Dinner and Presentation of Prizes

Lanark Camera Club members and guests enjoyed their Annual Dinner and Presentation of Prizes on Tuesday evening. Club President Bob Arnott announced the prizewinners and Pantea Cameron had the honour of presenting the trophies and certificates to the winners. Left to right in the photograph are Dave Thompson, Pantea Cameron, Robert McFetridge, Robert Wilson, Bob Arnott and Willie Gibson.

The winners were:- Advanced Monochrome Print League - Dave Thompson, the Beginners' Print League and the Beginners' Annual Print - Robert McFetridge, the Projected Image League - Tom Murphy, The Annual Projected Image and the The Bill Kennedy Trophy - Robert Wilson, the Advanced Colour Print League, the Annual Advanced Monochrome Print, the Annual Colour Print, and the Hugh Shaw Trophy - Bob Arnott. Finally The Annual Portrait Trophy - the Hilston Cup - went to Willie Gibson - Willie's superb "Geisha" also being awarded the "Supreme Award".

What an great evening. Thanks must go to Eileen McGarrigle and her staff at the Woodpecker for providing such an excellent meal and hospitality in such pleasant surroundings.

Slide Show - Bob Copland

Bob Copland of Alba Camera Club entertained Lanark Camera Club members with a traditional Slide Show of his recent trip to Jordan and Egypt. Starting in Jordan members viewed wonderful slides of the epic Wadi Rum landscapes made famous in the adventures of Lawrence of Arabia. Pictures of Petra and the ancient city of the Nabateans followed - truly both wondrous sites (sights!). Then we moved onto cityscapes of Cairo with the pyramids in the far distance and then onto stunning close up photographs of the pyramids and the sphinx. Finally members were then taken further on to see excellent views of the Valley of the Kings containing many of the tombs of the ancient pharaohs.

Bob Arnott accorded Bob a well deserved vote of thanks.

Photoshop Tutorial Libby Smith

On Tuesday evening Libby Smith from Carluke Camera Club presented an excellent tutorial on Photoshop - specifically geared to increase members' awareness of the best ways to post-process digital images on the computer. Central to her talk was the inherent advantages of capturing images as RAW files rather than as compressed JPEGS where a lot of information especially in very light and very dark areas is lost. Following conversion of the often dull RAW images to Photoshop files Libby nicely described the advantages of "adjustment layers" and "masking" tehniques to bring out the best qualities of an image.

Tuesday 14th April 2009

Tuesdays meeting saw Steve Alexander demonstrate step by step instructions in the production of an AV show using PicturesToExe software. Steve took members through the process of selecting images, sizing them properly, adding borders, and showed how the last two processes can be done quickly using Photoshop Actions. Steve also introduced members to 'Audacity', a free software programme, and demonstrated how to use this programme to adjust the length of a piece of music for an AV show, adding periods of silence and fade in and fade out features.

All in all an excellent presentation and thanks to Steve for his time and effort in producing the demo.

Scottish Life Interclub Competition

On Wednesday evening 8 members of the club travelled to Biggar to view the judging of the Scottish Life Competition held this year between Bathgate, Biggar, Carluke, Lanark and Lesmahagow. Each club had entered 10 images for digital projection making 60 images in total. Judge for the evening was Dougie Allan of Penicuik Camera Club. Images were scored individually and in the final tally Carluke came out convincing winners with Lanark in second place. This was a really enjoyable "battle" and thanks go to all the clubs for participating so enthusiastically, the judge for his excellent critique and Biggar Camera Club for organising the evening.

Where in Scotland Competition

Tuesday night was a Scottish Quiz night. Club President Bob Arnott had put together selection of 50 of his own images taken the length and breadth of Scotland. Following the projection of the images Ber Wilson could boast the highest number of correct answers. Well done Ber! David Gemmell gave a vote of thanks to Bob Arnott for creating such an excellent and varied selection of images.

Annual Print and Projected Image Competition

There was a big turn out on Tuesday for the prestigious Annual Print and Projected Image Competition results. Judge for the evening was William Kay - a past member of the club and a very knowledgeable photographer now specialising in graphic art. It was clear from William's comments that he had put a lot of time and effort into preparing his critique. In the Projected Images section 2nd place was shared between Robert Wilson's "Blue Tit" and Bob Arnott's "Driftwood Rockliffe Shore", while 1st place deservedly went to Robert Wilson with "Redpoll". The Beginner's Annual Print Section was won by Robert McFetridge with "Moonlight on Squinty Bridge". Sharing second place were "Cliff Rescue" and "The Quairing" (both by Robert McFetridge) and "Freedom" and "Swallowtail Butterfly" (both by David Clark). Moving onto the Advanced Colour Section sharing 3rd spot were Bob Arnott with "Frosty Beach" and Robert Wilson with "Blackrock Cottage". In second place was Robert Wilson with "Kilchurn Castle" while taking the top spot was Bob Arnott with "Autumn Birches". In the Advanced Monochrome Section second place went to David Thompson with "Spire and Bridge" and in top place was Bob Arnott with "Making Smoke". Finally in the Portrait Section "Wild Man" by David Thompson took second place while "Geisha" by Willy Gibson took top honours. Willy's "Geisha" was considered to be the best print overall and was duly awarded the Supreme Award. Club President Bob Arnott gave Judge William Kay a well deserved vote of thanks

On Wednesday evening a "Match An Image" competition was held between Alba Photographic Society, Lesmahagow Photographic Society and Lanark. Hosts for the evening were Alba. After a very exciting contest Lanark scraped through as eventual winners. Thanks to Alba for their excellent organisation and hospitality.