5th March Competition - 'Night'
Graeme Buchan of Elite Photography was the judge for this themed competition. If you click on each image you will find out its title, the author and a summery of Graeme's comments. Two images tied for first place with 19 points. 'The Doocot' by Brian Sandison and 'Crovie' by Mike Chandler. Two images were awarded 18 points putting them in joint second place. 'Kinnaird Aurora' by Mike Chandler and 'Still Waters' by Martin Hulbert. Three images tied for third place with 17 points. 'Pitfour Lake' by Brian Sandison, 'The Old and the New' by Lewis Duthie and 'Sunset at St Mary's Chapel' by Brian Sandison.
20th February Print Competition No 2
Peter Clark was the judge for Print competition No2. Peter is a former member of Fraserburgh Photographic Society and was winner of 'Photographer of the Year' on several occasions. Forty five prints were entered into the competition some of them are below. The winning image was Mike Chandlers 'Tree Sparrow'. Peter said 'My favourite. Magic lighting and great colours. Glad the beak is open and the touch of yellow adds to he image. Great neutral background and the moss is the finishing touch' it scored 20 points out of 20. The second place was 'Flower Mouse' by John McRobbie, it was given 19½ points. Peters comments were Great image. Thinking its been set up. Great colours and lighting. Lovely pink. Mouse's eye pin sharp. If this was taken in the wild I'm sorry I didn't make it the winner' Two prints received 19 points, 'The Storm' by Margaret Cran (not shown) and 'Flowers' by Stanley Partridge. Another two were given 18½, Baleing' by Stanley Partridge and 'What Fish?' by Mike Chandler Two were given 18, 'My Winter Coat' by John McRobbie and 'Crestie' by Kenny Buchan (not shown)
13th february - Stanley Partridge Cup Night
The Stanley Partridge Cup is presented to the member with the highest aggregate score in the Theme and Print Competitions. In 2018/19 three members tied for third place, Stanley Partridge (who donated the cup), Lewis Duthie and Elodie Wagener. On 13th February they were asked to give a short presentation on any subject of their choosing. Three very different shows were given.
Stanleys' Workflow
Stanley's show was in the form of a tutorial video that he had created and narrated that showed his workflow in Photoshop. Just a few basic steps that he takes with all of his photographs that invariably result in an improved image.
Step 1 Cropping
Stanley showed how easy it was to crop and position the photograph to improve composition
Step 1 Cropping
Stanley showed how easy it was to crop and position the photograph to improve composition
Step 2 Shadows and Highlights
By going to 'Shadows and Highlights' in the image menu. Stanley showed how easy it was to show more detail in the image. When the tab is opened Photoshop makes a 'guess' of the right settings all you have to do is make adjustments to the sliders get the photo to look the way you want it. Sometimes Photoshop gets it right and on adjustments are needed
By going to 'Shadows and Highlights' in the image menu. Stanley showed how easy it was to show more detail in the image. When the tab is opened Photoshop makes a 'guess' of the right settings all you have to do is make adjustments to the sliders get the photo to look the way you want it. Sometimes Photoshop gets it right and on adjustments are needed
Step 3 Sharpening
Stanley said that all photographs are improved by sharpening. A sharpening tool can be found the menu 'Filters - Sharpen - Unsharp Mask'. Stanleys' video showed how to get to the dialogue box and who to make the adjustments. He warned against over-sharpening an image.
Stanley said that all photographs are improved by sharpening. A sharpening tool can be found the menu 'Filters - Sharpen - Unsharp Mask'. Stanleys' video showed how to get to the dialogue box and who to make the adjustments. He warned against over-sharpening an image.
And there you have it Stanleys workflow on initally dealing with a photograph in Photoshop. His video went on to show how the system worked for other images. I one there was the added step of removing an unsightly electricity pole and wires by cropping and cloning.
