This week we welcomed Dougie Allan, secretary and webmaster for Penicuik Photography Club, to judge our Colour Print competition. On his last visit Dougie had given us a talk on drone photography, and he is now experimenting with astrophotography. You can see some of Dougie’s work in his Penicuik Photography Club gallery. Fortunately, he managed to avoid the traffic jam outside Musselburgh that had held up some members.

56 prints had been entered by 19 members. Dougie said that it was tricky to judge a competition where there was one category for both beginners and advanced photographers. A few mounts had been spoiled by blobs of glue, but this didn’t affect their marks. He commented on the lighting, sharpness and composition of each print. Some lovely portrait prints were a little dark and could be improved with extra lighting, especially a light to separate the model’s dark hair from a dark background. Dougie preferred candid shots where the people shown appear to be unaware of the photographer. There were also a few wildlife shots that were a little too dark to show detail in dark areas. It isn’t possible to use a flash with these shots, but Dougie suggested a slightly longer exposure and some dodging and burning to make the final corrections. Some of the prints were a little too tight in the frame and others had areas of blank space that could have been cropped out. Dougie recommended shooting a slightly wider angle than you need, which gives you the opportunity to crop the image before printing and include enough space around the edges. Dougie liked several of the prints, but it was small differences in sharpness and depth of field that separated the top marks. The top scorers were (in reverse order):

• 5th place (50 points)
  • Carol Edmond.
• 4th place (51 points)
  • Joe Fowler
  • Elaine Gilroy
• 3rd place (52 points)
  • Mike Clark
  • Edward Robertson
  • Jennifer Davidson
  • Nicola Cawthorne
• 2nd place (55 points)
  • Derek Muller
• 1st place (58 points)
  • George Todd

The top images were:

• Quad Launch (George Todd) – 20 points
• Between the Poles (George Todd) – 20 points
• No 1 Out the Bend  (Derek Muller) – 19 points
• Running Against the Clock (Derek Muller) – 19 points
• Dockland (Joe Fowler) – 18 points
• Mountain Hare Close-Up (George Todd) – 18 points
• Autumn at the Hermitage (Mike Clark) – 18 points
• Exotic Frog (Edward Robertson) – 18 points
• Me and my Sax (Elaine Gilroy) – 18 points
• Brown Hare Boxing (Jennifer Davidson) – 18 points
• Sanderling in Flight (Jennifer Davidson) – 18 points
• Young Sight Impaired Eagle (Nicola Cawthorne) – 18 points

Well done to George Todd, winning with 58/60, to Derek Muller for coming a close second, and to Mike, Ed, Jennifer and new member Nicola for achieving a bronze medal. Thank you also to Dougie for judging our prints.

• Next week is the hand-in date for our Black and White Print competition. Please bring along up to 3 mounted prints and email your JPEG versions to George. Click here for a guide on how to mount your prints.
• Next week we also have a “Live Shooting Workshop”, which will be similar to the “Creative Lighting Workshop” we had in September, except this time we will concentrate on still life and macro photography. Please bring along your camera and a flashgun (if you have one). A macro lens will help, but if you don’t have one you’ll still be able to use a standard lens. If you have any lighting equipment (torches, flash, LED lights, soft boxes, etc…) or interesting things to photograph (e.g. toys, flowers, jewellery, crockery, seashells, etc…) please bring them along as well. I look forward to a fun evening of photography.

Steven