This evening we were entertained by Nadin Dunnigan, who described her journey from from photography student and interested amateur to successful professional, specialising in wedding photography, portraits and advertising shots, while maintaining her interest in photographing landscapes and nature.  Nadin has been inspired by and compared with Michael Kenner, Jill Greenberg and Ray Collins. She prefers to photograph in natural light and uses a technique known as “top shade”, where subjects are photographed just inside a doorway. (I found this video introducing the technique.) She also prefers a shallow depth of field, and normally uses aperture priority mode with the camera set to f2.8 or f4, applying exposure compensation to adjust the exposure. Nadin is an inspiration to those amongst us who don’t like photographing people, and she showed us it is possible to make money from a hobby that you love.

HUMAN PORTRAIT ENTRIES

We have had a disappointing number of entries for the human portrait print competition. Our judge, Steve McGonnell, has said he can accept our prints later than he originally planned, which means we have more time to enter. If you have any portrait prints you would like to enter please let George Todd know, and you can bring them along next week. Any print where the main subject is a person or a group of people is eligible for the human portrait competition. It isn’t restricted to one-on-one portraits.

DIARY DATES

• Sunday, 22nd November 2015 around 10am. SPF Digital Image Championship at the Stirling Court Hotel, Stirling.
• Tuesday, 24th November 2015 at 7pm. Night Photography Workshop at the Royal Observatory, Edinburgh.
• Thursday, 17th December 2015, MCC Christmas Social Evening at the Ravelston House Hotel in Musselburgh.
  • Please sign the sheet on the noticeboard, and pay Martin the £10 deposit, if you would like to join us.

NEXT WEEK

Next week we have a talk on Photography and Creative Retouching by Lee Howell. (Check his web site for some amazing creations.)

The meeting began with Joe reminding members about the SPF Digital Competition meeting at Stirling University Campus on Sunday 22nd November . It is a good day out and provides the opportunity to see the best of images from other Scottish Clubs.  Musselburgh Camera  Club has not entered this year. We are building up a large collection of images to use for future inter-club competitions. There is no need to wait to enter a club competition. If your think you have some good images send them anytime to Joe ( Vice Chairman)  or George Todd ( Competition Secretary ).

The meeting on 5th November will have Nadine Dunnigan as speaker –  a change to the published Syllabus. She will describe her experiences during her transformation from an amateur photographer to a professional –  earning money for her photographic activities !

The main part of the meeting consisted of the judging of the MCC Club Print Competition by Charlie Summers of Midlothian Camera Club. 58 images were entered covering  a wide variety of subjects. Charlie commented that most of the prints were of a very high technical standard. He emphasised the importance of presentation with prints. Apart from detailed comments on the individual images, general comments were that a number of  images were too tight within the frame. Also, some had wide white borders which distracted attention from the image itself. Some prints had got damaged by being stuck together during transport to judging, due to excess of glue. It is very important to make sure that every print is clean and non sticky.

The winner was a beautiful  shot of a pair of otters at Five Sisters Zoo in West Lothian.

Thank you everyone who brought their prints in tonight. I hope you found the advice helpful and inspiring. The most useful advice I heard was to keep trying. If you didn’t come along this evening and would like advice on a print, bring it along some other evening and we can discuss it during the tea break.

INTER-CLUB COMPETITIONS

We have two 4-way inter-club competitions coming up on December 10th and January 19th, and a 12-way competition on February 14th. If you have any other good digital images, or images you are saving for the set subject competitions later in the year, do please send them to George. The bigger the selection we can build up early in the year, the better our chance in the inter-clubs.

PRIZES FOR THE SET SUBJECT COMPETITIONS

Our first speaker, Jason Cowan, has offered a prize for the highest scorers from each of the 3 set subject competitions: coast, dereliction and abstract. The winner of each night will receive an A0-sized poster print of their favourite image (or two A1-sized prints if you prefer).

TEA DUTY

I forgot to mention that we need some volunteers to make tea on 29th October 2015.

LOST PROPERTY

Someone left behind a small, black Westfolio folder after the digital images competition. There were also some prints left behind after the advice night. If these belong to you, I have stored them safely and you can pick them up next time you come along.

