Author Archives: stevenmbeard

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About stevenmbeard

I am the chair of Musselburgh Camera Club, and also a software engineer at the UK Astronomy Technology Centre in Edinburgh.

13 December 2018 (Black and White Print Competition)

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This week we had the privilege of entertaining Doug Berndt, president of the Edinburgh Photographic Society, who judged our black and white print competition. Doug said he judges photographs by considering their impact, story, quality, creativity and composition, and the best images need to score well in all 5 categories.

There were 45 prints entered altogether. This gave Doug time to appraise each image in detail, point out good features or mistakes and try out different crops. Some good quality images lost out because they didn’t have an impact, so it pays to think about the story you are telling at the time an image is captured. Would a different angle or different location help? Are there distracting things in the background? There were also some highly creative and promising images which lost out on quality, primarily because they had blown highlights or lost detail in the shadows. Some prints had colour casts, and Doug suggested members with Epson printers could try using “advanced black and white mode” to remove the casts. A special mention goes to Colin Dempster, whose image entitled “The Moment Of Truth – Italian Explorers Selection” had everyone, including Doug, guessing what it meant.

The top scorers in the black and white print competition were (in reverse order):

  • 5th place (48 points)
    • Malcolm Roberts
  • 4th place (49 points)
    • Sean Connor
  • 3rd place (51 points)
    • Joe Fowler
  • 2nd place (55 points)
    • Jim Tod
  • 1st place (57 points)
    • George Todd

Well done to George Todd, who retains his black and white title. George’s image “Swayambunath Temple Lady” was the top image of the competition.

The top images were:

  • Swayambunath Temple Lady (George Todd) – 20 points
  • Sunflower Mono (Jim Tod) – 20 points
  • Dirt and Dust  (Joe Fowler) – 19 points
  • Moscow Metro (George Todd) – 19 points
  • Low Tide (Joe Fowler) – 18 points
  • The Lost Pay Packet (Jim Tod) – 18 points
  • Chitwan Girl (George Todd) – 18 points
  • My Brother (Sean Connor) – 18 points

Dean Bricknell talk at Beeslack Penicuik Camera Club

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This coming Thursday, 6th December 2018, there will no meeting at Fisherrow. Instead we will be travelling to Beeslack Penuick Camera club to see a presentation by wildlife photographer Dean Bricknell. This is a shared meeting between Beeslack and Musselburgh. No tickets are needed, and all members are invited to attend. The presentation starts at 7:30pm.

Those who travelled to the 4-way competition on 1st November will remember the directions, but here they are again. Beeslack Penicuik Camera Club meets at

Beeslack Community High School
Edinburgh Road
Penicuik
EH26 0QF

Click the above address for a map and directions to the school. The image below shows where we are meeting. If you are approaching from the Edinburgh direction on the A701, turn left when you see the small sign to Beeslack High School on the right hand side of the road. Follow the yellow route shown to the car park around the back of the school, then follow the dotted path to the school entrance. The meeting will be taking place somewhere within the building marked with the “X”.

As before, George Todd is willing to pick up members who would like a lift from Western Musselburgh. Please email George (address on the front of the syllabus) and give him your contact phone number if you would like a lift. I will be glad to give a lift to anyone who lives on the Eastern side of Musselburgh, near Wallyford. Please email me (Steven Beard, address also on the front of the syllabus) if you would like a lift. We both have limited space, so it will be first come first served.

I look forward to seeing you all in Penicuik again.

29 November 2018 (Digital Knockout Competition – Transparency)

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The club’s annual digital knockout competition took place this week. Members had spent the summer collecting images on the challenging theme of “transparency” and had interpreted the theme in creative ways. Many of the subjects were still life arrangements of transparent glasses and bottles, although there was one ghost! Some images were taken through a rainy window, through water and even through wet rice paper, and some images used a veil or curtain to give a feeling of transparency.  About 36 images were entered altogether, and after 3 knockout rounds there were 5 images remaining in the final round. Members voted for their favourites, and the final result was:

  • In 5th place, “Liquid Gold”, a still life of a golden drink being poured into a glass, by Jennifer Davidson.
  • In 4th place, “Through The Window”, an intriguing image of a room viewed through a window, by Simon Wilkinson.
  • In 3rd place, “Bubbles In A Glass”, a still life of a glass with large bubbles at the top, by Jennifer Davidson.
  • In 2nd place, “Through The Curtain”, a portrait of a model looking through a net curtain, by Jennifer Davidson.
  • In 1st place, “Face At The Window”, a portrait of a monk looking through a rainy window, by Joe Fowler.

