This week Irvine Camera Club brings you a dose of the winter blues… but don’t worry, despite the cool theme, there are plenty of creative photos in the selection to make you smile.
These are all photographs taken from one of the weekly challenges that we run on our popular Members & Friends Facebook Group. The incentive for everyone to take part is not only the satisfaction of joining in, but also the promise of a chocolate orange which is awarded to the photographer who made our favourite image.
Members were encouraged to interpret this theme any way they liked. They could make it about the colour blue, about feeling blue, the blue hour, blues music or anything else they could think of. There were no rules.
This week the sweet treat was won by James Bailey with his very evocative blue hour shot of the moon behind Dunure Castle.
The blue hour is the period of twilight in the morning or evening when the Sun is at a significant depth below the horizon. During this time, the remaining sunlight takes on a mostly blue shade giving everything a very cool hue.
Many artists value this period for the quality of the soft light. Although the blue hour does not have an official definition, the blue colour spectrum is most prominent when the Sun is between 4° and 8° below the horizon.
Photographers use blue hour for the tranquil mood it sets. When photographing during blue hour it can be favourable to capture subjects that have artificial light sources, such as buildings, monuments, cityscapes, or bridges. This is exactly what Stephen Kerr has done with his Glasgow shot “Reflection in Blue”, Fiona Wallace with her image “Nightfall” and Colin Duffy with his “Blue Hour”.
Others mainly went for blue coloured subjects with everything from menus to shoes being used props. Creative shots like Tracy Ross’s “Feathered” and Donnie Brigg’s “Abstract” were also popular.
Well, that’s our club’s blue photographs taken care of so that in the next couple of editions of the paper we can avoid having to bring you Blue Christmas!
If you would like to know more about Irvine Camera Club you can find all of our details at www.irvinecc.co.uk