As a bonus Stanley showed a second video about how to create borders and frames in Photoshop using the dialogue box you get in the menu 'Edit -Stroke'
Lewie and the Rosehearty Community Boat Club
Lewis Duthie gave a PowerPoint presentation about the history of Rosehearty Community Boat Club. It all started with a community imitative to 'give something for the kids to do' by building a Yole. This became the Rosehearty Project and involved a great deal of work research and above all the participation of the whole of the community. Premises and finance had to be secured. The plans of the boat had to be made from scratch using data from a boats (the Lloyd Gorge FR348) registration certificate and the only photograph of the boat that could be found.
....And the boat was completed, launched and the sail set. It was called Rosehearty Adventurer' in a competition at the local primary school Two pupils picked the same name!
Lewie want on to explain how the Rosehearty Project developed into the Roseheatry Community Boat Club and who the club as a registered charity was able to raise funds to increase the size of the fleet and get permanent premises. The club continues to involve the young people of the village and to teach them boat-building skills that are useful not just for boat building. Many people, including Lewie himself are learning to sail as the club goes from strength to strength.
Elodies' alpine Flower Power
Elodie had another presentation method. A slideshow through Windows Pictures. She highlighted the flowers of the Alps in France where her family live and where she spends her holidays. This presentation was about the photographs. Elodie explained how she as interested in close up photography and how she set about coping with the challenges that it presented. One of the main challenges was to get the subjects in focus. They are small and they move! Another challenge was to isolate the subject from distractions to make them the image focal point. The flowers were often close to one another, close to the background and close to the ground itself. Armed only with her Canon kit 18-55 mm lens she was able to show some great images of the flowers and insects many of which can only be found at altitudes higher than any found in Scotland. Let the photos speak for themselves
6th february 3rd digital image competition - results
David Pickford APRS DPAGB attended the meeting to give his appraisal of the images submitted into the 3rd digital image competition and to give marks for each one our of 20. David was quite open about how he allocated marks to the photos and showed this slide-:
As he went through the marks he said what points he had awarded to each element as well as giving a detailed appraisal.
A total of sixty images that were entered into the competition and are shown below. To see the winning entries follow this link
A total of sixty images that were entered into the competition and are shown below. To see the winning entries follow this link
30th january Learning Theme - HDR photography -
Stuart Fenty gave a talk on the post Christmas learning theme 'High Dynamic Range Photography' . Stuart is a former member of the club and 'Photographer of the Year' but has had to let his membership lapse because meetings clashed with his commitments to Fraserburgh RNLI.
Stuart showed how, by using HDR computer programmes a lot of the detail that the human eye can see but the camera sensor in a single photo cannot display. The technique is to take three or more (an odd number) of shots of the same scene at different exposures they can be merged into one image that shows the detail at one shot would miss. Stuart said that it is best to used a tripod so that the images taken don't vary by even a little bit so that they can seamlessly merge. One image is taken at the cameras normal exposure, one is taken under exposed (this will show detail in the light areas of the scene) and one over exposed (to show the detail in the dark areas) Abobe Lightroom can merge these images into one. Another programme that Stuart demonstrated to merge images was Photomatics. HDR photography has its limitations though. It cannot be done for action shots or if there is too much movement from say the wind in the trees.
Stuart showed how in the dedicated HDR programmes presets can help as a starting point for the image 'look' that you are trying to create. He said that he tries to make the final photo look as natural as possible it is however possible to go 'over the top with the processing in HDR, but some people like it that way!!
Once the image is merged it can be adjusted as normal.
Here are the images that Stuart used to demonstrate HDR. On the left is the camera determined exposure, next the over exposed images and then the under exposed one. On the right is the HDR image.
Stuart showed how, by using HDR computer programmes a lot of the detail that the human eye can see but the camera sensor in a single photo cannot display. The technique is to take three or more (an odd number) of shots of the same scene at different exposures they can be merged into one image that shows the detail at one shot would miss. Stuart said that it is best to used a tripod so that the images taken don't vary by even a little bit so that they can seamlessly merge. One image is taken at the cameras normal exposure, one is taken under exposed (this will show detail in the light areas of the scene) and one over exposed (to show the detail in the dark areas) Abobe Lightroom can merge these images into one. Another programme that Stuart demonstrated to merge images was Photomatics. HDR photography has its limitations though. It cannot be done for action shots or if there is too much movement from say the wind in the trees.
