A reminder that the next outside shoot will be next Thursday 2nd June, where we will be visiting Roslin Glen, old castle river walk, industrial ruins and water wheel.

Enter the second opening on the right on the Rosewell bypass there is a car park at the bottom of the glen.

There is a reference to the area at:

Meet at Fisherrow 7pm for lifts.

AGM

Reports were given, by the Secretary, the Treasurer  and the Competition Secretary and these can be summed up by:-

“Well attended and interesting meetings, we are solvent (just) and we won all our inter club competitions.”

The following Officers and committee members were elected:-

Chairman                          Clive Davies

Vice Chairman                  Joe Fowler

Secretary                          Anita Nutter

Treasurer                         David Howie

Competition Secretary    Delvin Stonehill

Webmaster                        Rob McCann

Members                           John Knox, Charles Briggs, Malcolm Roberts, Liz Sowler

A discussion took place on the website and Flickr – the website still needs a lot more material including images for the Gallery, if you have not already done so please select up to 12 of your best images, resize them to 100/96 dpi with the longest side being 1400 pixels and email them to Rob :-

If everything can be brought together we should be able to go ‘live’ in June.

Ideas for the ‘Set Subject’ were offered and voted on, through dubious double voting, some two hands being shown by some and  an even more dubious count it was agreed that the subject would be ‘Abstract’.

This could prove to be very interesting, interpret it as you may and use the imagination. Try putting your camera on manual and vary the exposure etc, use long time exposures and see what you can create, even without the use of Photoshop.

Anita , the winner of last years competition will be doing the judging and she has a full understanding of this type of image, and Dell is the master of it, with or without the ‘moon’.

We will also be having the normal club competitions:- Portrait, Colour Prints, Monochrome Prints and Projected images, plus the odd image of the month, so there is plenty to aim for, but remember it is participating not winning that really counts.

The main message from the meeting is that not only are we a club but are a ‘working team’, so that everyone can not only get something out of the club membership but they can contribute to making things even better.

Photography is to be enjoyed, winning competitions is not relevant, it is liking what you do and learning from others in order to continue to improve your knowledge and skills.

See you at the ‘Shoots’.

Clive

Last week I did not think that I could make this meeting, however I am glad I came along.

We had 54 Portrait images – 53 people and one dog (disallowed) – from 18 members and Ian Murphy had his work cut out judging such a range of subjects.

He  described the advantages and problems of each image and gave some good advice. As usual there are two types of image, those that appeal as family shots which ‘granny’ can hang on the wall
to those that had real ‘pow’ and impact that are more suited to Club competitions.

Sherlock Holmes would have been a good portrait photographer – he was renowned for seeing detail that others did not notice – hair strands across face etc, bra straps and items that could have been hidden
with slight adjustment of hair and clothing. Correct lighting is essential, blown out highlights to be avoided and lighten dark areas, unless they add to the image, avoiding distracting objects in the background.

Many problems can simply be cropped or cloned out. Slight use of dodge, burn and level tools can make all the different.

Much to think about, but only practice and making the mistakes will help us all to improve.

See you all in March.

Regards

Clive

I think we had an interesting informal meeting last night, John Knox did an excellent job passing relevant comments on the images that members brought in and there was some ‘good banter’ going on.
I do however forgive him for ‘talking rubbish’ about my print!!!

Another good thing revealed itself last night was that the standard of the print mounting had substantially improved since Del gave his demonstration and
going by the way the photo mount adhesive sold out last night it looks like things ‘can only get better’ . There is one can left, but if more people would like to purchase a can (£11) I can start another list
and if we get sufficient interest we can order more.

Next week is the ‘postponed’ Portrait Competition, so that should prove to be interesting, especially to those members who attend the Portrait Workshops, perhaps it will give us something else to strive for.

I shall be ‘off air’ for all of February, so please refer to your syllabus for the meetings in Feb. and if you cannot find it you can always refer to the web site   http://www.musselburghcameraclub.org.uk

Hope to see most of you next week

Clive