Ed Stephens won first place with his photo Guitarra Flamenca.
The Photo Club of Quail Creek (PCQC) continued with its monthly members’ contest, with January having the topic of “Musical Instrument.” Each club member could enter up to three photos taken in the last year. This subject was a tough one for the members and drew only 15 entries. All the photos can be seen on our Flickr site tinyurl.com/bdhyekfk.
Ed Stephens won first place with his photo Guitarra Flamenca. Ed commented, “The photo is of my personal flamenco guitar, which I purchased in Madrid, Spain, in 1969. I still play it occasionally, as it is one of my hobbies in addition to photography. My Ramirez guitar evokes fond memories of my wife and myself when we honeymooned in Spain in 1969. We are aficionados of the flamenco art form. All of my photos taken for this contest were taken in January 2024 at my home. I took the photo with my Apple iPhone 14 Pro Max, set on Wide Angle at .5x. I used my Apple iMac computer features of (1) adjust, (2) filters, and (3) crop.”
Shari Rogers took second place with her photo Starting the Race. Shari commented, “It was Kentucky Derby Day, and I joined the Photo Club for a field trip to Sonita, Ariz.! They held a special race day full of events and even a crazy hat contest. It was fun to be at the races, and I was able to snap a few pics as the trumpeter played at the start of the race day.” Shari used her Nikon D500, shooting at 400 mm, 1/800 sec at f/7.1 and ISO 100. Post-processing was done in Lightroom.
The photo Bass Drum, by Jim Burkstrand, placed third. Jim said, “I was at one of the Christmas shows we had in Quail Creek in early December. I knew that we had a contest coming on musical instruments, so I had my eyes out for a good photo opportunity. During the intermission, I walked up close to the stage using the camera I had with me, an iPhone 12. I took a number of shots of the instruments as they sat on their mounts, but this one turned out the best. I really liked how colors jumped out from the drum with the blue background lights. I did just a little bit of cropping in Lightroom Classic.”
The Photography Club of Quail Creek has a monthly photo contest for its members and schedules numerous photo field trips for members throughout the year. Meetings are held the second Wednesday of the month at 7 p.m. at the Kino Conference Center, Ocotillo Room. Room venue could vary each month. Consult the club’s constantly updated website www.pcqc.org, as well as the weekday HOA What’s Happening for additional information.