Tag Archives: Travel

11 Dec 2025 (Eddie Telford: Remember Photography is Fun – Part 2)

Posted on by
Reply

This week Eddie Telford returned to Musselburgh Camera Club to give us another custom talk. When he last spoke to us back in April 2024 the custom themes were “Remember Photography is Fun” and “Around the World in 80 Images”. This time he resumed the “Remember Photography is Fun” theme and added some advice on the theme of “From Beginner to Advanced”. Eddie began by telling us not to worry about competitions and scores. The main reason to take up photography is to have fun. Eddie showed us some examples of the joke photographs he had made: for example a photograph of someone slumped over a chair mimicking a yoga āsana, or showing the mischief at home that children got up to during the Covid pandemic. The “Nessie” toy (who likes whisky and now has his own passport) features in many of Eddie’s fun travel photographs.

Eddie described his recent experience photographing the Women’s Open Golf Championship at Dundonald Links. He sets his camera to silent mode and takes his photos from a distance with a long lens (to avoid disturbing the players) and tries to take one shot just at the moment the ball is struck. If he is lucky, the ball will still be in the shot. Eddie also likes bunker shots because the sand can fly into some dramatic shapes. Besides the action shots, Eddie also captures portraits of the players, first when they are concentrating on their shot or posing with their trophy, and then a few minutes later when they have relaxed. The relaxed portraits looks more natural. Eddie also showed us some images he captured at a youth competition organised by Bowls Scotland. The story begins with drone images showing the initial setup, followed by some action shots, this time captured at the moment when the player releases the ball.

Eddie is a member of Ayr Photographic Society and often supplies images to Ayrshire Magazine. Eddie was keen to point out that Ayr Photographic Society won the SPF Digital Championship this year for the first time in 35 years! He described two fashion photoshoots he made for the magazine: one was with the 2024 Miss Scotland, shot on the Ayrshire sea front, and the other was a shoot with the winner of Miss Great Britain at Turnberry. There was also a photoshoot covering the 50th anniversary of the Women’s Institute. Eddie was surprised at the images chosen by the magazine, but they wanted images that emphasised the characteristics (such as the jewellery or a particular look) featured in their articles. Eddie prefers natural-looking shots where the model looks relaxed. Magazines also like images that have a lot of empty space where they can add titles. Eddie also showed us how photographers and artists can help each other. He has collaborated with local artist, Rona Mcseveny, who converted Eddie’s photograph of Ayr Town Hall into an artwork which became the Lord Provost’s official Christmas Card.

Eddie showed us an audio-visual he made to commemorate the 80th anniversary of VE Day in Ayr, including the “Field of Heroes” art exhibition. Eddie finished with an audio-visual advertising the spectacular scenery of Dunure, which was used to raise money for Dynamic Dunure, a local charity. We finished the night with a chat with Eddie over tea and biscuits. Thank you Eddie for a another great presentation. We look forward to your next visit.

Next week we have our Christmas night out at the Lido restaurant in Musselburgh. Our table is booked from 7pm on Thursday, 19th December 2025. See you there.

27 November 2025 (Jean Manson: Realm of the Tiger)

Posted on by
Reply

This week we welcomed back Jean Manson to the club to tell us more about her passion for wildlife conservation through the medium of photography. You can see some of Jean’s work in her gallery site and her Zoological Photographic Club page:

https://www.jeanmanson.gallery/browse/

https://zpc-naturefolio.weebly.com/jean-manson.html

Last time, Jean spoke to us about the wildlife in Alaska in “A Fragile Wilderness”, where she had remarked on the sparseness of the human population. This time, we learned about her recent visits to India, where the human population is much denser but there are still national parks devoted to preserving the natural wildlife. In 1973 the Indian government initiated Project Tiger, which set up wildlife reserves to protect the endangered Bengal tiger. Due to the success of that project, India now has the largest tiger population in the world. Jean visited two of those wildlife reserves:

Jean explained how her guides would track the tigers by looking for pugmarks, scratches and tell-tale alarm calls from other animals. She explained how tigers and leopards are in competition with each other, so you tend not to see both at the same time. During her visits she had seen more leopards in Satpura and more tigers in Bandhavgarh. She showed us photographs not only of the majestic tiger and leopard, but of birds, elephants, chital deer, monkeys, giant squirrel and a very rare grey wolf. Jean brought some of the prints and display boards from her recent exhibition at the Biggar Little Festival, and we finished the evening chatting and browsing through the prints. Thank you Jean for a very entertaining and enlightening evening.