Stuart showed how in the dedicated HDR programmes presets can help as a starting point for the image 'look' that you are trying to create. He said that he tries to make the final photo look as natural as possible it is however possible to go 'over the top with the processing in HDR, but some people like it that way!!
Once the image is merged it can be adjusted as normal.
Here are the images that Stuart used to demonstrate HDR. On the left is the camera determined exposure, next the over exposed images and then the under exposed one. On the right is the HDR image.
Here are the same images shown using some of the HDR presets in Photomatics.
The next part of the learning theme is on 27th Feb when members will be producing their own HDR images.
23rd January - Digital Imaging tutorial 'converting to monochrome'
Martin Hulbert lead a tutorial on how to take monochrome images and how to convert images to monochrome. For the first half of the meeting Martin gave a presentation. Here are some of the images from his presentation. The second section of the tutorial involved members doing some monochrome conversions on their laptops. Here are a couple of Martins monochrome images. You will see more in his gallery on this site
16th January - 'Got a new camera'
This meeting was designed to give members and anyone else for that matter the chance to bring in their camera and see how it works and get to know all the ins and outs of the function. A selection of 'tests' were set up to get members to experiment with shutter speed, aperture and other settings on their camera. These tests were all base on the theme of 'Food' as this was the subject of the challenge set for the rest of the season. For the challenge members have to submit three digital images on the theme of food for showing at the meeting on 9th April. Here is a selection of the photos taken.
9th January - Social and quiz night
Members and their quests attended the annual social evening and for entertainment a photo based quiz was held.
Here are some of the questions:-
Identify these buildings in and around Fraserburgh
Identify these buildings in and around Fraserburgh
Where are these fishing boats registered?
5th December - Open digital image competition no 2
Neil McGoldrick was the judge of this competition. Neil is a member of both Craigewan Photography Group and Ellon Camera Club, and has a particular interest in landscape photography. You can find his images following this link.
28th November - Night Photography appraisal night
This was the third and final session of our 'learning theme' Night Photography. Earlier Michelle Elmslie gave a talk and presentation on the theme and a 24th October was devoted to practical work (see report below). Michelle was to return to give her appraisal of the images members had submitted, unfortunately due to illness she was unable to attend. Members discussed the images among themselves. Here are the images
7th November - Themed Competition 'Birds In Flight'
Graeme Buchan of Elite Photography was the judge of this competition. Below are the entries and with each one a summary of Graeme's comments
31st October - Guest Speaker Liz Alderdice
29th October - Photo Fun Night
Photo Fun Night was all about Fire Spinning. What you do is get a volunteer, it was Michelle on this occasion to wear some dark clothing that its alright to get a bit mucky. You then go to somewhere dark that will not burn. Tie a balloon whisk to a bit of string and fill it with wire wool. Set light to the wire wool and get the volunteer to spin it round and round. The photographer stand a lttle way off so the sparks from the wire wool can't get them. Then with their cameras on a tripod they take long exposures of the spinning whisk. The results are quite spectacular
24th October- Practical Night - Night Photography
Planned well in advance but the timing could not have been better. Clear skies and an aurora. The only problem was the strong wind. Members went to several vantage points along the coast to get shots of the aurora. Here are a few of the results
17th October - Print Competition
Bill Buchan attended the meeting on 17th October to announce the results of the first print competition of the season. As well as telling us the points he had awarded to each print he gave a crtique of the photographs. Forty-four prints were entered into the event. Bill was quite shocked to see so many entries. He said he was only expecting twenty or so.
Bill said that there was a good range of subjects in the entries and praised the high quality of the bird photographs. The 'Arty' images, he said were difficult to take and good to see.
The one he put into first place was by John Ritchie 'Sunrise Silouhette which he gave 20 points. Bill said
'This is a very nice image. The colours are beautiful and the fairly minimal colour pallette just enhances that. The silhouettes of the two land masses keeps the eye drawn to the sun breaking. The old chestnut whether or not to include people in a landscape is thrown up with this one. In this case the inclusion of the walkers is the element that lifts this picture. The walkers are big enough to recognise immediately what they are doing and their direction of travel and view. But not so big as to create an imbalance. I like it.'