FORTHCOMING EVENTS

• Sunday, 18th October: Liz has arranged a “Girls Day Out” at the Edinburgh Botanical Gardens. If you are interested in going (men are invited as well), please email Liz and meet at 10:30am at the East Gate Coffee Bar.
• Tuesday, 24th November 2015: Galashiels Camera Club are arranging a night sky photography workshop at the Royal Observatory Edinburgh. If you are interested, please email Alistair Peacock at aip1039@btinternet.com. Also, please write your name on the list on the MCC noticeboard. N.B. The list of for transport arrangements only. You need to email Alistair if you would like to go.

NEXT WEEK

I am away for the next 2 weeks. Next week we have an International Inter-Club Competition, where members of MCC will be invited to comment on the images submitted by  Mölnlycke Fotoklubb in Sweden. Joe Fowler will be leading the session. I am told they have submitted a really interesting collection. Enjoy. 🙂

This evening a technical glitch made us start the evening with the tea break instead of finishing with one. Thanks to a heroic dash by our competition secretary, George Todd, our images were recovered in time for the competition to go ahead as planned.

The competition was judged by Gordon Scott, currently secretary of Mid Calder Camera Club. Cropping images to cut out blank areas or distracting features at the edge, cutting out distractions in the background, and recomposing images from a different angle were common comments. The competition was tight, and there were several good images. The top scorers were (in reverse order):

• 5th place (47 points)
  • Mike Clark
• 4th place (48 points)
  • Anita Nutter
• 3rd place (49 points)
  • John Fowler
• 2nd place (50 points)
  • Jennifer Davidson
  • Charlie Briggs
• 1st place (52 points)
  • Steven Beard

The top images were:

• Dahlia (Steven Beard)
• Paper Kite (Charlie Briggs)
• Trial by Fire (Jennifer Davidson)

Well done everyone.

NEXT WEEK

Next week is Photo Advice Night, where we share and discuss our images, and offer advice. Please bring along one or two prints. They don’t have to be mounted. Something interesting to provoke a discussion, a new idea, a place you have discovered, or something you would like advice about, would be ideal. This year I would like the discussion to be more balanced, so we talk about what we like as well as what we don’t like, with the aim of sharing our knowledge and helping everyone to improve their photography, inspire new ideas or discover new places.

Sometimes we don’t need an external speaker to make an entertaining evening. This evening Alan Fitchie and Mike Clark showed us some of their work. Alan showed us some impressive images of sunsets, landscapes with contrasting colours, and lots of spectacular firework shots taken during the Edinburgh Festival. Alan introduced us to a novel technique for balancing the exposure while photographing fireworks – place your hand in front of the lens while the shutter is open. Mike gave us a “Mike Clark Unplugged” presentation, since the short notice meant that most of Mike’s images were straight out of the camera and hadn’t yet been post-processed. Despite this, Mike still showed us some high quality images, showing what can be done if you “get it right in camera”. Mike took us on a tour of the club outings so far during 2015 (and made me realise just how many of these I had missed!), and also presented some of his stunning macro and diving photographs (one of which was recently published in a newspaper).

If any new members are reading this, Mike is the club webmaster and a stalwart of the club’s Flikr page. Mike’s images can be viewed here. If you would like to join the club’s Flikr group, ask Mike (or another member) to invite you onto the group.

NEXT WEEK

Next week we have the Digital Images Competition, our first competition of the year. Good luck to all who have entered their digital images.

At the same time, next week is also the date for submissions to the Coloured Print Competition. Please bring your three mounted prints next week and give them to George Todd, or put them in George’s portfolio folder. The rules for colour print entries can be found here. Charlie Briggs has kindly offered to show new members how to mount their prints.

See you all next week.

Last night we had a fascinating presentation by award-winning photographer, Billy Currie, who showed us how post-processing with Lightroom or Photoshop can turn a dull-looking image into a first-class photograph. The first important thing is to get the image right in camera. Billy uses the following techniques to achieve this:

• Camera set to manual exposure mode.
• Images saved to RAW files.
• Camera set to ISO 200.
• Lens aperture set to the middle of the range (f8 to f13).
• Camera set to autofocus with a single focus point for wildlife and sports photography, or set manually to the hyperfocal distance for landscape photography.
• Use of a tripod and a timer or remote release to prevent camera shake.
• Image evaluated using the histogram, not the preview on the camera screen. The exposure is adjusted until the highlights just touch the right hand side.

Billy then explained how an image can be greatly improved by adjusting the brightness, contrast and white-balance settings, correcting for lens distortion and vignetting and appropriate cropping. After making these basic corrections, an image can be turned into a work of art with techniques such as applying a different white balance to different areas, applying brightness gradients to darken skies or make flat surfaces more appealing, and making fine adjustments by dodging and burning. The before and after images at the end showed what can be achieved.