  • This Thursday, 4th December, we have our Black and White print competition, judged by Malcolm Lind.
  • It’s also time to prepare entries for the Human Portrait print competition. The hand-in date is 11th December.

18 September 2025 (Graeme Barclay: Street Photography)

Posted on by
Reply

This week we were delighted to welcome our first speaker of the season. Graeme Barclay has a background in hydraulic engineering and started photography in 2017. He is currently a member of Midlothian Camera Club, but also has links to Falkirk Camera Club. Graeme has interests in creative street photography, astrophotography, themed portraits, sports photography and nature photography. You can follow Graeme’s work on social media:

In tonight’s talk, Graeme introduced us to his creative style of street photography. When he first started, he found street photography a challenge. You need to overcome your fear, learn to blend in and remember to press the shutter at the right moment. But once you get started you’ll find yourself a member of an awesome community and feel a special connection with people. It is legal to take photographs on public land, but you need to be careful not to include private spaces (such as the inside of a house or pub through a window). London and Edinburgh are both very good locations for street photography. Graeme finds that Princes Street is a better place for street photography than the Royal Mile because the lighting is better.

Graeme showed us some great shots where street performers had posed for him. However, he prefers candid portraiture, where you catch an expression without someone being aware of the camera. Graeme has several tricks for hiding his camera. He cut a slot in an old credit card and uses it as an adaptor which lets him take level shots while his camera is around his neck with a flip-out screen. He also sets his camera to silent mode and uses a remote shutter release from his pocket. He has mastered some misdirection techniques, such as pretending to look at his phone or picking up his keys. He showed us a series of great candid shots, mostly taken using a 135mm lens with a f/1.8 aperture. The wide aperture blurs the background and reduces distractions, although he found that the side of a passing bus can sometimes make a great background! He also explained how using a hashtag, such as #camden, is a good way of connecting on social media with the people and places you have photographed.

Graeme revealed some dramatic shots he created with an 8-15mm fish-eye lens, especially shots angled upwards from a low angle. You need to get the camera angle just right so that the lens distortion exaggerates the right part of the image, for example showing a huge foot and a leg stretching into the distance. You also need to get within a few inches of your subject to ensure they stand out from the background. Graeme uses centre-point auto-focus to capture his standard portraits, but for these special effects he uses a narrow aperture with the focus set manually to the hyperfocal distance (i.e. the one that produces the maximum depth of field). He uses the Photopills app to calculate the right focus setting for each shot:

https://www.photopills.com/

The evening finished with an audio-visual presentation that showcased Graeme’s street photography collection. We then broke for tea and biscuits. Thank you Graeme for showing us how to take some fantastic and dramatic street photography shots.

Next week we have an informal club night. Please choose 6 images that you’d like to share with other members. You can email them to George Todd or bring them along on a USB data stick. A club night is also a good opportunity to ask questions or to demonstrate something, such as a useful skill or a new gadget.

10 April 2025 (Stephen Ball: Scotland Behind the Lens)

Posted on by
Reply

This week we were pleased to welcome Stephen Ball to Musselburgh as our last speaker of the 2024/25 season to give us one of his signature talks on landscape photography: Scotland Behind the Lens. Stephen is originally from London but moved to Scotland in the 1990s. He started his career as a theatre lighting designer and technician before moving into photography, and has recently won several landscape photography awards. You can read more on his “Scotland Captured” web site.

Stephen used to use a Nikon D7100 but has recently switched to a Nikon Z7, which gives a better image quality. His standard kit consists of a tripod, a collection of kit lenses and a set of Lee filters (neutral density, graduated and polarizer). Stephen explained that he likes to get his images right in camera. He uses Adobe Lightroom only for minor adjustments, such as cropping or adjusting the colour saturation. He will occasionally adjust the highlights when there are bright lights in the scene (such as the spotlights on the Queensferry Crossing). He likes to visit places very early in the morning or late at night when there are fewer people around. When Stephen photographs a landscape, he sets his camera on a tripod and takes the time to look at the scene and think about the composition. He avoids the temptation to take a large number of quick snaps, and the tripod helps him slow down. He adjusts the exposure manually and likes to choose a low ISO (such as 64 or 100) and small aperture (such as f/16 or f/22) to get the best image quality with the maximum depth of field. If there are many focal points in a scene, he will increase the depth of field by focus stacking. Stephen avoids using a wide angle lens to capture a panorama because it distorts the edge of the scene. Instead, he builds a panorama from several overlapping shots made in portrait orientation. He has also started experimenting with shots cropped to a square format.

