Please note that the 4-way competition is not due to take place this coming Monday, 15th November 2021, as originally advertised on your programme. It is taking place 2 weeks later on Monday, 29th November 2021.
The arrangements will be the same. The meeting will hosted by Edinburgh Photographic Society by Zoom. We will circulate the Zoom information a few days before the meeting. Members can choose to join the meeting from home or to watch the meeting from the Fisherrow Centre.
Our colour print competition took place on 4th November 2021. Since we are still in a period of hybrid meetings, with not all club members able to attend at Fisherrow and deliver prints, this competition was judged digitally. Clive Watkins, president of Irvine Camera Club, judged the competition and presented the results by Zoom. Clive told us he had been a photographer for more than 20 years and, after being at the receiving end of judges’ comments for a few years, he decided to become a judge himself. He told us that a photograph first needs to look good and be technically well executed. But photography is a work of art, and a photograph also needs to make a statement or have an emotional impact. You can view some of Clive’s work in the Irvine Camera club gallery or on his web site (Siglov).
16 members had entered 48 images altogether. There were wildlife images of birds, insects, a hare, and a fox. There were photographs of flowers, landscapes, sport and urban architecture and one or two portraits and still life compositions. A popular image with the audience on the night was Carol Edmund’s lovely portrait “Stylish”. Clive commented on the composition of each image, the shapes formed by the components, and the separation of the subject from the background. Some of the landscape images could be improved by cropping out areas of dull lighting. Some of the images had a large expanse of green grass in the background. He suggested reducing the contrast of the background and reducing the green saturation so that the grass didn’t detract from the main subject. Some members had photographed their subject against a plain black background. While this helped to separate the subject technically, Clive felt that a plain background didn’t help to present a subject (and made it look cut out). He suggested choosing a background which harmonises with the subject. For example, photograph flowers against a background of greenery, and photograph nuts, cones, seeds and spices against a natural background of wood or slate.
Clive ended his presentation by taking us through his top images in reverse order, which were:
When the points were added up, the top scorers were revealed to be (in reverse order):
Congratulations to Mike Clark, who managed to secure Clive’s top image of the night and two of his second placed images, making his total just two points short of a perfect score. Congratulations also to George Todd, Jennifer Davidson and Gordon Davidson for winning silver and bronze medals.
Next week we have our first members evening. George and Joe will show some of their work, but we may have some time to fill. If you have any images you would like to show please bring them along to Fisherrow or have them ready at home if you are connecting by Zoom. Don’t forget to submit your 3 JPEG images for the “black and white print” competition this week.
See you on Thursday,
Steven
Our annual digital knockout competition took place earlier than usual this year, on 28th October 2021. This year the subject was “Three Colours”, and members submitted 3 JPEG images, each with a different dominant colour.
13 members entered 39 images into the competition. We had some added complications due to the hybrid nature of the meeting this year, with 6 of the images from Zoom attendees stuck in limbo because they had been emailed too late. The remote attendees shared their screens to show the late images, which needed a lot of screen jugging during the evening. (If we are still having hybrid meetings next year we’ll set an earlier cut off time for remote entries.)
Carol Edmund and Charlie Briggs had got into the spirit of the time of year by coming in Halloween costume. Come to think of it, nobody photographed the costumes. But thanks to Carol and Charlie for cheering us up.
The competition had inspired some very creative images. There with images of brightly coloured animals, leaves and flowers. There were urban scenes of coloured lights; abstract scenes of water droplets, reflections or chocolate; and a brightly coloured car. The images were paired together in a series of head-to-head rounds until only 5 remained. Members then voted for their favourite to determine the final placings, and the result was:
Well done to Gordon Davidson, whose winning image featured a girl in a red dress in a poppy field looking at a stormy sky. Mike Clark’s second placed image showed a flock of geese silhouetted against a fiery orange sunset, Jennifer Davidson’s third placed image showed the folded petals of a beautiful pink rose. Steven Beard’ s image showed two blue meconopsis flowers, and George Todd’s image showed the urban landscape around Canary Warf lit by blue lamps.
Reminder: If you would like to come to the club Christmas dinner on 16th December 2021 please email Joe Fowler and bring a £10 deposit to the next club meeting.
The first major competition of the club calendar took place on 7th October 2021. Neil McGoldrick, from Hatton, Aberdeenshire, joined us via Zoom to judge our Digital Projected Images competition. You can check out some of Neil’s work on his Flikr site: https://www.flickr.com/people/45770642@N04/
The competition almost didn’t take place as expected. We arrived at the Fisherrow Centre to discover the Wi-Fi was not working! This is not a good thing for a hybrid meeting connected through Zoom. After we had spent 20 minutes struggling to connect, George Todd eventually saved the day by turning his mobile phone into a Wi-Fi hot spot.
17 members had entered 54 images altogether. There were shots of wildlife, landscapes, urban architecture, portraits, men at work, flowers, and some interesting abstract and still life shots. One of these, John West’s “For Khandles”, was praised for it’s amusing and imaginative title. Neil commented on the composition of each shot and did not like shots with too much empty space or strong background colours. There were some beautiful compositions he really liked but needed their highlight areas darkened. Some shots were not quite sharp enough where it mattered. Neil was pleased that so many members had decorated their images with a border, which helped delineate them when projected onto a screen, but he suggested that pure white is not necessarily the best colour to use. A very bright colour can draw the eye away from the centre. He suggested using a more neutral colour. The top scorers were (in reverse order):
The top images were:
Well done to George Todd for winning the competition and getting the 1st and 3rd placed images. Commiserations to Charlie Briggs and Mike Clark, who had images placed 2nd and 4th but just missed out on a medal. But your great images will still help the club in our inter-club competitions. The total scores included a lot of shots scoring 17 points.
