to our rules  and ensure that you put your club number and titlte on the back – please keep the title short and either use a permanent pen or a typed label. Your co-operation in  putting in images that do not damage other peoples work would be appreciated.

The points were very close but the members with the top six points are as follows:-

1. Dougie Williams  & Anita Nutter both with 55 points

2. Scott Currie with 53 points

3. Jennifer Davidson with 52 points

4. Charlie Briggs, Rob McCann and Del Stonehill with 51 points

5. Ken Sharp, Kenny Walker & Joe Fowler with 50 points

6. Derek Stein with 49 points.

I am away next week, so you can have a rest from me and have to put up with Joe Fowler!!

Clive