Besides photographing Scottish landscapes, Stephen also likes to photograph the Edinburgh Tattoo, arranged through his membership of the Beautiful Edinburgh Facebook group. He explained how he uses different camera settings for these images. He selects a higher ISO setting for these darker scenes, and normally begins the evening with an aperture around f/11 to get a good depth of field, but when it gets darker he changes to “Auto ISO” and uses wide apertures like f/4.

Stephen took us on a tour of Scotland pictured through his lens, starting with popular locations like the Crawick Multiverse, Stobo Japanese Gardens and Leaderfoot Viaduct in southern Scotland and locations closer to home such as Dalkeith Country Park, Seacliff Beach, Preston Mill, North Berwick and Bass Rock. He also showed us iconic scenes in Edinburgh, from the picturesque Dean Village to citywide views from Calton Hill. Stephen also showed us how he obtained some unusual shots of the Forth bridges in the early morning mist, and he found the platform at Dalmeny Station gives an unusual view peering down the length of the rail bridge. He then took us further afield, showing beautiful scenes from all over Scotland, including an autumn scene at Loch Dunmore, some misty shots of Loch Ard, frosty images of Rannoch Moor and mountain scenes at Buachaille Etive Mor, Glencoe and Sligachan, Isle of Skye. Many of Stephen’s images had been taken only a week or two ago, showing us what we could expect to see if we were to travel to these places right now. Stephen finished his highland shots with a recent image he had captured after a long climb to the Old Man of Storr, where the view was so breathtaking that Stephen almost forgot to take any photographs! Thank you, Stephen, for inspiring us with so many beautiful shots of Scotland.

  • Next week we have a our “Best Image of the Night” evening. This is a fun, informal evening where we discuss and vote for our favourite images on the night. Please bring up to 3 images, either in JPEG format on a USB stick, or as prints, or a mixture of both. Prints can be any size (as long as they are large enough to see from the room) and don’t have to be mounted, although mounted prints are fine as well. I look forward to seeing what you bring.

20 February 2025 (Joe Gilhooley: If I Can Do It, You Can Do It)

Posted on by
Reply

The club was delighted to welcome Joe Gilhooley from Loanhead, Midlothian to talk about his work. Joe’s interest in digital photography began in 2010, when he wanted to record his daughter growing up. He purchased a Canon DSLR and took the camera on family trips. He developed a liking for landscape photography but fell into the usual trap of coming home with 400 scattergun images of the same scene. He now recommends pretending you have a roll of film and only capturing the small number of images you think are worth keeping. Joe has 3 Canon DSLR camera bodies, a Sony compact camera, and a selection of 9 lenses. He always uses a tripod for landscape photography and recommends using the camera in “mirror up” mode with a remote shutter release to prevent camera shake. Joe’s love of landscape photography won him the “Scots Magazine Photographer of the Year” award in 2017 and 2019. Joe joined the Royal Photographic Society in 2020 and achieved an LRPS qualification in 2021 and is working towards the ARPS qualification. You can see more of Joe’s work on his web site:

http://www.joegilhooley.co.uk/

Joe started by showing us the 10 images he had submitted to win his LRPS qualification, which included a night view of the Forth Bridges, a night view of Edinburgh from Calton Hill, star trails over the Belhaven Bridge and a clever still life which simulated colours being painted onto a bowl of fruit. Joe likes to take his landscape images during the blue hour: the hour just before sunrise or just after sunset when sky is still bright enough to give a blue background. Joe watches the weather forecast and will often drive to a location at short notice to arrive in time for the perfect conditions. Calm conditions at sunrise are ideal for capturing still reflections and morning mist. Joe took us on a journey across Scotland, showing us a wide variety of excellent images of castles, gardens, monuments, lochs, mountains and iconic viewpoints. His subjects included landscapes, cityscapes, wildlife, star trails and fireworks. In 2022, Joe successfully applied for a press contract to photograph the Edinburgh Military Tattoo, which gave him the opportunity to capture some beautiful images of the event. Joe had also offered his services to several football clubs, and had obtained a press pass to capture images of key moments during their games. Joe finished by showing us some of his sports photography images. Joe uses two camera bodies for his sports photography. One body has a 400mm lens attached, which he uses to capture distant action. The other has a 70-200mm lens, which he uses when the action gets closer. He uses fast (f2.8) lenses and a very high ISO to achieve the fast shutter speeds required for sports photography. A monopod helps to support the weight of his heavy 400mm lens.