Bill said that there was a good range of subjects in the entries and praised the high quality of the bird photographs. The 'Arty' images, he said were difficult to take and good to see.
The one he put into first place was by John Ritchie 'Sunrise Silouhette which he gave 20 points. Bill said
'This is a very nice image. The colours are beautiful and the fairly minimal colour pallette just enhances that. The silhouettes of the two land masses keeps the eye drawn to the sun breaking. The old chestnut whether or not to include people in a landscape is thrown up with this one. In this case the inclusion of the walkers is the element that lifts this picture. The walkers are big enough to recognise immediately what they are doing and their direction of travel and view. But not so big as to create an imbalance. I like it.'
Here are some of the images entered into the copmetition. Most are quick photos taken of the prints so please forgive the quality
5th October
On 5th October seven intrepid members of Fraserburgh Photographic Society ventured into the little known parts of Drinnies Wood near Fetrangus. Our mission was to photograph fungi.
Finding the fungi was the easy part of the adventure. They were everywhere. Fungi of all shapes colours and sizes littered the forest floor in places. They were in the tees, growing in the moss, on dead tree branches and in the pine needles.
Photographing them was a little trickier. First you had to get down to fungi level and that meant lying down on the damp forest floor. Getting enough light into the camera was another problem. Some of us had torches. The LED lanterns were very effective, Without a torch it meant choosing a slow shutter speed. We all know that if the shutter speed is slow you have to keep your camera very still to avoid camera shake and a blurred photo and that means using a tripod. But how do you get a tripod to work at ground level. Some tripods do let you do this but it means working the camera upside down! The alternative is to rest the camera on the ground. OK if you have a cloth or something to put under it to keep it clean and dry. Another problem, which ever route you choose for a slow shutter speed is the ground was very spongy, Keeping the camera still was not easy. Of course once you had done all that you had to get the right composition. 'Now where was that solid bit of ground that I had my tripod on?'
What other camera settings do you put into your camera? To get enough light into the camera as wide an aperture as possible? No. Some of the fungi are small so you are very close to them and the problem created by a wide aperture is a narrow depth of field and getting it all in focus. So you have to have a narrow aperture and up the ISO and sacrifice image quality or go for a longer shutter speed and try to avoid any camera movement. Another option is to do some focus stacking. Taking several shots with different foal points and merging them in the computer This does mean avoiding camera movement is essential to avoid ghosting in the final image. Just touching the camera in the soft ground conditions can move the camera a fraction. Adjusting the focus ring between shots will almost certainly move the camera. Here is one of Marks images which I hope he won't mind being shown here. Mark took two images one with lighting and one without which he mas merged. You can see the ghosting and he didn't even touch the camera between shots!
What other camera settings do you put into your camera? To get enough light into the camera as wide an aperture as possible? No. Some of the fungi are small so you are very close to them and the problem created by a wide aperture is a narrow depth of field and getting it all in focus. So you have to have a narrow aperture and up the ISO and sacrifice image quality or go for a longer shutter speed and try to avoid any camera movement. Another option is to do some focus stacking. Taking several shots with different foal points and merging them in the computer This does mean avoiding camera movement is essential to avoid ghosting in the final image. Just touching the camera in the soft ground conditions can move the camera a fraction. Adjusting the focus ring between shots will almost certainly move the camera. Here is one of Marks images which I hope he won't mind being shown here. Mark took two images one with lighting and one without which he mas merged. You can see the ghosting and he didn't even touch the camera between shots!
All that said we got some cracking photos and some great experience on which we can build.
I'm sure we will be back to perfect our fungi photo skills, and who knows we may will find Karens headtorch!
