Stuart McIntyre is an astrophotographer from Scotland. For him, astrophotography started out as a hobby. It quickly turned into his passion, and a few years down the line he says say he’s at the obsession stage.

Shooting the night sky framed by the most gorgeous Scottish landscapes: it goes beyond a hobby. It’s a grand adventure. His website - Bound By Starlight - exists because he loves climbing hills, wading lochs and scrambling across mountains underneath the starry skies. It’s what makes him feel alive, and he tries to capture stunning photographs to share that feeling.  

He believes he’s been really lucky to have been successful in his endeavours so far. He was shortlisted in the 2016 Insight Astronomy Photographer of the Year awards, and published in the BBC’s Sky at Night Magazine, among numerous other publications. He also loves bringing his enthusiasm for astronomy and photography to the public through talks and workshops. Here’s a link to Stuart’s website: https://boundbystarlight.co.uk/ .

This is the second competition of the season. It will be an open competition (no predetermined subject) comprising only printed images. The results from his competition count towards the Annual League Table.The RULES for submitting print entries are available on the Information page of the website. Summarised, the Print format requirements for club competitions are:•The visible area of the print must be no less than 35 square inches e.g. 5 x 7 inches or any other size with an area of 35 square inches or greater.•Prints may be monochrome or colour•All prints submitted must be mounted on stiff mount board.•Maximum size of the mount is 16 x 20 inches or 40 x 50 cm.•Membership number, title, classification and ranking should be clearly written on the back of the mount at the bottom left hand corner when viewed with the image face down. This is important as judges expect the image title to be in this position; especially for abstract prints or prints where it is not clear which edge is meant to be the top. Prints with no classification included will be entered in the advanced class.Print entries should be accompanied by a digital submission of the image entered, submitted via the club website on the My Images page. This copy may be used for collating, selection and projection on judging evenings; and also for presentation on the club website after the competition has been judged. Digital copies may also be handed in to the Competitions Secretary on digital media.Digital images or prints submitted to a previous club competition MUST NOT be resubmitted for this competition.

Tonight is a showing of the images which made it to the SPF Annual Portfolio.

This will be a members' Audio Visual (AV) evening where members will get the chance to show off some of their images in a slideshow format set to music.This is usually a great evening with a splendid variety of images and accompanying sound tracks on view. But the success of the evening depends on members so please consider creating an AV for the evening. Bring it along on the night on a memory stick or CD/DVD; or you can email it (or a link to a cloud copy of it) to Brian in advance at web@livingstoncameraclub.org.uk.Please try to limit the length of your AV to around 3 to 5 minutes. But don't feel you're restricted to just one slideshow as much will depend on numbers. If time permits, we can always show more than one slideshow per person.There are a variety of software packages which can produce a slideshow including Lightroom, PowerPoint and ProShow Gold; but you only have to enter “slideshow maker” into Google to find a whole lot of free downloadable ones.