It was a fascinating evening where Joe gave us hints about good places and times to take photographs and encouraged us not to be afraid to contact organisations like sports clubs and local newspapers who may need a local photographer.

  • We are having our “Sense of Speed” club photoshoot this Saturday, 22nd February at 10:30am in Lewisvale Park, Musselburgh, EH21 7AR. Bring your camera to practice photographing bicycles, dogs and people moving against a background. For best results bring a lens with a large maximum aperture, such as f2.8.

06 February 2025 (Audio Visual Evening)

Posted on by
Reply

This week members of Musselburgh Camera Club travelled to Beeslack Community High School to meet with members of Beeslack Penicuik Camera Club for our annual audio visual evening. Beeslack’s usual room was occupied by a Taekwondo class, so we started the evening in a small classroom.

Musselburgh started with an introduction to ICM photography in Butterdean Wood, created by Steven Beard, based on the club photoshoot from July 2024. Then, Beeslack’s presented a history of coal mining in Scotland, based on information and materials picked up from a club visit to the National Mining Museum, supplemented by club photographs and drone shots. There was a change of mood with the third presentation, when Derek Muller showed a video entitled “Birds Having Lunch” featuring some great shots of wild birds feeding. The change of mood continued when Beeslack showed another beautiful and calming creation by Brian Nicolson, featuring photographs of trees and woodland enhanced and blended with art filters from paint.NET. Musselburgh followed with a presentation compiled from photographs taken by club members on a photoshoot to the Balgone Sunflower Trail. This was followed by Beeslack’s presentation on the history of East Lothian, which used to be known as Haddingtonshire. The presentation took us on a journey through time, from the battles for dominance between the tribes of ancient Scotland and the construction of castles, to the witch trials and the impact of all this history on the modern landscape of East Lothian. Melanie Gallacher followed with a musical video in celebration of her daughter, and then Beeslack finished with an inspiring collection of long exposures of a fire dancer, set to Stravinsky’s The Firebird. And on that note we finished the evening and retired to Beeslack’s usual room for tea and biscuits. Thank you Beeslack for hosting us.

  • Next week (Thursday 13th) we have another flexible Members Evening. I propose that we have a session on camera skills. Please bring your camera (plus a macro lens and a flash if you have one). If you have any interesting small objects to photograph, bring those along as well. I’m especially interested in moving objects (such as a pendulum or a dancing robot), if you have any.
  • I am planning to demonstrate the settings on my Nikon camera. It would be good to have volunteers to cover Canon, Sony and Panasonic cameras as well.

See you next week.

16 January 2025 (Gordon Rae: Wild at Heart – A Photographer’s Journey)

Posted on by
Reply

This week we were delighted to welcome award-winning wildlife photographer Gordon Rae to Musselburgh to talk to us about “Wild at Heart – A Photographer’s Journey”. Gordon had last visited a year ago when he judged our human portrait competition and gave us a short talk on the “Birds of Iceland”. Gordon explained that he had started as a farmer in South West Scotland with an interest in landscape photography. A local magazine liked his landscape photographs and signed him up. His career in photography took off when he began photographing the local wildlife, joined Dumfries Camera Club and began giving tours for other photographers. He now gives 10 tours a year. Gordon uses a Nikon camera with a 200-400mm lens and 1.4x teleconverter. He likes to take his shots from close to the ground, which makes it easier to get a narrow depth of field. He also likes to use space in his shots to show the creatures in their environment. You can find some of Gordon’s work on his web site:

https://www.gordonraephotography.co.uk/index.html

Gordon began by showing the wildlife photographed in his local area, including birds and hedgehogs in his garden. Gordon travels around his farm on a quad bike and uses it as a tool to get close to wildlife. His strategy is not to use a hide, but to keep repeating the same actions until the wild animals get used to him and realise he is not a threat. The local hares will let him get close as long as he doesn’t get off the bike. As well as great shots of hares, dippers and kingfishers, there were some unusual dark squirrels and a fantastic shot of a grumpy sparrowhawk. Gordon then took us further afield and showed some fabulous shots of ospreys, grouse and mountain hares taken in Scotland.