3rd October
Mike Hall LRPS from the Deeside Camera Club came to judge the first of the digital image competitions. Sixteen member each submitted three images. All the entries are shown below. Mike said that he had enjoyed looking at the images and commented on each image pointing out the good parts and suggesting what sort of improvements could be made. On composition he said that it was nearly always better to have one, three of five subjects in an image and that these should be arranged to for a triangle sort of shape or form. Mike seemed to preferred photographs that 'told a story' and it was interesting to note that he often asked 'Would I want this on my wall?', 'Would someone buy this?' and 'Could I sell this to a magazine?'
Like many of the judges he pointed out parts of an image that to his mind were distractions or that did not add to the composition or to the 'story'. In awarding marks to the photographs he said that he divided them into two. Those that he considered to be of 'competition' standard which he gave 17 points and above and those he thought were competent club photos which he gave 14 - 16 marks. None of the photos were given less than 14 which is a tribute to the members and in particular the new members submitting images into a competition for the first time.
To see which photos won follow this link.
Like many of the judges he pointed out parts of an image that to his mind were distractions or that did not add to the composition or to the 'story'. In awarding marks to the photographs he said that he divided them into two. Those that he considered to be of 'competition' standard which he gave 17 points and above and those he thought were competent club photos which he gave 14 - 16 marks. None of the photos were given less than 14 which is a tribute to the members and in particular the new members submitting images into a competition for the first time.
To see which photos won follow this link.
26th September - Night Photography
Michèle Emslie came to the meeting to give a talk on Night Photography.
24th September - Photo Fun Night
Fraserburgh Photographic Society meeting on a Tuesday! Unheard of. But this was the first of two Photo Fun Nights. They were arranged to see if people turned up and if they did we would organise one a month during the 2019/20 season. Well the attendance surpassed all expectations. Twenty three came along the the JIC to get photos of bursting balloons and water sloshing out of a glass. Fiona Gordon and Michelle Scott had clearly done a lot of research and work in setting up the evening. It has to be said that the sloshing glasses was the most successful of the two exercises. I think we all came to the conclusion that coordinating the timing of the fish and the bursting of the balloon required either a lot of balloons or a sound based flash trigger rather than a finger may be both trigger and balloons. We also found that the balloon thing needed a completely dark room. Any stray light from a source other than the flash tended to spoil the effect that we were after. Anyway here are some of the images taken on the night. First the balloons ones. Just for fun the balloons were given a pair of sunglasses!
In retrospect we should have had more than one colour for the sloshing water if only to give a bit more variety to the shots that were taken. No precise timing to coordinate here. Just a steady hand to slosh the water into the glass. With the balloon it was the flash that captured the moment and rather counter intuitively we used a slow shutter speed. With the glass and the water it was all about a fast shutter speed and getting a burst of shots while the action took place. Here is what you got if the shutter speed was too slow.
With a faster shutter speed the results were much better. Timing was still important but a burst of exposures all but solved that! Crucial was the rate of sloshing. Here are a variety of shots taken on the night.
And here is the set up with Brian doing the sploshing.
One member who will remain nameless went even further. The next day Mark decided to create more sloshing water images with his son Hamish
Photo Outings and Photo Shoots
It has been a busy week for members of Fraserburgh Photography Society. We have been getting out and about taking photos. The first outing was on 17th September when four of us went to Lena Levy's art studio outside Mintlaw. Here is a selection of the photos
On Saturday 21st September we were the guests of Fraserburgh Football club and took photos during their cup game with Bonnyrigg Rose Athletic. Although the score was not good the photos came out well.
The third trip of the week was a Photo Outing to Rathen on 22nd September. Here are a few images
19th September- Digital Imaging
Instead of brining their cameras members were asked to bring in their laptop with a digital imaging program loaded up, something like 'Photoshop' or 'Affinity Photo'. They were given a set of images and the evening was spent changing the backgrounds.
...and some of the backgrounds
....and one of the final images
Before anyone starts complaining that doing this is somehow cheating this sort of image manipulation has been going on almost since photographs were invented (well they were in black and white for a start). Yes there are times when you want a photograph to be as near to reality as possible. You will never actualy achieve reality as the photo is in two dimentions and reality in three. You also have to know that without doing anything yourself the camera software will be changing reality for you. It will be boosting contrast and the saturation of colours. Here the am is to produce a more pleaing image. Replacing a grey sky with a blue sky and white clouds that you would have liked to have been there when you took the photo, but it wasn't.