Well done to Jennifer Davidson, who got all 3 of her images into the top 5, and congratulations to the winner, Joe Fowler, who won a box of transparent fake diamonds!

22 November 2018 (Introduction to Audio-Visual Presentations)

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On Thursday, 22nd November I gave club members an introduction to making audio-visual presentations. Audio-Visual presentations are another way to show your work, in addition to prints and digital projected images. Click on the following link to download the notes from my presentation.

MCCIntroductionToAudioVisualsNotes

You can create a slide show with captions, animation and basic sound effects using PowerPoint. Clive Davies showed us how PowerPoint can be used to present a large number of images within a surprisingly small file size. The image compression is sufficiently good that the image quality on screen looks just as good as the original.

To make a full audio-visual presentation you will need extra software. The club recommends Photodex ProShow for Windows PC users. You can download a trial copy from http://www.photodex.com/proshow. Mac users can try Boniten Photo Theatre Pro, which is a similar product.

The evening finished with some example audio-visual presentations. Gus Langlands showed us one of the first presentations he and John Knox had put together, taking the viewer on a tour of the sites around East Lothian. The images for that presentation were scanned from slides. Gus and John create their sound track using Magix Sound Forge audio editing software, which can edit a sound track in the same way that Photoshop can edit an image. Unwanted clicks and pops can be “healed” out.

This coming Thursday, 29th November we have a knockout competition on the theme of “transparency” (i.e. subjects which are transparent or evoke the theme of transparency, not slides). Please bring along 1, 2 or 3 JPEG images on the night. If you can’t be present please email your images to George Todd. Members will vote for their favourite images on the night, and the best image will win a prize!

 

19 November 2018 (4-Way Inter-club Competition at Kirkcaldy)

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On Monday, 19th November 2018, half a dozen of us travelled to Kirkcaldy to see the second 4-way interclub competition of the season. The competition was host by Kirkcaldy Photographic Society and included  Edinburgh Photographic Society and Stirling and District Camera Club.  It was Kirkcaldy’s 120th anniversary. They entertained us with a spread of sandwiches, cakes and savouries, and had thoughtfully included some alcohol-free wine for those who needed to drive back across the Forth Bridge.

Clubs entered 15 digital projected images each, making a total of 60 images on the night. There was a mixture of wildlife images, landscapes, portraits and several images from kayaking events. The images were judged by Libby Smith of Carluke Camera Club.  Libby commented on the fact that several of the images looked like they had been prepared for print: the contrast was too high, and some were too light. This is something to remember the next time we prepare digital versions of print images: the lightening and contrast enhancements added to make a good print need to be removed before saving the images as DPIs.

By the halfway stage of the competition, things were not looking good for Musselburgh. We were trailing in last place, with Edinburgh and Kirkcaldy leading the field. Then the competition finished with an astonishing turn of events. Our last 3 images received 19, 19 and 20 points, jumping us into second place. Those images were:

  • Sunset over Newborough – 19 points
  • Licking My Wounds – 19 points
  • Hare Raiding Barley Field – 20 points

The final result was:

  • Kirkcaldy Photographic Society – 242 points
  • Musselburgh Camera Club – 238 points
  • Edinburgh Photographic Society – 236 points
  • Stirling and District Camera Club – 234 points

Congratulations to Kirkcaldy for winning on their 120th anniversary. In the end, it was the middle-ranking images that made the difference. Kirkcaldy had many more images scoring 17 and 16, whereas we had more images scoring 14 or 15.

Thank you to everyone who submitted images for the competition.

15 November 2018 (Colour Print Competition)

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This week we had the pleasure of entertaining Dougie Allen from Beeslack Penicuik Camera Club, who judged our colour print competition. There were 56 prints altogether covering a wide variety of subjects, including photographs of wildlife, portraits of people, and landscapes. The general quality was high, and a lot of the images submitted scored 17-points or more, although none of the images received 20 points. The most frequent comment about an image was the need to crop out a distraction. Dougie commented on the bland-looking sky in some of the prints and recommended the use of a polarizing filter to enhance the contrast in the sky.

