Our first competition of the year, the Quig Quaich, took place on Monday 10^th October. As always, Robert Quig gave a thorough and thoughtful review of all the entries, with ideas as to how the images might be improved. The Quaich was won by Kevin Thorne, whose six images scored 108 points from a possible 120. Kevin’s varied entry included an abstract, a sports shot, two bird images, a minimalist monochrome image of the Armadillo building in Glasgow, and a cracking photo of ‘Mary’s Shell’ (a long exposure photo of a shell-like sculpture standing in the sea).
Kevin’s high standard work pushed John Sommerville’s entry out of the top spot, However, John deservedly won second place achieving a great score of 103 points. Fiona Couser and Alan Stewart shared third spot.

Congratulations to Kevin on a well-deserved win, and thanks again to Robert for his careful judging.
 

On Monday 26^th September, we hosted a special evening to celebrate the Club’s 25^th Anniversary. We welcomed members of the club both past and present, a number of visitors, and gave a particularly warm welcome to the past presidents who graced us with their presence. Eleven of the club’s twelve past presidents were there. Apologies were received from Bill Terrance, who was unable to attend, and we all send him our good wishes.

Our guest speaker was John Hannah. John is a highly esteemed member of both Milngavie and Bearsden Camera Club, and Eastwood Photographic Society. Chosen as our anniversary speaker by the past presidents, his presentation featured spectacular wildlife images from all over Scotland and England. The diversity of animals and birds he had captured was amazing, and he gave hints on locations and photographic technique.

After a break for some home baking and coffee, it was our own Jim Stevenson’s turn to present a collection of images he had collected from the 25 years of the club’s history. We were treated to images from all our past presidents, club outings, and prize winners over the years. Jim also had on display a large number of prints, a yearbook and calendars produced by the club in the past.

A great night for new and old members alike. Here are all the past presidents – photo taken on the night – along with the guest speaker, John Hannah (in red).

Kilmaurs Club’s 2nd Open Competition was held last Monday night, and as usual the different sections, (Mono prints, Colour Prints and Projected images) were all strongly contested.  This time, however, Jim Stevenson took top honours in all three sections. The competition judge, Boyd Meiklejohn from Ayr Camera Club, chose the above image entitled ‘Flora and Fauna’ for the award of the trophy– a beautifully lit image with a little surprise which had wandered into the frame.

Shining some light on his technique, Jim says, “Multiple focus-stacked images were shot on an Olympus EM1iii, which doesn’t usually require a tripod, but I needed a free hand to light the scene from above with a LED torch. After I began shooting the stack (where the point of focus moves through the scene front to back), a ladybird ambled into the shot. It didn’t appear on any of the frames until about shot 20, at which point it was recorded in focus. Completely accidental and couldn’t be repeated.”

Focus stacking is now a very popular technique for close-up photography, and this example is truly a worthy winner.

Jim Stevenson’s “Cappella in Pre-dawn Mist” lifted the trophy on a night of Landscape Photography when all the entries to the Rose Urie Competition were reviewed by judge Charlie Moore of Eastwood Camera Club. Jim’s superb colour print was chosen from an overall entry of 64 varied landscape images.

Jim explained, “Cappella della Madonna di Vitalità, is near San Quirico d’Orcia in Tuscany. Joanna and I were very lucky to catch it on a misty morning. In fact, when we arrived there, we couldn’t see anything. The mist cleared quickly, and in a couple of minutes was all gone. Only minimal global adjustments were required, and nothing added or taken away. I used a Nikon D810, 70-200mm lens at 200mm, 100 ISO, F9 and 1/30th sec exposure.”

And so, at last, we’ve held our first formal photo competition since the re-start of the club back in September. A good number of club members came together in our new and larger venue to hear our judge, Stephen Philips from Bearsden and Milngavie Camera Club, present his comments and scores on our 1^st Open Competition images.

A great variety of topics were on show including sport, landscapes, table-top and portraiture. Talented new member, Ian Mortimer, took first place in not one but both of the print sections, winning with a wedding portrait in the Mono section and a nature print of a feeding heron for the top Colour print. However, it was superb projected image of a young dog by Martin Clark that took the judge’s eye for the award of the overall trophy – a portrait of “Buddy the Pup”. Continue reading “Martin’s the Top Dog.” →