Tag Archives: Match an Image

27 January 2026 (Match An Image Competition)

Posted on by
Reply

On Tuesday, 27th January we visited Haddington Camera Club for the “Match an Image” competition, which took place at the Poldrate Granary in Haddington. The competition was judged by landscape photographer Stephen Ball, who gave us a talk last year on “Scotland Behind the Lens”. You can see more of Stephen Ball’s work on his web site:

Scotland Captured – Photographer Stephen Ball

Musselburgh began the competition with Jennifer’s image of the googly-eyed elephant, which Haddington attempted to match with a picture of a tree, but there was no match because Haddington’s image did not have any google eyes. Haddington began with an image of some street signs, and the closest thing in our collection was Melanie’s close up of railings; again no match. Then we played the “unmatchable” abstract kaleidoscope image that Steven had made in the Royal Botanical Gardens. Haddington replied with an abstract spiral swirl. Stephen declared a match and also declared that Haddington had the better image, which gave 2 points to Haddington! Things got worse when Haddington played an image of a man sitting down with one of his boots poking through a metal stand. We thought we had nailed a match by replying with Derek’s image of a ballerina wearing boots with one of her boots poking through the side of a chair. But there was no match because the ballerina was standing up. Stephen commented that he thought ours was the better image, but you don’t win the points unless you match. We noticed that Haddington appeared to be short of animal images, so we tried Derek’s image of a green frog sitting on a red flower. Haddington replied with an abstract image of some green leaves, which was declared a match and also declared the better image. Another 2 points to Haddington. Haddington then posted an image of some skeletons sitting around a dinner table. We raised a laugh when we attempted to match it with an image of some teddy bears sitting on a tree stump. No match. We had a lot of good sport images this year, so next we lead with George’s cracking shot of a canoeist negotiating the rapids at Grantully. Haddington matched it and beat it with a picture of a breaking wave. “The canoeist has drowned!”, we all exclaimed. Another 2 points to Haddington. By the end of the first half we were trailing by 11 points to 17.

Haddington helped us drown our sorrows during the interval by providing a delicious spread of home made sandwiches, cakes, scones and biscuits. With half our images gone, could we catch up during the second half? Our luck changed in the second half. We successfully matched Haddington’s image of a man surrounded by smoke with Derek’s image of a man swirling fire sticks above his head, and ours was declared the better image! We managed to match Haddington’s astrophotography image of the bubble nebula with Kevin’s water droplet abstract. We also successfully matched a long exposure street shot with tram tracks by playing a photo of a pair of vintage trams taken at Beamish museum. Matches became harder as the second half progressed and our image pool diminished. We gained points by playing our sport and animal images, but we also failed to match their images (although I think we came close when we attempted to match their image of some upturned wheel barrows with our image abandoned boats). “They are a similar shape and they both carry things”, we exclaimed, but Stephen was having none of it. We played our image of the inside of the National Museum too early; attempting to use it to match Haddington’s abstract image of some light domes. You could sense the air of disappointment when the next image they played was of the inside of a railway station, looking almost exactly like our image of the museum. The competition ended with Haddington placing their last image: a snowy landscape. Could we match it? No, our image image was a shot of a pair of fighter aircraft in flight. Stephen mentioned again that he thought ours was the better image, but again you don’t win the points unless you match. We caught up a little during the second half, but the final scores were still:

  • Haddington – 28 points.
  • Musselburgh – 24 points.

It was an enjoyable competition from start to finish. The heckling and commentary from the audience was entertaining. Although the final result is disappointing (and at times we felt some of the decisions needed to be verified by VAR) we gave Haddington a run for their money, and a lot of our images went down well with the judge and with the audience. Thank you to Haddington for hosting the competition and providing a sumptuous feast at the interval, thank you to all the Musselburgh members who provided images and came to Haddington to support their club, and thank you to Stephen Ball for judging and putting up with our heckles.

  • This Thursday, 29th January, George Todd will be revealing the results of our first set subject competition, on the theme of “Weather”.

21 November 2024 (Match An Image Competition)

Posted on by

This week we were delighted to invite North Berwick Photographic Society to Fisherrow for the “Match an Image” competition. The competition was judged by Simon Wootton of Midlothian Camera Club. Images were displayed in pairs, and Simon’s task was to judge whether the second image shown matched the first, and in the case of a match to judge which was the better of the two images.

North Berwick started the competition with a strange, distorted shape which turned out to be the reflected image of the bow of a ship. Musselburgh responded with an image of a laughing duck which, astonishingly, was declared a match because the duck’s beak and tongue had a similar shape! Musselburgh responded with the first of a series of John West paperclip creations: a grid of paperclips. North Berwick replied with their image of an array of prayer wheels, which contained the same number of rows and columns. Another match! The evening continued with North Berwick challenging us to match their variety of telephone images and Musselburgh challenging them to match our selection of indoor abstracts. We got lucky when North Berwick shows us a picture of the glowing balls at Newhailes House & Gardens which we matched with a picture of some light bulbs. North Berwick flummoxed us with their arctic scenes, as we had no snow scenes in our collection. The best we could do was try to match their polar bear with an otter (another animal on water, although not necessarily frozen). At the tea break North Berwick were just ahead by 16 points to 15.

In the second half we hit them with a series of flower pictures which gained us a few match points and bonus points. But they replied with a series of animal images that became harder to match as we ran out of examples. Then we exchanged some portraits. Carol Edmond’s portrait “Hi There” was matched but declared the best image. It became harder to match images in the second half, but Simon also wanted to reward the high quality images that were coming up, so the matches became more tenuous. Yes, we matched their silhouette of a soldier holding up a gun with two hands with our image of a kayaker battling the rapids and holding a paddle. But they matched our image of a man on a tricycle in an alley with a street image because the diagonals were the same. By the end Musselburgh clinched the competition by 33 points to North Berwick’s 29 points.

