A group of club members greatly enjoyed the outing to Loxley Colour on Friday 24th March. After a fascinating tour of the huge, impressively organised photo lab we had a good Italian lunch and then, for those with a little more time to spare, a visit to Cumbernauld House Park and glen. Many thanks to Annette Forsyth for suggesting and organising the trip so well. It was a grand day out.
Last night was the AGM of our parent body the Perthshire Society of Natural Science. It was followed by a thought-provoking lecture by Erik MacEachern of SEPA and the whole event was so well attended we needed extra chairs. The news is that we now have another member of the Photographic Society elected to the PSNS Council. Malcolm Lind will be joining me and Tom Ryan who of course remains PSNS president. Tom told us all about next year’s excellent Curious Minds lecture series and plans for marking the 150th anniversary of PSNS this autumn.
The big event is a Conversation with Dame Evelyn Glennie in Perth Concert Hall on October 4th. There will be an exhibition in the Museum in September/October curated by CPK and the Photographic Society will also be holding an exhibition at number 2 High St, the newly refurbished Perth Council headquarters. More details on this to follow.
Our next meeting is on Wednesday 15th March and Roben Antoniewicz will be presenting.
Mike Bell
We had almost 60 entries for the Grant Cup. This competition is for digital projected images and judging is by the club membership. The standard was really high. First was Mike Bell with his beautiful “right-place-right-time” image of a stag standing clear above the clouds on Rannoch Moor. Second place went to Ian MacKay for a remarkable picture of a snow swept hillside outside Inverness – captured through the window of an aircraft. And thirst place went to Richard Hunter for his impeccable forest scene. And, because of the large number of entries, we decided to award a 4th and 5th place to Raymond Leinster and Mike Brunton respectively for their portraits of mountain hares. Well done everybody!
We have a great speaker lined up for 11th January. Billy Currie is based in Stirlingshire and is a highly accomplished photographer with a track record of publication in many top magazines. Billy is going to talk about his landscape photography. You can check out Billy’s work on his website http://www.billycurriephotography.co.uk/portfolio.html
And – to whet your appetite, a few of Billy’s landscape images.
David Cameron gave a great talk last night on underwater photography. David is an accomplished diver with well over 1000 dives to his credit in locations from the River Clyde to the islands an reefs of Micronesia. He showed some superb macro pictures of exotic sea creatures. Stunning colours and shapes. I was extremely impressed and I can’t wait to see the rest of his incredible image collection. 
On Wed 12th Oct David Cameron will talk about underwater photography. David has travelled to some of the World’s best, and most inaccessible, diving spots.
Our speaker tonight was George Nielson from Edinburgh. In addition to being an SPF judge, George is an accomplished sports photographer. He has Press access to many major sporting events. George described 
his techniques for capturing the action. He makes extensive use of burst mode with fast shutter speeds to capture the instant a bat, club, racquet or boot hits the ball.
The PPS Summer exhibition is on NOW at the Birnam Institute. The exhibition was opened on Sunday by our guest exhibitor Dave Hunt of Wildgrass studios in Killin. There are around 40 beautifully displayed prints by more than 15 of our members. The exhibition runs until the end of August. Don’t miss it!!
In 2015 several members of the PPS spent 2 weeks on a photographic trip in Japan. Tom Ryan, President of the PPS, will give a talk on photographing Japanese street culture at the Perth Museum and Art Gallery on Wednesday 13th July. The PPS team spent some time in Kyoto then on to Tokyo to photograph the famous Sanja Matsuri street festival.
The Photographic Society has a set of images taken by members on display in the Museum, to assist with the transition to it being a trust.
You can also see the display here: Slideshow at the Museum and Art Gallery