LATEST DIARY DATES

• The demolition of the Cockenzie Power Station chimneys has been scheduled for 12:00 on Saturday, 26th September 2015.
• The Edinburgh Doors Open Days take place this weekend (26th and 27th September). The weekend includes open days at the Royal Observatory Edinburgh.
• There will be a total lunar eclipse, starting at 1:07am on Monday, September 28th. The total phase lasts from 2:11am to 3:23am.
• The closing date for entries to the coloured print competition is in 2 weeks, on 8th October 2015.

NEXT WEEK

Mike Clark and Alan Fitchie have kindly offered to show us some of their work.

This evening we welcomed my colleague Jason Cowan from the Royal Observatory Edinburgh, who entertained us with not one but three separate talks. Jason first took us through the history of photography at the observatory, delving into the image archive to show us photographs taken by Charles Piazzi Smyth during his pyramid measuring expeditions, historical images showing the observatory site on Blackford Hill just after it was founded in 1894, and showing how the site developed in the early 20th century. He then told us about the history of the photographic laboratories at the observatory from the 1970s to the 1990s. Back then the laboratories managed and copied the glass photographic plates recorded by wide angle telescopes, such as the UK Schmidt Telescope. The laboratories were rendered obsolete by the coming of the digital age. Jason’s final presentation showed us the tools and facilities he uses to manage the observatory’s collection of digital media. One such tool is ResourceSpace, which is an open source package that can be downloaded for free and can be used to manage metadata, identify image collections, manage access and sharing of those images and make them available on a shared server. Jason gave us some useful advice for safeguarding a valuable collection of images. 3-2-1 Backups: Make 3 copies of all of your images, use 2 different devices and store one copy at a different location. If you were to lose your computer today, how many of your  images would you lose?

Jason gave us the following useful image management web sites on his last slide:

• http://www.dpbestflow.org/
• http://www.photometadata.org/
• http://www.resourcespace.org/
• http://thedambook.com/
• http://www.xnview.com/en/

SYLLABUS CHANGES

• The talk FROM AMATEUR TO PRO  by Nadia Dunnigan has moved from Oct 22 to Nov 05.
• On Oct 22 we have a new inter-club competition between Musselburgh Camera Club and Mölnlycke Fotoklubb in Sweden. Mölnlycke Fotoklubb will send 20 digital images to be marked and critiqued by us. In return, we will send them 20 of our images and receive their comments later in the year (date to be announced).

NEW DIARY DATES

• Saturday, 19th September 2015: The Scottish Half Marathon finishes in Musselburgh.
• Monday, 28th September 2015: A “Supermoon Lunar Eclipse” will be visible from the UK.

NEXT WEEK

Next week our speaker is Billy Currie, a landscape photographer who offers courses and workshops. His web site contains some stunning landscape images. In his talk “IS GETTING IT RIGHT ENOUGH?” next week, perhaps he will show us how he creates these images.

Tonight we had a recorded lecture showing the results from the 2013 Scottish Photographic Federation portfolio projected digital images competition. Lots of images of birds (with and without a stick) and squirrels, insects, minimalist beach scenes (sticks without the birds), portraits, striking landscapes and inspired Photoshop creations. Plenty of images to inspire new ideas.

There is one week left until the closing date for the Digital Images competition. Please send your 3 images to George Todd (either by email during the week, or next Thursday on a CD or data stick). Please resize your images to 1400 pixels on the longest side, save them as a JPEG file and rename the file with your member number and title (such as “56_Fisherrow_Room_Four.jpg”). Best of luck.

More diary dates

• Friday, 11th September: Mike Clark is suggesting a visit to Blair Drummond Safari park, since the weather forecast looks good for tomorrow. Please email Mike if you would like to go. Those members who have tickets and can’t go tomorrow could perhaps club together and choose another day?
• Sunday, 13th September: The Riding of the Marches takes place in Edinburgh.

Next week my colleague, Jason Cowan, the last remaining professional photographer at the Royal Observatory Edinburgh, will tell us about his work. He started working in the photographic laboratories, copying and processing the plates taken by overseas telescopes and stored in a plate library. Now, in the digital age, Jason is responsible for managing the observatory’s image collection. He will give us hints and tips on how we can manage and safeguard our own personal collections.

See you next week,

Steven.