This week's meeting
We were shown a great selection of Rudolf's images from his visits to Sutherland and Assynt, some of which came with health and safety warnings regarding weather, rivers, cold, wet, the great wilderness and a great reminder of what an amazing nation Scotland is. As above, Rudolf suggested he thought it was the impending 'end of the world'. I liked the categorisation into various (most?) genres, from landscapes, ICM, high speed, macro, abstracts, wildlife, all with an entertaining commentary which gave an insight into Rudolf's creative mind (and fertile imagination!). Featured image copyright Rudolf Hummel, no copying.
Next we enjoyed Bill's images from Perthshire, a (huge) locality that's as beautiful as the more wilderness areas, perhaps in a more gentle form. Aberfeldy and Glen Lyon have a lot to offer, and Bill reminded us that the club has done outings to such further-afield locations in the past. I'm sure you could wander for days, camera in hand, inspired at every turn of the path.
Finally Mike showed us some results of his research into various methods of image blur, including a new one to most of us - the Adamski effect. Also the more familiar Gaussian blur, and motion blur. The demo was from Luminar Neo, and I think similar effects are available in other editing suites.
Our 'Members of the Month' are Robert and Richard - have a look at their images here
Next week we are back to Zoom for the meeting - the judging of the recent Monochrome competition by Steven Galvin. Steven gave some subtle hints as to the sorts of images he prefers, which immediately made me regret my choice of images I entered.
Members can access both the recording of Steven's recent presentation 'I shoot animals', and a presentation shared with us from Earlston Camera Club by Allan Walker ("Wild Wild West") - accessible for the next week or so from the Recent Zooms page.
The next competition is the Annual, images should be entered by 11th February, categories include Close up/Macro, Seascape/Landscape, Events Sports Street, Wildlife behaviour, and Flora/Fauna. You might want to plan for that.
In other photography news, don't forget the Scottish National Portrait Gallery in Edinburgh has an exhibition on until 16th March 'Celebrating 40 Years of Scotland's Photography Collection' - maybe combine a visit with a look at the Vaughan Bequest of Turner paintings (on until 31st Jan) ?
Think that's it for this week. Let me know if you have any comments.