Next week we will go through the competition images a second time, with more opportunity for feedback, comments and questions. I am away on holiday, so next week’s meeting will be hosted by George and Joe.
See you in two weeks.
Steven
A reminder that the submission date for the Digital Projected Images competition is this coming Thursday, 16th September 2021. This is an open competition, so you can send colour images of any subject. If you would like to enter, please send 3 JPEG images to George Todd (georgetodd1957@me.com) by this Thursday.
Please resize your images to no larger than 1600 pixels wide and 1200 pixels tall.
The club has been contacted with information about the Royal Overseas League photography competition, which is free to enter and open to everyone over the age of 18. The competition is open until 6th September 2021 and is accepting digital images on the theme of “International Friendship”. Not many of us have travelled overseas recently, but perhaps you have some images which fit the subject?
Visit this link for more information: https://www.rosl.org.uk/photography
A reminder that the subjects chosen at the club AGM for next season’s set subject competition are:
The subject chosen for the digital knockout competition is:
Anne Yeomans, who suggested the “Three Colours” subject, says the idea is to select three images each with a single, dominant colour. For example, you could choose a red pillar box image, a white snowman image and a blue sky image for a red/white/blue theme. Whether you choose to make your images monochrome, colour pop them or leave the non-dominant colours as they are is up to you. Your fellow members will be the judges in this competition.
Best of luck!
Our last competition of the season was an informal one: our annual digital knockout competition, where all the members get a chance to be judges. Members submitted up to 3 JPEG images on the theme of “abstract”. 46 images were submitted in total. The images turned out to be a masterclass in photographic innovation. Members had used a variety of clever techniques to create their images; making use of reflections, intentional camera movement, close-ups of textured surfaces; unusual views of architectural features, household objects or artworks; or composites cunningly constructed from objects photographed in a light box. The simplest, and yet most innovative, example was Anne Yeoman’s photograph of the back of the lid from a jar of curry sauce. Now we will all see our used jar lids in a new light! There were also some great humorous entries, such as Joe Fowler’s “Crush Me If You Can” and Mike Clark’s “Release The Kraken”.
Members judged the quality and impact of each image, together with its relevance to the “abstract” subject. Most of the images were of high quality, making it difficult to pick the winners. Members felt that the best abstract images were ones that used the texture, shapes and colours of an object to create an effect where the identify of the original object was not obvious. There were debates whether a textured surface was made of wood, rock, ice (or coffee!); or whether the unusual shapes seen were natural or create by an art filter effect. There were some excellent still life and landscape compositions which lost out due to their subject matter not being sufficiently abstract, but those images could do very well in a more general competition. The images were paired together in a series of head-to-head rounds until only 7 remained. Members then voted for their favourite to determine the final placings, and the result was:
The evening ended with a lengthy discussion about exactly how each image had been created, making it the longest club meeting of the season!
Well done to John West, whose winning image was created by taking some beautiful coloured reflections and warping them into a dramatic vortex pattern. Stephen Williams’ second placed image converted an unusual view of an electricity pylon into something looking like an artwork. In third place, Gordon Davidson’s image showed an unusual view of a stack of metal chairs, and Lorraine Roberts’ image showed the surface of a glacier.
The third and final part of our set subject competition took place on 25th March 2021 on the subject of “Flowers and Horticulture”. The competition was judged by George Todd, one of last year’s winners. Besides judging this competition, George Todd began the competition top of the leader board with 108 points. This was the score everyone needed to beat.
45 images had been entered by 15 members. George remarked that flower photography was a difficult subject. It was tricky capturing a good image of flowers in a garden without including distractions in the background. Depth of field was critical. It needed to be large enough to capture the interesting parts of your flower but narrow enough to blur the background. Some of the flower images entered had been made in a garden, while others had been taken indoors under more controlled conditions. George commented on the composition of each image. The flower images worked better when you could see the stem leading to the flower. Clusters of flowers worked just as well as single flowers, even if not all the flowers were in focus, but very blurred flowers in the background made coloured distractions. Some images worked better when cropped tighter on their subject and some needed their colours enhanced. George also commented on the lighting an exposure of the images. The UV light in strong sunlight can very easily overexpose a flower image and wash out the colours. It is better to take the images in soft light and expose for the highlights. The images overall were to a high standard, which resulted in lot of high scores.
The top scorers were (in reverse order):
The top images were:
Well done to Elaine Gilroy, who wins the right to judge next year’s competition! The final result of the competition after this close and high scoring round is:
Well done to Malcolm Roberts, who wins the trophy! Thank you also to George Todd for judging the competition.
Our very last face to face meeting of 2020 was the Swedish Interclub meeting, where we reviewed images submitted to us by Mölnlycke Fotoclubb, in Gothenburg, Sweden.
19 March 2020 (Swedish Inter-club Competition)
Almost one year later, on 11th March 2021 were were once again reviewing their images. This time however, thanks to our newly discovered method of holding virtual meetings by Zoom, we were joined by Mölnlycke Fotoclubb members. Both clubs had submitted 21 images each, which were reviewed in turn. Musselburgh members submitted votes for their top 5 favourite Mölnlycke images, which were:
Mölnlycke members’ favourite Musselburgh image was a striking black and white picture of a rose created by Elaine Gilroy.
Musselburgh Camera Club 
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