The top scorers were (in reverse order):

  • 5th place (49 points)
    • Malcolm Roberts
    • Lorraine Roberts
    • Simon Wilkinson
    • Steven Beard
    • George Davidson
  • 4th place (51 points)
    • Mike Clark
    • Steve Barber
  • 3rd place (52 points)
    • Charlie Briggs
    • Joe Fowler
    • George Todd
  • 2nd place (50 points)
    • Jennifer Davidson
  • 1st place (54 points)
    • Jim Tod

The top images were

  • Jay (Charlie Briggs) – 19 points
  • Low Tide (Joe Fowler) – 19 points
  • Lubber Hopper (Jim Tod) – 19 points
  • Hare Raiding Barley Field (Jennifer Davidson) – 18 points
  • Osprey Carrying Catch (Jennifer Davidson) – 18 points
  • Jacobite (Jim Tod) – 18 points.
  • Rapid Teamwork (George Todd) – 18 points
  • Licking My Wounds (Mike Clark) – 18 points
  • Concentration (Steve Barbour)– 18 points

Congratulations to Jim Tod, winning with a great set of prints.

  • This Thursday, 22nd November, I will give an introduction to audio visual presentations – a different way to present your work.
  • Don’t forget to bring along your Black and White prints this Thursday.

4-way, Christmas Dinner and Black and White Prints

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There were so many announcements to make this evening that I forgot two important ones.

  • Steve WIlliams has booked a table at the Ravelston House Hotel in Musselburgh for our Christmas Social Evening on Thursday, 20th December 2018. We can add a few more places to the table. If you would like to come, and can pay a £10 deposit, please contact Steve at the email address shown on the front of the syllabus.
  • Next Thursday, 22nd November is the submission date for the Black and White print competition. It’s time to mount your prints and bring them along next week. Don’t forget to email 3 JPEG copies of your prints to George Todd as well.

The next 4-way competition takes place on Monday, 19th November 2018 at Kirkcaldy Photographic Society. The competition will take place at

Hayfield Community Centre,
Hayfield Road,
Kirkcaldy,
KY2 5DG

Click the address for a map. The centre can be reached by taking the A92 to Kirkcaldy and taking the A910 exit, following Chapel Level, turning right at Hendry Road and then left at Hayfield Road. The community centre can be hard to spot from this direction (the sign post is on the far side), so watch out for Poplar Crescent on your right hand side. You can park on Poplar Crescent. Best of luck to Musselburgh!

 

Andy Rouse Evening – Directions to Penicuik North Church

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Due to illness, I missed last Thursday’s 4-way competition At Beeslack Penicuik Camera Club. I wish I could have been there, as I have heard through the grapevine that we achieved first place, with Beeslack a close second and Midlothian and Galashiels in joint 3rd place! Well done everybody! I’ll post the scores when I know them.

There will not be a meeting in Fisherrow this week. On 8th November, club members will be travelling to Penicuik North Church for An Evening with Andy Rouse, starting at 7:30pm. I hope those who needed tickets managed to obtain them from Dougie Allen last week. However, we have been informed that there are some tickets still available. If we are lucky, some tickets might still be available at the door. The full address of the venue is:

Penicuik North Church, 93 John Street, Penicuik. EH26 8AG

Click on the address for more information and directions (see the “Find Us” map at the bottom of the page). Penicuik North Church is a little further along the A701 than Beeslack High School. There isn’t a car park at the church, so you will need to allow a little more time to find on-street parking. I hope the same people who gave members lifts to Penicuik last week will be able to do so again this week.

This week I hope I really will see you there.

Steven

Directions to Beeslack Penicuik Camera Club

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This coming Thursday, 1st November 2018, there will no meeting at Fisherrow. The club will instead be visiting Beeslack Penuick Camera club and competing with them, Midlothian Camera Club and Galashiels Camera Club in the first 4-way inter-club competition of the season. Come along a cheer on your club.

Beeslack Penicuik Camera Club meets at

Beeslack Community High School
Edinburgh Road
Penicuik
EH26 0QF

Click the above address for a map and directions to the school. The image below shows where we are meeting. If you are approaching from the Edinburgh direction on the A701, turn left when you see the small sign to Beeslack High School on the right hand side of the road. Follow the yellow route shown to the car park around the back of the school, then follow the dotted path to the school entrance. The competition will be taking place somewhere within the building marked with the “X”.

George Todd is willing to pick up members who would like a lift from Musselburgh. Please email George (address on the front of the syllabus) and give him your contact phone number if you would like a lift. George has limited space, so it will be first come first served.

