John McGuinness 'An Evening With'

John McGuinness  ‘An Evening With’

This evening (12th April) our guest speaker was John McGuinness who arrived at the club straight from a weeks holiday in Malta. A flight delay due to a security issue had John and ourselves unsure as to whether he would make it in time, or indeed, at all. Our fears were allayed when John’s suntanned face appeared at the door.

John, originally from Wallsend but now Tynemouth has been involved in photography for over 25 years and had, at one time along with some friends, a fully equipped studio for portraiture and model photography.

As a photographer john has interests in most genre’s as well as the portraiture and models mentioned, weddings, wildlife & sport feature high on John’s list of ‘been there, done that’. John admits his real passion however is landscape photography, and this is where John’s presentation began.

The first images John showed us were some absolutely stunning images from trips made to the Isle of Skye. Images of Neist Point, The Storr & The Quiraing showed the rugged beauty of Skye and how Skye has become a landscape photographers paradise, bad weather not withstanding of course. Images of the Scottish Highlands followed with the obligatory Blackrock Cottage ‘shot’ and some equally fine shots of Glencoe. Images of Red Deer Stags from this area highlighted John’s love of wildlife photography, backed up with some Birds of Prey shots, some gruesomely devouring their prey.

Images from trips made to The Alps showed this mountainous region with massive glaciers in all its glory.

Closer to home images taken at Beamish Open Air Museum gave John the opportunity to explain how, when conditions dictate, he is not afraid to use HDR to capture an image. John takes a total of 6 images for this technique, blending them later in Photoshop. John showed using 2 images just how much detail could be recovered in an image using this method.  Some images from ‘Pickering War Weekend’ followed, some posed, some candid and as John’s presentation neared its end some ‘glamour’ and ‘boudoir’ photography brought an excellent and highly entertaining evening to a close.

Once again many thanks to John for keeping us all entertained with stunning images, anecdotes and thoughts on judges comments on his competition entries. We look forward to welcoming John back in the future.​

Bob Finlay (President)