In the second half of the talk. Gordon described his adventures on a bear-watching trip to Silver Salmon Creek in Alaska. The journey there was an adventure in itself, with the site only accessible by a small aircraft which landed on the beach! Visitors to Silver Salmon Creek Lodge live and move within the habitat of the bears and need to be constantly on watch. Gordon described some hair-raising encounters with the bears. He witnessed a mother defending her cubs, a bear running towards him to pounce on a salmon, and a bear that came so close that other photographers had turned their cameras on him! The results were some truly breath-taking images. Gordon finished his talk by showing us photographs he captured on a trip to Churchill in Manitoba, Canada. After arriving in the autumn, he witnessed how quickly the Hudson Bay can freeze. This time polar bears were his main subject, although he also captured some images of the local foxes. The polar bears were photographed from the giant tundra vehicle, and the driver was happy to position the vehicle to capture the bears against a more interesting background. Gordon left us all inspired to improve our wildlife photography.

  • Next Thursday we will use our Members Evening slot to have another studio portrait session. We can practise some of the advice we learned from last week’s portrait competition. It will be similar to last year’s studio night, except this time we’ll concentrate on the lighting. Derek will bring along his studio lights, and we can move the lighting around and see how it affects the final result.
  • Please bring your camera on Thursday, plus a tripod and a flashgun if you want to experiment with those.

22 February 2024 (Eddie Telford: Around the World in 80 Images)

Posted on by

This week Eddie Telford returned to Musselburgh to give us a custom talk based around two themes: “Remember Photography is Fun” and “Around the World in 80 Images”. Eddie began by showing us a short comedy video showing the antics of the “Nessie” toy that he takes with him on his travels. A Loch Ness monster who likes his whisky. 🙂 He then showed us a selection of humorous photos with silly poses, odd juxtapositions and unfortunate angles of view which showed the funny side of photography. Eddie showed that photography can be fun and entertaining, and is more than just entering competitions.

The second half of Eddie’s talk showed a varied selection of photographs taken on his travels around the world, covering at least 4 continents. I lost count of the number of countries he mentioned. His presentation was peppered with fun anecdotes and good advice about presentation and choosing the right title. He showed us some “before and after” images showing the edits he had made in response to judges’ comments. Eddie was not averse to viewing a scene from the best angle, sometimes donning waders to get the shot from the middle of a river. We finished the night with a chat with Eddie over tea and biscuits. Thank you Eddie for a great presentation and an entertaining evening.

Next week, 29th February, Malcolm Roberts will reveal the results of the “Contrasting Textures” set subject competition; and the week after, on 7th March, we will be saying “hello” again to our friends from Mölnlycke Fotoclubb, in Gothenburg.

15 February 2024 (Audio Visual Evening)

Posted on by

This week we hosted our annual audio visual evening with Beeslack Penicuik Camera Club. Two years ago we had hosted this meeting by Zoom in room G3, but this year we were fully back to normal. Members of both clubs met in room G6 of the Fisherrow Centre and were treated to tea, sandwiches and cakes by Liz Sowler, Ed Robertson and Carol Edmond.

Beeslack began the evening with a beautiful presentation created by Brian Nicolson, made from photographs of woodland scenes in Midlothian paired with inspirational music. Musselburgh then resurrected a presentation made by Steven Beard in 2012 describing his 2008-2009 trip to the Cerro Paranal Observatory Chile to commission the VISTA Infrared Camera. The place had also been used as the secret lair of the villain in the James Bond film Quantum of Solace. The VISTA Infrared Camera was decommissioned in 2023, bringing the story to an end. Beeslack then showed their club presentation which celebrated the “Environs of Penicuik”. It featured a selection photographs from historical monuments and scenic places to visit around Penicuik taken by their club members.

The meeting then changed tack and showed a YouTube video created by Musselburgh member Derek Muller entitled “Getting Started in Screen Printing”. The video showed us how to use a MiSCREEN silk screen printer to transfer an artwork or black and white photograph onto paper, or a T-Shirt, etc… Derek creates his videos with a camera or iPhone and edits them using iMovie. Beeslack then showed a supplement to their club presentation which demonstrated the artistic filters applied by Bill Baird. Photographs of the Midlothian countryside were transformed into artworks before our eyes. This was followed by a short video showing a visit to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe by Musselburgh member Kevin Johnston and then a presentation showing a visit to Alicante, Spain in 2019 by Beeslack member Mike Walby.