12th September - Know Your Camera
Here is the Another full house for this practical session on 'Know Your Camera' This meeting was open to members and non members and they were given a series of exercises that would help them to explore parts of the camera and camera settings that they may not have used. Experienced members were on hand to give advice and help when it was needed.
They had to go into Shutter Priority Mode to see how different shutter speeds portrayed moving water (this involved someone pouring water out of a watering can while someone else took photos at different shutter speeds).
Here is an example, Des Falls on Deeside. On the left a shutter speed of 1/4sec on the right the shutter speed is 1/100 sec.
They had to go into Shutter Priority Mode to see how different shutter speeds portrayed moving water (this involved someone pouring water out of a watering can while someone else took photos at different shutter speeds).
Here is an example, Des Falls on Deeside. On the left a shutter speed of 1/4sec on the right the shutter speed is 1/100 sec.
In aperture priority mode the exersice was to get a 'start burst' effect from some christmas lights and then to take a photo that blurred the lights into a 'bokeh'. With a cut out shape infront of the lens the blur will take on the shape.
Here is the starburst effect achieved in a street scene (Crovie)
Other exersices invloved focusing exposure modes and composition aids
5th September - the first meeting of the new season
What a fantastic start to the Fraserburgh Photographic Society 2019/20 season with lots of well known faces turning up to the meeting on 5th September together with lots of new faces. Room 3 of the JIC Building in Fraserburgh was packed out!
Mike Chandler, President gave a short demonstration of the Societies web site www.fraserburghps.weebly.com and Facebook page. Elodie Wagener, Secretary, told members that a new WhatsApp group was being set up for members to help with communications about meetings, photo opportunities and other FPS activities.
Mike then introduced the 2019/20 seasons programme. First talking about the Learning aspects of the programme, then the elements of photo competitions, Lewis Duthie, Competitions Secretary, gave a brief tutorial about how to enter the competitions. The topics for the seasons two Theme Competitions are 'Birds in Flight' and 'Night'
Mike Chandler, President gave a short demonstration of the Societies web site www.fraserburghps.weebly.com and Facebook page. Elodie Wagener, Secretary, told members that a new WhatsApp group was being set up for members to help with communications about meetings, photo opportunities and other FPS activities.
Mike then introduced the 2019/20 seasons programme. First talking about the Learning aspects of the programme, then the elements of photo competitions, Lewis Duthie, Competitions Secretary, gave a brief tutorial about how to enter the competitions. The topics for the seasons two Theme Competitions are 'Birds in Flight' and 'Night'
Mike then pointed out how the programme will give members plenty of scope for taking photos throughout the year. One of the photo taking activities was the 'Challenge' members drew from a 'hat', actually it was a lens case, the title of their challenge with the instruction to return on 12th December to show how they had met the challenge in three photos. Challenge topics included 'All at Sea', 'The Decisive Moment', 'Its a Small World' and 'Intentional Camera Movement'. In the New Year there will be just one challenge topic that all members will undertake.
A new venture for the Society is the 'Photo Fun Nights' that will be held on 24th September and 29th October. Fiona Gordon and Michelle Scott will be organising activities such as photography with water. If the weather permits the Photo Fun could be outdoors. There will be a charge for these nights of £2 for members and £3 for non members. If they are successful more Photo Fun Nights will be arranged.
The full programme is on this web site.
The next meeting is on 12th September at 7:30 in the JIC Building on Albert St, Fraserburgh and is open to members and non members. A series of camera craft exercises will be set up to help photographers to get to know their camera a little better. Members will be on hand to give advice and guidance.
The next meeting is on 12th September at 7:30 in the JIC Building on Albert St, Fraserburgh and is open to members and non members. A series of camera craft exercises will be set up to help photographers to get to know their camera a little better. Members will be on hand to give advice and guidance.