I look forward to seeing you all in Penicuik. Best of luck to Musselburgh!

  • On 8th November, those of us with tickets will be travelling to Penicuik North Church for An Evening with Andy Rouse. The tickets have been on sale to the public for a while now, but if you don’t have a ticket and are interested in joining us contact Dougie Allen at the address shown in this poster. Click here for the poster. There might still be tickets available if you are lucky. Failing that, you could talk to Dougie in person at the 4-way competition this week.

25 October 2018 (Set Subject Competition – Seascapes)

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Last year, on 26th October 2017, Helen and Martin Lunden jointly won the “Circles and Squares” set subject competition and earned themselves the right to judge this year’s competition. Since then, Helen and Martin have moved to Sweden, but this didn’t stop them from judging. Here is the message they sent to club members from across the North Sea:

Dear all,

Here are the results from the Swedish jury! Thanks for giving us the responsibility of judging the seascape competition! We really enjoyed it and hope you won’t hate us after you have heard the results. We would have liked to be there on Thursday obviously but we’re sadly stuck here with work and what not. Enjoy the evening. There are some really amazing photos here and we loved looking at them. Would like to hang some of these on a wall. (We haven’t made our own prints, we promise!)

All the best to all of you,
Martin and Helen

Helen and Martin had compiled a comprehensive set of comments and scores to present on the night. The seascape images included a lot of familiar coastal places, such as North Berwick, Bass Rock, Seacliff Beach and Dunbar Harbour, plus some more distant views from Mull, Harris, the Isle of Skye, the Farne Islands and Orkney. There were also some exotic seascapes from Tenerife, Vietnam, South Africa and Australia. There were a wide variety of imaginative shots focusing on different aspects of the sea: sunsets, rocks and sand, seaweed, the coastal architecture, fishing boats, people on the beach and coastal wildfife. The most common fault found in some of the images was a sloping horizon, which is very important to get right in a seascape. Some images could also have been improved by getting closer to the foreground subject or cropping out unwanted distractions. There were positive comments about the beautiful colours and textures captured in some of the images, and the dedication of the photographer who took the image entitled “5am Wake Up Call”. The full list of comments can be found on the club noticeboard.

The top scoring images were

  • Heavy Rain (Joe Fowler) [left] – 20 points
  • Abandoned Pier (Jim Tod) [right] – 20 points
  • Bass Rock Sunset (Jim Tod) – 19 points
  • The Last Of The Pier (Steve Barber) – 19 points
  • Bow Fiddle Sunrise (Jim Tod) – 18 points
  • Bridge To Nowhere (Neil Valentine) – 18 points

There were also a lot of images scoring 17 points, which made a different to the final rankings. The highest scorers were:

  • 5th = place (49 points)
    • Simon Wilkinson
    • Mike Clark
  • 4th place (50 points)
    • Steve Barber
  • 3rd place (51 points)
    • Steven Beard
    • Gordon Davidson
  • 2nd place (54 points)
    • Joe Fowler
  • 1st place (57 points)
    • Jim Tod

Thank you very much Helen and Martin for spending their time judging our images and giving us such detailed and helpful comments. Well done to all who took part. This is the first of 3 linked competitions, so there is still everything to play for.  he next competitions in the series are “Abstract” on 28th February 2019 and “Street Photography” on 21st March 2019. Congratulations to Jim Tod, who wins the right to judge next year’s competition!

  • Please can everyone who handed in prints for the colour print competition this week also email JPEG copies of the same images to George Todd (email address on the front of the syllabus). The images should be resized to 1600 pixels on the longest side. These new images will help us in the second 4-way competition in Kirkcaldy on 19th November 2018.
  • Please note there will be no more meetings at Fisherrow until 15th November 2018. On 1st November we will be travelling to Beeslack Penicuik Camera Club to take part in the 4-way inter-club competition, and on 8th November those with tickets will be travelling to Penicuik North Church Hall for an evening with Andy Rouse. I will email directions separately.
  • It is also time to arrange the Christmas Social Evening on 20th December 2018. We usually have a Christmas dinner at the Ravelston House Hotel in Musselburgh. Click here to see their Christmas menu. There is a sign-up sheet on the notice board at Fisherrow. If you would like to join us, and are willing to pay a £10 deposit, please contact the club secretary Steve Williams, whose email address you will find on the front of the syllabus.