I have posted some comments about the black and white print competition on the web site.

This Thursday, 11th February 2016, we have the Winter Scene Digital Knockout Competition. This is a break from the usual competition format. There is no judge, and the winner will be decided by popular vote. A prize will be awarded to the winner on the night.

If you would like to enter, please bring along one digital image (sized to 1400 pixels on the longest side as usual) on a CD or data stick. Alternatively, if you email your image to George Todd, or to me, we will bring them with us on the night. If you are bringing your own image, please come a few minutes early so we can load them onto the laptop before we start.

See you on Thursday. Come along and join the fun.

Steven

This week you will notice a difference in the way that the “Chairman’s Comments” are distributed. From this week onwards, my ramblings about each club meeting will now be added to a regular page on the web site. These pages are not emailed to everyone, but you can still find them on the web site. For example, my comments from our AV meeting at Beeslack can be found here.  Club news and announcements will be still be posted when needed. You should receive fewer and shorter emails, and important news won’t be lost underneath a long description. Apologies for the inconvenience while the club web site is reorganised. Comments and suggestions are welcome.

This Thursday, 4th February, is the submission deadline for the “Dereliction” set subject competition. Please send your digital entries to George Todd, or bring them along on Thursday on a CD or USB stick. Remember to resize your images to 1400 pixels on the longest side and rename your files to show member number and title.

See you on Thursday for our Black and White print competition.

This week we had the first of our three set subject competitions, judged by Jennifer Davidson. There were 60 images submitted altogether, showing members’ different interpretations of the theme of “coast”; including abstract images of sand patterns, seaweed or sea shells, coastal wildlife, portraits of people enjoying seaside activities, and landscape images of the rocky coastline, castles and lighthouses. All the images submitted were well captured and imaginative, and even the images which had distractions or Photoshop problems could be improved by cropping or reprocessing. The top images were:

• Cockenzie Pier (Steven Beard)
• Surge Gully (Mike Clark)
• Saro Light Rocks (Martin Lunden)
• Choppy Waters (Simon Wilkinson)

but the most talked about image was:

• Blustery Winds (Helen Lunden)

because it included a coastal signpost with the word “Grunt”!

The top scorers were:

• 4th place (49 points)
  • Steve Williams
• 3rd = place (50 points)
  • Steven Beard
  • Martin Lunden
• 2nd place (52 points)
  • Simon Wilkinson
• 1st place (53 points)
  • Mike Clark

Mike wins an AO-sized print of an image of his choosing. The scores will be carried forward to the next set subject competition (themed “Dereliction”) on 25th February.

Next week there are two club meetings:

• Tuesday, 19th January: A 4-way inter-club competition is hosted by Midlothian Camera Club and takes place at Dalkeith Arts Centre at 7:15pm. Please see Liz’s post for instructions on how to get there.
• Thursday, 21st January: Quiz Night at the Fisherrow Centre, with questions set by Liz and Jennifer.

Some other announcements:

• The club will be putting together an exhibition of members’ work for the 2016 Musselburgh Riding of the Marches. If you have up to 3 images of Musselburgh or Fisherrow you would like to contribute, please send a digital version of each image (sized to 1400 pixels) to George Todd. Later in the year, we will have a Musselburgh photoshoot as an opportunity to add more images
• Mike,  Liz, Lesley and I will be getting together in a few days to discuss our future plans for the club website. Do you find the website useful? What aspects do you like or not like? How could it be improved? If you have feedback or ideas, please email Mike, Liz, Lesley or me.

Welcome back everyone to our first session in 2016. We started 2016 with a CD of competition images prepared by the Wigan 10 Foto Club. Wigan 10 are a small club who do well in external competitions, and we saw some captioned examples of their competition entries from 2006 onwards. There were common themes: sporting events, landscapes, portraits, and many images of Camargue horses. It was interesting to see how ordinary-looking portraits could be improved with a new background, or how landscapes could be dramatically improved by replacing the sky and adding a moody contrast. It was also interesting to see how the technical quality of digital images has improved over the last 10 years.

Next week (14th January) we have our first set subject competition, on the theme of “COAST”. Everybody should now have sent or given their digital entries to George Todd. Image files should be renamed so the member number and title are part of the filename: for example, 56_HereIsMyTitle.jpg. (Some members had a problem preserving the filename when emailed. That might be caused by having blanks in the file name. It is safer to use “_”.)

Next week is also the closing date for the black and white print competition. Please bring 3 mounted prints.

Diary Dates:

• Wednesday, 13th January: Musselburgh Amateur Musical Association photo op at the Brunton Theatre. This is a dress rehearsal of their 2016 Revue. Please email Jane Renton if you are interested.
• Tuesday, 19th January: 4-Way competition at Midlothian Camera Club. Note that this is on a Tuesday, not Thursday, and is taking place at the Dalkeith Art Centre. Liz has posted some directions.

See you this Thursday.