Posts in category: News

We got a couple of Match-an-Image competitions under our belt with Musselburgh and then Haddington Camera Clubs towards the end of last year.  All good fun as usual, although we had to concede victory to our competitors! 

 On our last meeting before Christmas, it was entertaining to see such a variety of images from so many members on our first ‘PechaKucha‘ event. The story of a set of images adds another dimension to a slideshow, although timing was a challenge – sometimes 20 seconds seems forever and at other times too short!  Something worth experimenting with again.

Next meeting for the New Year is on Thursday 16 Jan with a Zoom talk from Justin Minns entitled ‘Interesting Stuff’. A quest to find interesting subjects to photograph and ponder the question “What makes an interesting photograph – the subject or the photographer?”.

This was the first time we’d done an Edit Night and it proved to be interesting and engaging with more than enough shots to view and discuss. 

It’s fair to say that some edits were deemed successful, some less so. Members agreed that it’s often hard to determine how much post processing to do and when to stop.

There was also a healthy debate on why we do any editing at all after capture in camera…..quite a minefield especially in this modern age of AI technology! And of course, post processing for wildlife images is quite a different animal (pardon the pun!) from other genres of photography. 

Whatever your opinion on post processing, there were plenty of useful tips shared though on how to improve our images.

It’s always enjoyable having Gordon Rae visiting, and this time he was judging our ‘Wildlife‘ assignment.

We had 43 images for him to consider and he was impressed with the quality of the shots.

As a judge with a lot of experience, and also being a keen wildlife photographer himself, his feedback was very useful and constructive. He has a good eye for detail and he doesn’t miss anything!

He had a challenge narrowing down his final images, but in the end the winner was ‘Springbok on the Move‘ by Maria Djumic.

There were 4 highly commended images from Val Stuart, Muriel Huggins, Maria Djumic and Karen Stout.

Last night judge Eddie Telford visited us from Ayrshire to provide feedback on our Chairman’s Challenge competition. The theme for images was ‘People‘ and we had 44 entries in total.

As usual, it’s always interesting to see members’ different take on the topic with such varied shots.

The winning image was from Maria Djumic with an accomplished shot taken during the Edinburgh Fringe. Well done Maria!

There were 5 other highly commended shots from Rob Rogers, Linda Smith, Val Stuart, Maria Djumic and Karen Stout.

Eddie did a superb job providing balanced, detailed and constructive comments. These will prove helpful for members with our upcoming edit evening  on 14 November.

There was a good turnout of members on Thursday night, and 57 images for us all to look at and discuss. 

The theme of ‘Telephony and Road Infrastructure‘ was certainly one to challenge the brain cells(!), but it was great to see so many members give it a go and submit some images. 

There was the usual shared chat about what worked in shots and what might have improved them, but what was particularly intriguing was seeing how different people approached the theme.

We had a fair few shots of telegraph wires, but there were others coming from a whole different point of view.

We had a wonderful treat for our first proper meeting of the season; Charles Everitt giving a talk on ‘Project Driven Photography‘.

It was so much more than just that though! His presentation was refreshing, inspiring and informative. 

He gave us a very professional and engaging talk, and his images were so original and eye catching. The accompanying music perfectly complimented the slideshow sections, so much so that it was easy become totally mesmerised by the whole affair! 

It will be intriguing to see if members start trying some things they haven’t done before after this…quite a few said to me how impressed they were with the talk. We also really appreciated Charles’ tips on how to approach certain styles of shots…..it’s so much better than just seeing someone’s wonderful photos with no idea where to start yourself. 

Altogether, a super start to our season. How can we top it?!

What a lovely evening….it was great to see friends back again after the summer break. As usual for our opening night, we had a cheese and wine evening, which gave members time to catch up on news and meet some new members.

 Then it was time to enjoy sharing each other’s images from our time over the summer months. There were over 70 shots from near and far…..Japan, Poland, Svalbard, Switzerland, France, Austria, the Appalachian Mountains in America, London to name a few. Also some more local spots including a few back gardens! 

It was a pleasant reminder of all the wonderful things to photograph in the world, and what a rewarding hobby photography is for all ages.

We’re hoping that members have enjoyed their summer even if the Scottish weather has been a bit iffy!

Time to start looking forward and thinking about our new season which starts on Thursday 5 September.

You can find out what’s coming up on the Programme tab on the website. Check out the first few assignments to see what you should be looking to photograph over the next month or two. 

You’ll see posters up and about North Berwick from today, helping to get the word out there about our club. 

We’re looking to organise a trip to Bo’ness Railway Museum towards the end of August/start September. That will be after the school holidays and hoping to make it a day when the steam train running, so most likely Tues 27 Aug or Tues 3 Sep.

Do let a committee member know if you are interested to come along.

Our annual ‘Image of the Year’ competition this year was judged by Eddie Telford. He made a sterling job of providing valuable critique on all of our images which made the evening more enjoyable.

Congratulations to Muriel Huggins for her image ‘Stonechat on a fence‘ which was the judge’s overall winner.

There were Highly Commended images from John Reglinski, Maria Djumic, Muriel Huggins and Adam Wallace.”

We welcomed Musselburgh Camera Club to North Berwick for our Interclub Match an Image (MAI) competition.

It was unsurprisingly a rather raucous occasion, with lots of banter as each side tried to convince the judge on the evening, Gordon Rae, that their competing image was either a match or not with the opposing team’s one; and then when a match was declared by Gordon, which happened on a record number of occasions (he was sure there had been some collusion between the clubs 😊), the banter switched to efforts to persuade him to favour our respective club image for each round to secure an extra point for being the preferred image.

No one could have accused Gordon of not casting caution to the wind when it came to matching images and this very much enhanced the enjoyment of the evening as it enabled nearly all competing images to be critiqued for quality and aesthetics – and cheekier banter to flow, and the teams expressed their own thoughts.

There was a delicious selection of home baking and other cakes and biscuits at half time, and thanks must go to all those who contributed; in particular, our Chair, Karen, without whose efforts the evening would not have been the huge success it was. In addition, many thanks to Gordon for his terrific humour and fairness.

The standard of entries was very high on both sides and fittingly it ended in a draw.

We look forward to a further rematch next year at Musselburgh.