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We are blessed here in Spain as, when we look up at the sky, we often only see its bright blue colour without any clouds. This brings to many a small smile and starts our days positively. However, taking this to a photographic level, the sky on it’s own is not going to generate too many imaginative photos, although the presence of the sun certainly enhances others. So, when the LADCC were tasked with their monthly competition of ‘Cloudscapes’ they either had to choose their days carefully or, for some, resort to photos taken in their home countries.

 

You can see from our scroll bar this month that the photos were extremely varied but all managed to capture the title well. Thanks, and congratulations, go to Marianne Elias, Bob Gasston, Chris Brown, Neil Twigg and Julian Pering for their stunning photos which all scored very highly.

 

Thirteen members entered photos this month and Gary Hull was chosen as this month’s winner with a fabulous colour photo of a Calima rolling in across the sky. For those readers not familiar with a Calima, this is when thick red dust from the Sahara mixes with the bright colours and clouds over Murcia’s beautiful shores.

 

As you will appreciate clouds don’t stand still so Gary was particularly pleased to manage to capture this shot whilst walking in Los Alcázares with his Google Pixel 8 Pro phone which, fortunately, was immediately available in his pocket.

 

 

 

 

To add impact to his final image, he increased the contrast so that the light areas stayed bright and the darker areas became more ominous and boosted the colour saturation, in order to enhance the tonal variation and better convey the muddy redness of the Calima. He rotated the camera slightly to make the clouds run diagonally across the image and made sure that the sun was exactly in the centre in order to give the image a focal point. As you can see his aim of capturing the moment before the sun disappeared worked really well.

 

In general, the ‘judges’ marks were high this month as the photos were varied, clever and of a very high standard.

 

Second placed Sally Gasston’s photo was another example of being in the right place at the right time. Whilst walking around Tilgate Lake, in Sussex, recently she managed to a capture a beautiful ‘cloudscape’, also using her mobile phone, an iPhone 16 Pro Max. By widening the scene with panoramic mode, she captured this beautiful moment. Having learnt some skills about framing she used the banks of the lake as a natural frame for her photo which helped enhance her image.

 

 

 

 

This popular camera club usually meets twice a month, at the Las Claras Centre in Los Alcázares, on the first Tuesday of every month and, often, an outing towards the end of the month, where the group gets together to collectively work on the topic for the monthly competition. With modern day technology we can all keep in contact for training sessions, sharing knowledge etc via ‘group chats’.

 

We are interested in hearing from anyone who would like to join us when the opportunity arises. If you would like more information about the Club please do not hesitate to look at our website,

www.ladcc.es, or email us at informationladcc@gmail.com.