PSNS and PPS will be represented at the Perth Rotary Club Charity Fayre from 10.00 till 3.00 pm this Saturday August 26th. At our stall we will be selling tickets for Colin Prior on September 22nd and publicising the Societies in general.

We are delighted to announce that PPS has engaged renowned Scottish landscape photographer Colin Prior to give us a lecture ‘The Living Mountain’ at 7.30pm on Friday 22nd September right in the middle of our Anniversary Exhibition. Colin tells us that he will be showing many previously unseen photographs from the Karakorum Mountains and talking about the four years he has spent visiting them.

Due to the anticipated demand for seats we have booked a larger venue than our usual lecture theatre. St Matthews Church on Tay St has recently been renovated and turned into an impressive venue with state-of-the-art projection facilities.

Tickets are available online at http://pps-colin-prior.eventbrite.co.uk
PPS and PSNS members can buy discounted tickets at £6 (plus booking fee), full price tickets cost £12 (plus booking fee).

Tickets are also available to buy in person at St Matthews Church and e-Computers, 15-17 Kinnoull St, Perth. Tickets will be on sale at the 150th Anniversary Exhibition in 2 High St from September 16th or at the door on the night.

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!!