Month: January 2023

Next up, we have an evening of two print competitions. The Nan Borthwick Salver is for a set of three images showing a clear intention of a connecting theme of style, content or both. The Peter Rourke Salver is for prints that show photographic artistic styles. 

This year we’ll be welcoming Eva Christie as our visiting judge, who will comment on our entries. Eva is a local creative with a keen eye, and is director of the Scottish Yarn Festival, so we may get a fresh perspective on our work.

http://www.perthshirephotographicsociety.org.uk/2022/06/programme-2022-23/#01-february-2023

New faces are still welcome to attend two weeks on a trial basis, to see if you’d like to join us for the season. For those who are ready to join, the online Membership Form for the season is open. The membership subscription reduces by 50% after New Year, and the £27.50 can be paid by BACS or by cheque – details are in the membership form. 

Local photographer/ photograpy lover Des O’Neill brought in a fresh blast of inspiration last night – several dozen books about photography, carefully chosen from his even-larger collection. Charting his development in the art through the cameras he’s used and the through the books he’s bought, Des gave us a glimpse of multiple worlds of possibility, far removed from what we might think of as ‘club photography’.

More than a talk, Des gave us time with his books, to browse, perchance to dream. Above, Sandie, Sabrina and Lizzie marvel at Kirsty Mitchell’s lavish ‘Wonderland’.

We saw Vivian Maier, Martin Parr, Don McCullin, Sebastiao Salgado, Ciarán Og Arnold, Julia Margaret Cameron (and heard the story of the two copies, thanks to the tea cup and the intervening bat!), and so many more. We had time to compare notes, and get a little lost in our own thoughts too. If we had our own premises we might have a small lending library. Anyone got thoughts on setting up something up anyway?

Below, Jimmy, Roben, Bob and Ian find themselves captivated.

Local photographer Des O’Neill has a huge and varied collection of books on photography that he’s compiled over many years. He’ll tell us about some of them, including, perhaps, the one about Sebastião Salgado’s ‘Gold’, about the gold-rush mine in the Brazilian jungle in the 1980’s. And maybe the one about Julia Margaret Cameron (1815-1879), pictured here, who is credited with producing the first close-up portraits in the history of the medium. 

http://www.perthshirephotographicsociety.org.uk/2022/06/programme-2022-23/#25-january-2023

New faces are still welcome to attend two weeks on a trial basis, to see if you’d like to join us for the season. For those who are ready to join, the online Membership Form for the season is open. The membership subscription reduces by 50% after New Year, and the £27.50 can be paid by BACS or by cheque – details are in the membership form.

Last night was a workshop-ish, looking at what can be done when processing digital images with several different software packages. The aim was to help we members think about what what’s possible, about what we’re using right now, and about how we might want to move forward.

We looked at a selection of apps, from free software you can use on a phone or tablet (Snapseed), through to industry-standard desktop tools favoured by enthusiasts and professionals(Lightroom, Photoshop), with a look at some of the creative possibilities of artificial intelligence (Luminar AI) on the way.

Our panel of ‘test drivers’ put the apps through their paces, editing a selection of digital images. Tim, above, worked with Luminar AI on Ian’s snowy peak image. Graham, below, pointing a finger at his tablet running Snapseed, produced a multiple exposure combining three images he’d taken earlier in the evening. Ian and Wol took turns too, with Photoshop and Lightroom respectively.

Spending only 10 minutes on each image, we barely scratched the surface of the ‘how to …’, but we may have started to explore the ‘why’.

This week will be a workshop night, and we’ll be looking at what can be done when processing digital images with several different software packages. The aim is to help us members think about what what’s possible, about what we’re using right now, and about how we might want to move forward. We may manage to explain some terminology along the way.

We’ll be looking at a wide range of apps, from free software you can use on a phone or tablet, through to industry-standard desktop tools favoured by enthusiasts and professionals.

It promises to be a lively evening, with a panel of ‘test drivers’ putting the apps through their paces, 10 minutes at a time, editing a selection of digital images, and with plenty of time for questions and discussion.

http://www.perthshirephotographicsociety.org.uk/2022/06/programme-2022-23/#18-january-2023

New faces are still welcome to attend two weeks on a trial basis, to see if you’d like to join us for the season. For those who are ready to join, the online Membership Form for the season is open. The membership subscription reduces by 50% after New Year, and the £27.50 can be paid by BACS or by cheque – details are in the membership form. 

We had a cracking field of entries for the Grant Cup, with 51 images from 17 members. Four of these entrants are in their first season of PPS competitions, so special congratulatons to them. We don’t have space here to show them all – you really had to be there – but It should be clear, even from these wee thumbnails, what a high standard of images this event attracted.

The Grant Cup is themed, and this year the theme was ‘Transient’, not that we hold anyone too closely to that. We watched the entries through several times, noting our favourites with paper and pencil. This year, to cast our votes, we used the online voting process we used for the two years we met on Zoom. This turned out to be beneficial, and we’ll use it again, for the Dall and Simpson Cups – the online scoring not only quickly counts votes cast, but simultaneously counts how many 5’s, how many 4’s, and so on, which becomes significant in the event of a tie on overall points. So it proved to be – the top two images both scored equally highly, but one had attracted more 5’s, and so had the edge.

The top five placed images can be seen on our Gallery page for the season’s competition winners.

Happy New Year! We start back after the break with a real treat – the Grant Cup competition. It’s for digital images, up to three per person. It’s themed – this year’s theme is ‘Transient’. And it’s judged by the members present. So, no learned commentary from an external judge this time, just us, looking at all the entries a couple of times, then casting our votes to identify the top crowd-pleasers. Don’t miss what promises to be a great evening. Bring your own pencil.

http://www.perthshirephotographicsociety.org.uk/2022/06/programme-2022-23/#11-january-2023

New faces are still welcome to attend two weeks on a trial basis, to see if you’d like to join us for the season. For those who are ready to join, the online Membership Form for the season is open. The membership subscription reduces by 50% after New Year, and the £27.50 can be paid by BACS or by cheque – details are in the membership form.