Hi everybody,

At Glencoe it was announced that we would communicate with members about the themes for the upcoming regular Thursday meetups within the EDPG. So, to get this started we thought an email would help lay out what we hope to achieve in 2014.

The organisers have worked hard to build a programme and we are now in a position to roll out the first 3 themes together with the associated Meetups that will take us up to the end of March.

The first 3 themes are;

Black and White photography

Macro and close up techniques

Images of iconic Edinburgh.

In the next few days we will post a number of meetings onto the EDPG site for the Black and White theme with details for the others to follow as they are developed.

As usual, we want to encourage members to produce output- preferably printed, so this will be built into the timetable and we will also look at providing support for editing and critique sessions. In putting this timetable together we have tried to respond to feedback from members so, we are running 2 introductory sessions- one in the afternoon and one in the evening- and also 2 wind up sessions on the same basis. We are also putting some documentation onto the site so if you can’t get to these sessions, you will have access to the notes.

The Black and White schedule is as follows:

Jan 9th:  Andy will host 2 introductory sessions on Black and white photography to be held in the                          Leith centre at 1pm and a repeat session at 7pm.

Jan 16:   Urban images. A photo walk around Edinburgh, focussing on the Old Town, Greyfriars, the                      Grassmarket and possibly Calton Hill.

Jan 23:    Porrtraits. An indoor shoot in the evening run by Vincent Lamb using flash photography and                  focussing on light placement and model direction. Initially this will be capped at 12 people and                will be a “charged” meetup, but if there is demand, we will run another shoot during the                        month.

Jan 30     Landscapes/seascapes. An afternoon for landscapes, with a focus on directional light.                            Depending on weather, this might be Arthurs Seat or the Pentlands or a trip to one of the                      local beaches.

Feb 7      As with the introduction, we will have 2 meetings to review work, hand in prints and critique                  images.

An introduction to Macro photography will also be built into this session.

In addition to these formal meetings we would like to encourage everyone to get out and focus on black and white images. During January, there are other meetings taking place where producing B&W images will be an option- so give it a go- or contact one of us if you want something specific organised.

At the end of this first programme we expect to put a number of our selected images onto the exhibition board in the Leith centre.

Finally if you have an ideas for possible photo walks, editing techniques or talks, printing or any aspect of the theme please get in touch so that we can build it into the programme.

Could we please, please please ask members to provide ideas for themes in the second quarter of the year and also possible ideas for macro or Edinburgh. This is a community group and we rely on input from members to set the agenda going forward.

Have a great festive break and we all look forward to seeing you at the meetups in the near future.