The evening finished with three short presentations. Derek Muller showed a video of the waves crashing onto the shore at Portobello beach, which featured some lovely slow motion effects and a passer by who looked like they were going to get soaked but escaped. Then we watched a Beeslack video showing the Fells, Becks and Lakes of the Lake District. Beeslack also chose the perfect presentation on which to close the evening: a celebration of Valentine’s Day created by Gordon Peerless. We finished with a discussion over tea and cakes.

Thank you to Beeslack for visiting and showing their presentations, and thanks again to Liz, Ed and Carol for the catering. Next week Eddie Telford will be returning to give a talk on “Around the World in 80 Images”. See you there.

08 December 2022 (Julian Elliot: Breathless in Nepal)

Posted on by

Our last meeting before Christmas was another joint Zoom talk hosted by Beeslack Penicuik Camera Club and joined by Earlston Camera Club members. Julian Elliot, an award-winning landscape and travel photographer, connected with us from France and gave us a fascinating talk about his experiences. You can find more about Julian on his web site:

https://www.julianelliottphotography.com/profile/

Julian began his talk by describing his kit and explaining his techniques. He normally travels with a Canon DSLR camera plus 6 lenses (3 zoom lenses and 3 tilt/shift lenses), although 90% of his travel photography is made with the following gear:

  • A 24-70 zoom lens. Julian finds this lens makes great portraits, and is also useful for landscapes and use in cramped spaces. He likes to photograph hands with this lens.
  • A 100-400 zoom lens. Julian uses this lens to make landscape images of distant mountain scenery. Some people are surprised that a telephoto lens can be used for landscapes, but mountains tend to look more impressive when the depth is compressed. The lens can also pick out interesting details from the landscape. Julian also uses this lens to make panoramas, and to take distant portraits with a compressed background.
  • A 24 tilt-shift lens. Julian finds a tilt-shift lens invaluable for photographing architecture. It gives superior results than taking a picture with a normal lens and using a lens correction filter because you can see the result you are going to get in-camera, and there is is no cropping of the image at the edges. Julian showed some examples of what could be done with this lens: a superb shot of the inside of a cathedral, or a photograph of a statue in front of a temple taken from only a few feet away with all the verticals vertical.
  • A 1.4x extender, which Julian uses to extend the capabilities of the above lenses/
  • A carbon fibre tripod (lightweight for travelling).
  • A polarizer filter and a neutral density filter. Polarizer filters can enhance the sky or remove reflections, and the neutral density filter allows longer exposures.
  • A decent camera bag. Julian explained that most bags are designed to be used in an airport, and it is hard to find a bag that is versatile enough to use on a flight and carry outside.

Julian went on to explain how he plans his travels. He learns about destinations by reading travel magazines and using travel guides for research. He looks at photographs published by other photographers to get an idea of the possibilities. You can follow particular photographers on social media, but you can also follow specific hashtags, such as “#vietnam”, to see all the posts made about a particular place. But he warned us that landscapes are constantly changing. What you see described in a guide or shown in a past photo might not be there any more, so be prepared for the unexpected. He uses the following tools to plan his shots:

  • Google street view can be used to explore a destination virtually, but not all countries allow it.
  • Once Julian has decided on a destination, he uses Google Mind Maps to plan his travel. It can be linked to maps, and the application can be used on a phone to create an itinerary.
  • The Photographer’s Ephemeris can be used to plan your shots and investigate where the light will come from at different times of the day. The PhotoPills application is also a very useful planning tool.

After taking us through the basics, Julian then took us on a journey to Upper Mustang in Nepal, showing us the spectacular landscape images he had take on the trip, the portraits of the people he had met on the way, and his architectural photographs of the towns and temples. Travelling to Upper Mustang was like travelling back in time, with very different norms and customs. He became friends with a local guide who introduced him to interesting people. Julian would often ask permission to take his shots from unusual vantage points, such as the roof of a temple. On his journey through Nepal, Julian needed to climb to some high altitude view points, and on one of these excursions he suffered from serious altitude sickness. Julian told us the story of his treatment and recovery and warned anyone else travelling to Nepal to be aware of the effects of the altitude and not to push themselves too quickly. Julian finished his presentation with a selection of portraits and images of more spectacular temples. It was a very entertaining and enlightening evening.

That was the last club meeting at Fisherrow until the New Year. Next week we will be meeting at the Ravelston House Hotel in Musselburgh for the club’s Christmas social evening.

Steven