Murcia photo of the month January 2025
Here’s the top image of the month taken by the Los Alcázares Digital Camera Club (LADCC)
Wow, the LADCC members produced some amazing images to round off the year! In December, not only did we have the camera club’s members vote for their ‘photo of the year’ but we finished the monthly competitions in spectacular style!
The last monthly competition was “Open”, meaning that members were not restricted to a theme, or category, but could enter any images they liked. As they were not confined by a topic, members played to their strengths and reverted to what they knew they could do well and, as a result, a variety of excellent images were entered which made the overall standard very high. The images entered covered many different areas such as wildlife, light painting, landscapes and seascapes, portraits and street scenes. Several pictures had been taken from around the world. Our members do get out and about!
As it turned out, the scores for this month’s competition were well above the average monthly score – a credit indeed to the club’s members who have obviously been taking onboard advice and general help given by other members over the course of the year.
The winning image was a spectacular photo taken by Debra Duncan. Debra’s winning image was taken from the Scottish Isle of Eigg and shows the Island of Rum (the name has been anglicised from Rhum), both situated in the Inner Hebrides off the west coast of Scotland. The island is not only diamond in shape but as locals would have it ‘Diamond by nature’.
“My kind of Rum”, Debra Duncan
However, for Debra, taking this beautiful shot was no mean feat. She spent a weekend on the island of Eigg, which in her words “was one of the wettest, windiest photography weekends I have had, with the ferries to the island cancelled for a few days just after we managed to land. Unfortunately, they resumed in time for me to return to the mainland for work!” Hopefully her employers won’t be reading this!
To produce this beautiful scene, she had to use a waterproof cover for her camera and keep the lens body dry, plus try to keep the front lens clear “from the driving rain”. To get the streaky effect in the clouds Debra used a neutral density filter, but the patterns in the sand were made by the receding tide and were constantly changing. The photo is a mono shot as, due to the weather conditions, there was not a great deal of sun or nice lighting conditions. Given the usual Scottish unpredictable weather this was quite a challenging task to merely get a photo. However, with Debra’s patience and skill, a fantastic result was produced, and we hope you agree it was worth all of the effort!
The club usually meets twice a month, with an indoor ‘workshop’ at the Las Claras centre in Los Alcazares on the first Tuesday of every month and, often, an outing toward the end of the month, where the group gets together to collectively work on the topic for the monthly competition. The club welcomes new members, either visitors or residents, as with modern day technology they can all keep in contact for training sessions, sharing knowledge etc. or more regularly via ‘group chats’.
If you would like more information about the club, or would like to go along to a meeting, please do not hesitate to visit the website www.ladcc.es or contact them via email on informationladcc@gmail.com