Is it all starting to feel like Spring to you yet ? The Annual competition has now come and gone, and with it the final externally judged competition. Feels like Winter is behind us....mind you I thought that before 2018's 'Beast from the East' arrived in that mid-March, so fingers crossed.
Thank you to David Sadler for judging the competition - congratulations to Muriel who wins the Annual Trophy. Members can access the recorded zoom from the usual password-protected recent zooms page for the next few weeks. Muriel's 'Oystercatcher Splash' image is this blog's featured image. Sounds like a good evening from David and some great member's images. Congratulations.
As the season has moved on, we now know that the Colour Trophy (best image) goes to Rudolf with his 'Defensive Tern in front of a grey sky' and the Carlyle Cup (most points accumulated over all externally judged competitions') goes to Sally Anderson.
Justyna wins the Lothian Cup for the highest scoring newcomer in a judged competition.
Muriel also won the John Apps Trophy for one of her images from last year's Exhibition in St Mary's Parish Church - a publicly voted winner.
Have a look at the Awards pages for some more of these images, and of course the Gallery too (dropdown menu above).
In the next day or two we'll have March's 'Member of the Month' images posted on the MoM page - thank you to Bill and Sally for sending their images for February, and thank you to Ian and Pete for their March images.
If I've given you the impression the season is over - far from it ! We still have the AV (Audio Visual) competition coming up - this pushes up against some members 'comfort zones' in terms of skills and experience and for that very reason why not have a go ? Entries accepted up till 11th March (but sooner the better of course) ... as Mike, our joint Compsec says
'It's really not that hard and if you have never made a short movie before it is a skill well worth learning (great for kids, grandkids, holidays etc). Your phone is a good as anything for making movies and I'm sure most of you have used phones to do this. Most cameras now also have video making capabilities.
The movie doesn't need to be a long one (3 minutes or so is fine). For editing (and this is where the fun part begins putting music and /or voice to your video or still images) there are lots of packages out there on the app or android store (many are free). One that is powerful yet easy to master and use is CAPCUT (works on PCs and Macs). For those with Macs iMovie comes free with the computer (try out the trailer feature - dead easy and makes a great movie trailer with your footage).
Have a go. What have you got to lose? If anyone is really stuck I'd be happy to meet up sometime in the next week or so at the Poldrate for an hour or 2 to help you get started.'
You can see some of Mike's previous AV winners here.
I'm jumping ahead a little - next week we have guest speaker Alastair How who will share his Travel Photography tips and images on Zoom. It wont be recorded so do your best to join on the evening (members, watch out for Grace's email with the zoom details).
Looking ahead, the AGM is on 25th March, members should have had an email from the Secretary with last year's Minutes, and this year's Agenda. The club runs successfully from the largely unacknowledged effort the committee puts in, and would welcome help and assistance from members. Please consider joining the committee this year, or otherwise offering help. Why not help bring 'something' from 'nothing' and help keep this wonderful club going so strongly.
That's it for this week... enjoy the sunshine !