Thank you Simon for some entertaining judging. It was great fun. Thank you to everyone who submitted their images for this competition. You helped us win it! Next year we’ll be travelling back to North Berwick.

  • Unfortunately, the speaker we had booked for Thursday, 28th November can’t make it. So next week we’ll either have a Members Evening or something Derek can put together at the last minute.
  • Derek is arranging a photoshoot at the National Museum of Scotland this Saturday morning, 23th November, at 10:30am. If you’d like to come, please meet Derek in the foyer some time between 10am and 10:30am. Let’s hope the snow holds off.

16 November 2023 (Match An Image Competition)

Posted on by

This week club members visited North Berwick Photographic Society for the “Match an Image” competition. The competition took place at the St. Andrew Blackadder Church in North Berwick, where we were treated to tea and cakes.

The competition was judged by Gordon Rae. North Berwick began the competition with an image of a tap, and Musselburgh replied with Jim Innes’ image of a kite surfer. We were astonished that Gordon declared our image a match. This first round set the scene for the competition, where every single pair of images in the first half was declared a match! John West’s domed bowl of pears and light bulbs successfully matched North Berwick’s photo of the inside of a domed cathedral roof. We played John West’s image of a feeding hoverfly to discover that North Berwick had an image of a feeding giraffe weevil, which was declared the better image as it was a harder subject photographed in Madagascar. We tried to exhaust their images of insects by following up with Malcolm Robert’s beautiful blue dragonfly, only to find they matched it with a photograph of a crocodile with butterflies on its head, also photographed in Madagascar. At the tea break North Berwick were leading 20 points to Musselburgh’s 18 points.

In the second half it became harder to match the images; but we successfully matched their image of baobab trees in Madagascar with Steven Beard’s image of Butterdean Wood. Then they matched Jennifer Davidson’s Woodland Nymph portrait with a very different lady whose tattoos matched the nymph’s dress. The matches became more tenuous as the evening wore on. Karen Woodcock’s Winter Sky image and Joe Fowler’s Old Mill image both successfully matched North Berwick’s pictures from Arizona because all the images contained rocks and stones. But the matches became harder and harder, and Steve William’s interior of the Sagrada Familia couldn’t quite match their abstract image. Then we pulled off a lucky match late in the competition when North Berwick presented us with an image of an upturned boat on the beach at sunset and we replied with Mike Clark’s image of the X Craft submarine. The competition finished as a well-deserved draw, with Musselburgh and North Berwick both achieving a total of 36 points.

Thank you to everyone who travelled to North Berwick to support the club, and to everyone who submitted images. And thank you to Gordon Rae for judging the competition and putting up with the heckling. Next year the competition returns to Musselburgh.

Next week we are hosting the 4-way interclub competition at Musselburgh. Come and support your club as we host Stirling and District Camera Club, Edinburgh Photographic Society and Kirkcaldy Photographic Society. We will be meeting at Fisherrow in the larger room G6 (not our usual room) at 7pm on Thursday, 23rd November.

12 January 2023 (Match An Image Competition)

Posted on by

I was delighted this week to welcome North Berwick Photographic Society back to Musselburgh for the long-missed “Match an Image” competition. This competition format is almost impossible to host by Zoom and couldn’t take place during the pandemic. Our last match was back in October 2019, when the competition was hosted by North Berwick. This time it was our turn to host the competition, and Jennifer, Liz and George Smith welcomed our guests with some delicious tea and cakes.

The competition was judged by Gordon Scott and followed the same rules as before. Each club in turn displays an image and the other club attempts to match it in some way. Points are awarded to the first image if it cannot be matched, or to the second image if the challenged club matches it. A bonus point is awarded to the club which has the better of the two images when they match.

Musselburgh began the competition with John West’s iconic “For Khandles” image. North Berwick were amused by the title but couldn’t match the image. A good start. However, they replied with a fantasy swirl image which we attempted to match with a close-up of some flamingo feathers and failed. We replied with the first of our many motorbike images. North Berwick managed to match it but we got the bonus point by having the better image. Then North Berwick took the lead when we attempted to flummox them with Joe Fowler’s “Scotland The Brave”: an image of a queue next to a row of portable toilets. They managed to match it with a picture of some colourful beach huts and get the bonus point! By the time we reached the interval, North Berwick were leading by 14 points to 13.

During the second half we discovered that North Berwick couldn’t match our motorbike, horse and wildlife images and we couldn’t match their fantasy abstract and night photography images. When they posted an image of a shark we thought we could match it with one of Mike Clark’s underwater images but, alas, the lack of a shark in Mike’s image meant there wasn’t a match. We also attempted to match one of their night scenes with an image of a little girl who happened to be in the same pose as the figure in their image, but it was judged not to be close enough. But then North Berwick lead with an image of a bird and we pounced on it with Malcolm Roberts’ “Kingfisher on the Rocks” image. The image was judged to be a match and the better of the two, which nudged us ahead. There were no more matches, and at the end of the competition Musselburgh won by 25 points to 24. A very close call.

Thank you to everyone whose images were included, and to North Berwick for coming along. It was a particularly fun evening, especially as it was an interclub competition where participants are allowed to heckle. It must be a difficult to judge all those matches in front of a critical audience, and I thank Gordon Scott for putting up with us. I look forward to a rematch at North Berwick next year.

Next week our next speaker, John Glynn, will show us how to think creatively. John says he will be bringing along a lot of interesting objects and prints to show us, so it sounds like this talk will be another occasion where you’ll get a lot more out of it by attending in person.